Midsummer

poem

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If you could be found on a summer's night

weaving the calls of the night birds, long and sharp

into ropes that stretch from the earth to the sky,

Which, spiraling

are tangled between the stars;

If a man with a single eye could see you,

unveiled and true

on your altar of silver tears, and add to their number –

If you would look up, and breathe one vowel of naught,

By heaven, I ask to be drowned, then, and become

Nothing, a shadow, a ghost of a tune;

nothing, I say, a sliver in the skin of a god

plucked out and thrown away, but not before 

it tastes of Paradise

In your smallest finger is that which lies at the heart of the world:

Eternity hand in hand with itself;

Let me look on you once, and then do what you will,

make all my nights unquiet horrors,

my life a game for little gods, and I, beset, a failing earthly pawn –

Give me eyes to see what may be seen; in truth,

I can be silent, and would hear you speak.

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Hello all,

It’s almost July, which means Long Oddities is nearly a year old. Can’t believe how fast time passes!

I’m writing this just to let you know that I will be taking a bit of a break over the months of July and August — I’ll be switching to a biweekly schedule for regular posts. (The Journal will continue as per normal, since it’s more of a writing exercise.) The usual schedule will resume in September.

I also wanted to say a short but heartfelt thank you to those who’ve read, commented, subscribed, restacked, encouraged, and lurked over this past year — I’m so grateful to all of you, and thrilled beyond measure that I get to share my writing with you every week. I could never ask for a stranger, or a happier, year.

Here’s to another equally wonderful one!

Iris Shaw