funny

http://www.patrickmoberg.com/animalpharm

A Month in The Country

"We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever--the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.

All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.

But this was something I knew nothing of as I closed the gate and set off across the meadow."

The last few poignant paragraphs of A Month in The Country by J. L. Carr.

Memory is a funny thing. I think I too often get caught up wondering or worrying about the way I'll look back on things. It's not the future exactly which sways my decisions, but more fear or hope of the way I'll remember myself and my choices and motives...though I suppose that self we leave behind is always an elusive stranger, romantic, mysterious and enchanting.

it would be cool if it were this easy

maybe it is.

(here)

she's the one for me

Last night was Elizabeth Bishop's 100th birthday.

The Poetry Society of America had a fitting celebration in which 20 contemporary poets read their favorite Bishop poems, interspersed with excerpts of her correspondence with her New Yorker editors. It was most beautiful. The packed Cooper Union Great Hall was warmed by her mostly grayed, yet still starry-eyed admirers, each beaming with love, eagerly soaking in Bishop's familiar verses.

I cannot think of more pleasant company, a more deserving tribute, or more captivating words that could have eased my racing, confused mind with such sweet grace. While New York City may not be for me, Elizabeth Bishop will always be. I'm grateful that we, whoever we all are/were/will be, could settle in one great room for one great evening and share in reverence for a woman who affected each of us in some great way.

(here)

peanut butter

thanks, Jamie

"I don't think you necessarily answer these questions by consciously
wrestling with them. I think they weigh on you, and solutions are to
some degree worked out unconsciously." - Louise Gluck