Rachel Carson on writing

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps where no one has ever been.
It is a lonely place, and even a little frightening... No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new...

Rachel Carson on writing

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps where no one has ever been. It is a lonely place, and even a little frightening... No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new...

Rachel Carson on writing

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He moves into a realm where he has never been before -- perhaps where no one has ever been. It is a lonely place, and even a little frightening... No writer can stand still. He continues to create or he perishes. Each task completed carries its own obligation to go on to something new...

The Black Hen by A K Ramanujan

It must come as leaves
to a tree
or not at all

yet it comes sometimes
as the black hen
with the red round eye

on the embroidery
stitch by stitch
dropped and found again

and when it's all there
the black hen stares
with its red round eye

and you're afraid.

Reading

Reading

Maybe he was drunk
maybe he was too sober

Maybe he was sleepy
maybe he had just woken

Maybe he was hungry
maybe he had overeaten

Maybe he was old
maybe he hadn't grown up

Maybe he was weary
maybe he had too much energy

Maybe he was right
maybe he was wrong

Maybe he was blind
maybe he just couldn't read

Dreaming of You

Dreaming of You


Unclothed, you were as pure as my dream
Stripped of sheen, dampness still on the skin

The light from the east glanced off
the drops of last night's truce

when we were silent to the sounds of the frogs in the night,
remembering only the echoes of ourselves as we once were

Livelong

Livelong

these are days enveloped in grey
packed in cartons of weary sighs
pickled in the brine of yesterday's rainy night

the dark damp brings with it the
faraway sounds of unknown breathings:
a child's kite that has snapped
its lifeline and floats off softly

these are days blinkered in tears
when laughter is cocooned and splintered
into disparate pieces of lying nerves

the dawn's mellow greetings have
soured and all the sparrows have gone
leaving their nests behind like
prisoners set free after many
thunderclapped monsoons

these are days saddled on aged horses
whose hooves furrow the wet earth and
drag gunnysacks of dying faces for miles

the wind no longer nuzzles the curtains
squirrels tire of the jackfruit and
sunshine melts into calipered hoods:
a sinewy hangman at crack of dawn

these are days huddled in mute throbbings
smothered in snakeskins of venom
befuddled in the dishwater of soporific vision