2.24.2010

This is college:

Wearing mittens, I fumble with my psychopharm note-cards, and drop all 187 of them into a snow bank. The moon waxes as I walk home and the snow glitters like it's absorbing the moon's essence. As I fall into bed, I hear three-part harmony wafting up through the ventilation system because someone's recording music in the basement. I set three alarms so I can get to the Rec Center at 6:30 a.m. for my Frisbee scrimmage, and then I read Clifford Geertz's theory of religion as a cultural system over fried eggs so I can have something intelligent to say in class... which started a minute ago. There is a sub-wufer in my kitchen. My housemate installs surround sound and we dance to Michael Jackson and eat of a massive batch of vegetarian chili. (I'm talking four tablespoons of cumin.) During the Olympics, we argue about whether the hockey man impacting the wall creates a standing wave or a time-dependent wave, and I'm soo tired but I have seven pages to write for tomorrow and I really feel like I need to write in my journal. I make quick coffee dates and nap on library couches, and can scarcely believe it when loving cardinal couples chirp bravely of spring as they poke their way through the snowdrifts. I laugh so hard that I cry, and I run out to the wind turbine when it's above 20 degrees. The bright-white winter sun burns my eyes, it smells like the Malt-O-Meal factory is making off-brand Co Co Puffs, and I wonder about truth. I wonder whether I should feel guilty about wondering about truth, given that a significant portion of the world is starving. I'm late for something again. I need to start that paper.

2.21.2010

Fire and Ice

I was just reading my Neruda anthology (again). This is one of my favorite procrastination techniques.

Once more I am the silent one
who came out of the distance
wrapped in cold rain and bells:
I owe to earth's pure death
the will to sprout.

2.12.2010

Looking through ice lattices
on an electric indigo evening
in February. Silence.
My finger traces something 

improbable, clear
in cold window geometry—
‘Circumscribe loneliness,’ I tell the circle
and everything dissolves.