♪ Currently playing ♪:
Gustav Holst’s
The Planets, Venus
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Dead leaves scrape in through the open mouth of the tunnel and I imagine all the death-things going on aboveground . . .
All that untrammeled chaos in my absence.
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Yet I don’t feel death, not at the moment.
I look at Beethoven with his tail tangled around
my wrist and feel something else, more like the fleeting
wingbeat of hummingbirds. Something oddly sustaining,
quickening, lifting, rising through the throat
like an invisible voice.
​
I dare not sing, but I understand what it means
to sing and why one might want to do it.
​
Perhaps singing is only a secret urge to scream,
and perhaps there isn’t much difference between
singing and screaming in the end and
that’s what a howl is—perfect blend of both.
​
Then again, maybe I’m just growing soft?
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