florish & fade & 2 skies

wednesday. long list of things to do. and parallel to that, a note: to take time.
so i start the day with sorting some files. and find this image i meant to post at the end of december. "my year in status". the ending-line is made for these days: "just to add some challenge to things".

a bit later, cup of coffee while stopping by at the virtual notes blog roll. glad i took the time to piece this one together. which really, didn't take much time. but now is a space of word and link flow. this morning, on the top of it: "Planting Seeds: Fade and flourish", by Fiona Robyn, with a line that also is made for these days: "If I'm not careful, I get snagged by all these things-to-do. Tangled in them. I am netted. They pull me down."

and with a poem, to create space. one that spoke to me, in its fragmented lines:

*

Need not end. Indeed, nothing. Step
out. Grist for wits. Shadow of your
shell. Stand there.

No other ground. No
other. And the world concerns you every-
where, but do not identify with it.

Let light onto us. Flowers through the
gate, flowers skimming
the wall. A carpet of petal.

Treasures below the earth. Neither in
this world nor another, guarding.
Nothing but fade and flourish.

- Keith Waldrop

*

and 2 sky links of these days:

there's a new book up in daily s-press: Habit of a Foreign Sky, by Xu Xi

and Rose Hunter is interviewed in Dark Sky: Spotlight on Rose Hunter

a quote from there, in response to the question "How has the Internet affected literature?", which leads to a passage on plurality of voices, and the connections and exchange of ideas the internet makes possible:

"By exchange of ideas I don’t just mean direct commentary between people of course. I mean the kind of exchange you get from reading online journals and the blogs of other writers. It makes a difference to read the viewpoints of the people who are your contemporaries I think, more or less, rather than picking up a volume of Paris Review interviews, for example. Which I like as well, don’t get me wrong. But they don’t make me feel part of anything, like the online “community” does.

That seems to have run a bit off-topic, but maybe not, as well. I think I was going to say something about inclusivity, and plurality of voices, and the removal of gatekeepers. I do think it’s opened up opportunities for writing that deviates from a certain accepted style. It’s a wonderful smorgasbord out there. It can get overwhelming, but for me it’s not much different from stepping inside a big brick and mortar library and seeing books for miles and realizing there’s just no time in life to read them all. It’s a bummer, but that’s life, and it’s much better than there being too few books at least."