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

23 October 2008



Bright Idea #99: If You Build It, It Will Come.

"Dave,/You've been engaged/Four times/But never married./“One more”/You said/“And I’ll have one/For the thumb”/Diane,/You never been with a man/More than six months,/Nor single/Since sixteen/You’re thirty-six/In August/Maybe that’s why/You hate/Mathematics/Mr. Cranefly,/You have twenty-four hours/From the egg/To mature/Mate
And die./What are you doing/Inside?/And you,/You there/In the notebook,/Mr. Poet,/Defending your life/Like a squid/With the ink,/Your troubles/Aren’t even/Worth mentioning" Louise driveway dry-docked for the time being #4 and i took the yellow bus to work and all the children with their open faces and i knowing their names and this bus was clean and orderly and didnt disturb me like the one previous and the little boy who lags behind held his face to the window and chatted to himself as my charge had done the week before. it is a happy heart smiled at by children. corrections and conversation in the lunchroom about triskeles, italian horns and joan of arc. the day was bright and not over-cold, when a drill was called that may have led to a long walk down the road a young friend called me over to make sure i had brought my inhaler. when i walked into the early lunch the little ones cheered and it is a happy heart cheered at by children. S. drove us home and i made cornbread and butter cake and chili for the boys and we took a moonwalk and pondered the planets and when we got home they played in legos as i read the second installment of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. ill tidy and go to bed for a book and a cup of tea in the high cold night of late october. where am i in a year? here, living gently, patient with myself and the questions. id like to be hired, and relieved of all the present arrears. i read how vital it is to simply hug. i read how meditation is good for the skin. id like to not suffer so much inside or out. be at ease in my skin in my world. go forward by the light of my stars in health and happiness, being of use, filling sketchbooks and canvas and bamboo needles and cake pans and cookie sheets and garden rows and rose beds and doing more giving, donating, volunteering, listening, learning, evolving, deep breathing, praying, meditating, stretching, loving, and laughing. so mote it be.
"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)