by the seat of my broom

Hanging onto my hourglass-sand-scoured ride
as it swerves and dips, wrenches and screeches
its way through the jagged turn of this year
onto the fog-wreathed bridge of the next --

the first of many gauntlets waiting ahead.
Some may well dissolve with huffing and puffing
but I have seen what straw can devour --

like plague, like lava -- as it fans out within flames,
rippling, ripping everything near the fury
into indiscernable ruins. Ninety years hence --

or just nineteen, or hell, even nine --
this story will be ancient, all too possibly buried
beneath triumphant lies. But meantime, meanwhile -- time notwithstanding --

meanness must be countered, rugs rolled away
for air to meet rot, hearths unwalled
to hands trained in mending and measuring what's true.




==

For another stare-and-riff inspired by this site, see Frames at Vary the Line.

This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/144518.html.

from LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

As quoted by Michiko Kakutani in her review back in February (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/books/review-george-saunders-lincoln-in-the-bardo.html):

“His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow,” Saunders writes of Lincoln, “toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow, that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.”

[Looked it up because Chris Thile's show rebroadcast the segment with the author today, with an unexpectedly funny intro (on figuring out who would narrate the novel, and then "I was raised Catholic, and to me, Purgatory is, like, the DMV..."). Haven't listened or watched to the whole reading yet, but I want to be able to find both it and this quote again.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yA4TI1kS4

This entry was originally posted at https://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/413762.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.