In haunted hours, I wilt to sleep, and know that I'll be cursed in dreams. I'll drift upon Stygian streams at speeds between trickle and creep, listening for some distant screams. In haunted hours, I wilt to sleep, and know that I'll be cursed in dreams trapped down below the castle keep, until the King should come to deem me worthy of some healing dreams. In haunted hours, I wilt to sleep, and know that I'll be cursed with dreams, drifting upon Stygian streams.
There was an old woman from Phnom Penh who liked to canoe now and again, but boating Tonlé Sap -- despite compass and map -- she'd forget which way it flowed, now-and-then.
[Note: The Tonlé Sap is one of the few rivers in the world that changes its flow each year due to the rainy season surge. (As opposed to owing to daily tidal surges — which are more common.)]
The rising waters spill into a flood. All who aren't holding tightly are soon lost. Dead swept away in tobacco-colored mud -- clogged and coated as they're rolled and tossed; crushed and carried with all other debris; ever moving toward a wide blue sea. But one body will never reach that sea. Some wide river will dissipate the flood, and banks and bends will catch all that debris. There's more than one route to a lifetime lost. Not everything is caught that's deluge tossed -- some stay, hidden, buried in deepest mud. What's stuck in mud long enough becomes mud, and nothing more than silt reaches the sea. Though clues will be found from the houses tossed -- like jack-booted thugs - so behaves the flood. It ensures treasures remain ever lost, while unloved scraps stay twisted in debris. How quickly cherished goods become debris -- just swirl them around in some dodgy mud, and what was loved will be forever lost as if it were trapped deep below the sea with speed as surprising as in flashflood. Only spared heirlooms avert being tossed. The churning river makes me feel I'm tossed -- as if circulating in the debris. But I am not a victim of this flood, just one who sees the future in the mud and one who sees the past writ in the sea, and, seeing both, is nonetheless still lost. To know maps doesn't mean to never be lost. To ride floods requires being rudely tossed, and doesn't mean you'll ever detect the sea, nor that you'll be classed: "unloved debris." There's always something shining in the mud -- all the more so after the crest of flood. So, be lost without becoming debris -- a thing that's tossed but shines in the mud, and, never seeking sea, just rides the flood.
Everything I know spends time stuck at intersections: -Forgotten & Loved -Remembered & Invented -Lost & Found -Lost & Remembered -Lost & Hopeful -Hopeful & Naïve -Naïve & Sentimental -Sentimental & Rational -Rational & Irrational -Irrational & Humble -Lucky & Smart -Smart & Humble -Forever & Never & so on, & so on.
In the early morning hours, a staggering drunk asked me if I were him, thinking he was looking at a mirror rather than through a glass door. I told him it was too early for such metaphysical inquiry.
snowy mountain two sets of tracks: one straight, one meanders
I've walked the world cast in the role of distant stranger, and seen the old, the bold, the minor, and the major. And people talk of fears, but I would make a wager that never was a sense more ill-tuned than that of danger.
I watch a frangipani blossom -- its elegant five twisted petals swept downstream, drifting toward the smooth laminar lip that rolls over the cascade. And I feel a teensy queasy, watching it be lifted and whipped over the edge. As if I were it, and it were me.
to be poured steaming tea from a dented kettle, in a wooden building, hanging at the mountain's edge, at the end of a long day's journey, has a special spirit-raising force
The burbling sounds did clarify my mind. Somehow, the flowing stream was one with me, and sitting down just at the riverbend, I felt more flowing rhythm than I could see. Some part of me was whisked in search of sea, though my body sat at the muddy edge. I know not how a part of me could flee -- just pure potential, being on a ledge. I lost the river like one loses blood. It's there, but [unseen] becomes all and none. Each is swept along swiftly by a scud, but seem so still when you and it are one. The mystic moment comes then flits away, and I am left with nothing fine to say.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 