wink

Here it is, the poem
towards the end of the book
about fireflies.


Go into the twilight.

I've been thinking a lot about the end of the world, and our slow-burning chosen apocali. Would apocalypses make more sense? It's sick that we could even think to pluralize apocalypse, but we are dying by chemicals and radiation and wearing away all the capacity of our own planet to protect us from the sun, from the extremes of nature's capriciousness, and so it is not just one thing but a whole host of endgame players, check and mate, the confluence of our self-will and the world's will, our intent suicidal and the world's, homicidal. In that, I suppose there is only a singular, apocalypse, to describe when it finally becomes too late for any actions to sway the course of fate and annihilation is assured.

autumn's ghost

Crisp sky and the crunch of gravel,
leaves slip through the air in an
evasive dance around my hands,
the scent on the wind hints at frost,
And the uphill climb stretches unused leg muscles.
My mind's eye sketches your outline
against the falling leaves,
tracing the ghost of your footsteps.
Your imagined presence warms me
as much as the climb
and a small hope twinges as the leaves
spiral through the space
where you could stand.
I keep walking, but I glance back
to watch the shower of yellow,
sundappled in the empty road.

Ritualized verse for everyday occasions

The inspiration for these little couplets or single lines I owe in part to Jason, and his recommendation for finding lost objects. Now it is not only Catholics who utter a short couplet prayer to St. Anthony:
"St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please look around,
my _____ is lost and cannot be found."
St. Anthony takes his time, but he has never failed me yet.

Anyway, the concept behind this little ritual struck my fancy, and I've been dreaming up little singsong rhymes for more occasions than I can count. The rhymes may not be very good, but I think what is important and healthy is opening up one's mind into prayer, addressing the universe in a formal-humble-intimate way using 'thou' and 'thee,' and taking a moment to say something beautiful about the world. Prayers of gratitude are shown to be much more effective than prayers of supplication in changing our perception of goodness in the world. The words you speak have never been used before in the exact same combination, so each of your sentences is a new creation. Might as well say something that has a positive effect, at least in yourself if not in the world around you. Here are some lines I have come up with recently:

When watering plants: Thou gentle spirits of earth and air, be well.

When in the shower:
To thee, o power of water I yield
myself to be cleansed; my wounds to be healed.

When picking up a musical instrument: O beautiful instrument, grant me congress with the air.

When lighting a fire:
Flame of the Earth,
strong before our birth
begin with a spark
from the deep and the dark.

When moving into a new house: This dwelling is dedicated to the Earth, whose shrine all homes are.

Arrivals & Departures

I looked across the grey
water to where white wings
splashed on the grey sky,
and I thought how grey it
must all look to people in airplanes:
grey and sleeping.
And I thought how Liz would
have us, once she got off, and
it wouldn't be grey anymore for her.
And I thought that everyone
should have someone, you know,
for color. To brighten up
their grey terminals.

history from inside the bars

It's important to remember that our agricultural industry is our war industry. Chemical fertilizers were generated by our war engines and pesticides were converted from nerve gases. Beat our swords into ploughshares, have we? Then instead of buying war bonds, we buy cereal. We feed our animals subsidized corn, and grow fat with surplus. We won a war but lost ourselves. We consumed the battleground and now are eaten by it.

Earthsea

I have reread Ursula K. LeGuin's fantasy masterpiece A Wizard of Earthsea. Always a good decision. Especially if you have trouble with your shadow. Predictably, I find nature sorcery riveting.
"Ogion let the rain fall where it would. He found a thick fir-tree and lay down beneath it. Ged crouched among the dripping bushes wet and sullen, and wondered what was the good of having power if you were too wise to use it, and wished he had gone as prentice to that old weatherworker of the Vale, where at least he would have slept dry. He did not speak any of his thoughts aloud. He said not a word. His master smiled, and fell asleep in the rain."

"He stood in the innermost room of the House of the Wise, and it was open to the sky. Then suddenly he was aware of a man clothed in white who watched him through the falling water of the fountain.
As their eyes met, a bird sang aloud in the branches of the tree. In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves: it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight."