Turn from the visible

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F e a t h e r   W e a t h e r

Campbell Bridge

Landrum, South Carolina

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This painting of a barn and barnyard near sundown
May be enough to suggest we don’t have to turn
From the visible world to the invisible
In order to grasp the truth of things.
We don’t always have to distrust appearances.
Not if we’re patient. Not if we’re willing
To wait for the sun to reach the angle
When whatever it touches, however retiring,
Feels invited to step forward
Into a moment that might seem to us
Familiar if we gave ourselves more often
To the task of witnessing. Now to witness
A barn and barnyard on a day of rest
When the usual veil of dust and smoke
Is lifted a moment and things appear
To resemble closely what in fact they are.

= Carl Dennis =

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Happy Wednesday

Colder and more sure

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S n o w   O n   T h e   I v y

Back Fence

Columbia, South Carolina

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One winter I lived north, alone
and effortless, dreaming myself
into the past. Perhaps, I thought,
words could replenish privacy.
Outside, a red bicycle froze
into form, made the world falser
in its white austerity. So much
happens after harvest: the moon
performing novelty: slaughter,
snow. One hour the same
as the next, I held my hands
or held the snow. I was like sculpture,
forgetting or, perhaps, remembering
everything. Red wings in the snow,
red thoughts ablaze in the war
I was having with myself again.
Everything I hate about the world
I hate about myself, even now
writing as if this were a law
of nature. Say there were deer
fleet in the snow, walking out
the cold, and more gingkoes
bare in the beggar’s grove. Say
I was not the only one who saw
or heard the trees, their diffidence
greater than my noise. Perhaps
the future is a tiny flame
I’ll nick from a candle. First, I’m burning.
Then, numb. Why must every winter
grow colder, and more sure?

= Jennifer Chang =

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Happy Tuesday

Hold no thing at all

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B r a n c h   D r e s s i n g

Winter's Day

Batesburg, South Carolina

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Fortunate those who fill their hands
with stuff of the imagined thing
to shape the cup, the carven bird;
whose fingers strike from key or string
the ringing, single-complex chord,
actual, heard.
A writer's work
is with the insubstantial word,
the image that can only find
its being in another's mind.
We work with water, with the wind,
we make and hold no thing at all.
All we can ever shape or sing
the tremor of an untouched string,
a shift of shadows on the wall.

= Ursula Le Guin =

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Happy Monday

Solemn is the call

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W i n t e r   W e e d s

On the Fence

Columbia, South Carolina

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Behold that Tree, in Autumn’s dim decay,
Stript by the frequent, chill, and eddying Wind;
Where yet some yellow, lonely leaves we find
Lingering and trembling on the naked spray,
Twenty, perchance, for millions whirl’d away!
Emblem, alas! too just, of Humankind!
Vain Man expects longevity, design’d
For few indeed; and their protracted day
What is it worth that Wisdom does not scorn?
The blasts of Sickness, Care, and Grief appal,
That laid the Friends in dust, whose natal morn
Rose near their own; -- and solemn is the call; --
Yet, like those weak, deserted leaves forlorn,
Shivering they cling to life, and fear to fall!

= Anna Seward =

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Happy Saturday

From my hold slips my heart

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I r o n   W i l l e d

Harry Easterling Bridge

Peak, South Carolina

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To think that my eyes once could draw your eyes down for a moment,

From their lifting and straining up toward the opulent heights --

To think that my face was the face that you liked best to look on,

When fairer ones softened to pleading 'neath shimmering lights!

Regret you? Not I! I am glad that your proud heart disowned me,

The while it was lying so sullenly under my feet;

Since Love was to you but a snare and a pain, and you knew not

Its height and its depth, all unsounded, and soundless, and sweet.

Too dark was the shadow that fell from your face bending over me --

Too hot was the pant of your breath on the spring of my cheek!

I but dimly divined, yet I shrank from the warring of passions

So strong that they circled and shook me while leaving you weak.

Acknowledge! You knew not aright if you loved me or hated;

But you pushed me aside, since I hindered your seeing the heights.

They were but the cold, barren peaks up which selfish souls clamber,

And for which they surrender the gardens of scented delights.

From where I am sitting I watch your lone steps going upward,

And to-night I am back in those nights that we knew at the start.

I think of your eyes dark with pain, full of thwarted caressings,

And suddenly, after these years, from my hold slips my heart!

But no matter! There's too much between us -- we cannot go back now

I'm glad of it! -- yes, I will say it right on to the end! --

I'm glad that my once sore-reluctant, tempestuous lover

Hasn't leisure nor heart now to be my most leisurely friend!

My lover! Why how you would fling me the word back in fury!

Remembering you loved me at arms' length, in spite of denial;

That the protests were double: each went from the struggle unconquered;

The hour of soft, silken compliance was not on our dial.

You were angry for loving me, all in despite of your reasoning --

I was angry because you were able to hold your love down;

And jealous -- because in the scales of your logic you weighed me,

And slighted me for the dry bread of a sordid renown.

So I laughed at your loving -- I laughed in the teeth of your passion;

And I made myself fair, but to stand in your light from sheer malice;

Delighting to hold up the brim to the lips that were thirsting,

While I scorned to let fall on their dryness one drop from the chalice!

Alas, for the lips that are strange to the sweetness of kisses --

The kisses we dream of, and cry for, and think on in dying!

Alas, for unspoken endearments that stifle the breathing;

Since such in the depths of two hearts, never wedded, are lying!

You say, "It is best!" but I know that you catch your breath fiercely.

I say, "It is best!" but a sob struggles up from my bosom;

For out of a million of flowers that our fingers are free of,

The one that we care for the most is the never-plucked blossom.

Yet, O my Unbroken, my strong one -- too strong for my breaking! --

I am glad of the hours when we warred with each other and Love:

Though you never drew nearer than one when your hair swept my fingers

And their touch flushed your cheek as you bent at my side for my glove.

Never mind! I felt kisses that broke through the bitterest sayings.

Never mind! since caresses were hid under looks that were proud.

Shall we say there's no moon when she leaves her dear earth in the shadow

And hides all her light in the breast of some opportune cloud?

Yet this germ of a love -- could it ever have burgeoned to fullness? --
For us could there ever have been a sereneness of bliss,
With the thorns overtopping our flowers, turning fondness to soreness?
Ah, no! ’twas a thousand times better it ended like this!

And yet, if I went to you now in the stress of your toiling --
If we stood but one moment alone while I looked in your eyes --
What a melting of ice there would be! What a quickening of currents!
What thrills of despairing delight betwixt claspings and cries!

= Laura Redden Searing =

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Happy Friday