Phosphorescent Sea, M.C. Eshcer, 1933
"people will tell you where they've gone
they'll tell you where to go
but till you get there yourself you never really know"
Amelia, Joni Mitchell
...
the real things.last night as i drove i saw that the sky was a beautiful i hadn't noticed before.
traces of day were scattered across its inky blue terrain. (a patchy twilight).
maybe day forgot to pick up her pieces.
maybe night didn't mind.
maybe day and night are both tired of the continual chase.
i thought of all the people i haven't met. and i want to meet.
all the people i have met but i don't talk to. and wish i would.
all the people i know well but don't know better. and i wish i did. or do.
i drove to Encino. a place i've spent weekends and weekends of my youth. with friends|family.
and now i'm just here to drop off my car.
i walked into a bookstore. the bookstore where i discovered Gibran and finished Tablets of the Divine Plan and bought books for China and met up with friends and dreamt of futures.
i sat down at the poetry section. familiar names evoked emotions.
Lorca. i saw a friend read you my senior year and i looked at your pages and i didn't understand you. i don't think i know the things you've known yet....
Eliot. when i first read you i had so many things to say but you left me inarticulate. remember how i bought pages of you and as i read you i wrote down everything that came to mind? and i would take you everywhere. to see my words next to yours. and to unravel your metaphors. sigh. and then i lost you in china. and i see a copy of you every so often like i did last night. but i can't bring myself to buy it. because it doesn't. it won't feel the same. you understand right?
cummings. i have so many things to ask you! why do you like your name lower cased? if its for the reason i think, then i love you even more. and why do you understand the things no one else seems to? and why|how do you take the words out of my heart and put them on paper? did you know we share a birthday? i'm glad you exist. i'm sorry it took me so long to find you.
when Ava came to pick me up. its like she knew where to find me. where else would i be in the bookstore?
we drove to Santa Monica and met up with friends. 3 times now i've visited the trees that drip with lights. i can't seem to get enough of them. enchanting and magical.
then to the beach. and familiar entities evoked emotions.
air. how is that you impact me? when you are thick and hot i hate you. l e t h a r g i c. like a bad dream. when you are thin and cold you make me feel so unbelievably real! tonight though. tonight you were perfect. the perfect balance of dream and real. of warm and cool. like you conformed for me.
sand. i stood on your shoreline and let your friends, the waves, meet me. they took parts of you away from under my feet and i sunk deeper and deeper and deeper and. it felt amazing. i looked out at the midnight skyline and thought of all those that have stood here at midnight in the past and let you slip out from underneath them to feel deeper and deeper and deeper...
ocean. my feet are so thirsty for you. i think they think i need you. they are correct. you are a place to abandon unwanted things. for that i am thankful. tonight you were the perfect place to offer Words.
...
on my drive home it was hard for me to keep my eyes open.
it wasn't that i was tired. i just felt like it was time to close my eyes. the senses tend to interfere with the evolution of thoughts. or the rhythm of my beating heart. i wanted to close them so i could hear better the music on the stereo. and feel better the security in the air.
...
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