I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot
我想去，想超越；卻不能
the moment scatters itself in many things,
一瞬間它散落在每一件事上，
I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
我已睡過那不夢石頭的夢
and deep among the dreams of years like stones
而那夢中石頭般的年歲，深處中
have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
聽見了被捆住的血，它唱誦的歌，
from Sunstone, Octavio Paz (chinese translation my own)
on moss:
mosses don’t have roots, they have rhizoids which are small hairlike structures. their main function is anchoring the plant to rock, bark or soil.
writing exercise excerpt from week #5 of Narrative Shifts: Form
What feels messy to you?
the morning after, fatigue and grogginess; tasks unfinished, forcefully ignored or discarded; the parts of you that hurt from being slept on; the eyes: not enough sleep; morning hair. too much of it. hair on the floor; death of a fly; the morning dishes and three cardigans flung over the same chair; your hands covered in crab and crab on the table; shell on the floor; quiet conversation in between. a poem is the apartment i clean in the mornings of my life; my life.
Some questions:
what are the things that remain shapeless?
what might still be looking for a boundary?
what is the vortex beneath your writing?
what is the force your work is colliding with?
what is the difference between a pattern and a bad habit?
Morgan Sears-Williams, buried film, Proof 30 at G44
Some answers:
how hard you grip a hilt doesn’t matter if you never swing
a heartbeat can be a war drum in your throat
if this should happen, please comfort me. send me word. do not hurry on.
From Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
on moss pt. 2:
mosses do not have xylem and phloem because they are non-vascular plants. they lack the conductive tissue to transport water and nutrients. instead, moisture is absorbed directly into cells by osmosis.
what feels messy to you?
nights and their old desires; refuge and compulsion; the shadow and light of love warping the lines everyday, everywhere, everytime; osmosis or skin as blood vessel; the blurring of function; mud and mangroves; lotus and the Buddha’s footsteps.
to bloom and to bear. to refuse. when you refuse, the mess begins. all that withering for no purpose. flowers like snow. barren as a branch. you are anti-fruit. you are fruitless. you unfruit. as in, this may all be literal but still, it feels light.
on roots and ghosts:
wait for a time.
I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain
or happiness
like candles lighting the entire soft lace
of the air
around the full length of your hair / a shower
organized by God
in brown and auburn
undulations luminous like particles
of flame.
But now I do
retrieve an afternoon of apricots
and water interspersed with cigarettes
and sand and rocks
we walked across:
How easily you held
my hand
beside the low tide
of the world
excerpt from Poem on Haruko, by June Jordan