What Music Is
by Sean Thomas Dougherty
Have you ever seen a Pomeranian goose?
One comes to visit me every morning
at the end of third shift. It's domesticated
& the people next door to our medical facility
let it wander. It waddles up to the walk
as I leave work: honk honk do you have bread sir?
Perhaps a fish or two? It's brown
& white & big & a bit pushy.
Pretty bird I tell it & it preens
like an addled swan.
I always wonder what the birds are saying.
How do starlings sway in their murmuration
across the sky? After do they tell each other,
dude we nailed that one like a Top Gun.
People want to find God, or know the secrets
to the afterlife, but I’d be happy to know the words
to the frantic grieving that flutters the wind
when a nestling falls. Or the exact second the sun
rises & the blackbirds, robins, & wrens all tremolo
the trees with trills.
But maybe the meaning is
it’s all music.
Maybe that is what music is?
Maybe a song is just like sunlight.
What does sunlight mean?
Or rain? What is the absence
of the story inside the rain?
One comes to visit me every morning
at the end of third shift. It's domesticated
& the people next door to our medical facility
let it wander. It waddles up to the walk
as I leave work: honk honk do you have bread sir?
Perhaps a fish or two? It's brown
& white & big & a bit pushy.
Pretty bird I tell it & it preens
like an addled swan.
I always wonder what the birds are saying.
How do starlings sway in their murmuration
across the sky? After do they tell each other,
dude we nailed that one like a Top Gun.
People want to find God, or know the secrets
to the afterlife, but I’d be happy to know the words
to the frantic grieving that flutters the wind
when a nestling falls. Or the exact second the sun
rises & the blackbirds, robins, & wrens all tremolo
the trees with trills.
But maybe the meaning is
it’s all music.
Maybe that is what music is?
Maybe a song is just like sunlight.
What does sunlight mean?
Or rain? What is the absence
of the story inside the rain?
So Much Even the Sudden Rain
by Sean Thomas Dougherty
My grandmother was at the widowed age
when walking became “difficult.”
That was the word she used
when my mother urged her to use a cane.
She tended the old pink sea roses
I thought near dead, only a few blooms
she cut with her arthritic hands.
Long passed eighty, the way she bent
from the waist, & often I wondered
if she would stand again, but before I could
help her, there she was, tough & gnarled
as any bonsai, or an unkept lilac bush.
I caught her smoking sometimes,
one cigarette, she lit at the end of the day
watching the sudden rain she loved fall.
Years later she watched my daughter
run calling grandma grandma grandma
two syllables I thought might bring her back
but even my name was far from her tongue
difficult to recall through gray eyes,
I thought maybe she saw someone
from a world I never knew, long ago
on the dusty farm of Oklahoma where she learned
to speak to crows, caw caw caw she’d say
& they always answered, turning their heads
on any telephone line or fence,
as the thorned pink of sea roses
lost their petals, her arthritic hands
still clipped as a rectangle of sunlight
through the porch glass warmed the rug
at her slippered feet, she drowsy
singing a few soft words along with Ella
on the radio, “your looks are laughable”
giving a small chuckle, cormorants
& gulls called & the smell of the sea
blew in from the bay,
her left-hand palm up on her lap
as if waiting for someone to hold it.
when walking became “difficult.”
That was the word she used
when my mother urged her to use a cane.
She tended the old pink sea roses
I thought near dead, only a few blooms
she cut with her arthritic hands.
Long passed eighty, the way she bent
from the waist, & often I wondered
if she would stand again, but before I could
help her, there she was, tough & gnarled
as any bonsai, or an unkept lilac bush.
I caught her smoking sometimes,
one cigarette, she lit at the end of the day
watching the sudden rain she loved fall.
Years later she watched my daughter
run calling grandma grandma grandma
two syllables I thought might bring her back
but even my name was far from her tongue
difficult to recall through gray eyes,
I thought maybe she saw someone
from a world I never knew, long ago
on the dusty farm of Oklahoma where she learned
to speak to crows, caw caw caw she’d say
& they always answered, turning their heads
on any telephone line or fence,
as the thorned pink of sea roses
lost their petals, her arthritic hands
still clipped as a rectangle of sunlight
through the porch glass warmed the rug
at her slippered feet, she drowsy
singing a few soft words along with Ella
on the radio, “your looks are laughable”
giving a small chuckle, cormorants
& gulls called & the smell of the sea
blew in from the bay,
her left-hand palm up on her lap
as if waiting for someone to hold it.
