bone thin bone.

"we sing as the sky falls down
we sing as the sky collapses
and make what we can of it
it's ok
we're all going to end up dead and gone."
--Tunng, "Hands"
.
temporary-ness.
everything.
hopelessly, not my own.
flashings else's.
fleetings dyings-off.
and I'm left
only one?
the only--
only?
bone thin bone.


I'm not afraid of disappearing.
Just afraid of everything else
Leaving before I'm gone.

"There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, a eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest."
-Anais Nin.

(Wholly honest; I am terrified).

disappearing.

(but I feel so heavy).

photos by Francesca Woodman.

(introduced to me by Mel Cheraso).

..

an excerpt.

from Edwidge Danticant's The Farming of Bones.

"I close the door and lock out the tame night breeze that barely reaches my bare body, naked because Sebastian has made me believe that it is like a prayer to lie unclothed alone the way one came out of the womb, but mostly because I am hoping to feel the sweat gather between the cement floor and the hollow in my back, so that when I rise up, there will be a flood of perspiration to roll down over my buttocks, down the front and back and between my thighs, down to my knees, shins, ankles, and toes, so that there will not be a drop of liquid left in me with which to cry."

----
from my (own) last night's vivid-dream head:

I was holding a bird.
It was shedding its down and
my hands became saturated,
until I could not see my palms,
until they had become feathers.

Holiday

"For my sister who sometimes needs to take time to grieve with the world. Don't forget what a beautiful place it is. With love from Frances, Christmas 2010."

[photo: cousins Maize (head-bopping), Zoe (leap-frogging), and Oliver (mohawk-rocking);
they are part of my beautiful place]

Wait- Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: the enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asked to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

--

Maybe faith is just an active--it cannot be passive--acceptance of others' love, and the hope that, despite all the darkness, we share enough goodness between each other to keep on//fight for.

Merry Christmas.