The winter light, the old books and photographs, pierce me through and through. I move among them with my teacup like a ghost. I do not bleed from my old wounds. They might be kisses, for all I know. Words are like that too. They never say themselves. They do not know how. Yet they rule the world, each a tyger burning bright, each of heaven, each of hell. Shakespeare […]
The little mimosa by the cedar has six leaves, a rich orange, leaning towards red. The tiny birch less than two feet away also has six — the top three are green, the fourth is yellow-green, and the two near the ground are yellow. The color references are crude approximations. Set in the wilderness as they are, among grasses, ground covers, mushrooms, and a scattering of needles, cones, and other […]
Words are stones worn smooth by lips. Imagine being kissed like this. Upon your breast, against my chest. Caressed by mist and fingertips where meaning is. . [ 925 ]
Fascinating are the little disturbances and imbalances that visit the body, as it reacts to the various impurities in its immediate environment, water-borne, air-borne, food-borne, human-borne — not even impurities, necessarily, but concentrations of different allergens, spores, molds, and the like. And to this list one would hasten to add words, thoughts, and images, all of which can be either toxic or beneficial. As rugged as it is, the body, […]
Another hour spent outside watering in the smoke, which is much thicker this morning than yesterday. The air, though, is noticeably cooler. The windy time has passed; I saw several spiders calmly working on their webs. I also heard the squawking of a scrub jay, and a brief exchange between nuthatches. A squirrel caught my eye; like an ordinary pedestrian, it was making its way along the sidewalk across the […]
September mad and breathing fire — while mountains burn, we valley firs cast off our words and add them to the sacrifice. Your gift is not despised. It sparks the angels’ eyes in paradise. . [ 864 ]
Do words have skin and bones? They must, if they wear clothes. But some are ghosts, and many run naked in the night wind. . [ 861 ]
Life is incredibly generous. It gives us each our abilities, perceptions, and experiences, along with endless opportunities to come together and share for our mutual benefit what we have learned. And though we often use this gift as a means to conquer or to otherwise gain some kind of petty advantage, life never changes its attitude towards us. It gives us children; it gives us love; it gives us a […]
Each silence has its corresponding sound, and the other way around. The bird, the bee, the softly falling gown. The words by which they’re known. The waiting train, the one insane, the cricket, and the temple bell. The gentle rhyme, the end of time, the thing that makes you smile now. . [ 845 ]
We hear it said that words are symbols, as if in a sense they were lined up on one side, with reality on the other, and us in between — dirty things tainted by their own meanings, useful as a daily sort of common currency, but basically crippled as a means of expressing life in its great profundity and mystery, which are best trusted to silence. This is very much […]
