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

19 October 2008



Bright Idea #95: 36.

Went with the Mr. and #3&4 to the winding trails marsh and ponds to smell the trees and feed the birds. Little thistle seed claws clutching just long enough for sunflower seed beak to choose its morsel. little feathered spirits symbols of endurance and resilience and deep knowing. the walk a gift of infinite proportions, the deer we stood and watched for a childs eternity, Mr. showing #4 the scrapes and the rubs (the chickadees ate off the crown of his hat) #3 and i up and around ahead discussing wands and living there, both of us dressing tree stumps with birdseed. the deer were beautiful magickal powerful the toasted fen warm in moment of generous october sun the song of water over stones from under the bridge the last light and leaf litter a painting my brain falls into so much energy i get all psychedelic and the glorious smell of pine sap on open cones the brain just letting everything blur to make room for it all.



Every leaf and blade and vine and reed a miracle of cosmic engineering the sky and clouds ungulates feathered reptiles witch hazel white pine duckweed and marshwater seeds in our hands feeding anonymous mouths watching with bright eyes from bracken and canopy. i took them to the old boat launch and Mr. and i laid on the dock people were riding heavy roan horses a lady with dogs boys in cars making an exchange. but #3&4 on the shoreline watching water and rocks, the incredibly peaceful wake of the wind #4 and i contemplate going in birthday baptism but theres no change of clothes and were expected elsewhere eventually. a phalanx of joggers on the farther shore. geese. breathing.



Extended apertif at sister chalet a bottle of champagne and cheese baguette a black vest and october maple roses with ornamental cabbage blossoms we go for mexican and i love this place even though they moved it and i had no idea its even better and the chips and enchiladas were just what i needed the heat and creamy all of us just being people shell be in college next year this dry exquisite precise young woman im related to like a compost pile is related to a rose bush and shes got HUEY LONG on her cellphone wallpaper, relying on her assumption that mom and dad fierce line-item conservative republicans wont know who mr. long is and that i wont tell (not enough to worry them overmuch) and being right. they should be far more concerned that their 2nd daughter not the meticulous academic her sister is had pol pot on her wallpaper because juvenile social studies teacher thought it was funny she didnt know and convinced her. the way were swayed by altitude and a big desk.



after back to the manse i settled into my spot and flipped through glossy fashion mags and knit and watched the wedding singer because thats what they were watching even though i liked the guy who ate snakes and drank out of holes better. a drive home where louise has had quite enough of me but because its my birthday doesnt leave me on the side of the road between there and here. and my co-pilot fiddles the dials and we turn into the haven bearing flowers and mexican leftovers and im up at six the next #4 sick with the sick i had before i take the truck and the petrol station one town over is just open driving in the icy dark moonlight in the valley just me and the deer back again and im up now washing floors and doing laundry and J. comes early and the sun is out but im inside getting it together finishing the fingerless glove baking two bread and not reading. 36.

"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)