My reading has slowed to a crawl. I love it as much as ever, and possibly even more, but sitting and I are no longer the friends we once were. The body craves movement, and the more movement I give it, the more free and flexible it becomes. Still, there is James Baldwin. Thus far I’ve read over three hundred pages of his penetrating and insightful essays, and am near finishing The Fire Next Time, which is so well written and so honest and so interesting that I wonder at my own foolishness in ever picking up a pen. Of course we all feel that way at some time or other. For me it’s daily, but over the years I’ve been just arrogant enough to keep going, and anymore I wonder how much longer I can carry on. Perhaps only a lifetime or two — which is precisely the duration of a poem or paragraph. All unimportant, of course — and yet as compulsively natural as any birdsong, or so I imagine until I press “publish” and fall off my limb.
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Categories: Sweet Sleep and Bare Feet
Tags: Arrogance, Birdsong, Books, Essays, James Baldwin, Library of America, Movement, Poetry, Reading, Sitting, The Fire Next Time, Writing
William Michaelian 
Ah! That moment when we have chirped and then suddenly lose our balance. Happens every time with me. Lovely lines. 🙂
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Thanks! Yes, isn’t it so, isn’t it so.
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