Here's the Thing

I'm loathe to use the word, but it's stress. The repeated whittling away, the curves belie the point so sharp I could peck through a vault. Why write it here? Why not? Perhaps it's Sophie doing better, knock knock knock, so the rest comes pecking, knocking, whittling away, soft skin yield.

All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,
(What is less or more than a touch?)
Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Your Very Flesh is a Great Poem

Sunset
Victoria, British Columbia

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men -- go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young and with the mothers of families -- reexamine all you have been  told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of our eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman, preface to Leaves of Grass

Your Very Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem

Subway to the Sea
Wilshire and La Brea
Los Angeles, CA

I love a construction site. Did you know that about me? At the end of my street, the great city of Los Angeles is busy building a subway stop and tunneling through for the great Subway to the Sea that will run from downtown, east of me, to the Pacific Ocean, west of me. Until it's finished, which they're estimating will be a decade from now, the construction and traffic and all manner of just -- well -- shit, is going down, but I aim to make the construction beautiful. As I returned to my neighborhood after a night in Orange County, I drove north on La Brea and looked up into the blue sky to see the biggest flag hanging from a crane, blowing in the breeze and looking pretty damn beautiful against the blue sky. If you know anything about me, you know I'm not particularly patriotic, and I'm not making any apologies for being more of an imagine there's no country, I wonder if you can, kind of woman than one who feels proud of the country that I just happened to be born in instead of any number of other great ones. But today is the fourth of JUUUUUULY, so it's a fine day to celebrate some words of Walt Whitman, probably the quintessential American poet:

This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school, or church, or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman, 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass 

Your Very Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem

This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school, or church, or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

Walt Whitman, 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass 

Synchronicity, part 67,431,459

O Me! O Life!

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring -- What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                  Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
from Leaves of Grass (1892)