tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58394942009-12-06T17:41:05.318-05:00Despite MyselfPaulanoreply@blogger.comBlogger766125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-82401312463375599482009-11-26T12:00:00.000-05:002009-11-26T12:47:35.500-05:00

the night at the end of the burning world,the red bones where my flesh still hangs,the woods beyond the reach of human voices,the gulfs that engulf and bind,and the light that blinds.And thank You also for procession,for reachand gravity,for the literal tree on the literal green hill,for the transparency of upraised armsand for the world caught in convex water.I thank You most of all for Youand

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-81186734318823676532009-11-14T18:16:00.001-05:002009-11-14T19:33:21.293-05:00

Warm, wet night. I come home to a dozen moths flattened out in porchlight on the vinyl siding by the back door. Small, dull things with frayed wings, pitiful, dignified. Damp bits of feathery protoplasm nearing the end of their days. Empathy collapses at the starting line. Compassion surges. What's that line from Neruda ? A veces me canso de ser hombre -- sometimes I am tired of being human. What

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-60377336537749657102009-11-01T19:00:00.001-05:002009-11-01T20:40:18.358-05:00

Advent is coming, and, if you ask me, not a moment too soon.I am sick of the Jolly Green Giant of ordinary time. So what is this, already, proper 67 ? Deo gratias for today's All Saints' flash of white, and the white of Christ The King three weeks hence. I may squint at it, deer-in-the-headlights, and cower; I may choke up, improbably, inexplicably but predictably, singing Lesbia Scott's

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-72146294452315820982009-10-18T16:30:00.005-04:002009-10-18T16:42:34.390-04:00

I went to the woods recently for the first time in weeks. I went late; the sun was bright and low, and the day was waning. A high wind was rushing through the trees. It was the sound of time itself, pushing, pulling, eddying around me. I wanted to launch myself into it, like a leaf. It was good to be in the woods. I'd rushed out of the house in the wrong shoes, but I was in tame woods and

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-55314019633651988452009-10-03T19:24:00.011-04:002009-10-07T06:49:16.760-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-88504863982097191232009-09-30T06:56:00.000-04:002009-09-30T07:09:40.954-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-82961701943552447332009-09-18T19:27:00.008-04:002009-09-19T07:30:27.565-04:00

After the storm I wander the riverbankand watch the trees deform and reform in the windRaindrops have hung themselves out to dry on every line and filament,and snails drowseon the high ground of the switchgrass.The footfall of the houseflyechoes in rift between summer and autumn.I listen with an eye of water.

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-76439969433501360392009-09-13T19:00:00.001-04:002009-09-13T19:41:10.381-04:00

I -- as I have said -- take pictures of weeds. But, inevitably, one of the citizens of weedlandia will venture into my viewfinder and will turn up in a photograph, more so, I think, as summer winds down and a collective lethargy seizes the insect community. They've worked hard, after all; they're worn out, their tasks are nearing completion. Plants have been pollinated, their eggs have been laid

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-73189814699874445872009-09-07T05:00:00.002-04:002009-09-07T12:01:29.985-04:00

Last night I dreamed I renounced Christianity. I ripped a gold cross I was wearing from around my neck and flung it away.In the dream, DK and I were about to get married. The preacher made a snide remark about DK being Jewish.I told the preacher that I was a Jew and a Buddhist and that he was the opposite of an evangelist, driving people away from the church.At breakfast, I told DK about the

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-75823678244047896102009-09-03T08:00:00.001-04:002009-09-03T09:11:05.901-04:00

It was difficult to remain in the Boulevard Noir while vacationing in our neighbor's Cape Cod summer house. While Boston sweltered, I had two patios -- one always shady -- on which to recline and read, and a sea breeze to keep me cool. I alternated between Graham Greene's Brighton Rock and Thomas Merton's Journals. I was bovine with pleasure. I was beyond reach of everything -- the EMR, my

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-6602357510771763812009-08-21T13:48:00.023-04:002009-08-21T19:03:32.401-04:00

Nothing can mitigate the sheer ugliness of the gateway to the South Shore. Even Sister Mary Corita Kent's rainbow-draped tanks are, when you get right down to it, tanks, and the other eye-grabbing colors in the drab landscape are from Mad Ave's calculated and seductive palette. But we were headed south, Capeward, toward what I once called in a poem "the Atlantic of my earliest reluctances,"

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-15228936042663265512009-08-15T13:25:00.024-04:002009-08-16T20:42:43.522-04:00

