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Monday 10 May 2010

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File:Phoenix skyline Arizona USA.jpg




I will retreat to the precorporate.
Let fate have what is fate’s and allow
This spirit to slip through time’s difficult
Nets with the devious fingers of
A wild wind, while I run along behind.




File:Monumentvalleyaz.jpg



Phoenix skyline, looking west: photo by Bravo1, 2004
Monument Valley, northwest Arizona: photo by David Jolley, 2007

9 comments:

Curtis Roberts said...

I love the word “precorporate” (extremely easy to understand and envision, yet it doesn’t appear in my dictionaries) and the image of running along behind one’s own slipping spirit.

Several years ago, I took up residence in the “precorporate” after my corporate digs vaporized. I didn’t retreat or even wish to retreat , but we had orders to vaporize the place and that’s what we did.

At first I thought the corporate had continued moving ahead, in a forward direction, without me. When I eventually came to understand that entropy was at work and nothing was “moving forward” in the way I had imagined, I became really confused about where I was in relation to the former fixed points on my map.

In time, I re-noticed the cats, dogs, birds and fish (who had never left the precorporate), my wife (who actually had retreated and was extremely pleased to have done so), and my daughter (who has no idea what all this is about anyway and has plenty of other things on her mind) and I felt somewhat better and more assured.

Since then, I’ve been trying to “recorporate”, somewhat more sanely, I hope.

TC said...

Curtis,

Lovely:

"the cats, dogs, birds and fish (who had never left the precorporate)"


I shall dedicate the next three posts here to that part of the constituency, in your honour.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

The spirit seems to be wandering through these recent - the Wordsworth, the Blake, and this beauty.

Thanks, Tom.

TC said...

Many thanks Don. Yes, wandering, that's exactly the word for it, lately.

Present vaguely, not quite accounted for.

human being said...

this one is so beautiful!

i've read it several times and still love to re-read it... to let the image just form in my mind... each time with more depth...


namaste!

Curtis Roberts said...

Thank you so much. I am truly honored. Greetings from Tuxedo Park, NY, home of Eduardo, Opossum Mayor, who works quietly behind the scenes (much more effectively than his human counterparts in village government).

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Scarey, that Phoenix picture -- rising from the ashes (of the planet). . . . "time's difficult Nets" seems to be echoed (coincidentally) here ---

5.11

first grey light in sky above still black
ridge, curve of moon next to pine branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

time in which it would keep,
reflected in position

painting on wall, picture’s
frame, look at object

sunlit grey clouds reflected in channel,
shadowed canyon of ridge across from it

TC said...

Many thanks, kind friends.

Yes, Steve, that post-neutron-bomb view of Phoenix is very scary.

Curtis, those visitors from the precorporate I've promised you may now be found

here

and

here

and

here.

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

yes, they ARE visitors from the PRE-CORPORATE world -- may their chatter in the branches continue. . . .