AG2023_1056169a or not places at all but abstractions

AG2023_1056169a

“and here—desolate, roughly surfaced, lined with eucalyptus and lemon groves—is Banyan Street.

[…]

into this perfect mold might be poured the inarticulate longings of a nation

[…]

one of those circumstances that satisfy one’s suspicion that life is indeed a scenario […] beautiful in its venality and in its devotion to immediate gratification

[…]

distinguishing between what happened and what merely might have happened, but I remain unconvinced that the distinction, for my purposes, matters

[…]

We must be aware of the dangers which lie in our most generous wishes

[…]

not places at all but abstractions”

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays

AG2023_1056137a or you’d been waiting to hear

AG2023_1056137a

Can you hear me? I gesture
mutely to the parking lot. The trees
do not answer; they’re trees, 
                        and know better.”

-Tarfia Faizullah, Poem Without Love


“… pause

and sprawl in the grass while I read to you
the poem you hadn’t known you’d been waiting

to hear. I read until you finally slept”

-Tarfia Faizullah, The Poem You’ve Been Waiting For