Followers

tomorrow i will begin, yes..... i will begin then

[i'm going to write whatever i want]

25.3.10

i love wendell berry. period.

He writes about real people. like, real people. with life and breath. however, somehow they aren't.
his people are in a fictional place called Port William, Kentucky.

The best novel I have read lately is Jayber Crow. Please, check it out at the library.

And Mr. Jayber Crow is one of the most thoughtful characters I’ve read about in any book. He’s a homespun philosopher, and better yet, a loving man.

a few quotes:

"And this is what is was like—the words were just right there in my mind, and I knew they were true: ‘the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God move upon the face of the waters.’ I’m not even sure that I can tell you what was happening to me then, or that I know even now. At the time I surely wasn’t trying to tell myself. But after all my years of reading in that book and hearing it read and believing and disbelieving it, I seemed to have wandered my way back to the beginning—not just of the book, but of the world—and all the rest was yet to come. I felt knowledge crawl over my skin.”


“And I knew that the Spirit that had gone forth to shape the world and make it live was still alive in it. I just had no doubt. I could see that I lived in the created world, and it was still being created. I would be part of it forever. There was no escape. The Spirit that made it was in it, shaping it and reshaping it, sometimes lying at rest, sometimes standing up and shaking itself, like a muddy horse, and letting the pieces fly. I had almost no sooner broke my leash than I had hit the wall.”

"I have come to the age now where I can see how short a time we have to be here. And when I think about it, it can seem strange beyond telling that this particular bunch of us should be here on this little patch of ground in this little patch of time, and I can think of other times and places I might have lived, other kinds of man I might have been. But there is something else. There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, with one another and with the place and all the living things."


“Nearly everything that has happened to me has happened by surprise. All the important things have happened by surprise. And whatever has been happening usually has already happened before I have had time to expect it. The world doesn’t stop because you are in love or in mourning or in need of time to think. And so when I thought I was in my story or in charge of it, I really have been only on the edge of it, carried along. Is this because we are in an eternal story that is happening partly in time?”

.


ahhhh..... so wonderful

10.3.10

wednesday.

wow, i forget what it's like to wake up with the sound of the birds.
[what kind of bird are you? i wish i could see out my basement window....]

trying to write now, with the sound of the birds.

the dog next door decided to join..... or start dying.

not sure what's happening over there.
but it's been half an hour...of howling.
i'm worried about the well-being of this animal.

putting on music...... now

7.2.10

oh, blog.

i forget about you.
and why you are even here.

why did i start you in the first place?

seems strange, and extremely unnecessary.

maybe i'll give ya another go.

19.1.09

the pieces that i've clutched
trying to make it all fit
the ache and strain of
figuring it all out
against the wind
against the fathers
the resistance giving me purpose

released and fall
trembling, tumbling
the pieces fall through my fists
palms pressing upward
then down on the cold, barren floorboards

grandness meets detail
beauty revealed under its guise of death

smaller and smaller my worn-out humility
at every instant greater and easier to surrender

16.1.09

lately.



i love with my hand, not my heart.
when i draw your face,
my fingers trace your lips.
crossing a page, my hand keeps
contours; i know that art
is edges.
closely bound shapes,
always flirting with more
than i am willing to give.
lines-- moving, changing
running, following; trying
once again to leave.

and then i leave.
i'm always the one who leaves.
there's no freedom in it
or in fear:
my heart's not mine.

9.12.08

MISSED him when the sun began to bend;
I found him not when I had lost his rim;
With many tears I went in search of him,
Climbing high mountains which did still ascend,
And gave me echoes when I called my friend;
Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim,
And high cathedrals where the light was dim,
Through books and arts and works without an end,
But found him not--the friend whom I had lost.
And yet I found him--as I found the lark,
A sound in fields I heard but could not mark;
I found him nearest when I missed him most;
I found him in my heart, a life in frost,
A light I knew not till my soul was dark.

29.11.08

he accepts the circle speech
and so resolves himself
and is reabsorbed into a higher equation
above it all
he finds himself
or sees something greater than
he could ever imagine


this is me.

[callie hansen]

current city: columbia.mo

currently reading:
leavings: poems of wendell berry