24
" I am sitting here, you are sitting there. Say even that you are sitting across the kitchen table from me right now. Our eyes meet; a consciousness snaps back and forth. What we know, at least for starters, is: here we- so incontrovertibly- are. This is our life, these are our lighted seasons, and then we die. In the meantime, in between time, we can see. The scales are fallen from our eyes, the cataracts are cut away, and we can work at making sense of the color-patches we see in an effort to discover where we so incontrovertibly are.
I am as passionately interested in where I am as is a lone sailor sans sextant in a ketch on an open ocean. I have at the moment a situation which allows me to devote considerable hunks of time to seeing what I can see, and trying to piece it together. I’ve learned the name of some color-patches, but not the meanings. I’ve read books; I’ve gathered statistics feverishly: the average temperature of our planet is 57 degrees F…The average size of all living animals, including man, is almost that of a housefly. The earth is mostly granite, which is mostly oxygen…In these Appalachians we have found a coal bed with 120 seams, meaning 120 forests that just happened to fall into water…I would like to see it all, to understand it, but I must start somewhere, so I try to deal with the giant water bug in Tinker Creek and the flight of three hundred redwings from an Osage orange and let those who dare worry about the birthrate and population explosion among solar systems.
So I think about the valley. And it occurs to me more and more that everything I have seen is wholly gratuitous. The giant water bug’s predations, the frog’s croak, the tree with the lights in it are not in any real sense necessary per se to the world or its creator. Nor am I. The creation in the first place, being itself, is the only necessity for which I would die, and I shall. The point about that being, as I know it here and see it, is that as I think about it, it accumulates in my mind as an extravagance of minutiae. The sheer fringe and network of detail assumes primary importance. That there are so many details seems to be the most important and visible fact about creation. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, then look at the trees; when you’ve looked at enough trees, you’ve seen a forest, you’ve got it. If the world is gratuitous, then the fringe of a goldfish’s fin is a million times more so. The first question- the one crucial one- of the creation of the universe and the existence of something as a sign and an affront to nothing is a blank one…
The old Kabbalistic phrase is “the Mystery of the Splintering of the Vessels.” The words refer to the shrinking or imprisonment of essences within the various husk-covered forms of emanation or time. The Vessels splintered and solar systems spun; ciliated rotifers whirled in still water, and newts laid tracks in the silt-bottomed creek. Not only did the Vessels splinter; they splintered exceeding fine. Intricacy then is the subject, the intricacy of the created world. "
― Annie Dillard , Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
26
" A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with 'Got To Get You Off My Mind', but then realised that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straight away, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and ... oh there are loads of rules. "
― Nick Hornby , High Fidelity
28
" Jaxton smiled and caught his hand, holding it tight in both of his. “Are you burnt out? Is it all too much?” he asked, getting straight to the root of the matter, in one go.
“Yes,” he sighed, hating that it was true.
“Then you'll stay home.”
“You know I can't. It's impossible,” Roman complained about the unfairness of it all.
He was due to return to the studio in two days times, to finalise the tracks he'd recorded yesterday. Then he had to sit down with Jalen next week, to pick out a new piece of his artwork for the next album cover. And two weeks after that, he had three interviews with three different music channels, to film.
“Try telling that to Ben.” Jaxton winked at him, then ducked down to kiss him.
~ From the Heart "
― Elaine White , Clef Notes
31
" Boney freckled knees pressed into bits of bark and stone, refusing to feel any more pain.
Her faded t-shirt hugged her protruding ribs as she held on, hunched in silence.
A lone tear followed the lumpy tracks down her cheek, jumped from her quivering jaw onto a thirsty browned leaf with a thunderous plop.
Then the screen door squeaked open and she took flight.
Crispy twigs snapped beneath her bare feet as she ran deeper and deeper into the woods behind the house. She heard him rumbling and calling her name, his voice fueling her tired muscles to go faster, to survive.
He knew her path by now. He was ready for the hunt.
The clanging unbuckled belt boomed in her ears as he gained on her.
The woods were thin this time of year, not much to hide behind. If she couldn’t outrun him, up she would go.
Young trees teased her in this direction, so she moved east towards the evergreens.
Hunger and hurt left her no choice, she had to stop running soon.