What the Blues Is
by Sean Thomas Dougherty
When I was about 19 years,
I recall this summer night
I put this Etta James cassette
on my Sony Walkman
& took a bottle of wine
I stole underage from the packy store
in my gym bag & walked
down through the mill yard
between the empty mills
& the lights from the west side
tenements rising up across the river,
I sat drinking that wine,
rewinding this song about her man
gone like my friend died at seventeen
drowned at the quarry—
one shouldn’t know grief
like that at seventeen,
grief a boy’s back is not made to carry
like a friend with a wounded foot,
but the blues don’t know no age limit,
it’s sudden & old at the same time
it takes who’s left you
with what's left of you
& makes it rhyme.
I recall this summer night
I put this Etta James cassette
on my Sony Walkman
& took a bottle of wine
I stole underage from the packy store
in my gym bag & walked
down through the mill yard
between the empty mills
& the lights from the west side
tenements rising up across the river,
I sat drinking that wine,
rewinding this song about her man
gone like my friend died at seventeen
drowned at the quarry—
one shouldn’t know grief
like that at seventeen,
grief a boy’s back is not made to carry
like a friend with a wounded foot,
but the blues don’t know no age limit,
it’s sudden & old at the same time
it takes who’s left you
with what's left of you
& makes it rhyme.
living off the edge
by Iain Britton
sometimes i feel stuck in the foreplay of a warm vaporous dream
*
i’m fascinated by this detachment of being – not being
i crave for new sounds – for intakes of fresh air – for
living off the edge of a clock
each day is transformative – each day rubs forecasts wrongly
corrugated clouds scrape changing summits
people don’t vanish that easily – they sleep amongst religious landfills
*
on the road – i cross a bridge – a lagoon – a fountain at work
often – a self-made fantasy rises from the water
i struggle with the mnemonics of a coded self – silhouettes
known to me – light fires in the dark
*
i’m fascinated by this detachment of being – not being
i crave for new sounds – for intakes of fresh air – for
living off the edge of a clock
each day is transformative – each day rubs forecasts wrongly
corrugated clouds scrape changing summits
people don’t vanish that easily – they sleep amongst religious landfills
*
on the road – i cross a bridge – a lagoon – a fountain at work
often – a self-made fantasy rises from the water
i struggle with the mnemonics of a coded self – silhouettes
known to me – light fires in the dark
strange alliance
by Iain Britton
the movement is quick
methodical
i pull off my jersey
the sun folds it neatly
followers of the man
in the grey boiler suit
talk tactics
for standing on street corners
slapping graffiti
on people’s faces
the day is hooked
as if by its nose
sniffing at cherry blossoms
the wild life of children
at female office workers
sitting on lawns
unwrapping aspects of their menfolk
==
around The Square i count my paces
this ritual never changes
i take ownership of the footpaths
then stop by the carved Taiapa gate
==
i grab my jersey
put it on the church
creaks of wood & brick
with too much carbon dioxide
on its breath sparrows
land on crucifixes old marble prophets
a renaissance figure of human light at the door
==
you arrive you kiss
there’s more to this the sky
condenses steam into herbal-laced
mixtures & hands-on practitioners
drink up
& anything newsworthy
instantly disrupts dissolves
==
a sudden exposure
forces us apart
to find new spaces a youth
plays his flute
to whoever’s riding the clouds
the wind gusts
or thrusting nature’s accessories
at invisible crowds
he’s the sole occupant of his island
logged in & feeding on music
he plays his flute drinks coffee
sticks his fingerprints
on landmarks for the blind
for the hard of hearing
some rituals never change
==
i smell the sweat of nearby sounds
of stacks-on-the-mill offices
we expect a lot
from opening books discussing good art
ensuring
the blue mosaic roof of the museum is part of the sky
==
we enter the long-distance lens
of the grey-garbed performer
preaching about the first birth
first howl
first mouthful of meat
==
at the Taiapa gate
scraps of voices are picked over
by workers returning to their homes
early moonlight
chalks the footpaths
whitens the bridge
fondles stones
we mind map a long night’s journey
into the contours of a metamorphosis
a strange alliance
emerges we let
body cells liquefy
extract core samples
from our solar centres
& for a short time
we live spellbound
