Today a new sun rises for me;
everything lives, everything is animated,
everything seems to speak to me of my passion,
everything invites me to cherish it.
— Anne De Lenclos
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contentment
Thoreau on the (Hu)man
“See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all day he fears, not being immortal or divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds.
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. . .
Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity!”
~ Henry David Thoreau, on the (hu)man
Bread Crumbs
Bread Crumbs, by Kate Gough
(previously published here )
Wrinkles sagging with weariness, Gretel June seated her crooked torso on the last clear surface in the house: a padded footstool. The world swam in complete and terrifying circles around her, and closing her eyes only made it worse. She felt a lump in her throat that had nothing whatsoever to do with her heart, and much more to do with her stomach. Everything swirled so fast! Continue reading
To Still the Striving
even the lilies of the field
have growth pains– bursts of
desire:
the touch of sunlight
the nearness of neighbor
the feel of whisping grasses.
their bells, like ears, enjoy
a perpetual tide of soft change:
a)n almost im(perceptible music.
remember sped-up science videos
of growth, of opening flowers?
remember how sometimes
tiny bits of struggling botany got stuck
together? how stretching meant
^ sep ^ par ^ rat ^ ting ^
things that were tangled, meant delicately
detaching disbalanced (s)well(s) where
process had outgrown symmetry, where
millions of the infinite places
flesh|metselfsame|flesh sought freedom
such that still only one remained,
more glorious than had it ceased its struggle.
slowly. silently. quietly content,
tongued petals unfurl.
reach out. invert themselves
vulnerably to elemental warmth,
nature’s nourishing.
see? the lilies of the field
desire,
but worry not:
Let Us Be
Still.
c. marykathryn gough/ edit.jan30.06 / edit.sept30.10/ edit.Oct30.11
Matthew 6 : 28-29 / Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin,and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
