We are stardust

We are golden.

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Then can I walk with you?

I have come here to lose the smog

And feel to be a cog in something turning.

Well maybe it’s the time of year,

Or maybe it’s the time of man

I don’t know who I am

But you know life is for learning.

We are stardust.

We are golden.

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

—Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

LULLABY

Time to rest now; you have had

enough excitement for the time being.

Twilight, then early evening. Fireflies

in the room, flickering here and there, here and there,

and summer’s deep sweetness filling the open window.

Don’t think of these things anymore.

Listen to my breathing, your own breathing

like the fireflies, each small breath

a flare in which the world appears.

I’ve sung to you long enough in the summer night.

I’ll win you over in the end; the world can’t give you

this sustained vision.

You must be taught to love me. Human beings must be

taught to love

silence and darkness.

—Lousise Gluck, The Wild Iris

committment

we promise to wake you up if we think you won’t get the point of the dream. we promise to show up if you show up. everyday. we promise to make you feel sick when you lie to yourself. we promise to let love through if it’s love you came to do. we promise to make time flexible if you give us all your time. we promise to think of you more often than you think of us. we promise to remember you when you forget. we promise to be wherever and in everything you haven’t noticed yet, we promise to be we, even one by one. we promise to outsmart your mind. we promise to overlove your heart. we promise to echo over your voice. we promise you everything. everything. all we ask.

–alexis pauline gumbs, excerpt from DUB

Be well,

Marlene

Photograph by @hansdork

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