Me aged 2. It didn’t seem plausible but I did grow up. And, surprisingly enough, not into a fearless tomboy.
“How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Tag: black and white photography
The world forgetting by the world forgot
I Know It Will Be Quiet When You Come
Take from my palms
Take from my palms, to soothe your heart,
a little honey, a little sun,
in obedience to Persephone’s bees.
You can’t untie a boat that was never moored,
nor hear a shadow in its furs,
nor move through thick life without fear.
For us, all that’s left is kisses
tattered as the little bees
that die when they leave the hive.
Deep in the transparent night they’re still humming,
at home in the dark wood on the mountain,
in the mint and lungwort and the past.
But lay to your heart my rough gift,
this unlovely dry necklace of dead bees
that once made a sun out of honey.
Portable magic
Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
Gustave Flaubert
References
Stephen king
Inward and outward
I seem to be forgetting to live a little more.
No wrong notes
The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides. Artur Schnabel
References:
“The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.” ― Thelonious Monk
Photo: Vintage market at Armazém, Porto, November 18, 2017
Words I said and never meant
There are words
I've had to save myself from,
like My Lord and Blessed Mother,
words I said and never meant,
though I admit a part of me misses
the ornamental stateliness
of High Mass, that smell
of incense. Heaven did exist,
I discovered, but was reciprocal
and momentary, like lust
felt at exactly the same time—
two mortals, say, on a resilient bed,
making a small case for themselves.
You and I became the words
I'd say before I'd lay me down to sleep,
and again when I'd wake—wishful
words, no belief in them yet.
It seemed you'd been put on earth
to distract me
from what was doctrinal and dry.
Electricity may start things,
but if they're to last
I've come to understand
a steady, low-voltage hum
of affection
must be arrived at. How else to offset
the occasional slide
into neglect and ill temper?
I learned, in time, to let heaven
go its mythy way, to never again
be a supplicant
of any single idea. For you and me
it's here and now from here on in.
Nothing can save us, nor do we wish
to be saved.
Let night come
with its austere grandeur,
ancient superstitions and fears.
It can do us no harm.
We'll put some music on,
open the curtains, let things darken
as they will
Here and Now, Stephen Dunn
Photo: Lisbon, Cais das Colunas (today)
Perspectives
nothing can better cure the anthropocentrism that is the author of all our ills than to cast ourselves into the physics of the infinitely large (or the infinitely small). By reading any text of popular science we quickly regain the sense of the absurd, but this time it is a sentiment that can be held in our hands, born of tangible, demonstrable, almost consoling things. We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe.
Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
Scale (ing) down Porto
When he left
Mr. Alexandre used to work here, from 1962 until he died in 2016.
From the street, looking through the window, it doesn’t look like this place is abandoned. He might come back. Someone might come back for their bespoke suit.
If you read Portuguese, please head to Blog dos Alfaiates, Mr. Alexandre’s story is there along with other stories about other masters of elegance.
Photo: Alexandre Alfaiate, Praça Coronel Pacheco, Porto
Stories from A Closet of Errors 