Spirit at the Switch

Stars and low-racing clouds. A spirit at the switch, grinning fall.

My eldest brother is alive again. He’s forgotten to bring his driver’s license. Standing beside our mother’s old car, I tell him I’d better drive, though we have no particular destination in mind.

With the arrival of rain and cooler temperatures, I’m reminded that the easiest way to adjust to seasonal weather changes is to spend as much time outside as possible. The body benefits from being exposed to a wider range of conditions. Of course this is easy to say at the end of September. We’ll see if I’m whistling the same tune two or three months from now.

Patience — the books in this room are accustomed to waiting their turn. They’ve also learned to always be ready, because often, the hand is quicker than the mind.

If I would have dyed / the garment of my husband / in a vivid hue / When he crossed that awesome slope / I could have seen him clearly — 51. From Ten Thousand Leaves: Love Poems from the Manyōshū. Eighth century, translated from the Japanese by Harold Wright. The Overlook Press, 1986.

Read The Rambler, No. 8. Saturday, April 14, 1750. What it is a crime to do, it is a crime to think.

Let not sleep, says Pythagoras, fall upon thy eyes till thou has thrice reviewed the transactions of the past day. Where have I turned aside from rectitude? What have I been doing? What have I left undone, which I ought to have done? Begin thus from the first act, and proceed; and in conclusion, at the ill which thou hast done be troubled, and rejoice for the good.

And in the words of Milton, it is wise to remember, Evil into the mind of god or man, / May come and go, so unapprov’d, and leave / No spot or stain behind.

Ah, me. Thought can be such a burden. To which I will only add, An ounce of silence is worth a pound of cure.

Read the thirty-sixth chapter of Middlemarch.

She blushed and looked at him as the garden flowers look at us when we walk forth happily among them in the transcendent evening light: is there not a soul beyond utterance, half nymph, half child, in those delicate petals which glow and breathe about the centres of deep colour?

September 27, 2023.

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