#adrienne coal

[apoemaday]

For the Dead

by Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone to say: Be kinder to yourself but you were sick and would not answer The waste of my love goes on this way trying to save you from yourself I have always wondered about the left-over energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill long after the rains have stopped or the fire you want to go to bed from but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down the red coals more extreme, more curious in their flashing and dying than you wish they were sitting long after midnight

[thebloodyknight]

Names and Pronouns that mean/relate to Black, Night, Dark, etc ...

☆ ... NAMES:

Nior*, Raven, Jett, Ebony, Sable, Mahogany, Melaina (a Greek Nymph), Esmeray, Lilith, Kieran*, Adrienne, Keir, Lisha, Ciaran, Cherno*, Adrian, Briar, Brannon, Brix, Emmett*, Twyla, Shadow, Shade, Shadette, Esra, Evening, Anniki*, Cynthia, Layla, Stygian, Sombre, Starling

☆ ... PRONOUNS:

Noir/noir*, Dark/darks, ni/night, Ra/raven, Dim/Dims, Shade/Shades, mid/midnight, ink/inks, ink/inky*, coal/coals, Nuit/Nuits, Mi/Minuit, Tu/tumma, void/voids

One's with a * next to them are ones The Void uses himself. He is still new to making pronouns, but is better at finding names.

[kudosmyhero]

Detective Comics (vol. 1) #621: Rite of Passage, part 4: Trial by Fire

Read Date: September 13, 2022 Cover Date: September 1990 ● Writer: Alan Grant ● Penciller: Norm Breyfogle ● Inker: Steve Mitchell ● Colorist: Adrienne Roy ● Letterer: Todd Klein ● Editors: Dennis O'Neil ◦ Dan Raspler ●

Synopsis: At the hospital, Tim Drake asks Bruce Wayne what happened to his family in Haiti, despite knowing that it will cause him pain to hear it.

Bruce explains that he had trailed the man who collected the ransom for Tim's Parents to Haiti from Gotham City. The man, Malcien, had gone to the home of Louis Dange - a devout follower of Haitian Voodoo. They planed to bring the ransom money to their leader, the Obeah Man. While Louis Dange made one last prayer to his idol, Batman sneaked into the back of Malcien's jeep.

Meanwhile, the kidnapped Jack and Janet Drake were tied to a post surrounded by hot coals. The heat was unbearable, and the Obeah Man denied them water. Soon, Louis Dange and Malcien arrived with the money. Thinking that their ransom was paid, the Drakes asked to be freed, but their captor revealed that he had always intended to kill them, regardless of whether their company had paid up. As they began the sacrificial ritual, the Obeah Man prompted his followers to walk across the coals with him.

Batman used the Leidenfrost effect to protect himself from the coals, taking out the armed thugs. In his fight with the Obeah Man, however, he was slashed across the chest with a knife. Using that same knife, Batman freed the Drakes. Meanwhile, Louis Dange attempted to kill Batman by throwing his knife, but was hit in the shoulder by a flying hatchet, which knocked him into the coals where he burned to death.

Janet Drake drank from the water left for them on a nearby table, and as Jack Drake reached for the same water, Batman knocked it from his hands. Janet Drake had been poisoned by the water, which was actually poison. The Obeah Man laughed, claiming they were fated to die. Batman became enraged, and brutally beat the remaining thugs before taking the Drakes to the nearest hospital.

Bruce asks a nearby doctor whether Jack Drake will be alright, but the doctor says there is significant nerve damage. Jack Drake will be paralyzed, if he survives. Tim's mother has already died. Bruce turns to Tim saying "I know how you feel." In his frustration, Tim doubts Bruce. He soon realizes, however, that Bruce knows better than most people would what it is like to lose a family. They embrace, and Tim catches a glimpse of the darkness that hides within his mentor.

