Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

The holiday is over and the holidays are coming with one last sprint before rest. I heard that planets were illuminated above the moon and remembered I had seen them, unknowingly; had marveled at their brilliance. The sun was suspended in a mix of gold and flames and unnamed blue that separated clouds from earth like oil and water, raising the color up with magnification above the lower horizon. I later raced to friends under a sky of lightning like flashbulbs, and then low and distant. Then retreated back in clarity by grace and Christmas music. I hope you’re enjoying it too. And that you enjoy the following, a sort of winter tradition of finals, and maybe identify or mostly are encouraged at the solidarity– and then get to sleep soundly.


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-R.F.

"this afternoon with you was something like a letter, the kind that someone writes but never sends..."

I met the socialist sociologist, a loved and loving friend, at the museum, and spent several hours staring at paint. It seemed we all left with excitement and exhaustion and contentment and confusion. I was grateful we enjoyed and aren’t expert enough to be snobbish, but could value beauty and creativity simply. Much “nearness by likeness”, here is some of what we saw:

Vincent van Gogh: Bedroom in Arles, second version.
People may think van Gogh was crazy and look to the disproportion here as evidence. That he suffered can't be denied, but this room really was trapezoidal. Thank you audio tour.



Degas: Ballet at the Paris Opera.




Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Cirque Fernando, The Equestrienne
the Socialist Sociologist's favorite























Monet: Water Lily Pond
quintessentially

Autumn has come to town and the wind picks up in the evenings, blowing leaves, and before turning onto pavement I notice the sun under limbs, space that seems to glitter in the declining light. It looks alive until I realize it is only floating with no direction. If I’m not careful, sometimes this wind picks me up in breezes and I’m carried around the upper stories of downtown to drift about, beholden as the sunset is better viewed with the height. As the night settles, the city is lit by a moon with a face that offers one progressive and eternal note and is hung in clouds as it should be in October. I feel a refining and wonder if it is something to be enjoyed; if pleasure can be taken in pain, or at least peace. I am too often forgetful. Recent conversations seem to wonder if creativity necessitates this type of pain. In sound. In paint. Could the past be something to build on, acknowledging always the timeless Time-creator. Surely, though difficulty finds me wanting to recreate and recreate.

I stole my mother’s Leaves of Grass at the end of summer, and though she’s certainly a much closer relation than that title, it seems to fit with Whitman. Mothers should own poetry, which should be stolen by children. Anyways, I love her, and I like this, and he is better at words to convey the idea. So as with things people like, it should be shared:


For him, I sing,
I raise the present on the past,
(As some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past,)
With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself by them the law unto himself.
W.W.

"come, there is bread and wine for all of us."

Someone said the gulf was angry and it seemed we had all fled for the weekend. Danger and uncertainty led us to homes away from homes and I wondered if it was what all the days are meant to be, whirlwind and cyclical bringing us to places of brokenness to hope to apathy to boredom to stress to brokenness and hope again.




They sang of love and hurt and hope to a crowded house and it felt like community and we were alive. I heard a stranger say once that a certain music made him want to smoke and write everything in the world on a single piece of paper and I think he wouldn’t mind my thievery and would even have offered it in advancing approval and appreciation. It was beautiful. The weekend rushed to past in a mug of advancing hours and conversation of good difficulty. Nine gave way to ten and eleven and midnight, and carefully hung a moon full and low that led the road to a new day.


Now returned, this wooden house named for trees brings us diversely in for the same reasons as their music, I think, and I feel a sojourner again gone to a place I know will lead home, will lead always to the people I love and want to love. Mostly I’m believing it's always better to know than to distance, to share rather than hide, to be vulnerable instead of attempting to intrigue with mystery because loving heals and we all want for home.

134 hairpins for a "glorious image of divine love".

A Holy Matrimony filled us with joy on the outskirts of a town that is still my home. We sat around tables and told stories of love and comedy and encouragement and it was a blessing to all and an honoring completion to the following day. Such different processes for bride and groom but a walk down the aisle joined the two rightly and it was so beautiful and good it made the one I call brother tear with joy and peace and grace. I was glad to see his face and hear the clarity of voice as he took his bride. After such anticipation, the day has passed, and my hope was for their today and tomorrow and it is still my hope that their tomorrows are long and their union grows stronger and fuller and more magnificently beautiful as a tree with age.