attracted our seasons
all entangled
methodical
i pull off my jersey
the sun folds it neatly
followers of the man
in the grey boiler suit
talk tactics
for standing on street corners
slapping graffiti
on people’s faces
the day is hooked
as if by its nose
sniffing at cherry blossoms
the wild life of children
at female office workers
sitting on lawns
unwrapping aspects of their menfolk
==
around The Square i count my paces
this ritual never changes
i take ownership of the footpaths
then stop by the carved Taiapa gate
==
i grab my jersey
put it on the church
creaks of wood & brick
with too much carbon dioxide
on its breath sparrows
land on crucifixes old marble prophets
a renaissance figure of human light at the door
==
you arrive you kiss
there’s more to this the sky
condenses steam into herbal-laced
mixtures & hands-on practitioners
drink up
& anything newsworthy
instantly disrupts dissolves
==
a sudden exposure
forces us apart
to find new spaces a youth
plays his flute
to whoever’s riding the clouds
the wind gusts
or thrusting nature’s accessories
at invisible crowds
he’s the sole occupant of his island
logged in & feeding on music
he plays his flute drinks coffee
sticks his fingerprints
on landmarks for the blind
for the hard of hearing
some rituals never change
==
i smell the sweat of nearby sounds
of stacks-on-the-mill offices
we expect a lot
from opening books discussing good art
ensuring
the blue mosaic roof of the museum is part of the sky
==
we enter the long-distance lens
of the grey-garbed performer
preaching about the first birth
first howl
first mouthful of meat
==
at the Taiapa gate
scraps of voices are picked over
by workers returning to their homes
early moonlight
chalks the footpaths
whitens the bridge
fondles stones
we mind map a long night’s journey
into the contours of a metamorphosis
a strange alliance
emerges we let
body cells liquefy
extract core samples
from our solar centres
& for a short time
we live spellbound
attracted our seasons
all entangled
As It Is
by David Ruekberg
Addressee
by Loisa Fenichell
Come dusk, the field makes the sound
of a vanishing. I cut through, feeling
just like a waste below the pinkish clouds
that dangle without any language.
Last night, was told that language makes
the world. Tonight, the world makes the line,
so crossed, like how still I can’t escape you,
my addressee – the friend who died
or the boy I once adored like a wind chime. Hello!
The world feels exactly like itself, only perhaps
quieter, less peopled. I miss you, of course.
All of you. I’ve been feeling pregnant every day
for the past week – at least the desire to be.
That to mother would make me more loyal
like the beginning of a story. That to be loyal
is to behave. That to behave is to know, perhaps,
about the deepest rhizomes of reverence. I have
nothing but this body, its uncradled bloat, to give you –
we could rest atop the grass, gravel, and wade
through all the blinding saltwater of this earth.
of a vanishing. I cut through, feeling
just like a waste below the pinkish clouds
that dangle without any language.
Last night, was told that language makes
the world. Tonight, the world makes the line,
so crossed, like how still I can’t escape you,
my addressee – the friend who died
or the boy I once adored like a wind chime. Hello!
The world feels exactly like itself, only perhaps
quieter, less peopled. I miss you, of course.
All of you. I’ve been feeling pregnant every day
for the past week – at least the desire to be.
That to mother would make me more loyal
like the beginning of a story. That to be loyal
is to behave. That to behave is to know, perhaps,
about the deepest rhizomes of reverence. I have
nothing but this body, its uncradled bloat, to give you –
we could rest atop the grass, gravel, and wade
through all the blinding saltwater of this earth.
Fox Theater in Oakland, California
by Loisa Fenichell
A peach pit yearns in my mouth, dazzles on my tongue
like the startling movement of a dove. A dove,
as everybody knows, resembles the taboo moon. I pry
open this splendid and sinister weather – nothing
is this miraculous! But the elm across the way is beautiful,
this dress is made of silk. Last night, donned in the silk,
I found myself with myself, alone at a concert. A piano
was clawing on the stage like a crow. Inside the theater, night’s
terrain doubled over itself. At the show, I could hear
the weeping I’d been doing for months. Was only there
for an evening. Was anchored to a plush chair, a scrap
of its velvet residing between my forefinger and thumb.
