Pete and I took this photo one windy night at a very busy Mesquite/Gene Autry intersection with headlights whooshing by. I can't pass this place without thinking of fifties science fiction cryology, gleaming cities and silver cars that zip by on currents of air, leaving nothing behind but water vapor.
Later I'll figure out exactly why this image is right for tonight. For now, I'll just accept knowing that it is, in the same way I'll accept knowing that this year was pivotal and sobering for me. I'll figure that one out later too. The clarity of time and an autopsy of the body of work will tell me how the pieces fit.
For now, I'll refer to it as the year I learned to swim. But with you, my loyal comrades, I'll share
What I learned This Year:
1. That the truth sits in the creamy center.
2. That if you can define the question, you can find the answer.
3. That real changes are accomplished one at a time.
My New Year's resolution is to enjoy the moment, then see what happens.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the coming year. I thank you for being part of this one and I wish you every good thing.
g'night
Later I'll figure out exactly why this image is right for tonight. For now, I'll just accept knowing that it is, in the same way I'll accept knowing that this year was pivotal and sobering for me. I'll figure that one out later too. The clarity of time and an autopsy of the body of work will tell me how the pieces fit.
For now, I'll refer to it as the year I learned to swim. But with you, my loyal comrades, I'll share
What I learned This Year:
1. That the truth sits in the creamy center.
2. That if you can define the question, you can find the answer.
3. That real changes are accomplished one at a time.
My New Year's resolution is to enjoy the moment, then see what happens.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the coming year. I thank you for being part of this one and I wish you every good thing.
g'night
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, secret sits in the middle and knows" Robert Frost (I spose it might well as be creamy, eh?) Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteHappy 2007, Lisa!
ReplyDeletewell another year has flown by! Amazing fireworks designed by a French guy lit up London, UK, to usher in 2007. Romania and Bulgaria became new members of the European Union on the stroke of midnight. I travelled a lot last year and hope to head your way state-side this year. I'm a firm believer in the power of travel to extend your understanding of the world. I hope everyone this year will go somewhere they have never been before to try and understand a new point of view. If we could all do that the world might be a much nicer place for us all!!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Lisa!!
Happy New Year to you, Lisa, and the rest of the Slaughterhouse gang! Love the science fiction ring of that name...though what barbeque sauce has to do with cryology I'll never know! ;)
ReplyDeleteI like your resolution, its one I've lived by and hope to continue to do so!
Happy (belated) New Year!
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling this one's going to be a good one.
2006 taught me to be, and to wait.
2007 will teach me to dance.
All good wishes to you and yours!
ivenotime :: I always liked, "From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire."
ReplyDeleteaah, me too Dan - I did a whole project on this poem when I was a sophomore in hs: Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice - from what I've tasted of desire, i hold with those who favor fire, but if it had to perish twice, i think i know enough of hate to know that for destruction ice is, is also great and woud suffice. brings back memories of a 15 year old - thank you...(it was a poetry notebook - other poems were straw men, we real cool, and one or two others I don't recall, but I still have that notebook somewhere...
ReplyDeleteHa! We are on the same poetic wavelength, I think, ivenotime!
ReplyDeleteWe real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
I can't believe I remember that.
By "straw men" do you perhaps mean Eliot's "The Hollow Men"? Another one of my favorites.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
...
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
And one new poem to the mix, by Atwood:
Variation On The Word Sleep
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
whoot! Yes, the hollow men - one of my favorites - I knew straw men didn't feel right but remembered the lines about heads stuffed with straw. Can't believe you remembered all of we real cool too, neat, haven't seen that in years. The Atwood poem is a lovely and lyrical piece, I've never read that before. Another beginning which is my anthem (no middles or endings because my brain is not functioning now: Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light - dylan thomas, i think?
ReplyDeleteDylan Thomas indeed.
ReplyDeleteI'm on an Atwood kick today.