Friday, October 20
ELEGY FOR IDLE CURIOSITY I used to ask aloud such things as: why is the moon round, buffed only by the chamois cloth of space? But now I hold my tongue, or else people start to tap apparatus they’ve strapped to their hips as if they were knights. They are knights, assailed by the uncertain. When it stands to reason that we must be somewhere on the map: the self tends to be the only one not knowing where it is. No more paddling the murk of pointless speculation, wondering if the force that stirs the whirlpool also winds the spider’s web. A person can’t just wobble with her mouth open -- it arouses the surveillance. Instead we’re supposed to be like traffic lights, vigilant in every season. No more standing like a chanterelle, spewing out ten thousand spores, penetrating the substrate, laying a fiber everywhere. (Lucia Perillo)