Here we are
in the depths of
long dark
and there lurks
all the light of day,
just around
the curve of earth.
Happy Solstice –
Here comes the Sun!
By Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA – 2017.01.21 Women’s March Washington, DC USA 00094, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55208311
In this ancient stretch
of earth
our lives blink,
moments,
brief
as the lace of snow.
To have
uncovered you,
a jewel
richly buried in
shadowed soil,
there growing,
a watered fern,
a river rock
glowing soft
in the ground,
moonlight,
soul sweet,
passion-dark
magic strong;
your heart,
an amulet,
such power
I can
scarce believe.
Elements,
lapped from
your mouth,
life’s breath,
swallowed in
wonder
and borne
out as
muscle and bone.
You are
the strength
of my hands.
Few things bring me as much pleasure as waking up wrapped around the same woman, day after day after month and year. She is my pole star and my rock, my reality check and my down comforter. Not much ever distracts from my daily dawn awakening thought: She is there and Life is good.
Four years ago, I said, “I do” to her, and she to me. No big show, just a nod to our commitment to travel the road together. Fortunately, the “road” has proven not to be a super-highway, but rather a wandering path, through places both fascinating and surreal. I can’t wait to travel the next four years with her—and so on.
These are my blessings.
I have always been a lover of darkness.
This began in my childhood when I used to head for
the little evergreen forest
at the end of the farm pond, just as the sun was setting.
The little forest offered cool dark shade,
even during the heat of the brightest day.
It was delicious to be there in the darkness,
even better when a pale dust of moonlight filtered
through the slender needles
and sparkled upon my skin.
As the day settled into night,
the moist coolness of all of that greenery
exhaled a soft mist over the pond.
I could not ignore its invitation.
Little frogs made music from the rocks along the shore.
Their songs became soft watery plops as I passed them.
In the west, where the last vestige of day
was nestling into the horizon,
there were long skeins of green corn,
their tasseled stalks back-lit just for an instant
as the sun winked out.
Since those days of childhood,
my heart has worshiped
starlight through evergreen.
Even now, I love to walk outside in the evening,
arm in arm with my love,
while the border collies empty their bladders for the night.
I love to look straight up into the sky.
The darkness there settles me.
It soothes me to breathe it in.
Sometimes it feels too big to swallow.
In the spring, everyone rejoices
as the hours of daylight
lengthen and the sun draws nearer,
and I do not disagree,
but my eyes get tired of the over-bright sun.
I begin to feel weary at the end of the brilliant day,
as if I dare not rest
but should be ever more productive.
The cool quiet of evening dark calls me out.
I love to walk in it,
to discover that it is not
really all that dark
after all,
but lit by chips of star and a pearly moon.
In this way it resembles silence,
which is not really what
we expect it to be.
The dark invites invisibility.
It tends to the senses which do not require light.
I have always said that
I am a root vegetable,
in love with the darkness.
After over four decades of human visitation to outer space, many people are rather blasé about the images that come back from space. Well, astronaut Ron Garan aimed to change that during his most recent mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The video below, which runs just a little over seven minutes, represents an incredible opportunity for us terrestrial creatures to have a front row seat–and a window seat at that–as the ISS streaks around the circumference of Earth.
Colonel Garan annotated major events and landmarks as they appear in the film, but we were particularly struck by the views of the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis (as well as an incredible multi-continent lightning display about half-way through the film). Perhaps even more stunning is the nearly omnipresent perspective of the thin blue band of gases that surrounds this watery planet–we look up into the daytime sky and can’t seem to believe it does not go on forever. From the window of the ISS, it is painfully clear that the tellurian sky is but a thin veil between life and the void of outer space.
Although we are terribly proud of our blog layout here at Primitive State, we highly recommend that you push the button to watch this video in full screen mode. Also, turn up your speakers.
Many thanks to Colonel Garan for his service, and for this priceless gift to the people of Earth. Please share the link to this post and to the Fragile Oasis with everybody you know.