A year is a collection of days. These days fashion themselves into months, which clump together into seasons, both hot and dry, cold and wet. But only one continuum extends as far as we can walk. All else arbitrary. All else rationalizes what we look away from. That being our own end, from which we run, even as we draw nearer to it still. Peering back through the wine-sweet debauched years at the dull bluntness of youth, with the long and short of our yawning parched futures hunched on our bony shoulders. With the many crisscrossing paths diverging from our own, now choked with twisting brambles, now hiding forever what secrets they may once have held.
events transpire, time passes, and what end do we all hurtle toward
Posted by sean on October 8, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/10/08/events-transpire-time-passes-and-what-end-do-we-all-hurtle-toward/
welcome, aliens
UN ‘to appoint space ambassador to greet alien visitors’
“Opinion is divided about how future extraterrestrial visitors should be greeted. Under the Outer Space Treaty on 1967, which Unoosa oversees, UN members agreed to protect Earth against contamination by alien species by “sterilising” them.
Mrs. Othman is understood to support a more tolerant approach.
But Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that alien interlopers should be treated with caution.
He said: “I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. The outcome for us would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.””
Posted by sean on October 7, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/10/07/welcome-aliens/
horoscope
My horoscope for the week, courtesy of The Onion:
“Your life will soon lose all direction, which, considering how it has been going, should come as a vast relief.”
I thought this might serve as a jumping off point for a longer post, but I don’t really see a need for further elaboration. I realize that sounds overly dramatic; it’s just funny, that’s all.
Latest lifer, Lincoln’s Sparrow, found at Cromwell Valley Park on Sunday evening at the tail end of a very productive walk (photo courtesy of Kelly Colgan Azar via Flickr under Creative Commons license).
Posted by sean on September 28, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/28/horoscope/
aggravation
My bikes are all jacked up and I can’t seem to fix them. I ordered a part and the place has sent the wrong size twice now. TWICE.
The crime chopper keeps flying over my house. Daytime, nighttime, all the time.
The autumnal equinox began last night and tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 95. WTF?
The words quit spitting out, mind’s dry as an old corn husk.
I’m tired.
Posted by sean on September 24, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/24/aggravation/
the hour of happiness
Eyes sore looking out at the world. Perhaps it’s air pollution; maybe it’s hate. The hour grew long in a place I rarely go. The wheels turned fast toward a place I always go. In between lies emptiness, in between tempts fate. The fading light hides that wandering path in a cloak of longing. But I roll on. I always do. On these worn out streets, these angry streets, where nothing ever remains the same, a worn out wraith, near transparent, rattles its bones for the few who listen.
Posted by sean on September 17, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/17/the-hour-of-happiness/
in the wilderness
“Dreams: the place most of us get what we need”—Amy Hempel
Posted by sean on September 16, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/16/in-the-wilderness/
see you when your troubles get like mine
Small tragedies and minor victories twist around your idle fingers like woody vines. You trade witticisms like barbed wire slipped underneath your tongue. A single scent scatters a part of the brain already always a bit on edge. But at arm’s length, you don’t ever find the visceral. You won’t ever find it there. So push away the veil of ions, then, and you will see the rush of blood. Warm air on skin, brushing off a touch that never came. Color in cheeks, déjà vu and try to ignore imagination prone to wanton escapades. Think and wish, then, and think again. Fall into the ordinary, fall into it open and true, with wild grit in your gut.
Posted by sean on September 3, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/03/see-you-when-your-troubles-get-like-mine/
i realize everyone’s got an agenda…
…but this is just a waste of a good beech tree.
Posted by sean on September 2, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/09/02/i-realize-everyones-got-an-agenda/
in the morning or the late afternoon or in the midnight hour
When sleep still clouds your eyes, and the day has not yet dawned upon you. When dreams still stuff your head from ear to ear, and sleep still lies in reach. When there’s still a chance the day belongs to you. When you haven’t yet sat down for hours and when your mouth can form words and electricity showers the air with invisible sparks. There is a single moment, plucked from so many others, where you feel it, that which you grew up without but saw in others instead, from afar. Then later, sifting through a pile of the day’s written words, stacked up in your electronic woodlot, a certain desperation grows again. Even later still, the banjo duels with the fiddle across the orange light seeping into the wooden floorboards. The country in the city, within these four walls, shut up in the stale air, but breathing life. The night’s sleepy eyes begin to shut, and in between each drowsy blink, I think of you and you and everyone.
Posted by sean on August 27, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/08/27/in-the-morning-or-the-late-afternoon-or-in-the-midnight-hour/
Amy Hempel
So I just discovered Amy Hempel’s writing. I guess I am behind the times, but whatever…at least I found her! I looked up an interview and her answer to this question below struck me. In particular, this statement of hers rang like a bell in my head: “I’m still drawn to MOMENTS, moments when power shifts between two people, or moments when something small but encompassing happens.”
YES. Yes, Amy.
I also really like the quote from that Jane Hirshfield poem…I’m going to have to look that poem up. In her answer to the next question, Amy talks about poetry and how important it is in helping her craft stories, how you learn about rhythm and conserving words, among other valuable lessons.
RH: Your longest written work, Tumble Home, is a novella. Have you ever considered or attempted a full-length novel? And what attracts you to the short story form?
AH: I have never wanted to write a novel, though I might write another novella someday. I never get tired of what stories can do. I’m working very short again, and will continue this way (short-shorts, prose poems) until that gets old. I’m still drawn to MOMENTS, moments when power shifts between two people, or moments when something small but encompassing happens. There is a poem by Jane Hirshfield titled “Changing Everything” that best describes what I mean by that last– a person walking in the woods who picks up a stick and moves it to the other side of the path and says, “There, that’s done now.”
Posted by sean on August 23, 2010
https://sd-stewart.com/2010/08/23/amy-hempel/
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