Entry tags:
Entry tags:
Making A Fist.
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.
--Naomi Shihab Nye
From an email I just wrote: There's a sadness in me, thinking that just before I was staggering through my house repeating "I will not die, I will not die," DFW was believing that he should.
*****
Rest in peace, Mr. Wallace. And for the rest of y'all, if you're thinking of suicide, read this first.
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.
--Naomi Shihab Nye
From an email I just wrote: There's a sadness in me, thinking that just before I was staggering through my house repeating "I will not die, I will not die," DFW was believing that he should.
*****
Rest in peace, Mr. Wallace. And for the rest of y'all, if you're thinking of suicide, read this first.
Entry tags:
Keep Calm And Carry On.
Some people say
It's what we deserve
For sins against g-d
For crimes in the world
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York.
There's A Hole In The City
Entry tags:
(no subject)
The bottles stand as empty now, as they were filled before
Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more
Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools
Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more
Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools