April 2011
120 posts
Nancy Jane
Grandma laughing on her deathbed.
Eternity, the quiet one,
listening in.
Like moths around
an oil lamp we were.
Like ragdolls tucked away in the attic.
In walked a cat
with a mouthful of feathers.
(How about that?)
A dark little country store
full of gravedigger’s children
buying candy.
(That’s how we looked that night.)
The young men pumping gas
spoke of his friends: the clouds.
It was such a sad story,
it made everyone laugh.
A bird called out of a tree, but received no answer.
The beauty of that last moment
Like a red sail on the bay at sunset,
Or like a wheel breaking off a car
And roaming the world on its own.
- Charles Simic
“The slow overture of rain,
each drop breaking
without breaking into
the next, describes
the unrelenting, syncopated
mind. Not unlike
the hummingbirds
imagining their wings
to be their heart, and swallows
believing the horizon
to be a line they lift
and drop. What is it
they cast for? The poplars,
advancing or retreating,
lose their stature
equally, and yet stand firm,
making arrangements
in order to become
imaginary. The city
draws the mind in streets,
and streets compel it
from their intersections
where a little
belongs to no one. It is
what is driven through
all stationary portions
of the world, gravity’s
stake in things, the leaves,
pressed against the dank
window of November
soil, remain unwelcome
till transformed, parts
of a puzzle unsolvable
till the edges give a bit
and soften. See how
then the picture becomes clear,
the mind entering the ground
more easily in pieces,
and all the richer for it.” —Jorie Graham, “Mind” (via proustitute)
each drop breaking
without breaking into
the next, describes
the unrelenting, syncopated
mind. Not unlike
the hummingbirds
imagining their wings
to be their heart, and swallows
believing the horizon
to be a line they lift
and drop. What is it
they cast for? The poplars,
advancing or retreating,
lose their stature
equally, and yet stand firm,
making arrangements
in order to become
imaginary. The city
draws the mind in streets,
and streets compel it
from their intersections
where a little
belongs to no one. It is
what is driven through
all stationary portions
of the world, gravity’s
stake in things, the leaves,
pressed against the dank
window of November
soil, remain unwelcome
till transformed, parts
of a puzzle unsolvable
till the edges give a bit
and soften. See how
then the picture becomes clear,
the mind entering the ground
more easily in pieces,
and all the richer for it.” —Jorie Graham, “Mind” (via proustitute)