With my eyes closed, the ceiling was wide as a radio, pulsing,
with the longing that another new song might be played.
like the startling movement of a dove. A dove,
as everybody knows, resembles the taboo moon. I pry
open this splendid and sinister weather – nothing
is this miraculous! But the elm across the way is beautiful,
this dress is made of silk. Last night, donned in the silk,
I found myself with myself, alone at a concert. A piano
was clawing on the stage like a crow. Inside the theater, night’s
terrain doubled over itself. At the show, I could hear
the weeping I’d been doing for months. Was only there
for an evening. Was anchored to a plush chair, a scrap
of its velvet residing between my forefinger and thumb.
With my eyes closed, the ceiling was wide as a radio, pulsing,
with the longing that another new song might be played.
Shadow Seen Come the Falsity of Night
by Loisa Fenichell
They say I stole his favorite color. Blue.
Fact. The idea that I loved him against
a miraculous city, the city
spinning onward like a great ship. Fact. Fact
remains that we used to have potential:
to carry wings of broken swallows,
to name any animals at all. On
farms, we carried cracked eggs between gold wings
on our backs. Shells broke into our
skins. We were becoming. It remains true
that when he died, he wore his best sweater,
and did not speak. Or he spoke softly, like
a new kind of desire. Mornings, he
touched my birthmark as though my body were
the beloved. Fact. It was. Until the
funeral, we were precisely alike.
There were no metaphors. Only dull knives
in the kitchen meant for slicing through cake.
Fact. The idea that I loved him against
a miraculous city, the city
spinning onward like a great ship. Fact. Fact
remains that we used to have potential:
to carry wings of broken swallows,
to name any animals at all. On
farms, we carried cracked eggs between gold wings
on our backs. Shells broke into our
skins. We were becoming. It remains true
that when he died, he wore his best sweater,
and did not speak. Or he spoke softly, like
a new kind of desire. Mornings, he
touched my birthmark as though my body were
the beloved. Fact. It was. Until the
funeral, we were precisely alike.
There were no metaphors. Only dull knives
in the kitchen meant for slicing through cake.
Having to Do with Some Guilt
by Loisa Fenichell
I’ve saved the lines you read to me about the silver fish
in the winter pond – even in January, they never grew cold.
In January, we kept missing one another. No space, all distance.
Too much space, not enough time. The night you left,
I left, too, for a party where I intended to wail by the speaker.
The music was loud, rapid and rabid as an ambulance.
I was becoming my own infant. I’ve no idea what it’s like
to be a mother! I’m beginning to own up to this, trying
to live up to my regrets, looking for the simplicity in womanhood.
Everywhere startles me. The world like bits of clam shell
breaking into the soles of the feet. This afternoon, alone in my friend’s
living room, traffic rears its head through the window. I still forget
that people exist. The problem is thoughts rhyme too slowly.
The bluest skies of California are just outside – your weather so far away.
in the winter pond – even in January, they never grew cold.
In January, we kept missing one another. No space, all distance.
Too much space, not enough time. The night you left,
I left, too, for a party where I intended to wail by the speaker.
The music was loud, rapid and rabid as an ambulance.
I was becoming my own infant. I’ve no idea what it’s like
to be a mother! I’m beginning to own up to this, trying
to live up to my regrets, looking for the simplicity in womanhood.
Everywhere startles me. The world like bits of clam shell
breaking into the soles of the feet. This afternoon, alone in my friend’s
living room, traffic rears its head through the window. I still forget
that people exist. The problem is thoughts rhyme too slowly.
The bluest skies of California are just outside – your weather so far away.
Maybe the City Has More Vaccines
by Lesle Lewis
What is the self but an idea of self?
Or two flutes and a harp.
Is truth better than belief?
Or electric guitars?
You’re making it up and making it real.
The tall, shiny icicles become moons or medicines.
One thing becomes another so easily.
What does the clock capture if it’s not time?
It’s not time.
What is faster than us?
What’s this draped over us?
Or two flutes and a harp.
Is truth better than belief?
Or electric guitars?
You’re making it up and making it real.
The tall, shiny icicles become moons or medicines.
