wheels

I loved this captivating project by Katy Beveridge. Read more here.

11.23.11

poem for a clear sunday

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

~ Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

the sum

I'm sick; I'm not doing well.
I'm writing home because
I need your help.
Living the dream ain't so dreamy, darling.
Living the dream ain't me.
'Cause I can't kill this animal between my ears,
and I can't stop feeding it what I've fed it for years.
Can you restore what's been taken?
Can you restore what's been given away?

What good is freedom if my heart's a slave to sin?
My allegiance lies with me.
Oh my pride is overwhelming!

My hands ready, my body poised for malevolence,
but I can't keep fighting it
and I can't swim through the tears.
Can you restore what's been taken?
Can you restore what's been given away?

I'd like a little of your blood, but that's all.
Just enough forgiveness to keep on being careless.
Am I more than the sum of the things I have and haven't done?

How do we undo what's already been done?
With nothing to stand on we fall.
We've been falling before we first arrived.

Can you restore what's been taken?
Can you restore what's been given away?
Am I more than the sum of the things I have and haven't done?
Am I more?

~ Give and Take by Abandon Kansas

The most true and beautiful song on a stunning album.

west

I want to go away. I want to jump in a car alone and drive west, drive and drive until I hit Utah, Nevada, Arizona, sand dunes, red rocks, and the sun-bleached road always streaming ahead, running away just like me. I want to listen to this song over and over and over, and try to justify myself. (Tell me I'm no loner. Tell me I'm not crazy, or maybe just a little bit.)

    

photo by Tim Chao

john and george

:)

wishes

For happiness, for stickers, for glitter, for love.

Rubber ducks and rainy days. Apple cider. Shooting stars. 

Bonfires, ice cream, cats and 

      books books books books books.

For dogs in the lake, for canoes, for June.

For colored pencils, Christmas lights, my baby sister's laugh. 

Pockets full of rocks. Letters in the mailbox. 

Music every minute, with silence in between. 

Solitude. Good company. People that I love.

Blank white paper. Black ink pens. 

For spiderwebs. For seashells. For light green sprouts.

For roadtrips. Adventures. Brand-new joys.

And stories. Lots of stories, to tell and be told. 

For my brother's hug around me. 

For concert tickets, stained glass windows, jack-o-lanterns,

pirate gold.

Thunderstorms, romance, chocolate, snow.

poem for a grey thursday

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
       love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

~ Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

beginning

photo by Rand Renfrow

Come on. Let's go. 

carpool

Driving home at the very welcome end of the day. We were stalled in traffic between the driver making out with his girlfriend and the driver texting into her lap, with a trail of brake lights crawling over the hill and out of sight. I had one wrist resting on the steering wheel, and thoughts running thick through my head. I smiled a little despite myself. I glanced out the window for composure, then glanced at you in the passenger seat. You were wearing a secret smile, too, and looking out the window. And even though we were both miles away, it was as though we'd touched for a second.

photo by CJ Sewers