52/289-290: Two
Mar. 29th, 2026 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphSo little memory of Saturday remains in my mind that I don't know how unpleasant it was. I do suspect it was unpleasant, as most days now are, and I did a lot of sleeping, which I usually do on unpleasant days, but on a scale from mediocre to awful I couldn't say where it stood. Since it became Sunday, I guess Saturday's state no longer matters. I didn't have to go out today except to empty a trash can, there being no mail delivery on Sunday, and that alone made today better than Saturday. I refuse to think about tomorrow.
Well, refuse except to comment on the weather report, of course. Because the forecast has brought disappointment. The chill with possible afternoon showers we had expected has been cancelled, and it will be 79 degrees and merely cloudy. Worse, the 100% chance of rain previously predicted for Tuesday has also been canceled, though at least the high will be only 68. The rain has been postponed until Wednesday, and the chances have been reduced to 85%. Thursday is still predicted to be coolish, but next Friday we'll be back to the above-average temperatures. The much-diminished respite from the heat could (and probably will) be further eroded in upcoming forecasts. I hope we at least get our Wednesday rain.
There is nothing glamorous to any of this, or profound, or even significant. The days go by and I hobble or sleep through them, mucking about with fragments of lives, moments I've tasted, or observed from nearby or a distance, and none of it will ever be focused or made an artifact of any kind, painting or music or poem. Maybe I get through another summer or maybe I don't, and maybe the world goes on observing the seasons and stars and thoughts, and maybe it doesn't. In time... not too much I warrant... I'll be out of it and won't have to do this anymore. In the meantime, what I can't do I can sometimes find. and though it's no redemption at least I'm glad I can at least do this.
Sunday Verse
by Larry Levis
Perhaps the ankle of a horse is holy.
Crossing the Mississippi at dusk, Clemens thought
Of a sequel in which Huck Finn, in old age, became
A hermit, & insane. And never wrote it.
And perhaps all that he left out is holy.
The river, anyway, became a sacrament when
He spoke of it, even though
The last ten chapters were a failure he devised
To please America, & make his lady
Happy: to buy her silk, furs, & jewels with
Hues no one in Hannibal had ever seen.
There, above the river, if
The pattern of the stars is a blueprint for a heaven
Left unfinished,
I also believe the ankle of a horse,
In the seventh furlong, is as delicate as the fine lace
Of faith, & therefore holy.
I think it was only Twain's cynicism, the smell of a river
Lingering in his nostrils forever, that kept
His humor alive to the end.
I don't know how he managed it.
I used to make love to a woman, who,
When I left, would kiss the door she held open for me,
As if instead of me, as if she already missed me.
I would stand there in the cold air, breathing it,
Amused by her charm, which was, like the scent of a river,
Provocative, the dusk & first lights along the shore.
Should I say my soul went mad for a year, &
Could not sleep? To whom should I say so?
She was gentle, & intended no harm.
If the ankle of a horse is holy, & if it fails
In the stretch & the horse goes down, &
The jockey in the bright shout of his silks
Is pitched headlong onto
The track, & maimed, & if later, the horse is
Destroyed, & all that is holy
Is also destroyed: hundreds of bones & muscles that
Tried their best to be pure flight, a lyric
Made flesh, then
I would like to go home, please.
Even though I betrayed it, & left, even though
I might be, at such a time as I am permitted
To go back to my wife, my son — no one, or
No more than a stone in a pasture full
Of stones, full of the indifferent grasses,
(& Huck Finn insane by then & living alone)
It will be, it might be still,
A place where what can only remain holy grazes, &
Where men might, also, approach with soft halters,
And, having no alternative, lead that fast world
Home — though it is only to the closed dark of stalls,
And though the men walk ahead of the horses slightly
Afraid, & at times in awe of their
Quickness, & how they have nothing to lose, especially
Now, when the first stars appear slowly enough
To be counted, & the breath of horses makes white signatures
On the air: Last Button, No Kidding, Brief Affair —
And the air is colder.
Well, refuse except to comment on the weather report, of course. Because the forecast has brought disappointment. The chill with possible afternoon showers we had expected has been cancelled, and it will be 79 degrees and merely cloudy. Worse, the 100% chance of rain previously predicted for Tuesday has also been canceled, though at least the high will be only 68. The rain has been postponed until Wednesday, and the chances have been reduced to 85%. Thursday is still predicted to be coolish, but next Friday we'll be back to the above-average temperatures. The much-diminished respite from the heat could (and probably will) be further eroded in upcoming forecasts. I hope we at least get our Wednesday rain.
There is nothing glamorous to any of this, or profound, or even significant. The days go by and I hobble or sleep through them, mucking about with fragments of lives, moments I've tasted, or observed from nearby or a distance, and none of it will ever be focused or made an artifact of any kind, painting or music or poem. Maybe I get through another summer or maybe I don't, and maybe the world goes on observing the seasons and stars and thoughts, and maybe it doesn't. In time... not too much I warrant... I'll be out of it and won't have to do this anymore. In the meantime, what I can't do I can sometimes find. and though it's no redemption at least I'm glad I can at least do this.
Sunday Verse
There Are Two Worlds
by Larry Levis
Perhaps the ankle of a horse is holy.
Crossing the Mississippi at dusk, Clemens thought
Of a sequel in which Huck Finn, in old age, became
A hermit, & insane. And never wrote it.
And perhaps all that he left out is holy.
The river, anyway, became a sacrament when
He spoke of it, even though
The last ten chapters were a failure he devised
To please America, & make his lady
Happy: to buy her silk, furs, & jewels with
Hues no one in Hannibal had ever seen.
There, above the river, if
The pattern of the stars is a blueprint for a heaven
Left unfinished,
I also believe the ankle of a horse,
In the seventh furlong, is as delicate as the fine lace
Of faith, & therefore holy.
I think it was only Twain's cynicism, the smell of a river
Lingering in his nostrils forever, that kept
His humor alive to the end.
I don't know how he managed it.
I used to make love to a woman, who,
When I left, would kiss the door she held open for me,
As if instead of me, as if she already missed me.
I would stand there in the cold air, breathing it,
Amused by her charm, which was, like the scent of a river,
Provocative, the dusk & first lights along the shore.
Should I say my soul went mad for a year, &
Could not sleep? To whom should I say so?
She was gentle, & intended no harm.
If the ankle of a horse is holy, & if it fails
In the stretch & the horse goes down, &
The jockey in the bright shout of his silks
Is pitched headlong onto
The track, & maimed, & if later, the horse is
Destroyed, & all that is holy
Is also destroyed: hundreds of bones & muscles that
Tried their best to be pure flight, a lyric
Made flesh, then
I would like to go home, please.
Even though I betrayed it, & left, even though
I might be, at such a time as I am permitted
To go back to my wife, my son — no one, or
No more than a stone in a pasture full
Of stones, full of the indifferent grasses,
(& Huck Finn insane by then & living alone)
It will be, it might be still,
A place where what can only remain holy grazes, &
Where men might, also, approach with soft halters,
And, having no alternative, lead that fast world
Home — though it is only to the closed dark of stalls,
And though the men walk ahead of the horses slightly
Afraid, & at times in awe of their
Quickness, & how they have nothing to lose, especially
Now, when the first stars appear slowly enough
To be counted, & the breath of horses makes white signatures
On the air: Last Button, No Kidding, Brief Affair —
And the air is colder.
