Lightly Child, Lightly

~ Live & Learn

You wander in and out of rain.
The city encloses you. You feel
the darkening of its metals, above ground
and below. Every night
you touch a boundary you don’t understand.
Even asleep you crave sleep,
you hold the moving hours like water.
Rickety dreams, a high feeling of poplars
at the far edge of two fields. Motors
carry you, or your feet pull you forward
in cool dispersals of color.
What happens each day to you
is delicate craft and commerce, each promising
everything, promising
nothing. You are close…

Your weightlessness
is that of summer trees
and seaside towns…

—  Joanna Klink, from “Portrait In Summer” in “The Nightfields”

 

Notes:

  • Photo: jasonjko (Honolulu, Hawaii) Quote: adrasteiax
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

22 thoughts on “Lightly Child, Lightly”

    1. “Even asleep you crave sleep,
      you hold the moving hours like water.
      Rickety dreams, a high feeling of poplars
      at the far edge of two fields. Motors
      carry you, or your feet pull you forward
      in cool dispersals of color.
      What happens each day to you
      is delicate craft and commerce, each promising
      everything, promising
      nothing. You are close.”

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. Zut alors!!!! (oh sugar in E!): Look what I took for ME from that poem:

    Even asleep you crave sleep,
    you hold the moving hours like water.

    Why oh why did I have to first dry my hair, pick up the dried washing from the cellar….. just to have Darling Dale get to ‘my’ bit first?! ….. Aren’t we all the same?

    btw; that photo is a real killer – being far too hot here.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. Yes. Yes. Yes…edging closer to a boundary we don’t understand – is this why we wake so quickly and find falling asleep a challenge? What gorgeous writing and wow what a delicious photo

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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