2009

Wednesday

Oh, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really ­what shall we say?­ The head of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundred years ago, which has now, owing to the patient attrition of many generations of housemaids, revealed its head above the coat of paint, and is taking its first view of modern life in the sight of a white-walled fire-lit room, what should I gain? ­Knowledge? Matter for further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars?

Virginia Woolf, The Mark on the Wall

You make me nostalgic for a love that hasn’t even happened yet.

Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.

Sara Zarr, Sweethearts

Monday

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''Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.'' 

Robert G. Ingersoll

These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul, and lifted it to heaven.

Mary Shelly, Frankenstein




You Are Like a Hawk

           This chalky road is one I've walked for years now. There's a familiarity that comes along with this air, on this road, in these hills. I feel both young and old as I watch the powdery path unfold before my feet. Being a kid, I recall feeling unbearably hot as observed these hushed valleys. Now that I am here, alone, and with years behind me, they still hold mystery in every dip. I stop. There is a curve in the road ahead, veering to my left. I’ve noticed it before, but have not been enticed to follow it. I think it might be on someone's property, though it is difficult to tell with these unmarked fields and beat-up fences. Besides, I don't mean any harm.

           I just want to see.
           This has often gotten me in trouble - the want to see. Hopping walls, and running through yards that are not my own to snap a photograph is a terrible habit, but the drive I have to discover, create and record is strong. I feel as though to do so is not even within my control.
             I take one last look in each direction and continue up the forbidden bow. And how glad I am. An over-grown trail is where my curiosity has led me. Green green trees arch overhead. I make myself smaller - force my elbows closer, hunch my shoulders, bend my knees. I creep in. I inch in.
              My eyes adjust to the emerald dimness; the sun shining through green leaves illuminates my path. I begin to wonder how long it’s been since another has been here, and I hope no one’s following me. The walk has become increasingly more challenging, as I gently move reaching branches to the side, and become aware of such plants - stinging nettle. Wood tics are no longer a concern as I’ve decided this foresty trudge is worth a check later on.  The green grows thicker. Until I finally reach, what appears to be, an end. A bench sits alone in a grassy clearing. I gaze in all directions. I sit. Then, I lay.
              The pale blue sky contrasts calmly with the fully-grown leaves. Some even beginning to quietly change yellow and fall. This moment is the wild. I see a hawk, up, up, up.  Like me, alone. He’s flying so high my eye can barely make him out. He is above - watching these valleys, as I do. Sometimes I wish I were a bird, but I think I much prefer the view from this bench, on this hill, in the deep green.
              As a watch the hawk soar across the big sky, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, he reminds me of you. We live most of our lives in two different places. Myself, on the ground. You, up, free, and away; I can never quite make out where. And though I miss you, you never feel far because you’re just as much a spirit as you are a physical body.