Month: April 2022

All the Stars and Boulevards

Remember that song from back in the early oughts from Augustana? You forgot that was a band, didn’t you? I imagine people of a certain age would remember their hit “Boston,” but this one came to mind tonight. I’m positive I discovered this band through a mix cd someone made me in college, though I couldn’t tell you who or when or why. I was absently scrolling Instagram tonight, as one does, and another college friend shared this poem that hooked my heart and squeezed really hard.

I’m not sure I have anything to say that isn’t articulated or implied or remembered herein. Poetry, like painting and sculpture, is whatever it evokes in you. This one speaks volumes to me.

https://www.alexdimitrov.com/

Music for the Mood:

Stars and Boulevards

Boston

Augustana

Tonight on my walk home from work, I noticed these petunias curiously growing out of a crack in the cement, presumably by happenstance. I feel like there’s a ripe allegory here, but the words aren’t coming to me.

Aftershocks

Featherlight kisses

Skimming up her spine

Warm breath at her neck

Her head turns, shoulder arches

She smiles

Foreheads touch

Four eyes crinkle

Her body shudders once more

He chuckles

She floats

He lies

Again, and again

.

She shudders now at the memory

Again, and again

.

And again

It’s different in this light.
Revulsion erasing ecstasy.
Reckoning replacing reveling.

Music for the Mood:

Reckoning

Reveling

– Ani DiFranco

Spring in these pale blue eyes

Not all days are cloudy. This has been a gorgeous weekend full of sunshine, blooms, reconnecting with old friends, and peace.

Wildly entertained by these too-tall irises
😌
Cannot get enough of these bursting roses & ranunculus

I wish there were more of these soft and sweet days and that they could last longer. I know that’s the nature of life – the ebb and flow. Every spring, always after the spring solstice, when the evening walks home still have bright rays of daylight and then some, there is always a point when I can almost viscerally feel the fog clear. The clouds break. The warmth of the sun penetrates into my soul and allows me to take a deep, cleansing breath. It isn’t permanent. It still takes a while to get back to homeostasis, to a more constant state of “up,” but there is nothing like that first deep, unlabored, freeing breath.

In these mellow, reflective, grateful moments, especially after a period of being sucked so far down into the grey depths, I think of that old Velvet Underground song.

“Sometimes I feel so happy

Sometimes I feel so sad”

Music for the Mood: Pale Blue Eyes – The Velvet Underground