a brief message from Alfonsina Storni

Subconciencia
Has hablado, has hablado y me he dormido.
Pero duermo y no duermo, porque siento
que estoy bajo el supremo pensamiento:
vivo, viviré siempre y he vivido.

Has hablado, has hablado y he caído
en un marasmo... cede hasta el aliento.
Tiempo atrás, en las sombras, me he perdido:
estoy ciega. No tengo sentimiento.

Como el espacio soy, como el vacío.
Es una sombra todo el cuerpo mío
y puedo como el humo levantarme:

Oigo soplos etéreos... sobrehumanos...
Sujétame a la tierra con tus manos,
que si el viento se mueve ha de llevarme.

Subconscience
You've talked, you've talked and I've fallen asleep
But I sleep and do not sleep, because I perceive
that I am beneath the highest thought:
I live, I shall always live, and I have lived.

You've talked, you've talked and I have fallen
into a paralysis... even my breath stops.
Some time ago, in the shadows, I got lost:
I am blind. I have no feeling.

I am like space, like the void.
A shadow is my entire body
and I can rise like smoke:

I hear ethereal sighs... superhuman...
Bind me to the earth with your hands,
for if the wind blows, it must carry me away.

translated 6th Nov 2013

further deliberation

"but this," he gestured helplessly at the letter crumpled on the counter next to the stove, "I just can't understand..."

the small iron assembly on the stove began to burble and hiss. he pressed his fingers to his eyes, and watched thoughts emerge swimming in the warm saline darkness. a hope that had gently lain trailing atop the waters grew heavy and broke the surface tension to sink slowly in a coiled spiral, a hungry twister's tip seeking the airless deeps.

she pressed her lips into a mute line, exhaled through her nose, and glanced sideways at the clock on the wall. its dim insistent staccato stuck and then strained as if clearing its throat, minute hand jumping angrily in place until with a sharp click it regained the customary rhythm.

"well," he gestured to the folded letter laid neatly beside the coffee service, "some stories write themselves, and all the characters don't appear in every act." the steam gasped forth from the spout of the small percolator as out tumbled two cups of coffee. he waved her to hers and carried his to the front door to stare out into the brittle light of the freezing afternoon.

amid watery shadows the doorway was a burning rectangle framing an immobile, gouged-out blackness. she moved the empty pot from the heat and fixed her eyes on his occluding stillness as she held the paper from the tray over the unwavering flame.

the hissing candescence rendered the contents forever irrelevant, wordlessly concurring as she whispered "a caesura."

6er: deliberation

"a caesura," she said simply.
he turned from the stove and looked at her inquisitively.
"brief pause, you know: do like the natives, let a full minute pass before you respond."
"malarky," he sharply retorted. a moment later, Understanding cleared its throat.
he looked chagrined as the coffee began to percolate.

leakage to the left

When Jon Smith was hired as executive director of the French Market Corporation in late September, he came into the job with some big ideas and harsh words that aren't sitting well with some of the vendors in the 200-year old flea market.

"200-year old", though it obviously modifies the market, creeps back to "vendors" in reading this sentence, and makes one think of highly venerable and agitated peddlers from 1813 going into fits of apoplexy.

letter to a cousin

epistles sent to dead men's daughters
quite rightly; our last names rhyme
trees with roots in cloudbank quarters
all earth gives way to air, in time.

Zhenya in the tropics

 the wind had been mild all morning, but Yevgenia stood at a second story window and frowned. a mighty gust tore up the avenue, sharply convulsing the trees, smooshing her face back and up. cue the stationary roller-coaster. an unsecured cat atop a marble-rimmed peristyle in the adjacent park gave an indignant squawk, fumbled vainly for purchase, and toppled off into the rhododendrons below. 

she felt a momentary pang when the sudden rain came, drenching, insistent, yet soft; pang turned into reverie in an open window as the wind sliced the rain into mist through the mosquito screen. how auspicious the day a cold front rushes down to meet an oncoming hurricane.

thorough and inclusive, aw yeah

the CDC tested St. Bernard water supplies after a death from naegleria fowleri earlier this year, and WWL reported on it.  included in the list of "DO" actions to take with your water is this gem:

"DO use only boiled and cooled, distilled, or sterile water for making sinus rinse solutions for neti pots or performing ritual ablutions."


which I'm sure are a daily occurrence in the Parish.