Chat écoutant la musique

You can laugh at me all you want, but I cried the first time I ever saw this video.

If you're interested in learning more about this film or its director, Chris Marker, check out this unofficial archive of and about his work.

- "Chat écoutant la musique" by Chris Marker (1985)

The Wind

I listen to the wind,
to the wind of my soul

Where I'll end up, well, I think
Only God really knows

- "The Wind" by Cat Stevens, from The Teaser and the Firecat (1971)

You May Know Him

I'm plodding along through finals, trying to write about syntax and physical spaces. Focusing on anything right now feels nearly impossible, but if Wellesley has taught me anything, it's that the work always gets done (even if that means getting extensions to finish up while everyone else moves out and celebrates).

I'm not sure how to make sense of everything right now. I feel a lot of grief, and disbelief, and optimism, and guilt on behalf of the optimism. Luckily, I have people to lean on, and that makes the next few months seem surmountable.

I could talk about feelings forever, but it's probably wise that I return to these last essays. This is what I'm focusing on right now:

'The Even comes and the Crow flies low'

The Even comes & the Crow flies low
And the swallow he dips at the spring
The Leveret starts in the corn from the crow
And frights up the Lark to take wing
The Shrew Mice & Crickets they sing
I' the rushes & grass on the baulk
The swallows have gone from the spring
And the Shepherds have gone from their talk
While lovers only take their Evening walk

by John Clare, written between 1837 and 1864

Also, I unexpectedly woke up to this song today.

- "You May Know Him" by Cat Power, from Moon Pix (1998)

I'll Find a Way to Carry It All

- "I'll Find a Way to Carry It All" by Ted Lucas, from Self-Titled (1974)

"And later as you go again"

After a semester filled with death, endings, goodbyes, and loss, I'm trying to accept that mourning and sadness are permissible, especially when physical distance complicates those feelings.

That's a mighty tall order.

I'm also trying to balance an acknowledgement that a lot of other people from various facets of my life are in similar mental spaces right now. I can't solely focus on my own sense of grief, but I am allowed to feel the grief when it pops up like an unexpected intruder at 5:30 a.m.

I don't know what else to say.

- "Ari's Song" by Nico, from The Marble Index (1968)

Baby Ride Easy

- "Baby Ride Easy" by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, from Out Among the Stars (recorded in 1981 and 1984; released in 2014)

Falling and Laughing

Three days of college left.

Remembering to breathe.

- "Falling and Laughing" by Orange Juice, from You Can't Hide Your Love Forever (1982)

Song

Even near the terminus of college, paper-writing never slows down. I'm writing an essay about the relationship between mood and nature in the works of John Clare. Something of a forgotten Romantic, Clare wrote a lot of bucolic scenes using irregular punctuation and grammar. Because he didn't receive a prestigious formal education, his work was brushed off as "pastoral" and "unsophisticated." Recently, his work has been "rediscovered" by scholars, and so we're learning about him alongside Shelley and Keats and Hemans and all the other writers from that period.

I could talk all day, but there is work to be done, so I'll leave this poem right here.

"Song" by John Clare 

A seaboy on the giddy mast
Sees nought but ocean waves
And hears the wild inconstant blast
Where loud the tempest raves 

My life is like the ocean wave
And like the inconstant sea
In every hope appears a grave
And leaves no hope for me 

My life is like the oceans lot
Bright gleams the morning gave
But storms oerwhelmed the sunny spot
Deep in the ocean wave 

My life hath been the ocean storm
A black and troubled sea
When shall I find my life a calm
A port and harbour free

Written in 1843, first published in 1949

"Groceries, Without Incident"

So theses are due tomorrow, and I definitely haven't worked hard enough. But I did read at the Boston College Intercollegiate Poetry Festival last night, which I've told myself counts as work.

After I performed, someone came up to me and told me I had a "silky" reading voice. I don't know why that comment made me feel so good, but it did. Naturally, I rehashed that remark with everyone I've seen today, and am doing so again on this here blog.

Anyhow, before I digress too far, this is one of the poems I read.

"Groceries, Without Incident"

Susanna lives somewhere along the Rock Island District— 

when I don’t see her waiting for the train 

she’s pricing soups at Food-4-Less

I still read her nametag each Tuesday afternoon 

but we have never said more than 

two words to each other 

Last time I went to the supermarket, 

I was shopping for taco ingredients 

too shy to see down past her plastic nametag. 

Susanna, shy too, wouldn’t look me in the eye 

until she handed me my receipt. 

I wondered if she had a someone 

if she too told him “not tonight, I'm tired” 

and what he’d known under her nametag 

I thought she would drink up my soul like Kool-Aid 

(on sale, 39¢/packet).