Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 163

All the feels, as they do say on Tumblr

There are some days when everything seems turned up to eleven--today is a day like that, when even casual encounters seem to be thrumming with a note just above or below hearing range, when everyone seems to be supersaturated with light and brightness.

Let me share two things. One is a poem Carol Ann Duffy, "Prayer," that I came to thanks to flemmings , whom I didn't know before, but the strength of weak ties brings us together, people. Let us stop and praise the strength of weak ties. Let us,...

The Mysterious Benefactor

The city of Ishinomaki, Japan, was badly hit by the tsunami of 2011. Eighty percent of the houses were destroyed, and out of a population of approximately 164,000 people, more than 3,000 lost their lives. The city's been slowly rebuilding over the past two years.

Recently, a mysterious benefactor has made their presence known. They've been sending envelopes to organizations like the Ishinomaki Restoration Support Network and the Sunfish City Development Organization. Inside the envelopes?

Bars...

Sydney Carton puts pressure on Mr. Barsad

The dissolute and yet/and therefore terribly romantic Sydney Carton has the sneak and rat Mr. Barsad in a corner. This scene could have come out of any modern political thriller or police procedural:

"Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspici...

Some more roads, and morning light

I like long views.

Here is an urban long view, down a great hill in Troy, NY.



Here is a semi-rural long view, down US highway 202, in B-town



And here is the light of early morning over one of my favorite local landscapes



Bright light, bright trees, dark skies...



... I've been away from LJ for days. I have lots of things I feel like sharing, more than I possibly can! But I will probably take a running stab at posting some of the many, so please, good friends and readers, don't feel like you need t...

Sights on three roads

The first sight

A road on an island in the Pacific, an island that just rises out of the water, like the back of a man swimming in the style of a whale. The markings on this road, lane markings, do-not-drive-here markings, are like baleen, are like tattoos.

The second sight

Road signs on a mountain road. Yellow diamonds: first one contains a snaking arrow: winding road--and how the road winds. The second shows a truck on a triangle: steep gradient--and how the road plunges. The third has a sing...

from bellakara, The Chanter's Song

Played by Josephine Macdonald on a Scottish wire-strung harp, on the Isle of Skye. The melody is haunting, beautiful, and even more beautiful for being played in open air, with the sound of the waves on the shore vibrating in the same air. And her fingers, red and a little cold! This is making music: the cold air, the waves, the wide views, and fingers plucking those strings, and then--that wonderful, beautiful sound.

T-1000 II in molten iron

Anybody remember the scene in Terminator 2 when the new Terminator, the one who can melt and reform and take any shape, finally is melted-dead in an iron foundry?

That scene where he's in the molten iron, trying to hold together a form, and he rears up, but inevitably sinks back down again?

That's what my thoughts and ideas are like sometimes: they rear up, almost taking a form, and then they just sink back into undifferentiated moltenness.



Actually this is before he's bazooka-ed into the molte...

a road

True story: I fell asleep in a chapel and woke up with a start, thinking, "but life does ultimately lead to death." (Duh. Asakiyume's epiphanies are the achingly obvious ones.)

And you know how in that transitional state, when you're still dripping with sleep, but have come out of its waters, random thoughts--that would be dream seeds or whole dreams if you were still asleep--come flashing in your mind (like heat lightning)? So these were the thoughts:

"When it all comes down to dust . . . (I...

A path, a fortress, a house

This path grows more green or less, depending on the weather. And depending on the green, the destination changes? Follow the emerald road . . .



There was once a grim cliff fortress, full of smeltings and clangings and wailing and moanings. And then . . . the wheel of fortune turned and the smelters and clangers took off for other parts, and the wailing and moaning ceased. In the shadow of the abandoned fortress, pastoral life resumed. The children explore abandoned cells and passageways and h...

Two fishermen pulled from icy lake

My town throws up ballad stories from time to time, and this week's paper had one. Three men walked out onto frozen Lake Metacomet to do some ice fishing, but about sixty-five feet out onto the lake, two of them fell through the ice, where the water was some 18 feet deep. Their friend also fell through, but where the water was only waist deep. He was able to wade to shore and call for help.

Two police officers and a firefighter responded (more firefighters were unable to respond as they were d...