And I don’t feel like posting but think I should.
Sitting on the back porch and enjoying coffee – or what of it we can (see previous post) – smoking and contemplating the universe at last. Too much brain activity for such a beautiful day.
What looks to be six week old kittens peek their heads out from under the porch so we feed them and wait for them to brave the unknown world that is our backyard. An admittedly scary place – the world, including the backyard.
I think of David Ignatow – “The world is so difficult to give up” – I have maybe a half dozen poems memorized and that is almost another – it’s the second line I have trouble with and sometimes in the middle I remember a different poem and start that one instead. I used to have Poe’s “The Raven” committed to memory but now all I hold onto is the first verse. Shame, really. No-one seems to memorize poetry anymore. I’ve committed none of my own to memory and I ought.
the world is so difficult to give up
tied to it by small things
my eyes noting movement
color and form
I am watching, unable to leave
for something is happening so I stand
in a shower of rain or under a hot sun
worn out
with looking
– David Ignatow
the line breaks are wrong, I know and I cannot remember where they go – but this is a close approximation.The world is difficult to give up, but we must. The party will indeed go on without us and in this we must find comfort.
I smoke again and contemplate something closer – more tangible than the universe – my mind isn’t great enough to realize the many stars and the shear insignificance of our own. Earth, the only planet in our Solar system not named after one God or another, our planet is named after it’s dirt. I contemplate its constant survivor, its hero – the tardigrade.
the platitudes of willful resemblance 