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

13 August 2008


Bright Idea #74: Fear is Egos Riot Gear.
"We are led to believe a lie/When we see not thro' the eye,/Which was born in a night to perish in a night,/When the soul slept in beams of light./God appears, and God is light,/To those poor souls who dwell in night;/But does a human form display/To those who dwell in realms of day." Up after stargazing even out here the light pollution is a bad taste in my throat like aspirated chlorine. But these beautiful moments there! and there! and the bigger the fire the longer the tail. for how long has this burning been going on? weve synchronized the celestial with man-times clotted culvert trickling toxic into ocean universe we have nothing to show for our brains but straight lines and graveyards. bought blue paint for the boys rooms washed morning seaside firmament blue ocean froth and faerie fingertips laughing in the big box isnt he grand? no motivation. drape myself over the chair shoveling popcorn reading marquez. eating august tomato sandwich the sin of salt, love apples and white bread. golden evening the children discuss plans for their first tattoos and she says ive been confrontational lately and lo, i have been. unspoken unsung frustrated pent up sick of tharn resignation my skin is itching splitting im fighting the light through the cracks make me lonesome for me. i devise ways to hide my anxiety but never ways to set me free. set me free. i dont need one set of footprints that arent my own. i dont need a saviour because theres nothing lost. its all here underground. something hastily buried now rising to the surface, light erosion wellspring. wellspring. autumns wellspring. clear the ground a circle of stones a shaft of light milk bowl full moon soon im keeping so much underground theres no room for anything to grow root space taken up by storm cellar built years ago the light through the cracks in the boards of the door at the top of earthen stairs i watch the light paint lines on my feet and hands when it rains sweet communion the implacable truth of light but that door needs to open regardless the weather or who exactly ive become in my time underground pale spectre ravenous distended papery husk hoarding a hundred seeds of Light.
"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)