I'm reading Moby-Dick. The last time I read it I was about ten and tackled the book because (a) it was big, and (b) my dad said he'd pay me twenty bucks (which he did). At the time, twenty bucks had seemed like it would buy very nearly anything a person could want--now I can only think of all the things twenty bucks wouldn't buy me: groceries for a week, a tank of gas, a visit to the doctor. Those are also things that, at ten, I would have had little interest in purchasing.

Moby-Dick, though. I'm not far in. I'm reading it slowly, which I suspect is the only way to read it. I remember very little of it (Queequeg is the sum total of what I remembered that isn't included in the category of 'general knowledge about Moby-Dick most people have').

I'm surprised by how much I like it. Everyone knows "Call me Ishmael" (don't they?) but I like what follows:

"Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand on me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

No wonder I don't remember Moby-Dick. I didn't get half of it. It reminds me of that Conan bit where he writes blues with children, and it makes me wonder about the books we relate to and the ones we don't, because I think the ones we relate to are the ones we remember. Oh, to be sure, I've never set foot on a whaler (unless you count Boston Whalers). I'm not even a person prone to strong bouts of depression. But I know a thing or two about moving around, and I've had a few drizzly Novembers of the soul. At ten? Well. I wanted twenty bucks to buy candy and stuffed animals. So, you know where this is going. Books don't change, but we do.

Sitting in a Small Screen-House on a Summer Morning

Ten more miles, it is South Dakota,
Somehow, the roads there turn blue,
When no one walks down them.
One more night of walking, and I could have become
A horse, a new horse, dancing
Down a road, alone.

I have got this far. It is almost noon. But never mind time:
That is all over.
It is still Minnesota.
Among a few dead cornstalks, the starving shadow
Of a crow leaps to his death.
At least, it is green here,
Although between my body and the elder trees
A savage hornet strains at the wire screen.
He can't get in yet.

It is so still now, I hear the horse
Clear his nostrils.
He has crept out of the green places behind me.
Patient and affectionate, he reads over my shoulder
These words I have written.
He has lived a long time, and he loves to pretend
No one can see him.

Last night I paused at the edge of darkness,
And paused, covered with green dew, alone
With the alone.
I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow
To the shadow of a horse.

-James Wright, 1962

Ode on Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care
--A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
------------------In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
--Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
------------------In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
--Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
------------------Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
--Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
------------------With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
--Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
------------------Tell where I lie.

-Alexander Pope, 1700

Ode XIV to Solitude

Thou, that at deep dead of night
Walk'st forth beneath the pale moon's light,
In robe of flowing black array'd,
While cypress-leaves thy brows o'ershade;
List'ning to the crowing cock,
And the distant-sounding clock;
Or sitting in thy cavern low,
Do'st hear the bleak winds loudly blow,
Or the hoarse death-boding owl,
Or village maistiff's wakeful howl,
While through thy melancholy room
A dim lamp casts an awful gloom;
Thou, that on the meadow green,
Or daisy'd upland art not seen,
But wand'ring by the dusky nooks,
And the pensive-falling brooks,
Or near some rugged, herbless rock,
Where no shepherd keeps his flock!
Musing maid, to thee I come,
Hating the tradeful city's hum;
O let me calmly dwell with thee,
From noisy mirth and bus'ness free,
With meditation seek the skies,
This folly-fetter'd world despise!

-Joseph Warton, 1746

Quink

1

Sick of ink (a professional worder)
I went into the biosphere
With two botanizers, a birder,
And a Leave-No-Trace-Trained mountaineer.

We witnessed the sacred in several classes.
They showed me how elevations flatten
On a topo map. Through fine field glasses
We confirmed a quantity of Latin.


2

Idle by nature, sick of talk,
I went into the somewhat wild
With an undifferentiated dog,
An apple, a gum wrapper, and a six year old.

The crags scratched our eyeballs. A brace of Quink
Came burtling out of their whiskets. Old Breather
Whulphed. It wasn't what you think,
Exactly. I guess you had to be there.

-Richard Kenney, 2012

I have a box of suspiciously old Fujifilm (BONUS ROLL, 4+1 pack, with a 'process before' date of November 2008 and a coupon inside the box that expired in March 2007) that I've been running through my FM3A lately. I posted a couple of pictures a couple of weeks ago (and added some to the most recent poemday), and here are some more.

I'm not really one to make bold statements about film v. digital v. anything else, and I've certainly been shooting a lot of digital lately, so I'll just say that the quality of light in these puts the photo in photography. I'll stop before this dissolves into something I really don't need to write right now. Someone else has done it already, I'm pretty sure.

[We are the knife people...]

We are the knife people, iron men, coat people
---and he-lands-sailing.
Souse eaters, house makers, husbands
---of kine and goat and swine, farm builders
---and keepers of kettle and scummer, word
---scratchers, corn stealers and bad sleepers.

As if towns could build themselves.
As if stumps jumped from the ground or
---flesh of beasts fell into trenchers.
As if paradise prevailed on earth.
To come to rich moulds and lush plantings,
---long-necked trees and tongues of land,

to redd the wild for the unborn.
---To reck not the peril.
Suffering snakes that may fly, wolves
---that may ravish. Kingdom
---of sachem and sagamore.
Kingdom of corn and thorny promise.

To satisfy our appetite of spirit,
---our thirst of property.
To seek not the opera of war but
---belittled by the possibilities
to stand silenced by the task before us—

these be my sudden and undigested thoughts.

-John Spaulding, 1989