Dear Bleaders,
White sky out there seemed to call for this poem by Timothy Donnelly, of the wonderful Twenty-Seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit and The Cloud Corporation.
Epitaph by His Own Hand
From the morning he
started
peeling his first potato
he felt like he'd been
peeling
potatoes for eternity-
all that fell about his
ankles
like clouds' inky
shadows
smudged across pastures
of an afterlife clearly
put farther away from
him
the harder he worked for
it.
-Timothy Donnelly
It's true! Potato peelings look
like clouds. Or rather like the shadows of clouds.
Every time you peel a
potato you pick up just where you peeled your last potato. Life is just one long
potato peel interrupted by weeks of nonsense and then returns, at last, to the
spud and the knife.
No, but I like the
misery of this little poem. Don’t always gnaw the heel of the bread, stop
working hard for your reward.
Instead, look up at the
clouds and see them from upside down, as if they were on the ground around your
chair, flapping down from your lap as you sheer thin shapes off a bulbous, knotty
loaf of the stuff, whatever it is. Busy day.
Don't kill yourself and I will return to encourage you yet again.
love,
Jennifer