3 a.m.

Left the house shattered, it hurt so bad,

so many years as a man, compromise,

in spite of partial success in intellectual tussle

he was never anyone of Olympian allure.

He walked slowly through the dreamscape

of the late autumn day, barely distinguishable

from early spring, with young willows

and a patch of waste ground where blue jays screamed.

Dreamy exposure to phenomena

that to nature in its administration

of various cycles—young and old alike—

are inseparably part of a single order—:

so he drank his gin and accepted a dish

of sausage soup, free on Thursdays

with a beverage and so found the Olympian balance

of sorrow and pleasure.

---G. Benn

This song, this song of sorrow and joy, is always with us.

---Mir Dard.

|||

You woke up in the middle of the night with some unknown anxieties making their way to the surface of your thoughts. In a dream vaguely remembered you had slept for a whole day and yet had not missed anything; no-one had missed you either and there was nothing to note. You wondered if the normal waking days were very much different. But you did have the sneaking suspicion that something might have happened, some great insight or sudden resolution may have occurred on that day, the day in which you were asleep and the world had carried on. You looked down out of the dark window onto the empty street, hoping that someone else would see this dark flurry of drifting snow.

|||

A conversation.

She said, I'm trying to live a simple life now; I have become anti-make-up. I don't wear anything now.  

I suddenly looked up at her plain face and saw it was true.

Distance learning: we learn at a distance now.

|

What is there left to do but find oneself at home in this homelessness?