Someone else's angel

Every once in a while, we are all someone else's angel.

An entirely new thought

It made her curious
What would it be like
to weave in and out of dreams
an entirely new thought?

She liked the idea of going to sleep
beside the whales
down there
under the sea
where the north wind lives in an ice cave

(it asks for cool breezes
to make you comfortable
while you're getting well
And when you've recovered
they'll take you riding
whale-back

smiling
beyond the skeptical glance of the child
whose faith in fantasy has been shaken)

This afternoon
when I woke up from my nap
I heard you talking
about the air
more freely

Just for a few days
will you leave the thinking?
There's more to your being here

You'll feel the sea
which means
you'll rest a little better


(Built from words stolen -and borrowed- from Laura London's The Windflower)

Beautiful things don't ask for attention

(feel your heart as it's keeping time)

Immagine per occhi divini

Sabbia a perdita d'occhio, tra le ultime colline e il mare - il mare - nell'aria fredda di un pomeriggio quasi passato, e benedetto dal vento che sempre soffia da nord.

La spiaggia. E il mare.

Potrebbe essere la perfezione - immagine per occhi divini - mondo che accade e basta, il muto esistere di acqua e terra, opera finita ed esatta, verità - verità - ma ancora una volta è il salvifico granello dell'uomo che inceppa il meccanismo di quel paradiso, un'inezia che basta da sola a sospendere tutto il grande apparato di inesorabile verità, una cosa da nulla, ma piantata nella sabbia, impercettibile strappo nella superficie di quella santa icona, minuscola eccezione posatasi sulla perfezione della spiaggia sterminata. A vederlo da lontano non sarebbe che un punto nero: nel nulla, il niente di un uomo e di un cavalletto da pittore.

Alessandro Baricco, Oceano Mare.

The way a gardener would shape a garden

So you, as an artist, can manipulate time and move things around, you cut and shape the way a gardener would shape a garden, so that you can see certain flowers and pay attention to certain plants, otherwise it’s just a jungle. And it’s the writer’s job to cut away and prune and shape and make order from that jungle so that you can pay attention and see certain colors and patterns.

-Sandra Cisneros

 

The city is alive (if the light is dim)

You who grew up through the pavement

with butterflies in your stomach

skyscrape in your eyelids

fingers lost for words

find comfort in this:

The city is alive

(if the light is dim

if the light is defused

put this little light to use)

Con minucioso tacto de filigrana

Dicen que un año sí y otro no, las ventanas de Mogador devoran también toda la luz de la luna. Pero hay quien asegura que esa es una falsa impresión porque son los ojos de las mujeres llenas de deseo quienes desde sus ventanas mogadorianas iluminan todo lo que en la noche brilla, incluyendo la luna y a la ciudad entera. De la misma manera que son ellas y no la luna quienes depositan su mirada sobre la piel morena de sus amantes imprimiéndole un tono de plata calentada por el cuerpo. Y, además, lo hacen con minucioso tacto de filigrana.


"Treinta y seis", Nueve veces el asombro, Alberto Ruy Sánchez.

Whatever is not there (We are glass house)

Your body 

Hurts me as the world hurts God

- "Fever 103'", Ariel, by Silvia Plath

For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers,

green roses, chrysanthemums, lilies: retrophilia,

philocaly, philomath, sarcophilous—all this love,

of the past, of beauty, of knowledge, of flesh; this is

catalogue and counter: philalethist, negrophile, neophile.

A man walks down the street, taps Newport

out against a brick wall and stares at me. Love

that: lygophilia, lithophilous. Be amongst stones,

amongst darkness. We are glass house. Philopornist,

philotechnical. Why not worship the demimonde?

Love that—a corner room, whatever is not there,

all the clutter you keep secret. Palaeophile,

ornithophilous: I, antiquarian, pollinated by birds.

All this a way to dream green rose petals on the bed you love;

petrophilous, stigmatophilia: live near rocks, tattoo hurt;

for me topophilia: what place do I love? All these words

for... love? (for me?), all these ways to demand belief

in symphily, to beguile and say let us (not) live near each other.

A personal stand on Reginald Dwayne Betts' "For you: antophilus, lover of flowers".

The Garden VI - Se encuentran entre la hierba

Mucho podría decirse de los ojos de Aleteo, pues experimentaban continuos cambios e impresionaban mucho a la gente. La cualidad más increíble e inverosímil de sus ojos era su mansedumbre, pues eran como flores, y esta circunstancia decía a las claras que no había que tener miedo de mirarlos. En realidad, la mirada que fijaba en el mundo y su gente era azul como la hierbabuena silvestre, esos frágiles capullitos que se encuentran entre la hierba por el mes de junio. Así eran los ojos de Aleteo Brisalinda.

- Los hijos del vidriero, de María Gripe.

The Gardener VIII - Myrtle

The gardener takes me into his garden. He lets me recognize the names of his plants, and tells me the names of those I don't know of when I ask him. He says I can have all the bits of earth I want, to plant seeds in, to make things grow; he offers them even when unasked for.

The gardener compares me to the shapes and colors of flowers. He finds their scent and mine are the same.

The gardener knows the right remedy, and places it under my pillow.

When I wake up, I find freshly cut chamomile and marigold on the night table.