‘Morning, folks. The road has become a substitute for my living room and office recently, and sometimes, a writing pad.
Endless em dashes flit by, white. Thoughts tumble out and blur, sometimes in a familiar route of unchanging concrete, others as a vignette by a creek, a farmhouse with a porch light as the summer dusk settles in, and then whoosh, gone.
I’m listening to a new audiobook, The Socratic Method - Ward Farnsworth.
He makes the point that Plato’s dialogues could be interpreted as Plato thinking out loud, with Socrates playing the character of the Unflinching Questioner.
“We don’t necessarily want to be a Socrates, but we want to have a Socrates.”
If the Essay is the persuasive statement, the Dialogue is showing how the thought originated, and illustration of the mechanisms at work.
Now I know what (one of) the next writing projects will be.
In the meantime, here’s a collection of the thoughts growing in the field, unripe, still soaking in starlight and the chattering of the meadowlark.
(Poems.)
The Colors are Back
Until I get a charcoal gray Maserati
Boxed orange juice is my luxury
I sat outside and sipped a cup of gold in the eveningtime
Stared at clouds in the south
Towering on the heights, scooped vanilla, off to frown on Richmond
Leaving behind clear sky and a half moon
The mountain whispered to me in purple green
The colors are back
Can’t you see them? Suddenly I can.
I hurtle towards a sea of rubies, and hit the brakes, adding to the ruddy glow of stop lights in the velvet night.
The dingy yellow of the Shell station sign glows softly, a Tom Waits song in picture, the green and tangerine of the neon HOTEL an Emmylou Harris album cover she missed.
The lemon sun rises on pinto horses and chestnut mares
Pumpkin flowers the hue you’d expect, rejoicing back at the June sun from ‘neith verdant leaves and lime tendrils. ZING!
The black-eyed Susans shrug in the median. Mowing ahead? We’re butter right now, buddy.
Be here.
Rose River
Roses River canyon
Doesn’t care about my facts and figures about the Universe
(As if my numbers matter to the Andromeda galaxy)
Just roars, Savage
Think less.
Washing the dust of the world away from my tired brain
Talk to me, waterfall
Tell me of your ancient stars and snowmelt and salamanders and the carving you’ve done for a million years
But please don’t use words
Words would ruin it
They’d
Pin the butterfly forever in a case
Crucified sunlight for us to gawk at
And say “and therefore, ___”
Arriving at some hideous conclusion
The point having long floated away
Downstream
Flitting along through dappled green and moss
Past the hikers glued to their phones
Maybe a brook trout will snatch it from the surface
And guard it in icy shade
Where perhaps once a season
People just sit and don’t know.
THEY’RE BACK, BABY