When the evening light, slanting into the woods somewhere bathes the tree trunks in gold… Singing and thinking are the stems neighbor to poetry. They grow out of Being and reach into its truth. Their relationship makes us think of what Hölderlin sings of the trees of the woods: “And to each other they remain […]
All I can tell you is, when the abscess finally drains the odor is so foul it’s evil. And I’m not sure, driving home later that night, still smelling the pallid citrus, whether it’s merely hallucination, the way her memory inhabits me; or if being in that same room, inhaling that same air, made some […]
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The pure products of America go crazy— mountain folk from Kentucky or the ribbed north end of Jersey with its isolate lakes and valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves old names and promiscuity between devil-may-care men who have taken to railroading out of sheer lust of adventure— and young slatterns, bathed in filth from Monday to Saturday […]
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
I want to remember us this way— late September sun streaming through the window, bread loaves and golden bunches of grapes on the table, spoonfuls of hot soup rising to our lips, filling us with what endures. —Peter Pereira, A Pot of Red Lentils
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
And Will? Why he’s the last peach, high on the summer tree. Some boys walk by and you cry, seeing them. They feel good, they look good, they are good. Oh, they’re not above peeing off a bridge, or stealing an occasional dime-store pencil sharpener; it’s not that. It’s just, you know, seeing them pass, […]
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
His most pleasant memory of that time was of a very timid young girl, almost a child, who trembled as she asked him to write an answer to an irresistible letter that she had just received, and that Florentino Ariza recognized as one he had written on the previous afternoon. He answered it in a […]
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Gentlemen, we’re all cruel, we’re all monsters, we all make men weep, and mothers, and babes at the breast, but of all, let it be settled here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I’ve sworn to amend, and every day I’ve done the same filthy things. I understand now that such men as […]
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
“No, no,” Mitya, as it were, still did not understand. “Tell me why it is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the babe poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don’t they hug each other and kiss? Why don’t they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from […]
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Floressas Des Esseintes, to judge by the various portraits preserved in the Château de Lourps, had originally been a family of stalwart troopers and stern cavalry men. Closely arrayed, side by side, in the old frames which their broad shoulders filled, they startled one with the fixed gaze of their eyes, their fierce moustaches […]
Saturday, September 11, 2010
After reading Dharma Bums I looked up the poetry of Han Shan, translated by Gary Snyder. A few: In a tangle of cliffs, I chose a place— Bird paths, but no trails for me. What’s beyond the yard? White clouds clinging to vague rocks. Now I’ve lived here—how many years— Again and again, spring and […]