The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
[Samuel Clemens]

[with thanks to the Atlantic]

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.




[Margaret Atwood]

[as in, the real actual thing, in Buenos Aires–photo by Carey Wallace. Complete with “ABC Restaurante Aleman” in the background.]

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway people beautiful to me, of which
there are so many. You and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.





[Mary Oliver, from Red Bird]

[more of these here and here; with thanks to Thea.]

I will try.
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I came, like red bird, to sing.
but I’m not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished,
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and—
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?




[Mary Oliver, from Red Bird]

Which is, I guess, the Austrian version of Miss America?

[with thanks to the Atlantic Monthly]


[with thanks to Amy Bodart]

One of my matches has this posted in the “Six things I can’t live without” section of his profile:

“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.”

It’s a summary of the Wizard of Oz from the Marin County newspaper. (It is, appropriately, the only thing on his list of six.)





[Among other things, I love The Secret of Kells because so many of its frames are like this, the kind of thing you can freeze and stare at for — I don’t know. For a long time, without running out of things to see. It was harder to get stills from the film than I thought, even though I now own a copy. This is actually from a prior version of the film — the characters look a bit different in the final version. But there are several ocean scenes in the final with waves drawn a lot like this.]