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Monday, February 25, 2008

False nostalgias



Thinking back

The dried-blood smell of
cold iron rusting, the gray-green
dust of frost-broken thorns—
I see your shadow rolling as
you show me how to set a
hand-brake on a freight car
for that long midnight tour.

*****

Missing my friend made me think about other times past.
Thanks to all y'all who sent me comforting thoughts in response to my "A friend moved away" post.

6 comments:

R.L. Bourges said...

"the dreid-blood smell of cold iron rustin..." - exactly right.
Hope things flow better for you today.

MB said...

(o)

lowenkopf said...

Simple equation: You supply the images and poems to help us when it is our turn.

Reya Mellicker said...

The pages from your book of hours are stunning! BEautiful. They look like they belong in the Morgan Library in NYC. Wow.

So sorry your friend moved away!

Dale said...

Good heavens. How does one set the hand-brake on a freight car? I had no idea they even had them.

Not to make light of the sadness, here, but it makes me so curious - I try to picture you in this scene and fail; it doesn't match my picture of you.

So what I'm really asking is -- wait, who are you?

Or maybe it's -- so why do you inspire so much affection in me, if I don't know you?

Or maybe I'm just saying (o) with an excessive number of symbols :->

Lori Witzel said...

Hey all y'all -- it's been the usually wacky busy nonsense time, so thank goodness we have art and wordsmithery to sustain us.

Lee: It's all good...the ebbs and flows of mood, the chatoyant clouds of feeling? I look at it as weather, and am glad you stop by to watch mine.

MB: Howz thangz? Hope all is well in MB-land, happy you left a font-pebble.

Shelly: Back atcha, kiddo. I see pics when I read your words. :-)

Reya: What's the HTML for "blushing at high praise"? Thanks, chica, and thanks for the "aww" about my buddy. She's not gone too far away, but far enuf that it will make spontaneous get-togethers much less so.

Dale: Yes, they do have hand-brakes -- railroad folks set and check them when the cars are in a railyard to be sure there's no chance of one getting loose and rolling off or onto someone.

http://www.railroaddave.com/noise/

This poem-fragment was a recollected moment from the start of a grand and ultimately awfully painful romance, one the "friend who moved away" helped me through. I am so very blessed in the quality of my friends, and in the spectacular characters who've helped make my checkered past checkered.

Who am I? (*snork*) The temptation to say "I am legion" in response to the question is almost irresistible. :-) I may have to send you an email and chat some about the picture I seem to have created about who I am and all the other "who I ams."

Affection? Likewise and back from me to you. For what it's worth, I have been told I've that effect on people, and I am the sort of person who strangers are drawn to...and, for that matter, dogs, cats, and certainly spiders and fire ants.

(Or maybe I'm just saying ":-)" with an equally excessive number of symbols.)