64 x 5 (Augustiana)

Today began cool and gray. Around ten o'clock

The sun began to burn through the clouds,

And now, at noon, the day hands suspended.

I'm waiting to see which way it goes:

Back to heat and summer glare, or forward

Toward autumn—its barred clouds and gathering swallows,

Its knife-edge tracing borders, its drops of blood:

emblems of what's been lost, and what remains.

64 x 4 (Drilling Down)

That buzzing noise. Is it in fact coming from those poles? Or is it coming from the ground, maybe the rumble of a far-off train? Or from further back, something hidden in the clouds? Maybe from inside the shafts of the silver mines up in the hills? Somewhere behind that sound is the silence, larger and more lasting. Close your eyes. Listen. Listen harder.

64 x 3 (Similes)

Maybe some days these posts will fall like leaves. Maybe some days it will be more like squeezing a drop of water from a stone. Already it feels like a visit to a border town, with the sun going down and a strange buzzing noise coming from the telephone poles. Stores and bars both sides of the street. Which one should we visit first?

64 x 2 (Once)

Last night we watched "Once" again, because Lauren had not seen it. We had been talking earlier about mindfulness, and about how prayer, and art, and writing, and song, might be venues for its cultivation. Someone once said Hansard sings like his life depends upon it. Which is only as it should be, right? This is how we learn. This is how we grow.

64 x 1 (The Rules)

This post is the first in a new series: 64 posts of exactly 64 words. I am planning to deliver them in four "courses" of 16 posts each. I chose 64 because it's a square and offers many possibilities for the ways the words might be configured: eight lines of eight words, 16 lines of four words, etc. A game to play. We're off.