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From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next — if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions — you’d be doomed. You’d be as ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You’d never love anyone, ever again. You’d never dare to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and, from the whiskey river<\/em> archives<\/a> (the commonplace book<\/em>):<\/p>\n How Much Happens in a Day<\/strong><\/p>\n In the course of a day we shall meet one another.<\/p>\n But, in one day, things spring to life — They changed the postman suddenly. Who would have said that the earth And so, when I greet you Joy, my love, joy in all things, Joy in today and yesterday, Joy in bread and stone, In what changes, is born, grows, Joy in the air we have, When our life dries up, Then let us change our skin, Joy in the night and the day, (Pablo Neruda; translation by Alastair Reid [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n Picking Up<\/strong><\/p>\n During the depression When my father found a better job at last, We closed the house, cranked the Model-A, and started out,
\nthey sell grapes in the street,
\ntomatoes change their skin,
\nthe young girl you wanted
\nnever came back to the office.<\/p>\n
\nThe letters now are not the same.
\nA few golden leaves and it’s different;
\nthis tree is now well off.<\/p>\n
\nwith its ancient skin would change so much?
\nIt has more volcanoes than yesterday,
\nthe sky has brand-new clouds,
\nthe rivers are flowing differently.
\nBesides, so much has come into being!
\nI have inaugurated hundreds
\nof highways and buildings,
\ndelicate, clean bridges
\nlike ships or violins.<\/p>\n
\nand kiss your flowering mouth,
\nour kisses are other kisses,
\nour mouths are other mouths.<\/p>\n
\nin what falls and what flourishes.<\/p>\n
\nthe day before and tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\njoy in fire and rain.<\/p>\n
\nconsumes itself, and becomes a kiss again.<\/p>\n
\nand in what we have of earth.<\/p>\n
\nonly the roots remain to us,
\nand the wind is cold like hate.<\/p>\n
\nour nails, our blood, our gazing;
\nand you kiss me and I go out
\nto sell light on the roads.<\/p>\n
\nand the four stations of the soul.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nmy mother, teetotaler,
\nbut thrifty to a fault,
\nsurprised my father and me
\nwhen she cobbled up a still,
\nkept it on a shelf behind the kitchen stove,
\nand salvaged a crate of too-ripe pears
\nby making brandy, pouring it into Mason jars,
\nand storing them on the cellar stairs.<\/p>\n
\nand movers came one day to move our stuff,
\n“A shame to have this go to waste,” we heard my mother say,
\noffering them the brandy, which they polished off.
\nThey soon grew happy at their work,
\nhanging a chamber pot and her Sunday dress
\non outside panels of their battered truck
\nand speeding off into the dusk
\nbefore she could protest.<\/p>\n
\nfollowing over stony mountain ruts,
\nbut soon were stopping now and then
\nwhen headlights showed familiar shapes
\nlying in the road or ditch: first
\nthe chamber pot and dress; next,
\na chair, a bucket, and a box of sheets.
\nBut drunk with hope, we praised our luck,
\nsang “Bringing in the Sheaves”
\nas we collected what the truck had dropped.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n