And the opposite of a windmill not turning, is the movement of a poem in cyberspace filling unseen sails.
Last night's reading included this one:
GOING HOME THE LONGEST WAY AROUND we tell stories, build from fragments of our lives maps to guide us to each other. We make collages of the way it might have been had it been as we remembered, as we think perhaps it was, tallying in our middle age diminishing returns.
Last night the lake was still; all along the shoreline bright pencil marks of light, and children in the dark canoe pleading “Tell us scary stories.” Fingers trailing in the water, I said someone I loved who died told me in a dream to not be lonely, told me not to ever be afraid.
And they were silent, the children, listening to the water lick the sides of the canoe.
It’s what we love the most can make us most afraid, can make us for the first time understand how we are rocking in a dark boat on the water, taking the long way home.
Paddling the canoe home on choppy Lake Placid We kept rounding a bend only to find another bend Ahead to be rounded and I was tiring in front But Dad was digging deep in the back of the canoe And there was another bend and we rounded that one But no there was still another bend up ahead And with a final heave we rounded that bend and there it was! Home! Home at the lakeside at last and we were home.
We are not alone and we do not round the last bend alone...ever.
4 comments:
OT -- It's time to inflict a poem on you guys.
TRUCK
Early morning
Black grill bulldog hood black cab windshield
Frontal full frontal
Pink light eaten by black grill
Big black vertical rectangle
Stretching out both sides parking lot paper cup metal shards
Behind stretching out both sides blue hill no color sky
Big black vertical rectangle
Frontal full frontal
That's all
A European story about two gays who spend their lives together in adventure who sleep together but cannot even finger each other properly and as dénouement pick up two beards, just like the first guy who led to the adventure. So it's a cyclical endless psychic trap. My least favorite part is their first sight of the exotic city full of promise featuring a windmill that isn't turning. Is there anything worse for animation than a windmill drawn but not turning? It means no wind. No industry worth mentioning. It means a low-level natural energy capture that doesn't come through. Ocean waves are more reliable. Running water is more reliable. Geothermal taps are more reliable, but windmills are prettier, more romantic, more artistic so they get animated, except they're not even moving. At that point I became totally bummed out and had to drag myself through the rest of the story. All because the windmill ... is ... not ... turning! And it would have been so easy to turn the windmill, but nooOOOOOOooo.
And the opposite of a windmill not turning, is the movement of a poem in cyberspace filling unseen sails.
Last night's reading included this one:
GOING HOME THE LONGEST WAY AROUND
we tell stories, build
from fragments of our lives
maps to guide us to each other.
We make collages of the way
it might have been
had it been as we remembered,
as we think perhaps it was,
tallying in our middle age
diminishing returns.
Last night the lake was still;
all along the shoreline
bright pencil marks of light, and
children in the dark canoe pleading
“Tell us scary stories.”
Fingers trailing in the water,
I said someone I loved who died
told me in a dream
to not be lonely, told me
not to ever be afraid.
And they were silent, the children,
listening to the water
lick the sides of the canoe.
It’s what we love the most
can make us most afraid, can make us
for the first time understand
how we are rocking in a dark boat on the water,
taking the long way home.
~ Pat Schneider
Paddling the canoe home on choppy Lake Placid
We kept rounding a bend only to find another bend
Ahead to be rounded and I was tiring in front
But Dad was digging deep in the back of the canoe
And there was another bend and we rounded that one
But no there was still another bend up ahead
And with a final heave we rounded that bend and there it was!
Home! Home at the lakeside at last and we were home.
We are not alone and we do not round the last bend alone...ever.
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