J'ai presque peur, en vérité,
Tant je sens ma vie enlacée
À la radieuse pensée
Qui m'a pris l'âme l'autre été,

Tant votre image, à jamais chère,
Habite en ce coeur tout à vous,
Mon cœur uniquement jaloux
De vous aimer et de vous plaire ;

Et je tremble, pardonnez-moi
D'aussi franchement vous le dire,
À penser qu'un mot, un sourire
De vous est désormais ma loi,

Et qu'il vous suffirait d'un geste.
D'une parole ou d'un clin d'oeil,
Pour mettre tout mon être en deuil
De son illusion céleste.

Mais plutôt je ne veux vous voir,
L'avenir dût-il m'être sombre
Et fécond en peines sans nombre,
Qu'à travers un immense espoir,

Plongé dans ce bonheur suprême
De me dire encore et toujours,
En dépit des mornes retours,
Que je vous aime, que je t'aime !

Fable VI, Livre II.


Le crocodile en pleurs, aux animaux surpris,
De la pitié vantait les charmes :
« Craignez ceux qui jamais ne se sont attendris ;
Fiez-vous à quiconque a répandu des larmes :
Frères, l'homme est croyable, et l'homme pense ainsi. »
« - Je le sais, dit le bœuf ; et même il pleure aussi. »

I'm kind of glad
that the world is dying today.
I've longed to beseech the ruins lost,
under the abyss ink of my gentle fingerprints, as I
dance among the sage green moss
and meadows shine, the dew drops glint.
I am of doom, I am of loss.
I'd love to see the world forsaken.
Only now, only today has the universe marked me as its prey
and I bent towards the ending day.

© fey (12/11/24)

She slipped away with no goodbye
No parting gasp or widened eye
One heartbeat she was here, then she was gone.

I didn’t know it was the day
When she would gently drift away-
The nurses said that time was down the road.

For many hours I’d held her  hand
And when I could no longer stand
I sat nearby to read a magazine.

I cannot say with certainty
The moment that her soul leapt free
I feel ashamed and live with secret guilt.

I never should have touched that book
It robbed me of a final look
That might have told me she was on her way.

I had to wait til Laura came
And here her call my Mother’s name
And cry out, O my God - I think she’s gone.

I tell myself it was Mom’s will
To slip away when all was still
But yet I should have stood there at her side.

I might have sensed her spirit’s flight
Or seen some otherworldly light
Instead I idly looked at wedding gowns,

I feel I didn’t make the grade
And ever since that time I’ve prayed
That she’ll forgive the lapse and love me still.

Wherever she is dancing now
I hope she realizes how
My love is wrapped around her like a crown.

And as she starts eternity
With body new and spirit free
I hope she knows her heart lives on in me.

I think about her all the while
Sometimes with tear-sometimes with smile
But she walks closer by me than before.
  
The wisdom that she shared with me-
The training in the way to be
Are part and parcel of my very soul.

I’ll always be a part of her
Through any change that may occur
My love and fond remembrance will not fade.

So though she left without goodbye
To claim her mansion in the sky
I know she’ll save a corner there for me.

And come that future afternoon
Maybe distant, maybe soon,
I’ll hold her hand in greeting, not farewell.

And she will say she overlooked
My sitting down with bridal book
And that she knows I did the best I could.

She knew the measure of my love
And as she joined the realms above
Considered me to be her good girl still.

Then all the pain I’ve hid inside
Will disappear and I can glide
Into my own eternity at peace.          
                ljm

It’s the morning of a different day—who knew there’d be another?
Lisa and I went on our harbor jog @ 5am—that’s nothing new.
It was, like 44°—we’re enjoying fall’s cold, refreshing bite.

Anyway, my mind wasn’t on it and I nearly stumbled over
a chunk of dark, uneven roadway, made invisible by its function.
Charles, jogging beside me, wordlessly managed to right me
without us losing a step and I smiled my thanks.

argh! I’ve got to get out of my head.

Later, in class, lulled by the comfort of the stiff, wooden chair, my eyes unfocused and the professor’s voice seemed to fade into the backdrop. Suddenly, he was asking me a direct question that seemed almost without context.

Metaphorically slapped back into focus, I scanned the room and the whiteboard for clues before awkwardly—walking the edge of catastrophe—bluffing it out, because, well, I’ve an instinctive reluctance to admit defeat with any sort of grace.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I had dreams—nothing with a defined purpose–just an amalgamate of bonfires and storms in a coastal scrubland with an odor of fresh cedar and a sense of casual vulnerability.

My attention today is like an intermittent pulse.
.
.
Songs for this:
Headz Gone West by Nia Archives
Dark Red by Steve Lacy

Searching for Galileo,
    the race to be first home,

In a sea of patients
    we climb the probability tree,
    walk upon the shore collecting
      memory shells,

We win the little wars,
     lose the big fight,

These windows are breathing apparatus,
     this ceiling, a blur of tungsten sky,
     rain, tears, weep,

To rest near to you,
     the technicolor sleep,
     and I died with you,

All farewells are sudden.

pocket full of pennies
rolling across the kitchen floor,
down the steps, out the door,

pennies running into the street
(and i'm right behind them.)

"where do you think you are going? and
I'm feeling a bit embarrassed, so i whispered.
"you belong to me,

to keep or to throw away." and

there s a light tap on my shoulder,
and the policeman tells me,

"better find them soon
before they turn to rust,

I couldn't find mine
and I'm sure they turned into dust."

and the echoe from the hole
in my pocket shouts,
" his dreams are
trying to find the waterline."

i did find a few of them, a handful,
(I had swiped my hand as they tried to roll away)

I did grasp a few

but some of the other
pennies i threw into the air
where they may have fallen,
I know not where.