I have never spent so much time in the land of mediocrity. Did you know you still have to apply for a work visa here? The elite laugh over their sparkling wines, explaining that trying is what differentiates them from us, delivered with a smile and a tsk-tsk, one of which is sincere.
But staying in the land of mediocrity is itself work. Simply floating, without attempting to swim ashore, takes exhausting, wild, desperate treading of the feet. An immense output of energy. No less than those already parallel with the waves, their fluid bodies billowing in time with the tides. I wonder what it takes to go from vertical treading to horizontal swimming. I wonder what truly differentiates us and them. I wonder if knowing the answer would help us, or sink us further.
**
Friday, May 25, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
mice and men
"What things are steadfast? ...
Not the bride and groom who hurry
in their brevity to reach one another.
...
Fearing madness in all things huge
and their requiring...
...
We love a little, as the mice
huddle..."
--Linda Gregg
I found this poem a couple of nights ago, what a moment of serendipitous premonition. Had I known how perfectly it would fit this moment, 48 hours from when I first fell in love with it, I would have said: you say you are in love with these words (and other fanciful ideas), but you have no idea. You who barely tasted the air above the well of infatuation, beneath which a current runs to the oceans and other oceans. I would say, you are as brief, as contained, as mouse-like as this poem accuses you. You who wear the target this poem aims at, but have yet to feel the arrow's sharp piercing. Even 48 hours from now, the silver will only have scraped by with barely a scratch.
But who listens to the poets? What I have now is infinitesimal compared to the seas; what I had then was smaller still. Somewhere on dimensions not mine, the gods are savoring all things huge and mad and ignited, rolling them around their tongues as occasional flames escape out of their lips. While I--
while I barely make it into the world of mice and men.
**
Not the bride and groom who hurry
in their brevity to reach one another.
...
Fearing madness in all things huge
and their requiring...
...
We love a little, as the mice
huddle..."
--Linda Gregg
I found this poem a couple of nights ago, what a moment of serendipitous premonition. Had I known how perfectly it would fit this moment, 48 hours from when I first fell in love with it, I would have said: you say you are in love with these words (and other fanciful ideas), but you have no idea. You who barely tasted the air above the well of infatuation, beneath which a current runs to the oceans and other oceans. I would say, you are as brief, as contained, as mouse-like as this poem accuses you. You who wear the target this poem aims at, but have yet to feel the arrow's sharp piercing. Even 48 hours from now, the silver will only have scraped by with barely a scratch.
But who listens to the poets? What I have now is infinitesimal compared to the seas; what I had then was smaller still. Somewhere on dimensions not mine, the gods are savoring all things huge and mad and ignited, rolling them around their tongues as occasional flames escape out of their lips. While I--
while I barely make it into the world of mice and men.
**
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