Francesca

You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hand,
Now you will come out of a confusion of people,
Out of a turmoil of speech about you.

I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
In ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf,
Or as a dandelion see-pod and be swept away,
So that I might find you again,
Alone.

-- Ezra Pound

Etc. etc. und so weiter. There's reasons that man died lonely. I get them.

rachel...

hit by: a new-start feeling (re: apartment-cleaning only)
procrastinating: laundry and litterbox
engrossed: Imports, Exports, and the American Worker; Susan M. Collins, Ed.; Brookings Institute project. Also Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology (Vol. I).
feels: grateful and happy to be researching
noticed: research books consumption is directly proportionate indicator of contentment. novel-reading is inversely proportionate; more novels = greater need for escape.
wants: more houseplants
bookmarked: taz.sporkism.org

Paper, People and Work

Ritual, how could we do without it! Though it may seem to be gibberish and irreverence, though the Mass is offered up in such haste that the sacred sentence, "hoc est corpus meus" was abbreviated into "hocus-pocus" by the bitter protestor and has come down into our language meaning trickery, nevertheless there is a sureness and conviction there. And just as a husband may embrace his wife casually as he leaves for work in the morning, and kiss her absent-mindedly in his comings and goings, still that kiss on occasion turns to rapture, a burning fire of tenderness and love. And with this to stay her she demands the "ritual" of affection shown. The little altar boy kissing the cruet of water as he hands it to the priest is performing a rite. We have too little ritual in our lives.

-- Dorothy Day
from her autobiography, The Long Loneliness (1952)
on reflection after Steve Hergenhan's death

Translation

Death is nature’s way
of telling you to be quiet

Of saying it’s time
to be weaned, your conflagration starved
to diamond

I’ll give you something to cry about.

And what those treetops swaying
dimly in the wind spelled.

-- Franz (with-a-"z") Wright

...

passport



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