Man is in love, and loves what vanishes. (W.B. Yeats)

And I wonder if we are doomed to that. Or: I wonder if we are bound to that, happily. Or perhaps not happily, but meaningfully. Beats me. Yeats me.

Czeslaw Milosz: Who will I be when I wake after enduring?

Mary Oliver: Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?

From a comic: When all the comparison, envy, insecurity, fear, and hate disappear…love remains. And yes, and particularly the first four, the fifth mainly the effect of those. What to do with those? I certainly still have much of them in me, though I’ve been trying to exorcise.

“Happy Birthday to me”, Nicole Sealey

Feels like a sort of endurance to me.

Perpetually floating around in my head, but given some avenue today by slides I came across: this idea that much of what we occupy ourselves with is but distraction. And for much, and for many of us, it is necessary and so I don’t want to come off out of touch with my privilege and assumption of so and such. But there is this sense that when we let the things float past, drop the pretense of productivity, we find the entire world, ourselves, this gargantuan void. And what to do with that–I don’t know, we don’t know, but to at least face it, and yes, not easy, but that at least gives me the sense that the right fight is being attempted. Or something of the sort. Funnily, this set of slides ended in You must imagine me happy, I suppose, which reminds me of the line from either original Sisyphus or one of its main analyses (maybe Camus?) that goes One must imagine Sisyphus happy. In any case, very Sisyphean, this, and all of this.

From random post: Is it just me or does having a positive interaction with a stranger scratch a very particular itch? I think it’s the reassurance that the world is not split solely into people who already love me and people who never will. And I agree, there’s a certain gentle hopefulness to it. I often feel like the ending clause is true, and it’s easy to walk into that. But, like, life and people are good, and I should think, will want you there. Which is the funny thing to really wrap one’s head around then: that it’s not about making oneself integral, needed, but just in being vulnerable and open about needing others and asking. I am going to try to do this more often and with less anxiety. Why any shame, fear in needing? We all need. Folly, to hide it and pretend we’re okay and not be okay and such and I’ve done enough of that for long enough.

From Alexander Theroux: September: / it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.

“A Simple Love Poem”, Megan Falley

How good.

“Personal Effects”, Solmaz Sharif

I haven’t gotten a chance to read the entire thing (it’s quite long) but came across the first stanza excerpted and thought it interesting. This idea that putting anything regularly enough in our lives likely means forgetting it, like a photo on the desk, a tattoo, a wallpaper or a favorite line. And I don’t know if that makes it folly or sadness, or if there’s a way to not forget it. I think the impulse to make something that regularly integrated is to have it become quotidian, have it be a part of you and your daily life. I don’t know.

“Beethoven”, Fangyang Shang

I mean, first, super relatable. I read this aloud for myself and for Eve tonight. We both agreed that he probably could’ve done more with this, or at least for us. I’d believe you if you told me it was fully done out for him, as I imagine several of my poems are for me but not others. All this to say, I think Eve and I both have strong attachments to Beethoven and so there’s much material there.
But: vatic with voids; and Even if you don’t want life, you live by eating, sleeping, loving without an object. Ow. But yeah, not really fully done out for me, at least.

“Three Essays: First Essay (Nimrod)”, Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet

I like this idea of music but in word terms. Maybe just helps me to see the beauty more in terms I know.

I ended up watching 2001: A Space Odyssey with Eve tonight, which I’d been meaning to do for a while ever since reading TKS’ poem below. Anyhow, interesting movie, and has kinda spurred some thoughts which you’ll probably hear more about tomorrow or another day. These are the poems it evoked for me, though the second evoked it and so kinda cheating.

“During The Impossible Age Of Everyone”, Ada Limon

There are so many people who’ve come before us. and I want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour. Can be interpreted in a similar way to parts of 2001, I think.

“My God, It’s Full of Stars”, Tracy K. Smith

And then this, the classic. See the fourth part for the 2001 reference, but in character, all over the poem. I feel, for the sake of provenance, that I must again mention that this is probably literally the first poem I ever loved. Thanks Ms. Phipps and 11th grade English. That was a great class and the content we covered, good, I don’t know I was fully ready to receive it then, but I have lived now and I do receive it now. Anyhow.

A few initial thoughts from the movie: Listening to the eerie music that they play every time a monolith is near. Thinking about how fear inducing it is, and how it should be. And how as an outside species, to scare humans (this extends generally though, I think), simply need to make noise or do something that is out of domain of what they’ve seen before. And there’s likely so much outside of that domain, I won’t try to imagine it because well yeah.
Which is to say, as humans, we’re programmed to freak out whenever we get data significantly outside of our domain (OOD). As we should. Because we have very nebulous uncertainty bounds there and that signals potential danger and we as an organism are designed to optimize against that. Anyhow.

From the film’s wiki page, Christopher Palmer wrote that “the sublime and the banal” coexist in the film, as it implies that to get into space, people had to suspend the “sense of wonder” that motivated them to explore it.
And we probably do this all over science. With ML and such currently. Suspend the wonder, and bang out advances and shit with other motivations (society tends to provide plenty of these), hopefully to see the wonder again later on. But many of those coming of age during this period, I imagine (self included) are not really shown/let to see the original wonder-inducement, and almost have to not think too hard about and put head down to be a part of the wave that society sweeps us all up in. Like, don’t think. Do. Poem draft forthcoming. I was born in 2001.