One thing becomes another so easily.
What does the clock capture if it’s not time?
It’s not time.
What is faster than us?
What’s this draped over us?
Waiting
by Lesle Lewis
How do people do it: fall in love, rise to occasions, jump to their deaths?
How can we have this and this and this with no commas between?
This and this are hard for me, but I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, so I pretend to be better than I am.
I have this secret fullness of feeling we call love.
And it’s for you.
Reflect me, text me, message me, “I love you too.”
How can we have this and this and this with no commas between?
This and this are hard for me, but I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, so I pretend to be better than I am.
I have this secret fullness of feeling we call love.
And it’s for you.
Reflect me, text me, message me, “I love you too.”
carnivorous plants
by Eric Adamson
|
Conversations with the Neighbourhood Girl
by Vanessa Niu
I know what love is.
It hides under the endless growing space under my bed,
pulsing like a second, mechanical heart of mine.
It is my nature to love, although falsely, at a distance,
in friendship and in Girlhood
loving with scraped-knees, juice sticky on my fingertips,
fingertips worshipping the acnestis
teeth bared against the sun.
I imagine Godhood is no further from true love
than Tosca and Cavarodossi from
mist-horned, moon-burnt, break-of-dawn, desert-reaching quietude
and the great madness that pursues lovers (or so I have been told);
but knowledge is not experience as experience is knowledge.
The goblet of water is not filled with water until it overflows
even just by a bit, even if only it is
the turbulent rippling of movement on the surface
that causes it to spill.
So do not call me ignorant of love—I bear a near full goblet.
I am just a statue, unloved by any Pygmalion.
It hides under the endless growing space under my bed,
pulsing like a second, mechanical heart of mine.
It is my nature to love, although falsely, at a distance,
in friendship and in Girlhood
loving with scraped-knees, juice sticky on my fingertips,
fingertips worshipping the acnestis
teeth bared against the sun.
I imagine Godhood is no further from true love
than Tosca and Cavarodossi from
mist-horned, moon-burnt, break-of-dawn, desert-reaching quietude
and the great madness that pursues lovers (or so I have been told);
but knowledge is not experience as experience is knowledge.
The goblet of water is not filled with water until it overflows
even just by a bit, even if only it is
the turbulent rippling of movement on the surface
that causes it to spill.
So do not call me ignorant of love—I bear a near full goblet.
I am just a statue, unloved by any Pygmalion.
Ocean House
by Stephano Pereira
The front door bursts open
ocean waves gush into the house
and beyond it
the sky is a clean cerulean
touched by a diamond air.
Pirate John with his skull and bones
just lost the love of his life
and steers a sinking ship
with teardrop on his lip
that’ll either hit or pass us
but it’s hard to tell
being so far and yet near.
On the other hand,
once I was an invisible girl
who cut herself into mirrors –
Self 1 sat on her knees
in grim attention
without a body
but she spent her life
trying to piece herself
back together.
In this house where the ocean is
she read old books
and once she finished them
they combusted into flames
even though there was water
everywhere.
Higher and higher the flames grew
by the gold-silled window
where the polaroids
of her mom and dad was.
The darkest room in the house
had an enormous eye in it
the hazel eye of our dad
and hair made of trees -
it was the guest room.
Self 2 looked like Self 1
but he was always standing
holding onto the ocean
like a journal or a blanket
and gazing always
into that part of the house
that had no walls.
They both lived there
in the house
that was filling up with water
where their fires grew.
Far away beyond the pirate ship
there were
planes and labyrinths of ice
and beyond that
a yellow air-balloon
racing towards them
with a gondola filled with flowers
like a mini garden
this landscape promises to bring.
ocean waves gush into the house
and beyond it
the sky is a clean cerulean
touched by a diamond air.
Pirate John with his skull and bones
just lost the love of his life
and steers a sinking ship
with teardrop on his lip
that’ll either hit or pass us
but it’s hard to tell
being so far and yet near.
On the other hand,
once I was an invisible girl
who cut herself into mirrors –
Self 1 sat on her knees
in grim attention
without a body
but she spent her life
trying to piece herself
back together.
In this house where the ocean is
she read old books
and once she finished them
they combusted into flames
even though there was water
everywhere.
Higher and higher the flames grew
by the gold-silled window
where the polaroids
of her mom and dad was.
