From a laborless weekend of rest: wild wheat above a dry riverbed. enjoy!

more of some of the same, but again.

Autumn began with an evening of storms, was brought in with clouds and wind and lightning that started low in the sky to the east of downtown and spread its way over us and through us. It came before the rain and was surprising; I stood looking east through glass and wanted it, deep inside like you want for something missing even when you have it in your hands. It held its own music and needed none. And then came the rain, and the lightning became less like flashbulbs and more like fire, branching its way across the sky and lighting dim at the horizon. A wood chime blew below us and it was the music and the streets began to mirror the night black sky. We breathed it in and held it, and it held us for a time until the wind shifted and we left it for the inside. It came down through the chimney and beat on panes and still the lightning. The rain in sheets breathed pause and the movement then was only the shadow of dancing branches. It didn’t stop them from walking, or headlights from passing in cars making sounds more like waves than machines. The first day of new season at its conclusion; as promised in autumn the air is cool and hope is there.

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.