Beauty; music that makes holes
in the sky; some unnamable thing?
Living things clamour
to be fed. I’m balancing
on the edge of a thread
of kindness. I want to love
as hard as I can.

I have wasted the years
waiting on corners in fog
because I was afraid
to wrestle something
out of myself. It is so hard
to keep from being choked
and swallowed up. The world
is a mean, sneaking place.
We’ve fouled it all.

I must empty myself
in the inky darkness
the quiet space of opening,
become a channel
for the pouring through.
I must go deeper
into the unvarnished me,
paint below the skin.

When I am through with this body—
little bundle of wreckage—
I want to swirl into deep, rich blue
holy places: a great river rushing
mountain cradling the cloud
hanging in the soft pleasant light
following the shapes of trees
humming among the leaves
in an unknown tongue
nurtured by the myriad of fallen
seeds expanding
each one knowing what to do—
dreams shaping themselves
in purified abandon.

~ Cento of lines/phrases found in Hundred and Thousands, The Journals of Emily Carr, Canadian artist and writer