What You Missed That Day You Were Absent From Fourth Grade

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade

by Brad Aaron Modlin

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark

After lunch she distributed worksheets that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—

something important—and how to believe the house you wake in is your home. This prompted

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking for whatever it was you lost, and one person

add up to something.

Design

by Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth -- A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall? -- If design govern in a thing so small.

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violets-and-honey

1 year ago

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violets-and-honey

1 year ago

I need to stop going to YouTube shorts or Instagram reels when I’m seeking auditory or visual stimulus. I just keep scrolling for that dopamine hit and it wastes all of my time because a lot of the content isn’t worth it. I keep telling myself to go to Spotify and listen to music instead, but I think the issue is that Spotify is just auditory and I need a visual component to go with it.

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violets-and-honey

1 year ago

Wara! 2023 - Oil On Canvas — Krzysztof Powałka (Polish, B.1985)

Wara! 2023 - oil on canvas — Krzysztof Powałka (Polish, b.1985)

https://www.instagram.com/k.powalka_oilpaintings

The Queen

by Pablo Neruda tr. Donald D. Walsh

I have named you queen. There are taller than you, taller. There are purer than you, purer. There are lovelier than you, lovelier.

But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets No one recognizes you. No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks At the carpet of red gold That you tread as you pass, The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear All the rivers sound In my body, bells Shake the sky, And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I, Only you and I, my love, Listen to it.

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violets-and-honey

1 year ago