a change of harvest

As a youth, the ripe red fruit fell

from the trees and the bushes

to my soft-skinned feet

and the cool water flowed

from endless streams.

Honeysuckle perfumed the air

and crickets played symphonies

to send me into nocturnal sleep.

Now youth is gone

and I must scrape

and wrestle my food

from the earth,

cracking knuckles and parched lips

the only interruptions

in the foreboding silence

of our existence.

Listening to the rain

Let's stay in bed

all day and night

and listen to the rain tap out

the confessions of the

restless men and women

in some faraway city,

Raindrops like a telegraph,

hesitating watery caresses

against the window,

a morse code of the cosmos,

let us listen

before we close the curtain

and kiss each other

and laugh and whisper

our own secrets,

drifting into sleep and dreams,

as our sweet nothings

are absorbed by

the passing clouds and fall

as snow in colder lands.

R. R. Shea

two old ropes

Two old ropes, gnarled and caked in mud

tangle around the trunk stump of a dead oak,

each end leading away into the lush grass,

one rope trailing north and the other south,

like a madman's compass,

like branches leading off into confusion,

like broken promises between two lovers.

The buzzards and the birds

of prey fly overhead,

circle, spot a place to land,

then dive to ground, but

– just before their talons dig into the earth -

they swoop off again,

screaming their disapproval.

The sun and the moon stand guard above,

each fighting to abandon post,

obligatory sentinels,

ready to surrender

or wait for the fire

from the lightning strike

to erase this obscene canvas

and bring the great regeneration

of what has been purified.

Branch and book

There is more truth and beauty

from a single branch

from a single tree

in my garden

than from any book

from my library.

For the books

in my library

are the byproducts,

the dried, withered corpses

of the murdered brothers

of my trees.

The only thing immortal

on the book page

is the idea,

which exists outside

the book, in

the land of eternity.

The idea and the tree branch.

The former is eternal

intellectual beauty

while the latter

is the eternal

beauty of existence.

R. R. Shea

a blog update

Greetings, friends. 

If you haven't yet noticed, I have been having a particularly bad year this year with the death of my mother.  Unfortunately, things aren't about to get any easier.  A few weeks back, I was diagnosed with cancer.  I plan to fight, and I plan to win.  But this is going to take a lot of my energy.  I start chemo tomorrow, and I've already shaved my head in preparation. 

I will still be trying to keep up with the read-alongs I've agreed to do with other people, but perhaps not all of my own.  Despite this misfortune, I am an incredibly lucky man.  I have a wife with whom I have been married for over twelve years and a little daughter who has completely changed my world.  They are the reason I fight.  They are the reason I'm going to triumph.  My closest friends have been wonderful in their support, as has my family.

I might start to blog more about my health and perhaps how I am using literature to get me through.

To you all, every good thing.  This is only the start of the journey.

Love and peace,

Richard Shea

The Mariner

He piles the seashells in his bucket,

the waves crash in,

and he collects the songs and laughter

from the boardwalk,

locking everything

in his mariner's heart

His lighthouse eyes

allow the lost ships

to smash against the rocks

and sink into the depths

of his imagination

The mariner on the sand,

bucket full,

day ending,

waiting for morning once again.

He smells the salt spray

and the feces of

myriad birds

and the sweet aroma of little stands

nearby vending snacks and candy

and he piles still more shells.

Reading Josep Pla

From Josep Pla's The Gray Notebook (El Quadern Gris):

“It is dinnertime. The clatter of plates, knives, and forks reaches as far as the street. The southwesterly wind continues to blow damp and indifferent over everything. The smell of pine resin melds with the aroma of roast chicken. Stretched out on the beach next to their empty pot, half asleep, the country folk gaze up at misty stars, which passing clouds hide for a moment.

The dance begins late.”

Descriptions like this pepper almost every page, and Pla's work is an excelllent example to all young (and not so young) writers of the way in which an author can hone style and language. Pla brings Early 20^th century Catalonia to life, showing himself to be as astute when talking about regular people as he is when describing a meal or a dance. Here, he is talking with the fishermen:

'“It's bad to say the war is coming to an end?”

“Yes, wars produce fish.”

“Hey, come on.”

“I'm telling you. The voice of experience […] fish like noise, buzz, canon fire, flotsam.”

Sometimes contact with humanity can be depressing.

Hermos said this with eyes that saddened me. His eyes believed what he was saying. My depression deepened.'

Near the end, Pla begins to discuss the work of a contemporary from France, a strange young man by the name of Marcel Proust. Worth the read.