At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Louise Gluck

**********************************************

There are certain things that, even if I could buy them, I would not want to have. I want them to be surprises. I want them to remain surprises. Maybe in time I will get used to them; they will become comforts, necessities even. Though really, if something is necessary to me and a surprise, the surprise can wear off (eventually) and I can live with the necessity.

What I want to say is: I need to be with him, and he needs to be with me. My surprise at this is slowly wearing off, like a strong painkiller, but there is no pain welling up to replace anything now, no blankness, just a gradual sense of...inevitability? I invoke him and since his gift to me is music I listen to the radio and there's a song, followed by another song...some I associate with him, others I just know he would like...meteor after meteor, landing beside me, friendly and glowing with an ineffable strangeness...

He is giving himself to me, and me to him, and I cannot imagine us not wanting to live like this forever. I am well aware that we haven't met yet, but what immovable objects could there be, versus our irresistable force? I don't mean to make this sound Romantic; but it is poetical. And it is real...

Ah, real. Standing Man has an ear infection and is restless, more distracted and liable to cry than usual; unhappy, unable to sit in his high chair to eat (not that he's too big to sit in it, he just won't eat if that's where he has to sit) so I had to give him his banana yogurt etc. while enticing him with The Surreal Gourmet and Boy Meets Grill. (If he doesn't become a mechanic then he could become the next cute guy chef; you never know.) I hope he gets better soon, and must rest up for now myself as I am looking after him three days in a row in my new schedule, which is fine by me; my mom has decided to stay here and get a student tenant and will need me around to help her out...

...and it's hot here and I am reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and she is in Italy learning Italian and I think, after reading her description of how the language was put together, that maybe I should learn it too...(I didn't know "Ciao" came from a phrase meaning "I am your slave"...well now...) But I will be rooting for les Bleus tomorrow, though if Italy wins then I will be just as happy...