i am
allowing i am
wanting
another place to live
until this body calms down
— Rachel Alexandra Kass, from “A Lone”
Notes:
- Poem: the château of my heart. Photo: via Mennyfox55
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Tag: long day
It’s been a long day
Be like the bird, who
Halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him,
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings.
— Victor Hugo, “The Bird,” Twilight Songs (Les Chants du crépuscule), published in 1835.
Notes:
- Poem: Vale of Soul Making. Photo: Wojciech Paliwoda with Angel (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
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It’s been a long day
It’s not that I come back to writing after something revelatory or after a profound moment of change, but rather, it’s something small, inconsequential even. I eat berries, I drink stovetop espresso, I run until my knee gives out, I stand in the middle of my room for long periods of time, I water my plants and talk to them….I’m surprised when I eventually do come back to write. I read Alejandra Pizarnik’s line from her poem “Del Silencio” (“Fragments for Subduing the Silence”): Sin embargo, quedé cautiva de la antigua ternura. Each time I read it, I realize that’s all I can do: be tender and patient with myself, and captive in something older than me.
~ Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, from “Writers Recommend” (Poets & Writers, April 12, 2018)
Notes:
- Quote: Lines We Live By. Portrait of Marcelo Hernandez Castillo: Encore
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Bath Time!
Orphaned baby elephants take a mud bath at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. The elephant orphanage looks after 29 baby elephants orphaned by human-wildlife conflicts and poaching, among other causes. (Dai Kurokawa, wsj.com, April 10, 2018)
It’s been a long day
I have been thinking how the body
is a vulture—all avarice and need.
How longing creeps up, stalking
for days, catches with such force
it leaves you breathless.
— Carol V. Davis, from “Need” in Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg
Notes:
- Sources: Poem: Thank you Beth via Alive on All Channels. Photo: Patty Maher, After the Fall
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