Lichen

The blind woman next to me

fidgeting in her seat

visibly uneasy

brushed my arm

as if in need of help

with her train ticket

but she tricked me

her hand hovered

over mine, her

fingertips the texture

of centuries-old lichen

their pulp supple once

yet gentle still, attentive,

finding the folds in the skin

with such exactness

such deliberation

she smiled and

pursed her lips

fluttered about the scars

for she was but looking

for stories in hiding

for life, she said without words,

happens at the cracks

she held my wrist

the coarseness of her skin

made me wonder

if one day myself

I’d ever see

the way she did.

home again

The buzzing in his ears subsided a little

– the pain, the pain, though –

lying on his back

he couldn’t feel his legs

– what had happened though –

he was running and

Jack on his right was running too

and then, and then

too much noise

too much light

“Jack? Jack?”

the noise was still there

pounding

Jack didn’t say a word

perhaps Jack was too far already

he lifted his head

scanned the ruins

and then he knew:

war had happened

– he recalls the officer

on the campus saying

“War can happen, son”

– he had nodded his consent –

– he was bang on, that officer –

and war hurt like, like,

like a volcano

the burning searing

through the flesh

and then

his da was there

kneeling next to him

shushing him

(he knew his da)

(had passed away)

(when he was ten)

(he smiled at him)

his hand

tapping his chest

(his dad looked young)

(as young as himself now)

(his da smiled too)

“it’s ok, son,

it’s ok,

you’ll be home again

soon.”

In Depths

 

"Creativity -- like human life itself -- begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: "And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!" It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary."

in The Artist's Way (1992), by Julia Cameron, artist, author, teacher, filmmaker, composer, and journalist (1948-)

 

At the spectrum's ends

 

"A maxim for the twenty-first century might well be to start not by fighting evil in the name of good, but by attacking the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found. We should struggle not against the devil himself but what allows the devil to live — Manichaean thinking itself."

in Hope and Memory: Reflections on the Twentieth Century (2003), by Tzvetan Todorov (1939-2017), Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist, essayist and geologist.

Incidentally, I met the man when he came to my town for a lecture and to introduce this book which was just out. Fascinating person(ality) and thinking process (you could almost see the cogs spinning in his brain).