On the Road from Impossible to Done

[Image: “Afloat and awaiting,” by Emilie Cotterill. (Found on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!) You can find many photos of this sculpture (“Afloat,” by Hamish Black) on the Web, but this may be my favorite (probably because of the ghostly effects applied to the so-called “donut” itself and to the man on the left). You can read more about the work — how it was created, details of its appearance — again, at many places, including the art.uk site.]

From whiskey river:

Do Not Expect

Do not expect that if your book falls open
to a certain page, that any phrase
you read will make a difference today,
or that the voices you might overhear
when the wind moves through the yellow-green
and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.

Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the
dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon
your shadow walks beside you on the wall,
and the days stay long and heavy underneath
the distant rumor of the harvest. One
more summer gone,
and one way or another you survive,
dull or regretful, never learning that
nothing is hidden in the obvious
changes of the world, that even the dim
reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass
is more than you will ever understand.

And only briefly then
you touch, you see, you press against
the surface of impenetrable things.

(Dana Gioia [source])

…and:

Sometimes it was hard to say things. Things were so complicated. People might resent what you said. They might use your remarks against you. They might take you seriously and act upon your words, actually do something. They might not even hear you, which perhaps was the only thing worth hoping for. But it was more complicated than that. The sheer effort of speaking. Easier to stay apart, leave things as they are, avoid responsibility for reflecting the world and all its grave weight. Things that should be simple are always hard. But hard things are never easy.

(Don DeLillo [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Rush Hour

Dressed for work,
silk blouse, gold necklace,
short pleated skirt, sheer black stockings,
backless high heel summer sandals,

she waits with hordes of subway commuters.
As the doors open she raises her sandaled foot
to step into the train, then watches

as her shoe slips off and tumbles
down the dark gap between train and platform.
Doors about to close, she makes her decision

to continue one-shoed,
improvising a one-footed ballet
on the grimy stage
of a speeding express train.

All eyes are now on her,
her choreography, her
en pointe shoelessness, her
uneven grace and courage,

an entire subway car watching
this debut, questioning,
how will she navigate

the station, the stairs,
this bumpy ride,
the world above.

She smiles, buoyed
by their curiosity
which feels very close
to kindness,

concentrates on
squealing loudspeakers spewing
unintelligible words

about her shoe,
her bare stockinged foot,
her life, her talent for missteps,

feels the cold grimy floor
under pointed cramping toes,
convinced kindness has now turned to ridicule,

exposed and defeated
before the day has barely begun.

(Anita Pulier [source])

…and:

The Mulla’s neighbor wanted to borrow his clothes-line.

“Sorry,” said Nasrudin, “I am using it. Drying flour.”

“How on earth can you dry flour on a clothes-line?”

“It is less difficult when you do not want to lend it.”

(Idries Shah [source])

…and:

Meditation is not just a rest or retreat from the turmoil of the stream or the impurity of the world. It is a way of being the stream, so that one can be at home in both the white water and the eddies. Meditation may take one out of the world, but it also puts one totally into it. Poems are a bit like this too. The experience of a poem gives both distance and involvement: one is closer and farther at the same time.

(Gary Snyder [source])

…and:

Counting Sheep

Counting sheep, the scientists suggested, may simply be too boring to do for very long, while images of a soothing shoreline… are engrossing enough to concentrate on.
—The New York Times

When I reach
a thousand
I start to notice
how the eyes
of one ewe are wide,
as if with worry
about her lamb
or how cold
the flock will be
after the shearing.
At a thousand fifty
I notice a ram
pushing up against
a soft and curly female,
and for a moment
I’m distracted by errant
images of sex.
It is difficult
to keep so many sheep
in line for counting—
they are not a parade
but more like a roiling
sea of whitecaps,
which makes me think
of the shore—
of all those boring
grains of sand
to keep track of
as they slip
through the fingers,
of all the dangers
of sunstroke,
riptide, jellyfish.
The scientists fall
asleep lulled
by equations,
by dreams
of experiments,
and I fall asleep
at last by
counting them:
biologist,
physicist,
astronomer,
and all the many experts
on the subject
of sleep.

(Linda Pastan [source])