Thursday, March 10, 2016

an ordinary afternoon on the outskirts of petroleum, indiana




4 comments:

  1. Oh, before I saw the author's name, something told me this sounded just like Erinn's words. Thank you.

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  2. Scary photo!! I expect to see ghosts. As always, I love Erin's words, each and every letter. I can't even count the houses I lived in till we bought our home here. Over 20 or 30, I know. xo

    PS: I love this Rumer Godden quote:

    "There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

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  3. the question is - how do we want to live our lives? what do we value?

    these women, rosaria and marion, know something of choosing real value in life. both women know the value of surviving in a most basic sense. and they know the nourishment of family.

    i have nothing against the natural progression of things. it is important to both acknowledge and embrace the inevitable and natural capitulation of all things born or created, those things we erect. but to create a world where our choices alienate us from our land and from ourselves... well, i am pretty much tired with that.

    this house doesn't strike me as frightening at all. i wonder if i am mad. that which frightens me is the obtuse name of the town, petroleum. it seems like a whole kingdom which sinks back into the ground, a kingdom of greed and fools.

    carruth says it pretty well here,

    From "A Few Dilapidated Arias" (part 4)

    "Our crumbling civilization"-a phrase I have used often
    during recent years, in letters to friends, even in
    words for public print. And what does it mean? Can
    a civilization crumble? At once appears the image
    of an old slice of bread, stale and hard, green with mold,
    shaped roughly like the northeastern United States, years
    old or more, so hard and foul that even my pal Maxie,
    the shepherd/husky cross who eats everything, won't
    touch it. And it is crumbling, turning literally into
    crumbs, as the millions of infinitesimal internal connecting
    fibers sever and loosen. The dust trickles and seeps away.

    he concludes his 26 part poem like this,

    Remember me in your agony, my children. Think
    of what i have foretold. I wrote these words for you.

    but this story has been foretold and told and even remembered. and so few seem to be listening.

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    Replies
    1. I agree, the town's name is horrendous...I just saw the photos of the bird eating from your hand...and I wept with both joy & sorrow. Holy, holy, holy. Nature heals me... and right now, pisses me off. Ha! Our house has flooded for two days. Mother Nature wins...every single time. How I love her. ;-) xo

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