“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

05 June 2008


Bright Idea #28: Become a wild and bosky song yourself.
"I am not a nugget." Back and better the garden emerging in threads of green a light for each corner perpendicular to the directions white seasons green seasons a summer wardrobe a new battery something for Sprout half of us wear crowns my universe expands exponentially and im squealing with wonder at the hamburger stand the pink man with white hair flashed his badge retired forty-four years still carries the laminated i.d. flashing it to hippies at a hamburger stand two weeks or so ago i gave up on the flesh diet again signed up with Animal rights Wilderness society society of Friends im living gently smiling at people in cars trying to say the nice thing to connect to make peace i enter temple of mammon for Significant Other die-hard hummingbird battery and theres peace signs and something called green glamour and i think well its gone the way of the holly king but it could be worse and theres gigantic plastic amanita muscaria lawn ornaments and people wearing peace signs like some fancy foreign language but its there and we can read it those of us in on the shibboleth. its not the heat its the humidity tropical fruit rolling across the farm school parking lot Significant Other got the promotion days weekends a family together summer vacation sitting in the spot contemplating the kismet of it all the gun rumble of an iron horse and thou. last night watering there came a ruby throated hummingbird to the borage we planted roses peonies this peony from a root that i divided last fall and in no way resembles the rest planted more coneflower foxglove lavender all the faerie flowers a green rabbit and a white cherub the sunflowers stretching out the cosmos all in one corner can i divide without destruction and the man comes tomorrow to teach the dogs electricity. Glad to be back.
"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)