"Wermulff" is too great a word not to write a story about it some time!

Choosing the Way - a quote by Bradbury

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance. Ray Bradbury

Poem: Brahma by Ralph Waldo Emerson

My husband's taking a Comparative Mythology class and preparing a project on Indian Mythology. Discussion of the various gods popped this poem back into my head. I chose it to memorize and recite to my American Literature Class when I was 16. Even then, I had an interest in spiritual search.

Now it reminds me of the chants we learned in yoga teacher training, and also of walking below towering redwoods in our favorite stand of trees, where the nature center has posted an Emerson quote. (Well, actually it reminds me of everything, based on its message!)

If the red slayer think he slays,

Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near,

Shadow and sunlight are the same,

The vanished gods to me appear,

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,

And pine in vain the sacred Seven;

But thou, meek lover of the good!

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

1856 [1857]

Photo credit to blog.discovermagazine.com

Today

Today, I am as lonely as a flower made
of crystal, stem pulled thin and taut
with an aching sharp precision
like iced steel, like frozen light
one fine thin beam that
nods from my head
to the world

My heart as full of fear as a beehive
abuzz with mechanical bees
Oblivious to sun, to air, to wind
they sweep on, down and away
from the tremulous, ever-vibrating hive
where nothing ever stops, where there
is no pause, and seeking only
to feed their insatiable hungers

Come to rest on my lovely, cold, glass
budhead, tempting, glittering
useless and unyielding to their
alloyed thrusts

Impermeable

Check Out

First she notices the nice shape of his ass, clad in carefully distressed denim, and promising agility and muscle, something worth grabbing onto.

He is standing with a man of his age at the counter, paying, and she wonders as she often does when seeing two attractive men together whether they are a gay couple. Hard to tell. They are laughing with each other, casual, but they could be simply friends. In which case, they would be horrified that the cute woman walking by thought they were gay.

As she passes, a tantilizing whiff of cologne pivots her head towards him. His driver's license is tucked into his wallet upside down. Careless or deliberately private? she debates.

There's so much she'll never find out about him. She pushes through the door and out onto the street, him never the wiser, and these words the only aspect of him that she will retain.