Power

Living     in the earth-deposits     of our history

Today a backhoe divulged     out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle     amber     perfect     a hundred-year-old
cure for fever     or melancholy     a tonic
for living on this earth     in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered     from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years     by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin     of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold     a test-tube or a pencil

She died     a famous woman     denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds     came     from the same source as her power

— Adrienne Rich

Isometry

Revisiting this blog feels like returning to a room you once grew up in, and finding a layer of dust coating your bedspread.

It is very sunny today, and I am remembering the people I've lost over the months. My grandfather, who has no more friends alive, had satay and gado-gado for lunch. I had ayam sambal hijau—fried chicken dressed in a fiery green sauce (for sometimes the most intense sources of heat disguise themselves in the coolest colours: consider, for example, the blue flame of the bunsen burner)—and we walked around NEX with Phoebe, our helper. Though I hate this shopping complex, will I love it once it's gone? Every surface in this dreadful place inscribes questions into my head, none of which hold the promise of a satisfactory answer.

Nothing expresses itself in poetry anymore... I find that if anything, language obfuscates more than it provides expression (whatever that means), and in the microeconomy of meaning, there's no room for a generosity of thought, unless one allows one's writing to admit looseness and half-baked ideas.

I think I could live in Hondarribia, and pop into France for groceries should the need arise. I will own a dog named George, and we will grow old in a tiny house perched on a green hill.

Aubade

There was one summer
that returned many times over
there was one flower unfurling
taking many forms

Crimson of the monarda, pale gold of the late roses

There was one love
There was one love, there were many nights

Smell of the mock orange tree
Corridors of jasmine and lilies
Still the wind blew

There were many winters but I closed my eyes
The cold air white with dissolved wings

There was one garden when the snow melted
Azure and white; I couldn't tell
my solitude from love—

There was one love; he had many voices
There was one dawn; sometimes
we watched it together

I was here
I was here

There was one summer returning over and over
there was one dawn
I grew old watching

— Louise Glück