Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun...there are millions
of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand...nor look
through the eyes of the dead...nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
.....
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
-- Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass
At this moment, I have just finished writing a couple of monstrously endearing papers for grad school. I have two pastries in my tummy, and the night is breaking into the next day. It is almost June. And at this moment, I feel something along the lines of joy, despite all the uncertainties of tomorrow, of the year to come.
I am going to turn off the light, take out my contacts, and feel my way through the dark. It is the promise of sleep, and the promise of writing anew, that awaits. I will find myself in the embrace of my love, and leave my fate to my dreams.
Drifting to sleep with a piece of Kant that I have loved reading over and over again this past month:
The night is sublime while the day is beautiful. Temperaments which have a sense for the sublime will be drawn toward eleated sentiments regarding friendship, contempt for the world and toward eternity, by the quiet silence of a summer evening when the twinkling light of the stars breaks through the shadows of the night and a lovely moon is visible...
The sublime, in turn, is at times accompanied by terror or melancholia, in some cases merely by quiet admiration and in still others by the beauty which is spread over a sublime place.
I blame and thank the Romantics and Transcendentalists for keeping me in merry, insane company tonight.
