Happy 20th to my sister muse, with warmth of heart.

Shall I spin a tale for the birthday girl?
For the most vibrant ardente ginger?
Nah; it's more catching glimpse her fleeting twirl
Hopping cross oceans, bright lands she conjures.

Unfortunately tonight's not the case-
Finals bring dreary ag'nizing grounding
But 'las- imagination paints a place
We sit on the edge of L'Italy and sing.

I love Paris in the Rain, I love Par
'is in the rain, cause when it rains and rains
We 'change words as lucky parcels rare
Awaiting the moment to board the train

For there's a world out there we'll inspire-
Together we shall spark the brilliant fire.

<3

Beethoven once said

"Don't only practice your art
but force your way into its secrets
for it and knowledge
can raise men to the divine."

music

sits under my eyelids

basks 'cross the windowsill

warm

stretching round the notes

of a yesterday already gone

melodies glance off windowpanes

filling the air

colors

soar through drizzling rain

lighting the skies

with vigor.

A vitality

throbs

a  pulse

disposition perhaps?

sweeping 

falling

so sweet it hurts

up

down

time counts the pendulum

from the pole of the universe

the sky darkens

but the vivid cannot

indefinitely live in shadow

all will be victorious

when time decides

inevitable, that

all-encompassing joy

yearning hearts collide

in that wonderful wash of sound.

I guarantee

your life is beautiful

when Beethoven's the narrator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ_fkw5j-t0

'tis a new year

What better way to spend it
than the slopes
in frigid air
exhaling clouds
bindings ache
but at a certain point
in the late afternoon
that doesn't matter.
There is no fear
just us
and the mountain
flying by
a mad rush
exhilaration
as the space between
us and the bottom
closes up.
We have cinnamon fried
chicken,
then drive through
the night,
making our one
stop at a farm,
watch the light show,
lit-up candy canes,
Christmas trees,
nativity scenes,
we drive through
glowing arches
and are
once again
enveloped
by the music
as the dragon-eyed
moon sees us
the way to home.

something I found in my notebook from awhile back

Dusk has fallen; the bright streaks of the sunset are fading into themselves, leaving behind the faint glow of an already forgotten today. We stumble over the sand, clumsy on the uneven ground, holding hands in a chain, a family. We walk past the smoldering of the campfires, the light and heat of the people telling jokes and strumming on their guitars, just being people.

We all somehow let go of each other's hands at the same time, and I stand at the water's edge and take in the ocean in front of me, an unending body of water that stretches off into the horizon. The tide comes in, leaving foam at my feet, a constant constancy, nature's pendulum, and I walk down the shoreline, in awe of this force and power of the ocean, hearing the chatter of the people as mere background noise as the roar of the ocean gets me from the inside out.

Shadows dance across the sand, and lights shine down the walk, strings of lights restaurant owners hung up to illuminate the outside, or just city lights. The breeze blows my hair across my face and I breathe in the fresh, salty air.

In that breath all the beauty of this place seems to hit me. I am frozen in time, and this is exactly when their voices sound across the shore.

It's time for us to leave.

And it all hits me then, or you know, as he says, "in terms of everything."

We're always leaving behind the things we love most.

It is so bittersweet, and he is so far away from me still.

I'm sprawled on one of the many couches in the basement, chain-writing key signatures on a 12-stave sheet of staff paper when they enter, two girls, wearing striped socks with slippers, and they turn their heads over their shoulders and ask, "Hey, do y'all mind if we play some Enya?"

There are so many things I could say, most of them going something along the lines of, how could I mind? Enya was my idol. Enya was a goddess. Enya was the familiarity of my childhood, of the memories I couldn't recall till I heard her music and it all flooded back to me, a wash of sound. 

I'd been in the car coming back from a ski trip with one of my friends and I was overloading him with Enya, and he told me sarcastically, "The lyrics are very creative," to which I asked, "What?" "They're the most repetitive thing I've ever heard, the same thing over and over" and I just looked at him. Because that was the magic of Enya, a ceaseless repetition that made the words spin over you in circles, pulled you into the music and warmth of an abstract vision made only of dreams. 

Enya was powerful, and spiritual, and showed me glimpses of stopping clocks and the thoughts of trees and the moonlight of the Caribbean ocean all through the medium of sound. She was genius. 

But you wouldn't say of any of those things to someone you've just met, so I said, "Of course not, I love Enya!" Understatement of the century. 

But really, it made my night. 

simple observations

The first time I saw it, it was a withered thing left forgotten on the cobblestone in the stark, cold sunshine of the early morning, and I wondered at its presence on the pathway, where it had no doubt been subjected to a large amount of foot traffic.

Of course it was only a flower, and most people don't think about flowers having a story, even if they'd noticed its discarded shape in the first place.

But it was there the second day, maybe twenty feet from where it'd been before, a knarled, discolored thing that I noticed fleetingly as I hurriedly chained my bike to the rails.

It wasn't there on the third day, or if it was, I can't say that I saw it.

through a certain shakiness of sleep

The room is dark and hot, but it is not the room that is hot, for the fans are running full-blast, and I am sweating.

I am once again on that brink of sleep, (as always seems the writing calls) but this time is different. This time I am on that brink because the lack of sleep has taken over and made the decision that I need rest, while the chemical pounding of my heart and my own unbalanced internal clock have determined otherwise.

So it could be called a dream, I guess, but maybe not. We are all four in a car, the four of us sitting hours before watching the telly on that lazy couch, but for some reason we're transported to a parking lot in a car, and we're trying to close all the doors. Three closed. And then there's a deflection where real and unreal meet; the car door begins closing, but then the door of the dark room rushes open and my caretaker enters to grab a pencil or book or whatever it is as I mentally fumble.

I sometimes wonder at the irony of time, and timing, and why things happen when they do.