Category Archives: Literature

The moon is low

Dropping Keys

The small man

Builds cages for everyone

He

Knows.

While the sage,

Who has to duck his head

When the moon is low,

Keeps dropping keys all night long

For the

Beautiful

Rowdy

Prisoners.

~Hafez

Pippin

I waited five years and am now rereading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I love rediscovering my favorite parts.  They’re usually little, even incidental to the plot, just comments either profound or funny.  The whole section on Frodo waking up in Rivendell (the first time he wakes up in Rivendell) is wonderful, but this is my favorite interaction, when Frodo sees Merry and Pippin for the first time since their flight from the Ringwraiths.

`Hurray!’ cried Pippin, springing up. `Here is our noble cousin! Make way for Frodo, Lord of the Ring!’

‘Hush!’ said Gandalf from the shadows at the back of the porch. `Evil things do not come into this valley; but all the same we should not name them. The Lord of the Ring is not Frodo, but the master of the Dark Tower of Mordor, whose power is again stretching out over the world! We are sitting in a fortress. Outside it is getting dark.’

`Gandalf has been saying many cheerful things like that,’ said Pippin.

The second time Frodo wakes up in Rivendell also has one of my favorite quotes, but I’ll wait till I get there to share it.

I never thought this place could be beautiful

One of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books, Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson.  Ben made me think of it again.  A boy has gone with his father to find his grandfather’s grave, and after an arduous journey they have arrived.  His father has made the journey out of guilt, sadness and obligation, and a desire to somehow reconcile with his own dead father and find forgiveness. 

“Every prayer seemed long to me at that age, and I was truly bone tired.  I tried to keep my eyes closed, but after a while I had to look around a little.  And this is something I remember very well.  At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east; I knew where the east was because the sun was just over the horizon when we got there that morning.  Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down.  Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them.  It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them.  I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I would have to startle him out of his prayer, and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it.  And then I said, “Look at the moon.”  And he did.  We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up.  They seemed to float on the horizon for quite a long time, I suppose because they were both so bright you couldn’t get a clear look at them.  And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them, which seemed amazing to me at the time, since I hadn’t given much thought to the nature of the horizon. 

“My father said, ‘I would never have thought this place could be beautiful.  I’m glad to know that.'”

Lines, by Martha Collins

Draw a line. Write a line. There.
Stay in line, hold the line, a glance
between the lines is fine but don’t
turn corners, cross, cut in, go over
or out, between two points of no
return’s a line of flight, between
two points of view’s a line of vision.
But a line of thought is rarely
straight, an open line’s no party
line, however fine your point.
A line of fire communicates, but drop
your weapons and drop your line,
consider the shortest distance from x
to y, let x be me, let y be you.