wordy wednesday

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

wordy wednesday

Now It Is Clear
--W. S. Merwin

 Now it is clear to me that no leaves are mine
no roots are mine
that wherever I go I will be a spine of smoke in the forest
and the forest will know it
we will both know it
and that birds vanish because of something
that I remember
flying through me as though I were a great wind
as the stones settle into the ground
the trees into themselves
staring as though I were a great wind
which is what I pray for
it is clear to me that I cannot return
but that some of us will meet once more
even here
like our own statues
and some of us still later without names
and some of us will burn with the speed
of endless departures
and be found and lost no more

wordy wedn--i mean, thursday

Not changing the day, just running a bit late.

Inspiration is for amateurs.

The rest of us just show up and work.

--Chuck Close

(on Charlie Rose 10/27/10)

wordy wednesday

Sometimes

you have to let the game

come to you.

--Joe Torre

wordy wednesday

Basho
We know poetic poetry the common dangers
of moonstruckness, bel canto. Embalsamed air, that is all,
unless you turn it into pebbles that flash and hurt.
You, old master, polish the pebbles
that you fling to bring down a thrush.
Out of the world you cut an image that bears your name.
Seventeen pebbles for arrows a school of deathly singers.
See by the waterside the track of the poet
on his way to the innermost snowland. See how the water erases it
how the man with the hat inscribes it again
preserves water and footprint, capturing the movement that has passed,
so that what vanished is still there as something that vanished.
—Cees Nooteboom
(translated from the Dutch by J.M. Coetzee)

wordy wednesday

To find a form
that accommodates the mess,
that is the task of the artist now.

--Samuel Beckett

wordy wednesday: a favorite song

I have always loved the John Sebastian song Darling, Be Home Soon. Simple, direct, doesn't try to do too much, says almost everything worth saying.


Come
And talk of all the things we did today
Here
And laugh about our funny little ways
While we have a few minutes to breathe
Then I know that it's time you must leave.

But darling be home soon
I couldn't bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled
My darling be home soon
It's not just these few hours but I've been waiting since I toddled
For the great relief of having you to talk to.