Pending

Oh, for heaven's sake, Dale, there's no time for that sort of thing. If you have nothing to say, be silent. There's no virtue in multiplying pixels.

Sometimes it seems that the whole enterprise of writing is nothing but whining, a toddler tugging at his mom's sleeve: "Mom, look! Mom, look! Mom, look at me! Mom, look!"

It's time to slow down, take stock. I have been embarrassingly unsettled by the cloud of invisible twitter-birds that momentarily settled in my tree, here. Someone must have linked to my "no more Tennysons" post on twitter, because suddenly scores of strangers were visiting, and leaving without saying a word. Which stirred up the muddy sediment of ambition at the bottom of the glass. Faugh. Enough. We've been there before: we know where that road goes.

So enough. Forget all that. There are things you need to do. You've been off-balance for a long time, now. Lunging won't help matters. Sitting will.

Last night, the muttering of the wind and the sighing of the trees, the skitter of restless cats on the stairs. This morning, my bare feet on the landing, my hand pulling aside the curtain. The sky was black, but Orion paused to look at me, before walking on up the hill of the southern sky, clearing a path through the spiderweb clouds for the morning star.

My prayers have been turbid and confused. The best-disposed gods in the world would not know how to answer them. You can picture them, exasperated, in their paper-littered offices: "what kind of requisition is this? I'd be happy to grant him something if I could figure out what the hell he wants. Jesus. File it under 'pending,' would you?"