Friday, August 30, 2013

Butter-Colored Dots

No, the trouble is not Facebook, nor the work I'm trying to get done around the house, nor what anyone else may be doing to hinder me. The trouble is the quality of attention I am bringing. I am scattered, distracted, and worried: and hence dismissive, judgmental, and small-minded.

Once again, I have to admonish myself to slow down, to do less, to take more time. Bring my full attention to bear. The craving for quick reassurance grows by what it feeds on: wasted time will lead only to wasted time. Enough.

Last night we swam in the pool, and sat in the jacuzzi, with a cold rain pelting down on us. Not really very cold, but cold by contrast, and not one's idea of an August beach vacation; not unless one is a native Northwesterner.

I have been down to the beach only once. It worries me that I view the sea, this time, with no awe. It does not even seem particularly big. It doesn't draw my eye. I reached yesterday in my poem, trying to find my way to it, but there's really nothing sillier than trying to force an awe that I'm not feeling. It will only jeopardize my future responses. I called the water “obsidian,” which is pretty enough, but it was just poetizing: the water I had been watching earlier was cloudy gray, freckled with butter-colored dots. Not a bit like obsidian. Stop, Mr Dale; stop before you draw yourself into further absurdities.

Restless, restless. And Seamus Heaney gone now, how can that be?

I see that makaris amang the lave
Playis here their padyanis, syne gois to grave;
Sparit is nocht their facultie:--
Timor mortis conturbat me.

I see that poets, among the best,
Play their pageants and go to rest,
Rhyme they never so skillfully:--
Timor mortis conturbat me.

2 comments:

Zhoen said...

If you are a flitting firefly today, maybe that is what you are best being right now. Not concrete, but a shifting sand dune. Why not shrug and say, "ah, bother."

Lucy said...

And he was no age, was he, the dear man, though I suppose he'd have seemed old to me at that age when I was young. I find the sadness and tendency to weepiness I experience about him something of a relief, withal.

'Obsidian' is always one to be careful of I think, like fingernail-paring moons and children's hands being starfish. I used the latter once and have felt bad about it ever since. I like the butter-coloured dots very much though. And 'timor mortis', and also that one about 'all standeth on change like a midsummer rose'.