The darkest room in the house
had an enormous eye in it
the hazel eye of our dad
and hair made of trees -
it was the guest room.
Self 2 looked like Self 1
but he was always standing
holding onto the ocean
like a journal or a blanket
and gazing always
into that part of the house
that had no walls.
They both lived there
in the house
that was filling up with water
where their fires grew.
Far away beyond the pirate ship
there were
planes and labyrinths of ice
and beyond that
a yellow air-balloon
racing towards them
with a gondola filled with flowers
like a mini garden
this landscape promises to bring.
On How to Be Free in the World
by Jocelyn Ulevicus
I don’t want to be held back any longer--
I want to float
in the atmosphere with the darlings
I slaughtered, ringed with marigolds /
my dark hair / ringing with blackbirds,
with stars
in my throat.
It is comforting to think
there is something out there,
surrounding us, waiting for us,
filling our lungs,
the sac that holds us,
the sac of water we will return to—without truth,
but faith
as solid as a calcium rich
shell filled with
a delicate stuffing:
red and green peppers, onions,
and bread crumbs / shaped
by my mother’s slim hands
& slender memories / pumping two legs on a
swing set, the wind rushing through the elms.
I want to float
in the atmosphere with the darlings
I slaughtered, ringed with marigolds /
my dark hair / ringing with blackbirds,
with stars
in my throat.
It is comforting to think
there is something out there,
surrounding us, waiting for us,
filling our lungs,
the sac that holds us,
the sac of water we will return to—without truth,
but faith
as solid as a calcium rich
shell filled with
a delicate stuffing:
red and green peppers, onions,
and bread crumbs / shaped
by my mother’s slim hands
& slender memories / pumping two legs on a
swing set, the wind rushing through the elms.
Excerpts by Simone Weil
(adapted)
All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws
analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.
To come down by a movement in which gravity plays no part…
Gravity makes things come down, wings make them rise:
what wings raised to the second power
can make things come down without weight?
Creation is composed of the descending movement of gravity,
the ascending movement of grace and the descending movement of
the second degree of grace. Grace is the law of the descending movement.
To lower oneself is to rise in the domain of moral gravity.
Like a gas, the soul tends to fill the entire space which is given it.
A gas which contracted leaving a vacuum—this would be contrary
to the law of entropy. Not to exercise all the power at one’s disposal
is to endure the void. This is contrary to all the laws of nature.
Grace alone can do it. Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter
where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.
The necessity for a reward, the need to receive the equivalent
of what we give. But if, doing violence to this necessity, we leave a vacuum,
as it were a suction of air is produced and a supernatural reward results.
It does not come if we receive other wages: it is this vacuum which makes it come.
Time is an image of eternity, but it is also a substitute for eternity.
The present does not attain finality. Nor does the future,
for it is only what will be present. We do not know this, however.
If we apply to the present the point of that desire within us
which corresponds to finality, it pierces right through to the eternal.
We have to go down to the root of our desires in order to tear
the energy from its object. That is where the desires are true
in so far as they are energy. It is the object which is unreal.
But there is an unspeakable wrench in the soul at the separation
of a desire from its object. If we go down into ourselves
we find that we possess exactly what we desire.
Decreation: to make something created pass into the uncreated.
Destruction: to make something created pass into nothingness.
A blameworthy substitute for decreation. Creation is an act of love
and it is perpetual. Everything which is grasped by our natural faculties
is hypothetical. It is only supernatural love that establishes anything.
Thus we are co-creators. We participate in the creation of the world
by decreating ourselves. We only possess what we renounce;
what we do not renounce escapes from us. We are born and live
in an inverted fashion, for we are born and live in sin which is
an inversion of the hierarchy. We have to be nothing in order to be
in our right place in the whole. It is necessary to uproot oneself.
By uprooting oneself one seeks greater reality.
We are drawn towards a thing because we believe it is good.
We end by being chained to it because it has become necessary.
Things of the senses are real if they are considered as perceptible things,
but unreal if considered as goods. Appearance has the completeness of reality,
but only as appearance. As anything other than appearance it is error.
The upward movement in us is vain (and less than vain)
if it does not come from a downward movement.
It is the crucified body which is a true balance, the body reduced
to its point in time and space. We must not judge.
