Another morning. You open your closet. Which thoughts will you wear? — when, behold, you have outgrown them all. Stardust on Rye There are days when you are certain a simple glass of water and sunlight will do, when no other nourishment is necessary, when hunger is your best companion. Around noon, you think briefly about sitting down to a great cosmic sandwich, stardust on rye, but soon enough […]
There are mornings when the mind has no particular need or desire for clarity. Or it might not be the mind at all; it might be the world that has no need or desire to show herself — as if she’s just out of the bath, her skin fragrant and naked and warm, and in no hurry to put on the day. How foolish the mind would be to say, […]
Why did the robin take a vigorous bath yesterday, on a thirty-five-degree winter afternoon? Did he do it to spite the incoming snow? And where is he now? Near the ice-rimmed pool, watching the white-bright world from under the rhododendron, warm to his red in its bed of dry leaves? At two this morning, I was awakened by snow-light. Out walking before seven, I saw a boy in front of […]
Have you ever thought we might be thumbprints in the dough?
No? Because that is what I’m thinking now.
And I’m thinking how much, and how little else, I know.
Canvas 515 — January 19, 2015
Do you ever feel you’re drifting through space, and that the planets are in your tow? You are. It’s true. Space is the silence between thoughts. The planets are your memories and deeds, and the little that you know. In the Mirror a Window In the mirror a window : beyond the window falling snow : in a mirror the snow : falling in the here and now : […]
If thoughts left visible trails, then perhaps more of us would see how we are bound by them. Imagine a web at once dangerous and beautiful, so dense it darkens the sky — cloud rooms, passages, caves, precipices, dungeons, veils — and that this is not only between us, but between ourselves and a deeper understanding of how we really can fly. Curious When I open the blinds, spirits […]
Usually, when cold weather arrives, we move our jade plants into the garage, where they spend the winter with who knows what thoughts — summer, shine, patience, glory, generations and generations of hands. Come spring, when we bring them out again, it takes them a few weeks to get going. Which way do we turn? What is that sound? Is that a squirrel? A worm? The swish of a broom? […]
Let me tell you, it’s no easy thing coaxing these out of the brambles. You’d believe me, if you could see the blood on my arms, and the thorns. Sweet Blue Smoke Now, let’s say you aren’t here, and that what’s happening to you is what’s happening to everyone, and that they aren’t here either, and that this is togetherness, and that togetherness is another word for solitude, and […]
We parked in the lot near the immense black walnut tree. Its shade is dense this time of year, the moss on its massive trunk and lower branches still green. We’ve seen it in all seasons. We’ve seen it bare in winter, and in its golden profundity in fall. And it’s clear in its presence that wisdom isn’t something one seeks, because it is here. And only the mind is […]
One thought I have for this quiet, spare new space is to share on occasion some of what I feel is my best work from Recently Banned Literature. To do that, I will need to sift through nearly 4,000 entries. Another thought is to do the same with my first website, I’m Telling You All I Know, which, when I took it offline in 2011, contained 1,200 pages. My primary […]
