Announcement

I intend to devote an essay to the Johnsonian dictum "The same proposition cannot be at once true and false." My reflections will inspire a new generation of Wittgensteins, some of them pianists.

Keys, black and white

To my ear, the geese seemed stuck
in some sorry squawk-show rerun,
their sloppy V the envy of no commuter
in her orderly lane.

No beauty queen queueing for lip gloss
fretted about her animal past,
what a life spent erect might
and might not yet mean.

On my chair, worrying a wan dream,
I saw roadside ditches
full of fur, feathers, lost bodies.
I slumbered on coals.

The queer pianist took a breath,
determined to play pitchblack
on snow white keys:
rapping cantilena.

Floral remains

Here is an exchange between two members of the Pacific Bulb Society. I find the image remarkably poignant and extremely beautiful.

My question is this: along with daffodils and Hyacinthoides, what other winter-spring flowering bulbs are likely to persist and thrive, decades after planting? Which crocus, tulips, etc, are truly survivors that outlast their gardens?
—Kathleen Sayce

Around Denton, TX where I lived for six years, the outlines of old homesteads are delineated with persisisting Muscari neglectum, Rhodophiala bifida, Lycoris radiata, Narcissus jonquilla, and a few other types of Narcissus. There were also clumps of Cooperia pedunculata at these sites, which were farther north than that species normally grows I think. Many of these places have been lost since the 1990s as undeveloped gaps in the urban landscape are filled in.
—Shawn Pollard

a beginning

Wet wasted leaves crowd the steps
From a place dry and seldom swept
Just outside my door, never locked,
A white rectangle spotlit by the sun.

My halting mind returned early
Freighted with headlined names
Halted by the door, hesitated.

They burn easily, kindling arias.