My grandmother’s globe sits behind cherry and glass,
its surface a smooth white, painted with beginner crayola colors.
Only the big countries have names.
It fits in the palm of my hand.
Age has caused small fissures in the surface, causing shifts in
ocean names and country lines.
There is no room for the north pole. Africa is in large pieces. Russia bleeds wide and blue.
Part of me wonders if it was only a pretty thing to look at, when it was new,
or if it was a small teaching tool-
if children held it in their barely-big hands and wondered at strange names,
distant expanses,
or if they only sought themselves somewhere on the sphere.
Were there fissures, then,
or have those only come with time,
as the teacher passed
and the kids grew
and found the world to be far bigger than they could grasp.
I hold a piece of my inheritance,
wonder how much it’s worth.
[glasses that catch light like life trapped in amber,
both killed and kept whole by slippery gold disaster]
i asked her, when she was young and didn’t have any masters,
“do you ever think the world will ever turn any faster?”
and like she’d bleached her features she went alabaster
and I wondered if, to her, the world had already spun right past her
So then somebody might say, “Oh so it didn’t have any deeper meaning.” No, it comes after. It’s like with any major life decision you make. It’s like, why did you take this job? It’s not like you sat down with a big chart and said, “What am I going to do in life, and how will this job help me?” It’s like no, you need a job so you go apply for your job and then later you can see the bigger things. And creating things is the same thing. I’m always telling people—and they don’t believe me—but when I try to write songs, the first couple lines are spat out while I’m watching television or something. I’ll pick up the guitar while I’m watching Law & Order and I’ll bark out some lines and then it goes somewhere. I assume that songwriters who sit down with a big vision first are the ones writing very boring songs. It sort of has to come from the playful part of your brain. It has to come from the little kid with finger-paints to be interesting to me.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5 (ESV)
Yeah, we’re classy… Such an amazing group of people. #graduationparty #2k14 #oneweek #samonsax
Meriam Ibrahim’s 20 month old son is a US citizen and the Embassy has refused to help them. So an American toddler is IMPRISONED in Sudan and we’re refusing to help? There’s no justifying that with “oh, it’s their culture and their business.” That means her unborn child is a citizen too. I was...
Golden Borough bookshop - Macon, GA
If every year has been an attempt at
controlling, then every look in the mirror has been
a patrolling of features I cannot change-
constructing expressions to confess nothing.
This has been perfectionism
in the same way that you erase the sketches
once you pen the lines,
or when you build the cage
and forget what’s inside.
-reflecting/deflecting
Inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.
People write scholarly articles about the strangest things. This comparison of George W. Bush’s administration to a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, though…. Gracious.
Always look at your negatives in the context of the light, the bright– not the night.
And we press forward-
we are tired,
weary,
broken,
only whole
when in presence of the
Holy-
we press into a world
always pressing
upon
us-
we are so tired,
and so tired of being tired.
But we press on because we know
that the deeper
wider
harder
we pierce the world,
the deeper we penetrate the raw,
beating,
brimming heart of God.
In the steel grip of the enemy-
in the trembling, curled hands of the weary-
press, press, press,
pierce,
as He was pierced,
breaking down the walls between
lost children
and their Father,
press,
pressure,
for pressure produces perfection.
Press, press, press-
love, love, love-
for presses make wine,
which we take as his blood:
salvation-
hope-
precious.
A lot of New York
Was spent on sidewalks
Closer to strangers than I am to my own kin,
Languages rolling like the smells in the air
Snow exhaust and the smell of the heat turned on.
I played a game with myself,
To see how many people would hold eye contact with me-
If I turned a head, how long would that head stay turned-
What started as an excercise in vanity became something as simple
As glancing into the windows
Between brick concrete marble
Seeing instances of life
In an eye
Contact
Me, they seemed to say
Look look look
And what started off as leers sometimes
Became looks of wonder
Because what is it like,
To look into the abyss,
And find it looking into you?
Like nothing else.
You are always
Worth a second glance (chance?)
New york taught me that.
And sometimes, strangers see with
Clarity you have never been given,
And they reflect it.
See them see you.
Always look at strangers.
Even if they never glance at you.
wayfaringmd
12142012 asked:
thanks friend!
