Letter from Austin
Michael, when you say moons do you see
cold stone floating in the firmament
or phrases frayed in the mouth and spat on paper?
And does the Spanish moon simmer at a similar
pace to mine or yours? Which embers blush brighter?
But let’s turn to estuaries, to salt and clamor and gun-
running poets and interrupted words sold in stalls
between parenthetical gates, to incomparable cavas
and the deterioration of envy and intervening years.
Or perhaps mislaid passion – a friend claims love
is merely a bad rash, that we scratch and scratch
and inflame but never truly cure what ails us. Sounds like
politics to me. Or sports. And business. Or neighborhoods.
On my street people should cook and play music together,
laugh, raise chickens and read good books. They should
brew beer, swap tomatoes, recite each other’s poetry and sing
in tune. But we’re different here, preferring instead electronics
glowing in dimly lighted rooms. I reject this failure, as I also
reject the theory of centrifugal force spinning off the moon’s
body from the earth’s crust, preferring to imagine a giant
impact blasting matter into orbit around what morphed into the
earth, and somehow accreting the stuff into this orb we
sometimes worship. This, to me, is how good relationships
form: explosions of thought and emotion followed by periods
of accretion. But what I mean is I hope this finds you well
by the river of holy sacrament. Remember: brackish water
bisects our worlds. Turn. Filter. Embrace. Gotta run. Bob.
Originally published in Heron Clan 3, this first appeared on the blog in July 2015.
Letter from Austin — all words fail, only one thought: beautiful. i want to keep it.
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Thank you very much!
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Love this: “This, to me, is how good relationships
form: explosions of thought and emotion followed by periods
of accretion.”
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Thanks, Jo. Much appreciated.
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Very Nice! 🙂
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Thank you, Micah!
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Really enjoyed the epistolary form, Bob. Can we be pen pals? 🙂
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Thanks, Cate. And we are pen pals. Sorta: “Letter to Terwilliger from Nowhere” is circulating out in the world… Who knows where it will land?
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Much truth here, especially swapping beer and brewing tomatoes (or some such), but I do like some of the doors opened by those glowing electron(ics)s.
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I’m all for swapping beer, but think I’ll keep the standard door on the shack. 🙂
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Beauterrific, Sir Robert!
I will forthwith pontificate on the question of blushing embers all this quiet (save for one very vociferous squirrel), summer morning, while gazing at shafts of the rising sun igniting the face of a mountain, and actively rejecting my habitual failures to be re-imagined by that light. 🔥🌄🌛
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It sounds like you are in the exact right spot to pontificate and re-imagine! Get to work! But you may need some cake, too.
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Deep and true! You captured a lot here, I love the ending!
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Glad you liked it. Thanks very much.
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This one speaks to my heart. I have used your share option to post a link at The Peaceful Pub Blog. Sometimes I feel like we are living in a sci fi movie. I’ve seen schools haul print books to the dumpster, I order to get grants to ‘digitize’. Even as I love this electronic device I’m using to communicate, I have never it equaled a handwritten letter. No emoticon ever had the same effect as a real smile.
I was already a fan of your work (love that Scarecrow!) but if I weren’t this would seal the deal:
“On my street people should cook and play music together,
laugh, raise chickens and read good books. They should
brew beer, swap tomatoes, recite each other’s poetry and sing
in tune. But we’re different here, preferring instead electronics
glowing in dimly lighted rooms. I reject this failure,”
What can I say…I love it…Fine writing and a subject that is crucial to address in this age of electronics.
Thank you,
Sarah
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You have made my day, Sarah. Thank you!
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Please forgive the typos…I’m using one of those doggone tablets and my fingers are just not nimble on the wee keys.
“I order to get grants to ‘digitiz” should be “in order to get grants to digitize”
“I have never it equaled ” “I have never thought it equaled”
I’m blaming it all on those electronic thingies. : )
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No need to apologize. I am well versed (heh heh) with the difficulties of wee keys!
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Love it, especially this “perhaps mislaid passion – a friend claims love is merely a bad rash, that we scratch and scratch and inflame but never truly cure what ails us”
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Thanks very much.
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I love this, particularly the lines about the moon and friendship.
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There’s nothing like a little accretion to cement friendships!
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Cemented in layers and worn by time.
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Yes!
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Rich and astonishing! I like the large block of text – the author seems inspired and wants to release all the words like a dam breaking. Did I say astonishing? 🙂
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Thank you. Those words just come as they will!
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To write a letter at all is an act of subversion these days…what a wonderful homage to friendship. (K)
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He still sends the occasional note or letter, and I almost always respond with a poem. My poems “Gulf” and “Bottom, Falling” were both responses to notes from Michael.
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What a great correspondent you are! I once wrote a poem in response to the words on an old postcard I bought (always intending to do more) but that was imaginary. No one writes me letters any more to respond to.
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I’m way overdue…
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Reblogged this on Life is But This 命 and commented:
Often I read one of Robert’s poems and wish I’d written it. Sometimes I do the next best thing and translate it into Chinese. More often I hold the thought of translating for too long and let the poem slip away. I am keeping this on my blog where it will remain as a reminder. One day, Bob.
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I’m just pleased you like it, Mary! Thank you.
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My new favorite of yours. A keeper!
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Thank you, Betty!
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Robert, I have read and been inspired and have ordered your new book. October is a long time to wait, but I won’t forget why I ordered it.
ptc
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Thank you so much!
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A great tribute to friendship
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Thanks, Derrick.
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wonderful. again
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Thank you, Bob.
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A wonderful letter, that I read again and again, and shall be storing away, and referring to again, with pleasure.
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