This is like being on valium and cocaine at the same time...I dont know what to say exactly, except that it's often how I feel... smooth and calm on the outside and go-go dancing in a leopard bikini on the inside.

This is V838Mon. On January 10, 2002 this star suddenly rose from obscurity to briefly become over 600,000 times brighter than our sun. Stars are, of course, suns and when this one exploded it is believed to have swallowed all the planets that spent their time orbiting it.

It's from studying supernovas like this one ( although V838Mon is technically a supergiant) that scientists have determined that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The light from the explosion continues to ripple outward illuminating even more and more remote regions. Not that I exactly understand what that means cosmologically, but there is some ancient part of me that gets it---that KNOWS that the same thing happens inside me, on a cellular level and a consciousness level. I think it must be the equivalent of an epiphany or deep emotional shock. And with that instantaneous new awareness everything we are and know dies and gets reborn as something else.

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
–Carl Sandburg


Say "death" and the whole room freezes--
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.

Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.

Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.

Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.

The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.

(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)

--Jane Hirshfield

Dont fuck with love.
It's a nice sentiment, anyway.

But its sort of what we do...always testing it, always being tested by it
so we can get closer to the stuff we're made of.

and

Some of us reach the stars.

but

The winning trick is pulling the stars INTO you while having both feet firmly on the ground.

just discovered the beautiful and haunting photography of Kurt Tong.

I particularly loved this project involving the abandoned People's Parks of China.
In his own words...

People's Park
Looking through my family photographs, apart from the customary family portraits in front of the same Christmas Trees and behind birthday cakes, most of the photos taken of me, my brother and my sisters were during our daytrips out at various parks. I have just a few memories of these pictures being taken. However, I still have such vivid memories of all the parks we used to go to. The penguin bins, the bumper cars, the trains and the ice cream stalls are all so clear in my mind, little snippets of memories that make up my childhood. Sadly, nearly all of these parks have long since disappeared, forever living only as memories. This project explores similar recreational spaces found in China. In 1958, at the beginning of ‘The Great Leap Forward’, when private ownership was banned, many existing parks were renovated and new parks were built all across China for the people, many were renamed People’s Parks. Over the years, they became main focal points of the cities, where families have their outings and couples meet. Children’s amusement parks and Zoos were often built within these parks to provide entertainment for the local children. China is changing at a staggering pace, the economic miracle means that the Chinese are enjoying a much more affluent lifestyle. Shopping and Internet have replaced bumper cars and Ferris wheels. Many of these parks have fallen to disarray. However, many workers are still employed by the government to upkeep these parks and they remain open for the people. Millions of older Chinese would have grown up with these parks and have memories of time spent in them. Just like the parks, their memories are slowly fading away with time. Like the family photos I have, the photographs in the series act as a record of memories that may soon disappear entirely, along with the People’s Parks.

Lots of yellow around these days,
and I realize what an optimistic color it is.
It says, "I'm HERE! Wanna dance or something?"

When the first round of cherry blossoms fell off the tree
this year,
I noticed that the leaves are perfect red hearts.
How could I never have noticed that before?

The banks of Ballona Creek
are putting on a day-time
low-to-the-ground
fireworks show
of wild daisies.
When the wind blows through them
its an undulating mass of yellow silk.

Swarm of BEES.
HUNDREDS.
I've never seen anything like it.
In those numbers they are loud,
and the sound gets under your skin
It vibrates and itches.
But, what is most remarkable
is the sense of intelligence
behind it.