Thursday, April 27, 2006

On Quirk

In response to Lynn's 365 Acts of Quirk, I give you: Yesterday at Magic Mountain:

1. Scott and I pretended that we were skiing down a big hill (we were walking down it) complete with interlocking S-shapes and making "shhhh! SHHHHH! Shhhhhhwoooo!" noises to simulate the snow flying up behind our skis. Now I realize that may cross the line from "quirk" to "dork"... but it was pretty funny at the time, and there was no one there to see us except our two good friends.

2. Holding (bare) toes on the rides where it became apparent we'd need to hold onto our shoes (flip flops). Kissing in the middle of a roller coaster ride by craning our necks as far as possible.

For todays' poem, I give you: Pablo Neruda.

Love For This Book

In these lonely regions I have been powerful
in the same way as a cheerful tool
or like untrammeled grass which lets loose its seed
or like a dog rolling around in the dew.
Matilde, time will pass wearing out and burning
another skin, other fingernails, other eyes, and then
the algae that lashed our wild rocks,
the waves that unceasingly construct their own whiteness,
all will be firm without us,
all will be ready for the new days,
which will not know our destiny.


What do we leave here but the lost cry
of the seabird, in the sand of winter, in the gusts of wind
that cut our faces and kept us
erect in the light of purity,
as in the heart of an illustrious star?


What do we leave, living like a nest
of surly birds, alive, among the thickets
or static, perched on the frigid cliffs?
So then, if living was nothing more than anticipating
the earth, this soil and its harshness,
deliver me, my love, from not doing my duty, and help me
return to my place beneath the hungry earth.


We asked the ocean for its rose,
its open star, its bitter contact,
and to the overburdened, to the fellow human being, to the wounded
we gave the freedom gathered in the wind.
It's late now. Perhaps
it was only a long day the color of honey and blue,
perhaps only a night, like the eyelid
of a grave look that encompassed
the measure of the sea that surrounded us,
and in this territory we found only a kiss,
only ungraspable love that will remain here
wandering among the sea foam and roots.

2 comments:

bozoette said...

Ah, kissing on roller coasters is an excellent pastime. And that was quite a lovely picture in the previous post. Yum. (Thanks for stopping by Red Nose! I am now going to eat a banana.)

Maya said...

Hi! Thanks for coming by! To add to our celebrity sightings, today I ran into Noah Wyle (ER) and his aDORable little son, and David Crosby. Funny, huh? Enjoy the bananna - I'm going to have one as well!