In Haiti, Louis Dange's son Pierre reveals to his friend how he had finally looked in the cupboard that his father had forbidden him to open. Expecting to find a monster, he was surprised to find a ball of mud, feather and bones. Failing to understand the nature of his father's beliefs, Pierre had thrown the idol into the furnace. Pierre does not realize that his actions had indirectly caused his father's death in flames - by voodoo.

(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Detective_Comics_Vol_1_621)

Fan Art: Robin_Tim Drake by lantoy

Accompanying Podcast: ● Everyone Loves the Drake - episode 10

[silenceintostone]

hi Miss Minestrone, do you have any book recommendations?

hello david brynes lesbian daughter:

yes i do, i love books and i love reading. here are some of my absolute favorites in each genre!

fiction: my brilliant friend by elena ferrante, war and peace by leo tolstoy, dracula by bram stoker, mother night by kurt vonnegut, and the bell jar by sylvia plath

poetry: meadowlands by louise glück, selected poems by adrienne rich, life on mars by tracy k. smith, coal by audre lorde, the tulip flame by chloe honum, the anne carson translation of sappho, sepulchres by ugo foscolo, and blood feather by patrick mcguiness

thank you so much for the lovely question! i hope you find a title you like here.

[tealottie]

[poetrywithbrian]

POETRY LIST FROM BRIAN P: This list is made up of English language “lyric” poems by poets from what would become or is now the United States of America. They are in a random arrangement, not alphabetical or chronological. Allow them to play off each other in a variety of ways. Each poet is represented by only one poem.

May Swenson, The Centaur

Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica

Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus

Lucille Clifton, The Lost Baby Poem

Hart Crane, Voyages

H.D. Elegy and Choros

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Amy Lowell, The Garden by Moonlight

N. Scott Momaday, The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee

Francis Scott Key, Defense of Fort M’Henry

Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck

Robert Hayden, Letter from Phyllis Wheatley

Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’

James Dickey, Cherrylog Road

Chen Chen, I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party

Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses

Bonnie Larson Staiger, Grassland

Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

e.e. cummings, “anyone lived in a pretty how town”

Carl Sandburg, Chicago

James Russell Lowell, The Present Crisis

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Snowstorm

Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead

Tommy Pico, I See the Fire that Burns Inside You

Emily Dickinson, “I started early – took my dog””

T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

Louise Gluck, The Wild Iris

Anonymous, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Gary Snyder, The Bath

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool

James Whitcomb Riley, L’il Orphant Annie

James Merrill, The Victor Dog

James Welch, Harlem, Montana: Just Off the Reservation

Frank O’Hara, Why I Am Not a Painter

John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

William Carlos Williams, XXII, from Spring and All, The Red Wheelbarrow

Tupac Shakur, Changes

George Oppen, Five Poems about Poetry

Robert Bly, Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Mr. Flood’s Party

Richard Wright, Between the World and Me

John Greenleaf Whittier, Snowbound: A Winter’s Idyl

Phyllis Wheatley, His Excellency General Washington

Walt Whitman, When lilacs last by the dooryard bloom’d

Patricia Smith, The Stuff of Astounding: A Poem for Juneteenth

Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

R.W. Wilson, Poemable

Marianne Moore, The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing

Julia Ward Howe, Battle Hymn of the Republic

Sylvia Plath, Tulips

Patricia Smith, The Stuff of Astounding: A Poem for Juneteenth

Thomas McGrath, A Coal Fire in Winter

Growing Concern Poetry Collective, Come to Me Open

Denise Lajimodiere, Dragonfly Dance

Edward Taylor, Housewifery

Jay Wright, Benjamin Banneker Sends His “Almanac” to Thomas Jefferson

Allen Ginsberg, Howl

David Solheim, In Moonlight

William Stafford, At the Bomb Testing Site

Ronald Johnson, Letters to Walt Whitman

Marge Piercy, To Be of Use

Mary Oliver, The Wild Geese

Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

W.H. Auden, Epitaph on a Tyrant

Richard Blanco, On Today

Timothy Murphy, Mortal Stakes

Lauryn Hill, Lost One

Don J. Lee/Haki Madhubuti, A Poem to Complement Other Poems

Louise Erdrich, The Strange People

Jericho Brown, Psalm 150

John Berryman, 11 Addresses to the Lord

Thomas Merton, Love Winter When the Plant Says Nothing

Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children

Frances E. W. Harper, Learning to Read

Randall Jarrell, Mail Call, and the children’s book “The Bat Poet”

