February 28, 2025
My sincere apologies to my readers, but there is no newsletter this week. As best I can recall, this is the first time I’ve missed a deadline in the 4 years that Expanding Eyes has existed.
The reasons are exceptional and not likely to happen again. In the past several weeks, I have sold a house, packed singlehandedly (including 135 boxes of books alone), moved during the worst winter weather in years (3 ice storms in a row meant that the first moving date had to be cancelled and rescheduled), worked packing and now unpacking with a finger in a splint, and tried to be supportive as a friend goes through the death of a parent. I’m fine, and not complaining or making excuses, but there just haven’t been the hours to write a newsletter. I thought those who pay me the honor of reading the newsletter should have some explanation.
Those of you who also write, which is a number of you, keep writing, or go back to your writing if you can. Your writing is important. Those who don’t write, keep reading. Reading is possibly the most precious gift human beings have been given.
When Heather Cox Richardson takes a day off from her Substack newsletter, she supplies a beautiful photo of natural scenery in Maine, where she lives. I don’t have beautiful photos. But, with a bit of shyness, I offer a set of song lyrics. Lyrics are always a bit flat without the music, but I choose these because they are about reading, writing, and time. Thank you, as always, for reading, all of you. I am blessed to have you.
Fall, Falling, Fallen
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1. Once more the season comes around
When everything is falling
The animals are underground
Dreaming of sunlight tangled in grass
Once more the season comes around
Alone, the wind blows lonely
When all your lovers have flown south
Looking for warmth, and a change of view.
And the days are trimmed like candle wicks
And the candles burn shorter
And the night speaks glittering diamonds
Strange bright words I do not know
The boy is tucked inside the old man now
Who once was tucked under the covers
Tucked within the covers
Of the book he read were
All the life
All the loss
The daily and the fabulous
Caught in the words
Rescued from the blowing wind
Saved by being turned into the words
2. Once more the season comes around
When everything is fallen
Your parents are both underground
Dreaming the past, dreaming the world
Once more the words they come around
Still answer at my calling
A blessing in this twilit hour
From the depths whence they emerge
Finally free of all the blocks and doubts
That hindered me when I was younger
Now the race
To get the words down
All of us are
Syllables
Tonight is Daylight Saving, so
Set back the clock
The great blue heron from the creek broke
Into the light, as if the air spoke
Broke into language, and there
He’s flying still
November 3-4, 2023
Daylight Saving Time