Passing By

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.                                                            ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

One Exquisite Picture
(Or excruciatingly sad violin
farewell to Boston's downtown Borders.)

Oh, hello there. I wasn't sure when I'd make it back either. Then, there was the needling question: Am I prepared to come back?  One minor issue: I haven't settled upon a few sensible words. Which, incidentally, seems of no importance as I've once again misplaced my steno pad. And I'm surely not dressed for a big return—barefoot, in rumpled clothing and disheveled hair. As it were, my writerly chapeau is not fitting well and is in need of a large, pearl-topped hat pin to keep it sitting squarely, and securely, upon my head.

Frankly, I'm not fit to step out, to pass by if even briefly, into grid-swoosh. (Maybe I'm troubled by the potential for gridlock.)

But, I have one little song for you:



(Zaz speaks—or shall I say, sings—for herself. The song title means: passersby. Here are the lyrics in French and English.)

And more—one good poem:

Passer-By, These Are Words 

by Yves Bonnefoy

Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading
I want you to listen: to this frail
Voice like that of letters eaten by grass.

Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee
Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names.
It flits between two sprays of leaves,
Carrying the sound of branches that are real
To those that filigree the still unseen.

Then know an even fainter sound, and let it be
The endless murmuring of all our shades.
Their whisper rises from beneath the stones
To fuse into a single heat with that blind
Light you are as yet, who can still gaze.

May your listening be good! Silence
Is a threshold where a twig breaks in your hand,
Imperceptibly, as you attempt to disengage
A name upon a stone:

And so our absent names untangle your alarms.
And for you who move away, pensively,
Here becomes there without ceasing to be.

* * *

Today the children are back in uniform and at school. Everything passes quickly. Even the things we think will never pass, like babies in diapers, toddlers of the terrible-twos, threes and fours, and sleepless nights pass. I look back and can barely see where those moments once stood. I've not done much to record them but for photos and a few scribbled notes. I remember little bodies scampering about and firm biceps that could pick them up or stop them in their tracks. I remember little voices, loud and exuberant, and often, chafing. All these things pass.

Now, junior high and high school have become a slice of what is here.

My fourteen year old son still has his pre-pubescent early twelve year old voice recorded as a greeting on his cell phone. "Hi, this is Max. Leave a message after the tone."  I thought I might mention this to him before the start of high school. But I couldn't. The under-six-foot intonation is too cute. It makes me smile—and for the time being, is my oral token of what once was there.

We are all just passing by. I'm glad to be passing by here once again. But I really should get dressed and find my notepad and some sensible words.

The real Exquisite Picture
By Étienne-Jules Marey