Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 180

The Raven King Comes

The Raven King Comes

Two paths diverged in a green-gold wood
And there a wooden table stood.
Mother and daughter passed that way
And by the table lingered.

“I almost could believe I see
Fine cups and plates laid out for me
Although the table is quite bare,”
The daughter said, and then

From up above there came a sound
Unknown and strange that echoed round
Half like a croak, yet shining at the edge,
Clear and almost shrill.

Not frog or crow. I speak as one who knows
The call of the Raven King who goes
Traveli...

the lay of the land, sky jellyfish

I plucked up my courage and skateboarded around my neighborhood. One more barrier down: neighbors have now seen me engaging in my new hobby.

One thing I love about skateboarding is the sense I get of the land--its rolls and folds--as if it were water. Everything feels much more three dimensional. I feel like I'm hugging the world, and my arms are as wide as the route I'm taking.

Also, I saw four monarch butterflies all together at once. They were at a ... butterfly bush.

Also, the sky was so blu...

Free Will

Because when either eternal bliss or woe is prophesied, one wants to prove the prophecy wrong (or anyway, I do).

and they lived happily ever after
you ordain
so I, rebellious, run from joy
and shatter each small thing
that rings of contentment

and their future was one of bitter sorrow
you proclaim
so I, in chains, declare my love
for the bruises that they make
and for the peculiar twisting
of the heart
recalling all that has been lost

---------

It's just contrariness, I suppose.

Speaking of contrariness, ba...

out to seek my fortune

In the fairytale, the third son or daughter sets out to seek their fortune, with not a penny to their name, and . . .

I've lived my life largely according to what the water has brought me, and what the water has brought me has been good, as I've been blessed to live in a land of many deep streams, with drenching rains. I haven't been so good at moving out of the paths I've found myself in, however, and that's periodically something I want to do. theferrett 's post on being a grownup on the out...

scratching my mosquito bites and thinking about EEE

That's eastern equine encephalitis, and that's literally what I'm doing. When people get eastern equine encephalitis, it's fatal 50 percent of the time. For comparison, the influenza pandemic of 1917-18 had an overall mortality rate of 20 percent, and ebola has a mortality rate of 70 percent. Just so we're all on the same page here.

The disease is spread by mosquitos, especially those living in hardwood swamps, like what's behind my house. Aaaaannnnd, a horse in my town has it, which has promp...

the world drawn in ink and water

What is sky and what is water? What is cloud and what is hill? What does solid mean, or light or shadow?

Income segregation: like the income gap, only worse

The increasing gap between rich and poor in this country is a bad thing, but income segregation--the separation of people based on income--exacerbates and entrenches the problem, and it's also on the rise. Here's an article that explores the phenomenon in depth: "Geographic Segregation: The Role of Income Inequality," by Benjamin Forman and Caroline Koch, two researchers at MassINC, a Massachusetts-focused nonpartisan think tank. The authors write:

When families with limited means become geogr...

there were rainbows that day

Rainbows

Very soon, much nearer, a train whistle.

We piled off the tracks. She crouched at the edge of the gravel; I took a step back and down into a marshy spot amid goldenrod and asters, and we watched, eyes not much higher than wheel level, as a freight train rushed past.

From that line of sight I can confirm that lying between the rail...

the soft fur of the bees

I saw this post on Tumblr, loved the poetry of it. It's from penandink.tumblr.com, a blog of illustrations of tattoos, and the stories behind the tattoos (link here):



The poetry of that.

in awe of their tiny stingers
that could bring a grown man down

the empty power lines

Driving the healing angel to school, I saw silhouettes of birds, huddled together on the power lines, listening to the flow of electrons through their feet. I came back as soon as I could to take pictures of them at their listening post (on their listening wires), but . . .



It must have been something they heard. They must have exploded off the lines, all wings. What must the message have been? Was their mood one of panic or excitement? Outrage or glee?

Meanwhile, underneath, John the Flower H...