If you will follow me past the culvert and over the crest of this little hill you will see that we have arrived at our destination: the tracks. If you ask me whether we are on the wrong or the right side of the tracks I will tell you that I do not know. We are on the side where weeds and trash mingle and happily coexist, a species of paradise, but beyond that I cannot say. The first thing that

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-69261656777300731622009-08-12T19:00:00.000-04:002009-08-12T20:41:42.820-04:00

A few weeks ago a patient admired the purple shoelaces in my old & ugly, black & fissured Payless Shoe Source oxfords. "Thank you," I replied. "They're penitential."His eyes grew wide; his smile froze; I could see him wanting to back quietly toward the exam room door and flee. I turned the topic quickly to the color of his nasal secretions, a much safer topic. Stuff like that just slips out

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-58552690268171055802009-08-08T08:46:00.028-04:002009-08-08T12:21:36.981-04:00

Why do some otherwise progressive, intelligent, articulate, inclusive, kind-, open- and generous-hearted religious bloggers and blog commenters who would not be caught dead engaging in classist, racist, (hetero)sexist, ethnicist, sizist, ageist or otherwise -isty language feel that it is perfectly fine to traffic in generalities about "baby boomers" ? Or perhaps I should include the obligatory

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-28554843401147967922009-08-01T11:55:00.001-04:002009-08-01T12:02:12.303-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-51202717468700681082009-07-31T02:15:00.000-04:002009-07-31T14:22:00.633-04:00

At latitudes neither north nor south,between longing and flight,ice pulls and fire dogs. The wood sheds its stories.Saprophytes & apophatophyteskeep the decidual feastfeed on the complex humus.The page liesfamiliaron the tongue.

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-70428748424182154312009-07-28T09:00:00.002-04:002009-07-28T20:02:35.063-04:00

If anyone bothers to ask me what I photograph, my standard answer is, "I take pictures of weeds." It's a cheeky reply, and intentionally a little off-putting. And it's true. I take pictures of weeds. I like weeds: common, small, negligible, despised, random, ubiquitous, living in the cracks of civilization. I identify with them. I love them, even.Raytheon is not a weed. It is a corporation, a

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-48610050244455825882009-07-25T13:00:00.000-04:002009-07-25T13:46:31.200-04:00

Blab. What a great word. It's the bl that makes it. Cross your ears and listen: speech and conversation devolves to bl-bl-bl-bl-blIt's not just the spoken word. Cross your eyes and read: the text morphs to a jiggling bl-bl-bl-bl-bl- I brought a book to the HMO yesterday to read while waiting to get the increasing translucency of my bones quantified. I'd seen it lauded on the internets as

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-22703400594005635582009-07-24T08:12:00.001-04:002009-07-24T08:12:27.212-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-25163050938525844152009-07-23T00:17:00.001-04:002009-07-23T00:17:44.091-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-91484384009447138142009-07-19T19:53:00.003-04:002009-07-19T20:05:20.840-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-64268306806169950772009-07-19T18:58:00.003-04:002009-07-19T19:07:08.398-04:00

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-32885356612424268652009-07-13T13:42:00.018-04:002009-07-13T19:47:05.580-04:00

It happens to us all every so often, I am sure: the nachos, which always seemed so straightforward, so crispily salty and tasty, suddenly become obscure. You push the basket away, whether from surfeit or some generalized dysgeusia and look around. There's grease on your fingers, crumbs in your lap; you stare in disbelief at the failed appetizer. Would some salsa help ? Una cerveza ? You look

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-83177029686890832222009-07-11T11:43:00.014-04:002009-07-11T14:32:35.623-04:00

Last night I wandered into the living room as a KFC ad was winding down. The message on the screen readUNTHINK TASTE THE UNSUB SIDE OF KFCI read it again. It had been a long week. I was tired, generally annoyed at the whole world, and suddenly this. I sat down on the couch and read it a third time. Was I having a stroke ? It made no sense, in a vaguely Orwellian way. The words gave way to an

Paulanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5839494.post-46819181317748029572009-07-06T21:30:00.002-04:002009-07-11T14:23:56.101-04:00

When, in Matthew, I encounter the phrase outer darkness I am transported, in my imagination, to an imaginary street in an imaginary town: the Boulevard Noir of Jean-Paul Sartre's Bouville. I didn't remember until tonight, revisiting the book and the street, that it was so aptly named: Black Boulevard.Our existential hero, Roquentin, is killing time on a cold night. He heads for the outskirts,I

Paulanoreply@blogger.com