this also could be joy.

Ben Weaver

"Split Ends"

beenthinking:

“Split Ends” - Ben Weaver

It’s beginning to seem we’ve elapsed some significant, unnoticed hour. That there is no mirth left in this fall. It’s all cold harvest and bucked-up sensibility, all cleaning up the fields and putting down the yards. All the colors that will be have been and the rest of the leaves will fall from green straight to gone.

We are entering quiet days. Between the spoils of autumn and the snow.

The snow can get you by, no doubt. Once it all comes down and the city tucks and settles into itself and grows plum under the street lamps and the insulation of a laden night sky. Once we are in miniature again, risen and anchored by the weight of winter. Once the next adventure arrives, we will be ok.

But these days. They are purgatorial and slow growth. Too mild to be dangerous, too cold and old for the rush of ellipses or dashes. This midseason is all perfunctory graphite periods and no brackets. No subtext, all subtext. And “the longing could sink a ship.” We need something to hold on to, you see. Something better than everything that has grown slim and spare as black branches and the frosted gardens, decomposing in the cold. We need something to sustain us through the void, while we abide this inbetwixt. […]

“almost washed away, almost washed away”      (love it all.)