Well


I know this path by magic not by sight.

Behind me on the hillside the cottage light

is like a star that’s gone astray. The moon


is waning fast, each blade of grass a rune


inscribed by hoarfrost. This path’s well worn.


I lug a bucket by bramble and blossoming blackthorn.

I know this path by magic not by sight.


Next morning when I come home quite unkempt


I cannot tell what happened at the well.


You spurn my explanation of a sex spell


cast by the spirit who guards the source


that boils deep in the belly of the earth,


even when I show you what lies strewn


in my bucket — a golden waning moon,


seven silver stars, our own porch light,


your face at the window staring into the dark.

Paula Meehan (1996)

Paula Meehan explains and reads "Well" here.

Calvary

The Thrill Of It All

Pious readers will know of the Stations of the Cross, a series of representations, sculptural or pictorial, depicting fourteen important moments during the last earthly hours of Our Saviour. I'm sorry to say that the student body had sacrilegiously appropriated the terminology of the Stations into the euphemisms of its erotic slang. 'The First Station' meant holding hands while French-kissing. Arrival at the Fifth involved manual stimulation through underwear (preferably someone else's). Six was unzipping or de-knickering. Seven I don't wish to go into. Gaining the Eighth meant you'd persuaded your co-conspirator of the time-honored biblical injunction that it was better to give than to receive. Fortunate to progress beyond Nine, your gratitude to the heavens was deep. Not that I myself had ever forged so far along the road. On this pilgrimage, I was a Four, if that. The only person I'd ever gone to bed with was myself. I suspected that myself and I would be better just as friends. But we were finding it hard to split up.

Joseph O'Connor, The Thrill Of It All (2014)

Lera Lynn

Lera Lynn at Ashland Coffee & Tea (8/9/14)

Carrie Elkin & Danny Schmidt

Carrie Elkin & Danny Schmidt, at Ashland Coffee & Tea (8/7/14):

A Most Wanted Man

Was

It was the best race he had ever seen. He had never seen old Jake go that fast, and nobody had ever known Tomey's Turl to go faster than his natural walk, even riding a mule. Uncle Buck whooped once from the woods, running on sight, Black John came out of the trees, driving, soupled out flat and level as a hawk, with Uncle Buck right up behind his ears now and yelling so that they looked exactly like a single black hawk with a sparrow riding it, across the field and over the ditch and across the next field, and he was running too; the mare went out before he even knew she was ready, and he was yelling too.

William Faulkner, "Was," the first story in Go Down, Moses (1942)

The Signature Of Things: A Novel

"I believe that we are all transient,' she began. She thought for a while and added, "I believe that we are half-blind and full of errors. I believe that we understand very little, and what we do understand is mostly wrong. I believe that life cannot be survived -- that is evident! -- but if one is lucky, life can be endured for quite a long while. If one is both lucky and stubborn, life can sometimes even be enjoyed."

Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature Of All Things: A Novel (2013)

A Place At The Table

Third Person