With fainting soul athirst for Grace,

I wandered in a desert place,

And at the crossing of the ways

I saw a sixfold Seraph blaze;

He touched mine eyes with fingers light

As sleep that cometh in the night:

And like a frightened eagle's eyes,

They opened wide with prophecies.

He touched mine ears, and they were drowned

With tumult and a roaring sound:

I heard convulsion in the sky,

And flight of angel hosts on high,

And beasts that move beneath the sea,

And the sap creeping in the tree.

And bending to my mouth he wrung

From out of it my sinful tongue,

And all its lies and idle rust,

And 'twixt my lips a-perishing

A subtle serpent's forkd sting

With right hand wet with blood he thrust.

And with his sword my breast he cleft,

My quaking heart thereout he reft,

And in the yawning of my breast

A coal of living fire he pressed.

Then in the desert I lay dead,

And God called unto me and said:

"Arise, and let My voice be heard,

Charged with My will go forth and span

The land and sea, and let My word

Lay waste with fire the heart of man."

the prophet

by alexander pushkin

props to xian

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.


It’s the same when love comes to an end,


or the marriage fails and people say 


they knew it was a mistake, that everybody 


said it would never work. That she was


old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly. 


Like being there by that summer ocean 


on the other side of the island while 


love was fading out of her, the stars 


burning so extravagantly those nights that 


anyone could tell you they would never last. 


Every morning she was asleep in my bed


like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist. 


Each afternoon I watched her coming back 


through the hot stony field after swimming, 


the sea light behind her and the huge sky 


on the other side of that. Listened to her 


while we ate lunch. How can they say 


the marriage failed? Like the people who 


came back from Provence (when it was Provence) 


and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. 


I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, 


but just coming to the end of his triumph.

— Jack Gilbert

via among the pines

Beach Attitudes

Blessed is the beach, survivor of tides.



And blessed the litter of crown conchs and pen shells, the dead


blue crab in all its electric raiment.



Blessed the nunneries of skimmers,


scuttering and rising, wheeling and falling and settling, ruffling


their red and black-and-white habits.


And blessed be the pacemakers and the peacemakers,



the slow striders, the arthritic joggers, scarred and bent under


their histories, for they’re here at last by the sunlit sea.



Blessed Peoria and Manhattan, Ottowa and Green Bay, Pittsburgh,


Dresden.



And blessed their children.



And blessed the lovers for they shall have one perfect day.



Blessed be the dolphin out beyond the furthest buoy,


slaughtering the bright leapers,


for they shall have full bellies.



Blessed, too, the cormorant and the osprey and the pelican


for they are the cherubim and seraphim and archangel.



And blessed be the gull, open throated, screeching, scolding


me to my face,



for he shall have his own place returned to him.


And the glossy lip of the long wave shall have the last kiss.

— Robert Dana

via among the pines