I have very badly wanted a parakeet lately. His name would be Leonidas.

Sunday night in the city. Dusk comes late these days as daylight stretches out across a frame so wide it confuses time. Along Washington, the setting sun hits downtown with a glow of orange and reds that make a soul ache for permanence. The sight will last only a moment. A towering skyline reflects it back in submission, economy bowing to calm before a Monday that will bring a week of movement and energy. Planes fly west chasing the disappearing horizon. Here now, monies are counted and dishes washed, clinking and clanging to end the day and I too wish to chase west, knowing night will be long and tomorrow begins my last week here for a while. Pen to paper to keys and letter in darkness distracts for a time from a struggle that will claim the next several hours. Thoughts that need exit before concentration. Lamps are lit in counteraction with songs on repeat to note the words that have yet to be heard. I’m glad for the jazz they played so near to closing, and the smell of radiance and the quest for community.

Blue-Butterfly Day, a notable spring.

Woke this morning to light skies and thunder, as I expect tomorrow to begin. The day passed slowly as moving out of doors felt like swimming, hot and humid. I was grateful for the April spring that is warming to summer. So in gratitude, a plagiarism:



It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
R.F.

A struggled mix of proximity and distance confused and minutes pass as sleep evades.

Three hours and miles ahead. Roads will greet the sun as northern travel goes and I along will be grateful for light. Hands thick with air want water and three has come sooner than expected. It seems thoughts come at the suggestion of friends or music or dreams, and today has had much of each. Words with shared glances and silence. I listened to a friend’s song so beautiful it was all I could do to stay confined to chest without explosion from ache. And surprising wisdom and question from a friend left vision for a time and end of which I’m still unsure. How can I miss the place I’m in?

distracted by storms that beat on streets and lights that fill the sky with branches of fire, so here's a few days ago.

Weekends flow slowly, winding through streets and slowing the course of time reminding us to rest and breathe. I spent much of today making needed repairs on a damage of which I was unaware. The knowledge came only later, when I returned and found it wanting correction. I hadn’t even noticed the injury; it must have come under a sky of blue and deeper gray, a beautiful following to unexpected storms enjoyed on a porch with friends. A sky that cleared with time and rose with the sun. Or maybe down a road that lead to stones with ancient dates and names put in the ground.

A night with new friends made me grateful that community was not exclusive to Eden. Thanks be to the forgiving Lover.

I woke with the sun and remembered a dream of one who took the face of a distant acquaintance. Remembered of how easily we use and are used and that easy is often embraced at the sacrifice of meaning and hope. Towards, I was scared and staggered. I thought it was desire, but the desire wasn’t real and the desire was not for me. And then I woke. I’ve been told lately to let things be what they are instead of what they can do for me. And of letting words be what they are and not trying to make them into what I want or think I need them to mean - in an attempt to be less self-consumed. I could use a lot of that attempt.

and Pygmalion and Galatea by Gerome because it's beautiful

I’ve wanted to leave this with something, have written several times and left them saved and folded away. Of coffee and how I wished we could share this conversation over a fresh pot. Or a mug of bengal tea, as I’ve been drinking much of that lately. I wrote once of a dream of storms and how it left confusion and an exhaustion that was relieved only after time and thought that what I had been so convinced was reality had no foundation in fear and the sun and earth I rested on was sure again. I told it to a friend in a tone of mockery and wondered if I would have benefited both by keeping silent. A cheap joke. A visit to friends, probably you, left me with thoughts of aching and books and measured time. Mostly gladness. And a letter on return. I hope to tell you more, but this was tuesday, and it might not make sense, but it’s what I have to say today:


Dark clouds and weeping skies dance in the windows whistling a song of mourning echoed by strings and wind with a voice of love and longing. And I remember the dream of fear that woke me in the early hours and left me in a cold sweat and an empty room – a dream of fear for something so unknown and threatening. The thunder taunts downpour needed to wash our sins and remind that a peacock’s feathers mean something just within our grasp to know and comprehend. And faces and honesty and vulnerability even when acted leave an aching for something not promised or recognized as promised, but I am not so confused as I lean in. This music is new and full of future and creativity and science meets sound, here where those of history may someday join. News and gladness. Apropos. And let us not fill with darkness but complexity and desires to avoid sloth, to appreciate rest and knowledge and the greatness of this journey on The Knowledge Limited, clicking on tracks of books and words, clicking tunes with voice and key and melodies of spice and a fullness in flavor as all we need is You to save us.