Herman Melville, The Maldive Shark

Gertrude Stein, How She Bowed to Her Brother

Anne Sexton, In Celebration of My Uterus

Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where and why”

Stephen Crane, A Man Saw a Ball of Gold

Robert Penn Warren, The Moonlight’s Dream

Paul Laurence Dunbar, The Colored Band

Henry David Thoreau, “The moon now rises to her absolute rule”

Emma Lazarus. The New Colossus

Sugar Hill Gang, Rapper’s Delight

Allen Tate, Ode to the Confederate Dead

Muriel Rukeyser, Ballad of Orange and Grape

Elizabeth Bishop, Sestina, “September rain falls on the house”

Judy Grahn, The Common Woman Poems (complete)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, I Am Waiting

May Sarton, The Gift of Thyme

George Moses Horton, On Liberty and Slavery

Ezra Pound, The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter

Robinson Jeffers, Hurt Hawks

James Weldon Johnson, The Creation

Sherman Alexie, Sonnet, with Pride

Kenneth Koch, In Love With You

Jupiter Hammon, An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley

A.R. Ammons, The Brook Has Worked Out the Prominence of a Bend

Anonymous, Go Down, Moses

Yusef Komunyakaa. Facing It

W.S. Merwin, After the Alphabets

Richard Wilbur, A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day Is Done

Natalie Diaz, My Brother at 3 AM

Maya Angelou, On the Pulse of Morning

Raymond Roseliep, The Morning Glory

Rita Dove, Dawn Revisted

[tvmoviechristmas]

Christmas Do-Over (Freeform, 2006)

Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho! Turn that frown upside down or you’ll get a big lump of coal in your stocking!

Starring: Jay Mohr, Daphne Zuniga, Adrienne Barbeu, David Millbern

Plot Synopsis: Kevin tries to be involved with his son and ex-wife's family for Christmas. During dinner, he thought his Christmas *day* couldn't be more screwed; his son suddenly wishes it was Christmas every day. After that, it was a regular Groundhog's Day. Kevin learns new dance moves and can actually sing. Don't let the caroling fool you. (x)

In My Humble Opinion: I first watched Christmas Do-Over when I was 14, and I thought it was a bummer of a movie. It  was filled with wackiness, but the comedy didn’t do much for me and the romance did even less. It was a mediocre part of the ABC Family holiday canon. It was no Snow, and I figured I would never bother with it again.

I didn’t realize that I would one day create a blog about made-for-TV Christmas movies though. Life is funny that way! You never know when you’ll end up dedicating a decade of your life to movies about Christmas that premiered on television!

So after 14 years, I finally got around to rewatching Christmas Do-Over. Unsurprisingly, it still does not do much for me. The comedy is still too over-the-top to make me laugh and the romance is still too half-baked to make me swoon. Some of the jokes have not aged well, as is the curse of many movies made over a decade ago. Christmas Do-Over is still not something to seek out on your own.

And yet, there was a nostalgic feeling I got from rewatching this movie. It made me remember the days when made-for-TV Christmas movies were less formulaic and more insane. The days when these movies would go for broke with big concepts instead of trying its best to blend in with the rest of a 8403530 movie line-up.

