1/29/2010

corpus christi


Lulley, lully, lulley, lully,
The faucon hath born my mak away.

He bare hym up, he bare hym down,
He bare hym into an orchard brown.

In that orchard ther was an hall,
That was hanged with purpill and pall.

And in that hall ther was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.

And yn that bed ther lythe a knyght,
His wowndes bledyng day and nyght.

By that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
And she wepeth both nyght and day.

And by that bedes side ther stondith a ston,
"Corpus Christi" wretyn theron.

1/22/2010

she said, "it's getting a little frayed around the edges..."

1. my second-hand bike is propped up against a temple older than my country, and the sun is shining on the empty asphalt road that slithers through the glassy rice fields that led me here. i don't know where i am or what i'm looking at.

2. two friends from opposite sides of an ocean are sitting together on a concrete embankment bordering a river that feeds into a different ocean, drinking beer, sometimes talking, sometimes only listening to the gentle lap of water around their ankles or an occasional car driving over the distant bridge. the moon is low, the mosquitoes are out.

3. at around 3 a.m. in tokyo on a saturday night, an american is sitting in a chair by his desk on the top floor of a shabby, post-war dormitory building, staring into canopy terrorized by wind and rain outside his window, lost in memories of being in love with someone back home in an unconscious effort not to acknowledge a storm of anxiety and loneliness brought on by being foreign in a strange place.

4. i went with my friend and her mother to go see the fireflies in an area of town i'd never been. we parked on the road underneath a weak blue-gray street lamp, the only source of light other than dozens of twinkling, soft specks floating somewhere between us and the inscrutable blackness of the forest. we took our time, hovering, like the fireflies, from light source to light source in disconnected silence.

1/13/2010

i can read

i never used to have time to read. now i have the subway ride to and from work. it's a prison. i'm forced to read, and i love it. since moving to nyc in august, i've read these public domain books on my iphone:
  • the adventures of sherlock holmes; sir arthur conan doyle
  • the picture of dorian gray; oscar wilde
  • wuthering heights; emily bronte
  • the idiot; fyodor dostoevsky
  • to the lighthouse; virginia woolf
  • the adventures of tom sawyer; mark twain
  • heart of darkness; joseph conrad
  • the mysterious affair at styles; agatha christie
they were all fantastic, but "to the lighthouse" stands out as one of the best books i've ever read. i had never read woolf before. she expertly articulates the inarticulate, invisible, intangible urges that drive relationships.

1/07/2010

渚にて


below our feet, fish / in our midst, mist
rain rolling down the beach / reuniting as the sea

1/03/2010

new year's resolution

read more haiku.

名月の出るやゆらめく花薄

at the full moon's
rising, the silver-plumed
reeds tremble

-正岡 子規, Masaoka Shiki