For my friend Joe – who died on this day in 2000. I miss you every day.
On the Feast of St. James the Greater
(for Joe C.)
This is where
he would have fished
imagine
him in the dark
gathering gear
stripers transfiguring
the moon’s
light he loses
all balance and
bearings thunder
muffling the dry
night sky
what we heard
is in the mist
blowing over
Ram Island
disappearing
like walks
we’ll never take
When Dante passed out of Purgatory, he drank at the river where all of his sins were wiped out of his memory. The first river from which he’d drunk forgave all of his sins, but that wasn’t good enough, because then he still had to forget them. – Joseph Campbell
First we fall and later we recover from the fall – and both are the mercy of God. – Blessed Julian of Norwich
You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path.
Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path.
You are not on your own path.
If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.
– Joseph Campbell
I was in grad school when my son, Ben, was born. We lived in student housing – an apartment so small that we had to move his little crib into the bathroom each night.
Since his mother had an actual job while I was busy becoming a serious poet (sic), I would often do the middle of the night feeding since I was awake writing serious poetry all night. I had just scored a remaindered copy of Moby Dick at the UNH bookstore and began to read it to him at night while I gave him a bottle.
That was 43 years ago today. Those nights were special. I remember them like it was last night. Quiet except for the little noises a baby makes and me essentially whispering Melville’s words…
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
I’ve read about the white whale every year since that summer of 1977. So today I happily (madly!) cast off again!
But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish in the sea inform you.
Job 12: 7-8
Stopping is starting.
Edge of Atlantic 