We must let all beings come to us,
and leave them to judge themselves. We must be a balance.
The beings I love are creatures. They were born by chance.
My meeting with them was also by chance. They will die.
I have to imitate God who infinitely loves finite things
in that they are finite things. We want everything which has a value
to be eternal. Now everything which has a value is the product of a meeting,
lasts throughout this meeting and ceases when those things which met
are separated. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence
—that is beautiful. Why? It projects the soul beyond time.
analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.
To come down by a movement in which gravity plays no part…
Gravity makes things come down, wings make them rise:
what wings raised to the second power
can make things come down without weight?
Creation is composed of the descending movement of gravity,
the ascending movement of grace and the descending movement of
the second degree of grace. Grace is the law of the descending movement.
To lower oneself is to rise in the domain of moral gravity.
Like a gas, the soul tends to fill the entire space which is given it.
A gas which contracted leaving a vacuum—this would be contrary
to the law of entropy. Not to exercise all the power at one’s disposal
is to endure the void. This is contrary to all the laws of nature.
Grace alone can do it. Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter
where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.
The necessity for a reward, the need to receive the equivalent
of what we give. But if, doing violence to this necessity, we leave a vacuum,
as it were a suction of air is produced and a supernatural reward results.
It does not come if we receive other wages: it is this vacuum which makes it come.
Time is an image of eternity, but it is also a substitute for eternity.
The present does not attain finality. Nor does the future,
for it is only what will be present. We do not know this, however.
If we apply to the present the point of that desire within us
which corresponds to finality, it pierces right through to the eternal.
We have to go down to the root of our desires in order to tear
the energy from its object. That is where the desires are true
in so far as they are energy. It is the object which is unreal.
But there is an unspeakable wrench in the soul at the separation
of a desire from its object. If we go down into ourselves
we find that we possess exactly what we desire.
Decreation: to make something created pass into the uncreated.
Destruction: to make something created pass into nothingness.
A blameworthy substitute for decreation. Creation is an act of love
and it is perpetual. Everything which is grasped by our natural faculties
is hypothetical. It is only supernatural love that establishes anything.
Thus we are co-creators. We participate in the creation of the world
by decreating ourselves. We only possess what we renounce;
what we do not renounce escapes from us. We are born and live
in an inverted fashion, for we are born and live in sin which is
an inversion of the hierarchy. We have to be nothing in order to be
in our right place in the whole. It is necessary to uproot oneself.
By uprooting oneself one seeks greater reality.
We are drawn towards a thing because we believe it is good.
We end by being chained to it because it has become necessary.
Things of the senses are real if they are considered as perceptible things,
but unreal if considered as goods. Appearance has the completeness of reality,
but only as appearance. As anything other than appearance it is error.
The upward movement in us is vain (and less than vain)
if it does not come from a downward movement.
It is the crucified body which is a true balance, the body reduced
to its point in time and space. We must not judge.
We must let all beings come to us,
and leave them to judge themselves. We must be a balance.
The beings I love are creatures. They were born by chance.
My meeting with them was also by chance. They will die.
I have to imitate God who infinitely loves finite things
in that they are finite things. We want everything which has a value
to be eternal. Now everything which has a value is the product of a meeting,
lasts throughout this meeting and ceases when those things which met
are separated. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence
—that is beautiful. Why? It projects the soul beyond time.
( Caption : add to the startling effect )
by Matthew Woodman
this / rɛd / appears black
rill erosion : arid zones more vulnerable
to physical weathering
cracked chapped
folds and sleeves : the skin before it sloughs
: a trick of the light = the blood in my wrist runs blue :
rill erosion : arid zones more vulnerable
to physical weathering
cracked chapped
folds and sleeves : the skin before it sloughs
: a trick of the light = the blood in my wrist runs blue :
( Caption : the appearance of dampened clay )
by Matthew Woodman
a sconced frieze fingering geologic time
a print exposing the empiric impulse
to impose / / frame
into recognizable focus
an emergence of torsos and tendons
from shrouds of ash a protrusion
that dares us not to say
face.
a print exposing the empiric impulse
to impose / / frame
into recognizable focus
an emergence of torsos and tendons
from shrouds of ash a protrusion
that dares us not to say
face.
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