one thing today

 ... paintings are really beautiful in person. Their size and the exactitude. What's most intriguing to me about them is the WHY of them. Why did she make them? What made her spend the time drawing her lines over and over again. I will do some homework and report on them tomorrow. 

Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed all together, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.                                                                                                                                      -                                                                     ...

the air and breeze this morning takes me back to the summer before I left for college and everything seemed unknown and possible and full of good, pending surprise. the world was easier to live in and youthful courage was mine to be had.  we had firm bodies and minds that still needed shaping. we had music in our ears and plans for after supper. greens were greens and mouths were mouths. most everything was so much more as they were than now. a cow was a cow. a horn blasted pure. this and that fell into place and stayed there for a time. what a time was a time- that summer and that breeze so near and clear and dear.

  I’ve loved the Post front pages for 50 years. Back in the day, my good friend Michael and I enjoyed them like crazy. Today the headline is Dr NO with a picture of Dr Fauci at his Senate hearing yesterday where he pleaded the 5th more than a hundred times. He wouldn’t even say what color his tie was. I am ashamed to say - it even made me wonder and it definitely wasn’t a good look. Perception is all. Unfortunately. He's a good, formidible  man that didn't look like one yesterday.

  Out on some borderline Some mark of inbetween I lay down golden in time And woke up vanishing Sweet bird you are Briefer than a falling star All these vain promises on beauty jars Somewhere with your wings on time You must be laughing Behind our eyes Calendars of our lives Circled with compromise Sweet bird of time and change You must be laughing Up on your feathers laughing Golden in time Cities under the sand Power ideals and beauty Fading in everyone's hand Give me some time I feel like I'm losing mine Out here on this horizon line With the earth spinning And the sky forever rushing No one knows They can never get that close Guesses at most Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching                                       ...

The ghost of another comes to visit and we hold communion while the light shines. While the light shines, what else can we do? And who doesn’t have one foot in the grave? I notice how the trees seem shaggy with leaves and the steam of insects engulfs them. The light falls like an anchor through the branches. And which one of us is not being pulled down constantly? My mind floats in the purple air of my skull. I see myself dancing. I smile at everybody. Slowly I dance out of the burning house of my head. And who isn’t borne again and again into heaven?   Mark Strand