aiming to avoid clanging

Thinking about love today, as everyone else is I suppose, but have been frequently of late. It seems important, even without a higher knowledge of its essence. I find it is everywhere - cinema, books, music. I find it is inescapable. C.S. Lewis classifies four loves, I started this earlier. Still haven't finished his thoughts. I was interrupted with Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. Interesting read. I am swimming in thoughts not quite congealed on what she said. Most of what I took away had nothing to do with romance. Today I heard that hearts are failing. What does this relate of our ideas of love? I suppose we have missed all if our aim is morality.

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals with human eloquence and of angels with angelic ecstasy, but don't have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions to the poor, and if I hand over my body to the stake to be burned as a martyr so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing, have gotten nowhere. No matter what I say, what I believe, what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love is patient - never gives up; love is kind - cares more for others than for self; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. It bears all things, putting up with anything, trusts God always, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."


Dallas saw the most beautiful sunrise I have known in ages this morning.

a path to writings not my own

I took a trail that lead past rocks and water, and had the feel of nature but was most certainly enclosed by fence and planned. Walking along, I climbed stone steps and reclined to re-begin a book I had picked up some years ago. The author spoke of nearness to God. It seemed familiar, closer than just a glance of a read from the distant past. The nearness-by-likeness seemed like an echo of something I had heard from a friend. And then I remembered her story - It’s still one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. In reference to the Introduction of C.S. Lewis’ “The Four Loves” - he speaks to things I have felt were beautiful but never knew why. “Read it. I know you’ll love it.”

A View from the Fondamenta Nuove Looking Towards San Cristoforo, San Miebel and Murano, and you must come to Dallas if you want to see it.

There is much of this place I want to share. I found an old writing and thought it a good place to begin.

11.2.07
“Went to Dallas with mom and dad last weekend. Time is significant and I was glad for the journey. There’s so much to tell of late and it was difficult to wait for the right times in conversation to relay. And I had a fear of telling them how I feel like I’m failing and am. It always seems like after that’s out, after I tell of the bad news and rebellion, there is a breath and relax. It’s strange, the aging together. I wonder what they think about it. Mom said shes made an attempt to give room. Thank you, I said. Some don’t and I’m not sure what is good or not I just know that I know they love me and that is enough. We are family. The school is good. The building is not much architecturally, but there is a great backyard and it is connected to the dorm. We ate lunch in a really scene part of town and I don’t want my time there to be that. I don’t know if I could get into that again, but I want what I’ve learned here to continue, and to find a group that wants to learn the same. Everyone is just looking for people like them, I guess. Aren’t I? I did find a pub I’d like to visit and I’m glad to be able to.”

So I’ve moved. I live in a new city with new people and weather and buildings and street names. It’s strange how something so new and confusing can begin to seem almost familiar. I’m asked what direction I’ve headed and I say to and away from downtown. Seems right, doesn’t it? I’m told it can’t be so. Certain things here make a space recognizable in moments. A tapestry, pictures, maps, books, lanterns. Good advice from a friend about words. It hasn’t rained yet, and I feel like I am waiting for the consummation. Time here has been filled with people and talking and roads. A familiar stranger.

We went to the art museum in the first days and I broke away and stood in front of a painting by an Italian long dead and scribbled down the name so I could look it up again. Wondering if the view from the foundation had been familiar, had been home, and who must have lived or died there, and if they loved. Or if he only wished for such a place and view and love. And wondering what he meant. Thinking of all this, David walked up behind me and asked my opinion. I couldn’t reply so well because I really didn’t know. In these thoughts, of a scene of reality or not, I felt what Giovanni must have been. And of a friend who told me once how hard it is to write because when or how it will be read cannot be controlled. I wonder that Giovanni knew his painting would hang in a room with a dozen others I would walk by in beginning in this city and that someone would pause to stand and look at his and what he might say to that. If he had a message, it came through a glass fogged with time and place and circumstance, but I held on to what I thought it might be and was grateful for the scene he offered.

Now returned from a weekend of familiarity and comfort. Words of kindness and love and pajamas and sleep. Back in my room, the rain was silent and I hardly noticed it was falling. After looking out the window I realized I had known for some time.