Author: dig

  • Still, for that little while

    AG2026_1233449a
    AG2026_1233449a. On the 500 block of NW 32 Street.

    Earthquake Magnitude 7.4 – 5 km S of San José del Palmar, Colombia. Servicio Geológico Colombiano.

    El volcán Puracé, also, erupted.


    Of course it was a disaster.
    The unbearable, dearest secret
    has always been a disaster.
    The danger when we try to leave.
    Going over and over afterward
    what we should have done
    instead of what we did.
    But for those short times
    we seemed to be alive. Misled,
    misused, lied to and cheated,
    certainly. Still, for that
    little while, we visited
    our possible life.

    Going There, Jack Gilbert

  • AG2026_1233594a hushing the heart that beats

    AG2026_1233594a

    Tell me is there anything lovelier, 
    Anything more quieting 
    Than the green of little blades of grass
    And the green of little leaves? 

    Is not each leaf a cool green hand, 
    Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger, 
    Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?

    Greenness, Angelina Weld Grimké

  • AG2026_1233556a slips in and sing

    AG2026_1233556a
    AG2026_1233556a

    In the very early morning 
    Long before Dawn time 
    I lay down in the paddock 
    And listened to the cold song of the grass. 
    Between my fingers the green blades, 
    And the green blades pressed against my body. 
    “Who is she leaning so heavily upon me?” 
    Sang the grass. 
    “Why does she weep on my bosom,
    Mingling her tears with the tears of my mystic lover?
    Foolish little earth child! 
    It is not yet time. 
    One day I shall open my bosom 
    And you shall slip in—but not weeping. 
    Then in the early morning 
    Long before Dawn time 
    Your lover will lie in the paddock. 
    Between his fingers the green blades 
    And the green blades pressed against his body . . . 
    My song shall not sound cold to him 
    In my deep wave he will find the wave of your hair 
    In my strong sweet perfume, the perfume of your kisses. 
    Long and long he will lie there  . . . 
    Laughing—not weeping.”

    The Earth-Child in the Grass, Katherine Mansfield

    To be able to walk along and see
    the fierce green sun
    the meadow grass the tall gently bobbing weeds
    then to take a walk inside yourself
    and see trees tall as Tom Thumb
    It’s always raining here It never rains
    I’m strolling among the shadows of everyone
    I’ve ever loved
    But this morning I was flying with the birds
    Not knowing like the map there was a destination
    But it was fun
    Like making love on Tuesday instead of
    our customary Sunday afternoon
    I’ve learned to suffocate death
    and continue doing so all day

    Song, Paul Carroll

  • These moments

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    AG2025_DSF6194b

    For Lefebvre, ‘moments’ are intense experiences in which everyday life is suspended and possibilities for authenticity, creativity or transcendence are opened up. These moments – whether aesthetic, amorous or revolutionary – reveal the potential richness of existence, both individual and collective. This approach seeks to break with the reproduction of relations of domination.

  • Painting and poetry and music will show us where

    El Michels Affair – Shimmy Shimmy Ya. Enter The 37th Chamber, 2009.


    —after Frank O’Hara

    You have been smiling across the table at your date
    with a sesame seed stuck in your teeth.

    You will gain sophistication, become accepted by Reader’s
    Digest, and retire in Puyallup.

    In your next life you will be a teacher
    and no one will ever call you by your first name.

    After your next vacation you will come home
    and discover that your neighbors have redecorated
    in the style of Iowa trailer court.

    If you feel like you’re getting old,
    secretly plant zucchini in your neighbor’s flowerbeds.

    Avoid people who iron their sheets
    or roll their socks & underwear.

    Painting and poetry and music will show us where we should
    be going, not the senate or tv news.

    The next thermos bottle you see will actually
    be a listening device made in Korea.

    All the people in this restaurant
    are glad that they are not you.

    New Lines for Fortune Cookies, James Masao Mitsui

  • among the ordinary beautiful

    AG2023-GUA-Document-vinyl-053023b-page004
    AG2023-GUA-Document-vinyl-053023b-page004

    https://www.tumblr.com/birdbird/824043260811132928/time-august-4-2026-at-0235pm-link

    Gabriel Orozco, Untitled (Computer generated circles and squares). 1995.



    One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful
    flowers, one unlike all the others! She pulled,
    stooped to pull harder—
    when, sprung out of the earth
    on his glittering terrible
    carriage, he claimed his due.
    It is finished. No one heard her.
    No one! She had strayed from the herd.

    (Remember: go straight to school.
    This is important, stop fooling around!
    Don't answer to strangers. Stick
    with your playmates. Keep your eyes down.)
    This is how easily the pit
    opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground.

    Persephone, Falling, Rita Dove
  • And the lovely repetition

    AG2022-FG_1011433a
    AG2022-FG_1011433a,
    Taken on November 26, 2022

    Small Oscillations Among Ordinary Forms.


    It is a kind of love, is it not?
    How the cup holds the tea,
    How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
    How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
    Or toes. How soles of feet know
    Where they’re supposed to be.
    I’ve been thinking about the patience
    Of ordinary things, how clothes
    Wait respectfully in closets
    And soap dries quietly in the dish,
    And towels drink the wet
    From the skin of the back.
    And the lovely repetition of stairs.
    And what is more generous than a window?

    The Patience of Ordinary Things, Pat Schneider

  • To practice is to repeat

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    Daffodils_triptychii-Document-020123-page001-003

    Poetry and the Turning World: Money, Sarah Howe and Sandeep Parmar.

    I have yet to read An Uncomplicated Man, Emily Wilson. I’m sure it’s a good read.


    “Let us,” he said
    “make man,”

    as if ?he had to ask
    someone’s permission

    even if always
    only

    his own.


    To practice is to repeat
    what has not yet
    occurred.


    We get signals
    from the future.

    We’re invited to grow
    by entwining,

    twinning.

    Being duplicitous?


    A rose by any other
    rose

    is its own
    paradise

    of luminous
    folds.

    The Fold, Rae Armantrout