Planes and Trains

train, sylvie wibaut

friends and romans, here is one of the latest songs ive been working on. i hope soon i will be able to make an attachment with the actual song for you.

as long as there's treetops and wings she can hide in
flying is all that she needs
but this coastline earth ground train that you ride in
would she still choose to believe

shes too proud to say that this she can't afford
the empty place where you lay
but your smudged brown earth face at the door
would you choose to stay
for this forgive
for this forgive

she hated to see you on that runway
its not like thats something, she didn't learn from you baby
hated to watch your arms spread and fly away
pray the train pulls her through
i pray the train will pull her through

slowly shes learning and forming the words
could this survive your embrace
take the train in the morning the background will blur
but theres lines on her face you can trace

canoes and acordians
the west and the mountains
are filling your heart like a well
and there's no use pretendin'
you're over her darlin'
but your secrets i'll try not to tell

she hated to see you on that runway...

theres letters of lessons you never did learn
as she shadows the walls with her hands
and acres of ashes from bridges you've burned
backyard rings buried in sand.
for this forgive. me.
for this forgive

she hated to see you on that runway
but its not like that something she didn't learn from you baby
hated to watch your arms spread then flying away
pray the train pulls her through
all you can do
pray the train pulls her through.

come home darlin', come home quickly, ashley brown

i went over to a very cold ohio college last month to do a visual art and theology talk. this is the painting that came from the service. and indeed, the words are meant to point upwards. for those of you interested in the artwork ive been doing since you've last seen me or it or either, an official website is coming soon.

These Days They Are a River, And We're All Floating Down, Every Loved One, Every Neighbor, and Tennesee and My Hometown

i grew up in nashville tennessee in a family of musicians and school teachers. we had a record player in the den that provided me with hours of dancing around the house while my parents worked. my mom graded math papers with red pen in the renovated attic. we were always saving turtles and tadpoles and ducks and mice from highways and the creek. after making trips to science classes and show-and-tells we would take them to the woods and let them crawl or swim or scamper away. my dad would walk around the house with his guitar and harmonica strap singing mostly bob dylan. he taught me how to play chess good enough to beat the boys in my fifth grade class and that you should play guitar with your fingers instead of a pick when you're first learning so they can get the practice. and then, there were other things i learned seperate from my parents, which, all theological practicalities aside, makes me think i was pieced together with more than a genetic mixture of the two. i made the attic into a place where i could paint and discovered the one spot next the the fence where, if you dig deep enough, you can find red dirt and china. at the fabric store i would run down the aisles with my hands stretched out and hid inside the circular stands. i loved the way everything felt and felt different. these are really good memories, ones i remember after listening to my dad's voice singing subterranian homesick blues on the answering machine and moving earthworms from piles into the dirt and watching walk the line and hurt, the johnny cash music video

Will You Say to Me, A Little Rain's Gonna Come

hannah. i started a garden the other day. and now my fingers are calloused from all that digging and dirt. it rained and then the dirt mixed into a red and brown mud. the kind, i remember, you were always proud to play in. smiling and stomping. i think i understand now why you loved it so much.

suggested listening: Time of Need ,Ryan Adams

After signing a few notes at my work, I looked at the pen I was using. "You are God's Valentine" it read inside a little candy heart shape. This was among similar pink and purple hearts that read "the greatest love" and "i am here" and other sentence fragments that would make your English teacher tremble. Unless you are him or him you have legitimate right to be concerned.

My Name is a Thread and It Connects Strangers

people who have called me ash in the last week

1. Betty, hospital out-patient desk attendant
2. Mark, man outside the grocery store asking for bread money
3. kid at work, (referencing the Great Pokemon Master also known as Ash)
4. Andrew, coffeehouse barista who frequently uses ash trays

These Are The Doors I Opened and Shut and Slammed in Your Face

salvaged doors, grant edwards

the lady behind me slams the telephone reciever into the table and the cab company on the other line. "im about to cry," she states. three times and to herself, but i think she's hoping i hear. i try looking busy.i dont mind crying, it even feels good sometimes. but i would never say it like that and outloud like her. she walks out the door in her beige trench coat and sneakers. i feel like eating fried catfish and a soda from that place down the street today, can you spare some change?...fried catfish reminds me of my dad but not of being charitable. its 11:30 at night. the doorbell rings its archaic ring and i hear someone talking nervously outside. i try not to make any sudden moves or flip the lightswitch. they leave and i give my dog a treat for barking. forgive me god. if they really needed my help. forgive me, if they were you.

I'm a New Chicken, Clucking Open Hearts and Years

the man in front of me in the grocery store line pulls money from his sock, smiles, and carts away his ramean noodles and tuna fish. i have a picture of the kid behind me. i took it on a sunny day when his brother and him were playing football in our backyard. i turn around again and he is gone. sent hurriedly down aisle 7 for the forgotten bag of something. but his mother is there and she is beautiful, and her hair wraps and braids up into itself and carries little seashells. i wish he hadn't been sent down aisle 7. i wanted to show him where trees are best for climbing and how to make castles from cardboard boxes and tell the secrets we'd kept from each other. i rummage in my purse for change, buy creamer and some gum, bring them home, and read this and this
it is 10:30 in the morning, and now (and over coffee with cream in it) i am thinking about other things like bicycles and landscapes ive seen you in and things that might not happen again. ive written two wishes in my little blue book.
1. wake up in the morning next to my cedar wood bird and you
2. read where the wild things are

*photograph by grant edwards, fog 3

What I am Reading this Morning

The Beginning
By Anthony Abbott

"Isn't the end that's important," said Mary. "It's the beginning." Romulus Kinney, Jesus Tales

You see, I have forgotten everything
except the losing. I do not know
about the kissing, the placement
of the hands or the lips or whether
the Tobago goes this way or that.

I do not know any more about the touching
or the movement of limbs
or the freedom of the eyes to watch
or whether anything is wanted
or how one knows desire. I remember

only that on certain nights
when the full moon hung low on the horizon
there was the beginning
of something more than you and me
something more than self

and if I lost that forever
it would be losing God
or whatever God is. To save that
I would perform a hundred tasks
pluck a thousand blossoms,

do penance under some saint's rock
if only it would lead
to a blue door in the green wood.
I would unlive it all
so we could again begin.

*photograph by helen errington, locked no key