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

14 October 2008



Bright Idea #94: Be Positive (I got my new blood donor card).
"and there was once, oh wonderful,/a new horse in the pasture,/a tall, slim being-a neighbor was keeping her there—/and she put her face against my face,/put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets,/against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me,/to see who I was,/a long quiet minute-minutes—/then she stamped feet and whisked tail/and danced deliciously into the grass away, and came back./She was saying, so plainly, that I was good, or good enough." They all warned me knowing groaning but i said "what a great teacher hell be, teaching me patience and compassion and unconditional love." little crazy face with chameleon eyes and we figured it out for the day and it was okay and he was such a bright spirit in this twist of flesh. the bus made me wretched and he gripped his dollar and sang twinkle twinkle. the route was beautiful along the water and up through the open fields donner has mccain/palin signs up in front of his faux-stone chateau and i groaned. the sky lowered and let loose a few tepid tears but the night bloomed clear and the moon was a bright white eye #4 and i went moonwalking his mind is turned to terrible things as the minds of young boys are, being brave in their own heads so we played what color is the sky and what is that smell. up, electric eyed in front of democracy now shoveling bowls of kashi pilaf and loads of laundry, clean water in a mason jar and an owl cries down the valley the pack and i sit with our ears pricked. grateful for the work and for apples and squash, my family and what great comfort it is for me to come home. J. stops by to hear the dogs bark and consider the chimney. my skin is getting old and crepey, which is a comfort. soft and cool, you know, like the hands of an old woman. i got to paint in art today, two sugar maples in october a valley apart before a purple sky and #3 put it up in his room, proud of his mom whom, he explained, is a hippie because 1. she wears gaiters on her head. 2. she has more than the normal amount of bumperstickers on her car and dogs in her house. 3. she has no money. there were more but those are the ones i recall turning the corner toward home the planet shining in the southern sky and #4 in the driveway in a towel with a flashlight panicked because we were gone. its still warm enough for that sort of thing, and i feed the compost just to be out in the darkness to breathe in the good october moon and think about utah.
"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)