Multiplicative Wonder

[Image: “Stuttering Flashmob,” by John E. Simpson; #741 (October 7, 2019) in my #everydaybandw series. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) No trick photography involved: this was just a glassed-in exhibit under construction at Epcot — I just turned around and there it was. Although it appears to show several reflections of the scene, there are really only two (see the light poles and tree trunks?) — all the others, I’m pretty sure, seem to be there just because there are a good number of human figures, close together and moving in the same direction.]

From whiskey river:

To Live in This World Requires

To live in this world requires
that you leave your house every morning
and step into the wind
Every morning: with all your memories
on file and the future pinned to some wall
you will have to build and tear down and
build again. If you get there. If. If.

Into the wind: first you walk the dog whose
blessed face belies the beast it is built upon
Millennia behind you, that beast enters a cave
and decides whether or not to kill a child sleeping
by a fire. It does not kill the child
because its heart has been surprised by love
Both softened and sharpened by it, inexplicably
Inexplicably, to this day

And on this day, the wind relents
The morning star lifts itself into a changeable sky
and you, carrying extra weight, wearing
last year’s clothes, start walking towards the train
Seeds that grew from ancient science digest in your stomach;
your bones begin to separate because science did not plan
this length of life; your heart slows down and you feel
the pressure of dragging a million, billion years
behind you. A million, billion lie ahead that you
will know nothing about

Thus, harnessed to time, facing the inevitable,
constructed by science and fed on inexplicable events
taking place somewhere in the middle of history,
your day goes by. Miles away, the ocean
murmurs to its own beloved creatures, a mountain
applies pressure to the weaving of a golden seam
And in your house, the dog wonders
if you will make it home again. And each day,
despite or because the performance of this feat
is both a mystery and a triumph, somehow
you will. You do

(Eleanor Lerman [source])

…and (from whiskey river’s commonplace book):

I have learned to be happy where I am. I have learned that locked within the moments of each day are all the joys, the peace, the fibers of the cloth we call life. The meaning is in the moment. There is no other way to find it. You feel what you allow yourself to feel, each and every moment of the day.

(Russ Berrie [no definitive source, but see here for one citation])

…and (italicized portion):

In the course of our development, red begins to attract public and private meanings to itself.

Red flag, red-light district, red-blooded, Red Cross, red herring, red-bait, red- eye, red man, red-hot, red-faced—these are all variations on a theme that goes far beyond the simple association of color and word. To make these images, we must pass the words through our own consciousness and particularity. And in this act of trying to know something else in its specificity, our own particularity is likewise revealed.

Some people fear seeing or feeling anything about which there is no general agreement. For others, it is thrilling to be aware of innuendo, shading, complexity. For those who do not wish to step away from consensus, the creative is useless at best; at worst, it is dangerous. But for those who are intrigued by the multiplicity of reality and the unique possibilities of their own vision, the creative is the path they must pursue.

(Deena Metzger [source])

Not from whiskey river, and not from its commonplace book:

Yard Sale

“There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful.”
— Emerson, Nature

The renters bring out their greasy table,
End of the month again: It sags,
Weighted and warped like them, unable
To hold much more than glasses and rags.

Old clothes and rusty tools compete
For space with magazines they stole
From garbage bins behind our street;
Each shoe reveals a run-down sole.

A few come by, inspect, and leave,
Almost always with empty hands.
But when, at sundown, all things cleave
To slanted light, and when it lands

So rubber, glass, and metal glint—
And for a moment make you squint—
You’ll see our neighbors bathed in gold
As if their worth cannot be sold.

(Matthew Brennan [source])

…and:

Prism

It corners the sun and caroms one
Rainbow to either side, an un-
assuming virtuoso. True
That both the cure ball and the cue
Shatter on impact, but they yield
The spectrum of objects, the green field.

(Howard Nemerov [source])

…and:

Flashes of light, incoherence, a shout, then darkness. But an unusual form of darkness. Not darkness as in nothing being there, or hibernatory darkness, thick, unyielding and timeless, but darkness as a heavy velvet curtain. I could hear and smell what was behind the curtain, but it had not yet lifted. There were whisperings of words unrecognised, then the rustle of trees and the sweet scent of a childhood Summer: freshly-turned hay, hot mud while dibbling with a stick in drying puddles, harvest, meadows.

Then, the darkness turned… glossy.

(Jasper Fforde [source])