She grabbed the first tree with a branch low enough to reach, and up she went.
The pine trees were taller here, older, but the branches were too far apart for her to reach. She chose the wrong tree.
His footsteps pounded close by.
She stood as tall as her little legs could, her bloodied fingers reaching, stretching, to no avail. A cry of defeat slipped from her lips, a knowing laugh barked from his.
She would pay for this dearly. She didn’t know whether the price was more than she could bear. Her eyes closed, her next breath came out as Please, and an inky hand reached down from the lush needles above, wound its many fingers around hers, and pulled her up.
Another hand, then another, grabbing her arms, her legs, firmly but gently, pulling her up, up, up. The rush of green pine needles and black limbs blurred together, then a flash of cobalt blue fluttered by, heading down.
She looked beyond her dangling bare feet to see a flock of peculiar birds settle on the branches below her, their glossy feathers flickered at once and changed to the same greens and grays of the tree they perched upon, camouflaging her ascension.
Her father’s footsteps below came to a stomping end, and she knew he was listening for her. Tracking her, trapping her, like he did the other beasts of the forest.
He called her name once, twice. The third time’s tone not quite as friendly.
The familiar slide–click sound of him readying his gun made her flinch before he had his chance to shoot at the sky. A warning. He wasn’t done with her.
His feet crunched in circles around the tree, eventually heading back home.
Finally, she exhaled and looked up. Dozens of golden-eyed creatures surrounded her from above. Covered in indigo pelts, with long limbs tipped with mint-colored claws, they seemed to move as one, like a heartbeat. As if they shared a pulse, a train of thought, a common sense.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and the beasts moved in a wave to carefully place her on a thick branch. "
― Kim Bongiorno , Part of My World
37
" Reflecting back on the journey to the
“Great Outdoors”
places me in a different tonal mood, filled
up with hope and passion, not resentful,
suppressed relics of anger unresolved
Did you listen to the winds?
What did you hear?
Did you listen to the trees?
What knowledge did they bring you?
Did you listen to the birds?
What songs did they sing to you?
Did you listen to the Universe(s)?
What messages did they bring you?
Did you listen to the ancestors?
What hope did they send you?
Did you really listen?
Close your eyes and open up your full
heart and listen again
Not for me
Do it 4 UrSelf
Do it 4 tha Future
Look beyond UrSelf
Open up UrSelf
Love ThySelf
Quiet the chatter of your mind, close
the racing tracks and be still and
quiet so that U can hear what
they’re trying to say to U.
Be appreciative for what U have been
bestowed and blessed to be stewards of, please
do not take this to mean: Destroy, dominate,
and control.
Let it mean be cognizant of the complexity, respect true
biodiversity, respect and honor all Life, allow for balance, and
recognize evolutionary adaptability in all of Creation.
The winds are blowing good tidings and blessings
in this here direction as this one poem comes
to a close while striving for the rootedness of an
ancient Sequoia so high up in the sky and deeply rooted
in our common Mother. Listen to my woes of loneliness
and see that will Life all around, NO one is truly lonely or alone. "
― Irucka Ajani Embry , Balancing the Rift: Reconnectualizing the Pasenture
39
" My mom’s smile is genuine,A lilac beamingIn the presence of her Sun.Indentions in the sand proveTime’s linear progression,Her hair yet unblighted,Carrying midnight’s consistency.Clear tracks fading as theMovement slips furtherIn the past.CheekbonesHigh, soft,In summer’s hue,Hopeful.Each step’s unknown impact,A future looking back.My father’s strength:One whoseLife is in his arms.Squinting past the camera,He rests upon a rockLike caramel corn half eaten,Just to the leftOf man-made concrete conventionDaylight’s eraserRemoving color to his right.Dustin sitsIn my father’s lap,Open mouth of a droolingBig mouth bass;Muscle toneOf a well exercisedJelly fish,He looks at meHalf aware;His wheelchairPerched at the edgeOf parking lot gravel graftedLike a scar on nature’s beach,Opening to the ironic splendorOf a bitter tasting lake.I took the picture.Age 11.Capturing the pinnacle arcOf a sonTo my lilacWhoOutlived him and weeps,Still.Their sky has staple holes –Maybe that’s how theLightLeaked out. "
