The Bluest of Blues

Planetarium, Griffith Observatory
Los Angeles

This has been a difficult week, so after an unbloggable morning meeting and in lieu of weeping while driving around the shitty, I drove up to Griffith Park Observatory and bought two $7.00 tickets to two planetarium shows. 

I lay back in my chair and listened to the program about water and the planets and the stars. We began at the bottom of the ocean, and when a blue whale's shadow swam over me, the tears leaked out of my eyes and then the stars came out, the constellations, the moon waxing and waning, the world spinning even as my body lay, stardust still --

During the second, Ptolemy's crystal sphere shattered into a bigger universe, 

more stars 

the galaxy, 

something beyond.

Despair After Sadness

Despair is still servant
to the violet and wild ongoings
of bone. You, remember, are 
that which must be made 
servant only to salt, only 
to the watery acre that is the body
of the beloved, only to the child
leaning forward into 
the exhibit of birches 
the forest has made of bronze light
and snow. Even as the day kneels 
forward, the oceans and strung garnets, too,
kneel, they are all kneeling, 
the city, the goat, the lime tree
and mother, the fearful doctor,
kneeling. Don’t say it’s the beautiful 
I praise. I praise the human, 
gutted and rising.

Katie Ford