O Shenandoah

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The venerable 61-year-old literary review of Washington & Lee University is now entirely online and free.

http://shenandoahliterary.org/

I commend Shenandoah for the decision to end print publication. Although I like getting literature inked into a codex transportable away from this eye-straining technology; though I enjoy taking a good book out into the real world with me, perhaps to read beneath a tree, nobody can afford to subscribe to everything. And I didn’t subscribe to this. Now they can reach Kyle in California, and presumably a wider audience worldwide.

Let’s wish them luck, is my meaning.

I have a song among my possibles fitting to the topic. Click here to listen to Jerry Garcia singing Shenandoah Lullaby, with David Dawg Grisman on mandolin. Good stuff, Maynard.

Maimings

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I had my eyes examined today. They still work, though not quite as well as they once did. So it goes.

Afterwards, I looked at my eyes in the mirror. The pupils are huge, having been dilated for the exam. They look like the eyes of a cartoon character.

It reminded me of this line from a short story by Gilbert Sorrentino:

“The maimings of love are endlessly funny, as are the tiny figures of talking animals being blown to pieces in cartoons.”

This line, quoted from memory, first jumped out at me while reading for a college lit class. It obviously stuck. I think the story was called The Moon In Its Flight. Surreal, comic, and very fine writing. I’ll leave you to Google onward for yourself. But if you’re in a comic mood, here’s a little Tom & Jerry for you.

http://www.youtube.com/v/YXoU32y-fU0

Naming Stones

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Here is a small bowl made of clay,
with a long crack down one side.
It holds eight smooth stones,
named for the facets of the moon.

It once held sandalwood and sand
ground fine by water and by salt,
in time ground fine by the spinning Earth.

The stone named Sleep is black
and veined to mock the stone named Death.

The stone named Death is white as pearl
and flat. It bends the light.

The stone named Love is pale blue
and marbled like a cloudy day.

The crack is named for Time.
In time, the bowl will come apart
and like the facets of the moon, go shining.

 

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Heaven

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How often do you wonder about it? Are you planning ahead for the trip?

Maybe we will cross a Rainbow bridge, where we are greeted by all of our lost and beloved pets. They were always the first to greet us in this life, and the best at doing it, so why not? And we will live there forever with everyone we’ve loved … In the popular image of Heaven, not much is mentioned about God. But isn’t He supposed to be the point?

StJohnClimacus

In today’s Writer’s Almanac, there’s a nice little poem called Heaven, which says that we will live in the past there – that Heaven is the past – and we’ll live there with

“Everyone we ever loved,
and lost, and must remember.”

Sweet. Everybody gathers up and goes back in time, and entry is automatic, based on love, loss and memory. But it doesn’t make much sense, from a theological perspective. What about, you know, Judgment? God will not be mocked.

And if we gather up at a point in time and go back in time, what about everybody who lives on, remembering and missing us? Do they show up on a later bus?

I imagine we are like Billy Pilgrim, stuck in time now but not stuck in time always. So it goes. And heaven exists outside – beyond – the stream of time. It’s not past, present or future, it’s forever.

What Dreams May Come

What do you think?