Wednesday 13th October, 2004
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A Thought for Today
Reason is the shortest road to freedom
and love the only highway into life.
This
One Does It For Me!
Hi Ken,
I'm a long time McKuen fan but a pretty new visitor to the web site.
Love it! Thanks for putting it all together.
I have yet to work my way through the archives but from what I've seen
of the daily Flight Plans there appears to be one glaring omission -
very little stuff from what I consider to be one of Rod's best
endeavours, The Folio Collection.
Please won't you rectify this when you have a chance?
God Bless,
Andrew
Thanks for your letter,
Andrew, and welcome to A Safe Place To Land. We love getting new
visitors and I hope you'll be with us for a long time to come.
Once you've set aside some
time to browse the archives you'll find a host of pieces from the Folios
featured there. Your best bet would be to use our search engine at the
foot of this page to search for the word "folio" and you should be
presented with a substantial list of Rod's Folio work.
Meantime here's a ton of
Folio stuff to keep you going.
FOLIO NO.19 - FALL 1978
Sun Spots
Squinting, I see atoms. Pulling back, the eye’s lens broaden for a wider
angle, the atoms split and disappear. Sun spots perhaps but atoms in the
abstract, as wave on wave of sunlight set my eyes to dancing or to
staring straight ahead, hoping I can split the atoms or cause the spots
to come together in a single blur.
Sometime last year, or has it been two years or six, I gave up taking
sleeping pills. Why do I sleep easy now ? Because I know that there is
something I do not know - not necessarily cosmic or identifiable but
something in between perhaps. Few people talk about it but it’s there,
as sure as I see atoms. Certain as the sun spots that dart along our
telescopes.
Playground
Three tanks to fire up three tons of air. Eight stories of bright nylon,
billowing and bulging. A wicker basket wide enough for two, no more. I
doubt that I will traverse any trails as yet untraveled or come home
from a new Atlantic crossing. Oh, but it’s wide enough to wander through
God’s playground, saluting him by being careful. Now we have a common
meeting place - wider than the massive church for masses - taller,
deeper, longer than the planned cathedral. God’s own backyard, birds
pause in passing and carefully perch upon the basket’s edge.
Beyond
Waking up with cotton mouth, come with me. The mist is thick enough to
wash your face. Hurry, the countdown’s started. We are together, as the
universe’s small perimeters. Hurry. I want to be the first in line.
My Brother Edward
Edward made for me not just my own private sky, but trees to frame it.
Ferns to reach the wide, fat trunk of every tree, roses where no rose
sought to bloom. Grassy knolls for barefoot carpet so that I might cast
my eyes heavenward, undisturbed by open ground. He induced an owl to
wake me, almost nightly, to be sure no sliced or open moon escapes my
eyes.
Stringing out the stars he made them visible and indivisible so that I
might waste no time in calling up astronomers.
I painted Edward’s porch and balcony and regularly I wash and clean his
rabbit hutch.
It isn’t much - but he has everything. Still for my little brother I’m
working or devising more.
He’s yet to coast through clouds on his way to nowhere. I intend to take
him there.
Topping the Trees
Up at 6 a.m., I track the near horizon while the sun is tracking me. My
balloon hopscotches trees, and skims the lakes and barnyard fences like
a skater on a pond trying to be dangerous by feigning figure 8's to gain
attention. It lifts me higher than I’ve yet gone. I’m careful not to
tamper with the unknown except to make it better known to myself.
Once I thought the closest I would come to heaven was to climb a tree.
Breaking and Entering
You’ve but to push your fist through mist and haze to penetrate the
clouds. They are an easy mark for airplanes and space ships, easier even
for the dreamer. The man who’s dead to dreaming lives within a cloud and
so his chance of entering the stratosphere is slimmer than that of most.
I do not expect to close my eyes to dreaming, only long enough to dream.
Sky
Mysterious? Yes. The sky, vaster than the widest ocean, should afford
the thinker more mystery - but while the ocean’s deep it’s also murky
and seemingly without a bottom.
Looking up one feels, however endless it may seem, that he surely sees
the ceiling if not the rooftop of all heaven.
Like the body of a well-known lover, the sky is void of much new magic,
that is unless you try to meet it as an equal.
The Long Run
Once I thought I’d die at fifty. I had no reason or rationale for
thinking so, merely that I would have spent the hours allotted to me and
it would be time for me to move through the distance to whatever waits
when we are separated from the life we so far know. Now I know that I
will not go easy. I enjoy too much the sparring, the skirmishes, and the
long runs that only life affords.
Runner
I have no time to hate, I’m in a hurry. But I’ve got all the hours in
the day still left to me to waste on love. And what a waste of God’s
free time to not love readily and straight ahead.
Want the words to a favorite
McKuen song or poem? Got a Rod McKuen story to relate or a question to
ask? Wednesday is the day we deal with things like this so please drop
me a line at kenb@mckuen.com and
I'll do my best to provide an answer just as soon as I can.
- Ken, Johannesburg,
South Africa, October 13
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