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Mon 08 Feb 10

Of Saints and Heroes

I don't believe I ever sat down and actually watched the Super Bowl in my entire life, because generally I could care less about sports. Tonight, I watched it with (and for) lil' one. He has never sat down with a man to watch the game, never had a Dad who made wings, red beans and rice, and shook the house with a mighty roar at that first touchdown. Tonight he does- thank you Saints, you made champions of us.

I feel this is an odd sort of milestone- that connection between the odd geeky new-ish Dad who has no sports IQ, and the Son who has overcome many hardships and seen the shattering of many dreams now enjoying something together this simple. He said it meant a lot to him, even me reading up on the rules of football so I could follow the game better.

These little things, these passing minutes of our passing time, accrue such value. The moments are forever sealed in some holy place, tied to our names and our fragmentary existence. I cannot estimate the value to him to validate his passions, something that passes in about 3 hours, something as small as passing a ball back and forth.
Tonight, we have watched a game, but I feel that we've won something far greater.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 00.25 Mon, 08 Feb '10

Wed 03 Feb 10

4,969 Posts Later...

Just a few hours ago, Bird on the Moon . com celebrated its 7th birthday. This coincided with a night of merry making and home brewing with my best friend Joshua, and neighbors Sarah and Lynn. Long before the "social media revolution" of instant status updates and breathless texting, this blog served as my voice when I frequently was too unsure of it. Over time, thanks to the feedback and support of the over 3,000,000 visitors from damn near every nation on Earth, I became more confident of that voice, and ever more aware of the power of each larynx, each fingertip to change the world.

Since those early golden days, I've become a Dad twice over, a published author thrice over, and have been within an inch of my life a few more times than I care to count. The point is, as the lyrics go to "Indiscipline" by King Crimson: "No matter how closely I study it- no matter how I take it apart, no matter how I break it down, it remains consistent." My life has been spelled out for a few million strangers for seven years, and though each day I may acknowledge its fragility, this life persists. This name, just like yours, just won another minute. All the more reason to speak more clearly from the heart, and more powerfully from the mountain top. The words that we emit may not be constrained to a single place now, in this age of constant connection and the madly addictive buzzing of an entire planet learning to speak. They spread out, and when the lights go out, we are saturated by words from throngs of souls we'll never meet. Provided we do something with the strange knowledge that we are all connected in ways that cannot yet be comprehended, we are fulfilling the dream of ages- being humanity and simultaneously sharing the same stage.

The Internet is just a very rough and queer step on that path to true interpersonal, international interconnection. It is a primitive and crude simulation of that uncanny feeling we all know subconsciously, that feeling where we know that we are surrounded by the very knowledge we lack but just can't yet touch it. Each of us is tapping on some steampunk telegraph to the rhythm of our soul, at the least calling out in wonder from our common biology. It is still a young tool no matter our comfort with it. It is an opportunity awaiting your Next Important Search.

So, what does all this really mean? Heck if I know, but it has been and continues to be an immense pleasure to hold this place dear to me and share it with you, bot or Bolivian, with unconditional peace. For the next year, Bird on the Moon will persist in one way or the other, and the Internet will grow in untold ways, and hopefully you will be given the opportunity to use your voice in transformative ways... come what may and for whatever reason.

In the spirit of our endeavour, as searchers and teachers, I can only leave you with this spellbinding gift:

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 01.13 Wed, 03 Feb '10

Fri 22 Jan 10

The Obscuring Factor

Do you think we might be made of
Something more than what the scientists say?
I might be a smörgåsbord of old photos
Or the random bits of old game pieces
Found scattered on the shag carpet.
You might be some wind blown note, crumpled,
Only to land at my door, ink blurred and intent lost.
You might be the strange fog that settles over the city in January
The obscuring factor, the breath of a ghost.
Are we more than places, bits, together tumbled
In time's ruthless wind?
Are we more than a collision of consonants and vowels
Pulled off the highway, waving for the attention of passer-by?
In these later hours, the questions pass
As onlookers on the other side of the glass
Determined to get somewhere but too compelled by the shadows
Not to be curious.
As a stranger snuffs his smoke
I close my book- no closer to answers
But merged deeper with the question.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 23.43 Fri, 22 Jan '10

Sat 26 Dec 09

Snowmelt Quartet

When the thin sheets of fog veil the city and hush her silver lights
And the snow, which fell as stars that entranced our tongues
Recedes back to the rivers, I too will melt, be absorbed,
Even in the stillness of this house, shadowed by a single dancing candle.
Snowmen collapse to Earth- I too lose my form
Somewhere between here and sleep, and drip back to oblivion.
The mind is softened by the loosening of shape and the returning of flow.
***
My slowing and darkening thoughts numb the impossible- I fly through the mists
And the shadows which blur the sharpest line… winging unbound,
Singing myself raw in the song of a newly freed slave.
Gravity unchains me, in dreams as real as a lone flame in the night.
To become a meteor in reverse, streaking in a flash of re-binding
Hurling my sulphurous way into the cold shimmer of heaven.
No-thing touches me here, even light relaxes because fantasy is faster than law.
You can take anything away, but none dares ransom this dream.
***
Before nightfall, I read that telescopes found yet another planet out there
Watery and massive, circling a sun seemingly unremarkable.
One could hail the discovery, save we have not yet discovered our own world.
Where is an observatory of the soul?
Where are the lenses that can focus upon the light of life
That we may name it, constellate it, give shape to a nameless radiance?
Just as there is no net fine enough to trap a soul and the photons it loves
There is no glass which bends life into a single, discernable image,
And no place high and dark enough to entice a freed thought to come back down
To take its place back among the alphabetized litany of “what makes sense.”
***
As the snow continues to merge with the swollen stream of yesterday
I will cling to the worlds in-between… the gentle minute between frozen and wet,
The unshackled thought which ran deep into the night and
Defied the roughened bounds of assumption like a fleet-footed vandal,
A dream on the wing parading through a mist-softened city at midnight.
A man in that city edges toward sleep
While evermore clutching in gratitude all that awakens him.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 01.18 Sat, 26 Dec '09

Jay Joslin

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Of Saints and Heroes

4,969 Posts Later...

The Obscuring Factor

Snowmelt Quartet

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