Tag: night

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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All we ever talk of is light—
let there be light, there was light then,

good light—but what I consider
dawn is darker than all that.

So many hours between the day
receding and what we recognize

as morning, the sun cresting
like a wave that won’t break

over us—as if  light were protective,
as if  no hearts were flayed,

no bodies broken on a day
like today. In any film,

the sunrise tells us everything
will be all right. Danger wouldn’t

dare show up now, dragging
its shadow across the screen.

We talk so much of  light, please
let me speak on behalf

of  the good dark. Let us
talk more of how dark

the beginning of a day is.

— Maggie Smith, “How Dark the Beginning”

Notes:

  • Photo: DK @ Daybreak. July 14, 2021. 4:45 a.m.
  • 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.”

Spring Night

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The few minutes of a Spring night are worth ten thousand pieces of gold.

The perfume of the flowers is so pure.

The shadows of the moon are so black.

— Su Dongpo, (1037-1101) from “Spring Night” in “One Hundred Poems from the Chinese.” Trans. Kenneth Rexroth.

 

Notes:

Thirsty (95 sec)

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Let’s just say…Wow. Stick to the finish on this video.

And don’t miss these photographs here: The real Lion Kings: Incredible photographs show the majestic animals in their stunning natural habitat on the African plains (via DailyMail.com, February 23, 2019)

 

 

r u kin?

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If I get up now, I can make coffee. I can walk down the stairs, go to the kitchen, and make myself coffee. Maybe sit down and write. I can hear my husband breathing. Our daughter breathing…The dog breathing. If I listen, I can hear cars out on the road, it’s still nighttime, or early morning, it depends on who you are, how you were raised, what experiences you bring to the different times of day, it’s three forty-five now, do you call that morning or night, I call it morning, but too early to get up, I check the time on my cell phone and then I check my messages, I sit up and lie down, a few cars drive past right outside my window, there and there and there, and farther off a gentler stream, cars driving past at night sound different from cars driving past in the daytime. Today is the first of _ _ _ _ _ ….

~ Linn Ullmann, ”Unquiet: A Novel” (W. W. Norton & Company, January 15, 2019)

Photo: Eric Rose

A neighborhood. At dusk.

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A neighborhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.

~ Eavan Boland, “This Moment” from In a Time of Violence

Notes: Poem Source – The Writer’s Almanac. Photo: Source- Unknown