
going over small things like these.
You've got to dig to dig it, you dig?

going over small things like these.
Let us go back together to the hills.
Weary am I of palaces and courts,
Weary of words disloyal to my thoughts,—
Come, my belovèd, let us to the hills.
Let us go back together to the land,
And wander hand in hand upon the heights;
Kings have we seen, and manifold delights,—
Oh, my beloved, let us to the land!
Lone and unshackled, let us to the road
Which holds enchantment round each hiddenbend,
Our course uncompassed and our whim its end,
Our feet once more, belovèd, to the road!
Song: Let Us Go Back, Vita Sackville-West

by way of entry you sit with an object, hold it in your hands, rub your fingers across its grooves. you close your eyes, not so much an act of faith as it is an attempt to focus the senses, to see what knowing might be made available through a haptic relationship. it is only a wallet. it is empty. Reginald Jerry Clark would leave this for Regina, she in turn would leave this for you. she teaches you not to speak ill of the dead, to not speak of them at all, so there is no ceremony around the absence.
a black rail worker was born in 1913, served as a porter for The Great Northern Railroad for 25 years and retired without pension. he died some time later. in 1913 there was a rail worker, a porter he served on The Great Northern Railroad and died some time after retirement. a black rail worker died and came back a porter, he retired without pension he died. a black worker was born a porter for the railroad he died and came back as a quarter mile of track. a black rail worker worked and railed and died and retirement was always later, later.
you work with words, which unlike the wallet, is not a material you touch, but you wonder if in reordering them you might disrupt what is presupposed, if you might work something other than emptiness from their grooves. you’ve only failed at this. you are not yet a skilled enough practitioner of failure, and so you keep reordering them, to see what casts a shadow.
[by way of entry you sit with an object], Chaun Webster
![Africans bringing wood (LOC)
[between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920]
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/4431/36772967196_98d31667b3_b.jpg?w=739&ssl=1)


[The President of the US] on Wednesday signed a travel ban on 12 countries, primarily in Africa and the Middle East, resurrecting an effort from his first term to prevent large numbers of immigrants and visitors from entering the United States.
The ban, which goes into effect on Monday, bars travel to the United States by citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
via NYTimes (June 4, 2025, 8:52 p.m. ET).
There’s also a list of exceptions, including green card holders, dual citizens, athletes traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup or the Olympics, and others. See who’s exempted.

Yes, of course,
in the end so much comes down to privilege
and its various penumbras, but too much
of our unruly animus has already been
wasted on reprisals, too much of the
unblessed air is filled with smoke from
undignified fires. Oh friends, take
whatever kindness you can find
and be profligate in its expenditure
Be Kind, Michael Blumenthal





Wild nights – Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah – the Sea!
Might I but moor – tonight –
In thee!
Wild nights – Wild nights!, Emily Dickinson

But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.
The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats—
The little throats that sing and rise
Up into the light with lovely ease
And a kind of magical, sweet surprise
To hear and know themselves for these—
For these little voices: the bee, the fly,
The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,
The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,
The shrill quick sound that the insect makes.
Voices of the Air, Katherine Mansfield