“Waiting for a world to be unearthed by language, somebody sings the place where silence is formed. Then she’ll discover it’s not because the sea shows its fury that it exists, or the world either. That’s why each word says what it says and more and something else besides.” ~ Alejandra Pizarnik, from “The Healing Word,” trans. Cecilia Rossi

“Stony Point, New York” (1925, oil on canvas)
by Boris Anisfield

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Two for Tuesday: If speaking makes it real . . .

Tuesday night. Partly cloudy and cold, 43 degrees.

“Winter Landscape (Snow)” (1958-61)
by Fairfield Porter

Corey and I rode to Williamsburg yesterday afternoon to go to the big outlet malls there. He’s been wanting a new pair of boots, and there is a Timberland outlet, along with Nautica, Eddie Bauer, and many other stores that aren’t here in Hampton Roads. We had a nice time; it was fun to do something different, just the two of us. Then we had Olivia this afternoon, which was nice. Tomorrow I finally have an appointment to get my Botox injections for my migraines. It’s been a very long time since my last series, so this cannot come soon enough.

My lungs are much better, and the coughing jags are almost non-existent at this point, but I have been left with a constant dull headache. Other than that, the only thing looming on my horizon is the arduous task of taking down and boxing up Christmas until next year. I hope your 2015 is beginning on a good note.

More later. Peace.

                   

“Havelufer mit Kahn im Schneetreiben” (1895, oil on canvas)
by Karl Hagemeister

Serenade

Some night under a pale moon and geraniums
he would come with his incredible hands and mouth
to play the flute in the garden.
I am beginning to despair
and can see only two choices:
either go crazy or turn holy.
I, who reject and reprove
anything that’s not natural as blood and veins,
discover that I cry daily,
my hair saddened, strand by strand,
my skin attacked by indecision.
When he comes, for it’s clear that he’s coming,
how will I go out onto the balcony without my youth?
He and the moon and the geraniums will be the same-
only women of all things grow old.
How will I open the window, unless I’m crazy?
How will I close it, unless I’m holy?

~ Adélia Prado

                   

“Dilbeek sous la neige” (1938)
by Jean Brusselmans

 

Testimony

If tonight the moon should arrive like a lost guide
crossing the fields with a bitter lantern in her hand,

her irides blind, her dresses wild, lie down and listen to her
find you; lie down and listen to the body become

the promise of no other, the sleeper in the garden
in its own arms, the exile in its own autumnal house.

You have woken. But no one has woken. You are changed,
but the light of change is bitter, the changing

is the threshold into winter. Traveler, rememberer, sleeper,
tonight, as you slumber where the dead are, if the moon’s hands

should discover you through fire, lie down
and listen to her hold you, the moon who has been away

so long now, the lost moon with her silver lips
and whisper, her body half in winter,

half in wool. Look at her, look at her, that drifter.
And if no one, if nothing comes to know you, if no song

comes to prove it isn’t over, tell yourself, in the moon’s
arms, she is no one; tell yourself, as you lose

love, it is after, that you alone are the bearer
in that changed place, you alone who have woken, and have

opened, you alone who can so love
what you are now and the vanishing that carries it away.

~ Joseph Fasano

                   

Music by Kiev, “Pulsing Tired Lungs”

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