Does the nostalgia I felt make Christmas Do-Over a good movie? Of course not. It’s still incredibly mediocre and dated. However, do I wish more movies were willing to play around like Christmas Do-Over does? Yes. It’s too bad that it seems unlikely that my wish will come true, and the insanity of Christmas will be locked away forever in the hit and miss movies of yesteryear. Pour one out for the days when a man in a pea costume would fist fight Jesus in your holiday entertainment.

Watch If: You like anything that has to do with booze or making out, if you think cops should be spending their time doing useful things like moving boulders or if nobody touches your peas. 

Skip If: You would not be thrilled to make double overtime, you are a monster who likes to use forks or if you would fight Jesus.

Final Rating: ★ ★ (★) ☆ ☆

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

[animefreak019]

A Calm Ocean by jazzplayer featuring a striped t shirt ❤ liked on Polyvore

Tsumori Chisato striped t shirt / Paige Denim stretch jeans, $245 / Adrienne Vittadini sneaker / Mi Pac zip bag, $33 / Jade Jagger sterling silver jewelry / Hinge blue scarve / Kate Spade tech accessory / Coal slouchy beanie / Ray-Ban ray ban glasses / Essie nail polish

[kudosmyhero]

Batman (vol. 1) #441: A Lonely Place of Dying, ch. 6 - Rebirth

Read Date: March 22, 2022   Cover Date: December 1989   ● Writer: Marv Wolfman ◦ George Pérez ● Penciller: Jim Aparo ● Inker: Mike DeCarlo ● Colorist: Adrienne Roy ● Letterer: John Costanza ● Editor: Dennis O'Neil ◦ Dan Raspler ● 

SYNOPSIS: 

Tim Drake and Alfred Pennyworth, desperate to help Batman and Nightwing - who have gone missing while on the trail of Two-Face - decide that Tim should don the costume of Robin and help them. As Tim and Alfred drive to the scene, Tim explains that while he never wanted the role of Robin for himself, since Dick refused to return to the role, he will take it up.

Meanwhile, Two-Face wonders whether the voice that has been directing him to kill Batman is coming from within himself or from the outside. Despite the voice's urging, Two-Face insists on flipping his coin, and decides to detonate his explosives at 2AM. Just as he activates the detonator, Tim arrives dressed as Robin, and warns that he'll make Two-Face pay if Batman or Nightwing are dead.

Tim is inexperienced, and Two-Face wastes little time in beating him down. A horrified Alfred intervenes, wishing for no more death. Fortunately, the distraction proves enough opportunity for Tim to get up and deliver a knock-out punch. While Two-Face is down, Alfred helps Tim down the building's coal-chute, hoping to find Batman and Nightwing below.

Batman and Nightwing are pinned beneath the crossbeams, but Tim can't move them without clearing the rubble away. After some effort, he finally frees his idols, but Batman immediately removes Tim's mask, angrily stating that there is no more Robin. Batman is even further surprised and indignant to find that Tim knows his secret identity. Despite Alfred's support, Batman states that after one boy had died in the suit, he wouldn't take the risk a third time. Tim explains that while Batman is now a symbol, so too is Robin. Batman is more concerned with tracking Two-Face, which Tim helps with, having placed a tracking device on him during their fight. Batman agrees to let Tim join them, and discuss his future later.

They track Two-Face to a junkyard where Tim's life is immediately in peril, but he escapes using his wits, to Batman's relief. The three soon defeat their enemy, reminding him that neither Batman, nor Nightwing, nor even Robin can be killed. Afterwards, at Wayne Manor, the heroes discuss the future of Robin, and while Bruce is disapproving, he comes to realize the need for a partner. He at least promises to try Tim out.

Elsewhere, the voice that had been controlling Two-Face reveals that it was actually the Joker all the time - and not Harvey Dent's subconscious - controlling everything from his hospital bed, still recovering from his last encounter with Batman.

(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Batman_Vol_1_442)

Favorite Panel: This was a fantastic issue. I can only imagine how it would have read for a 13-year-old boy, as discussed in the accompanying podcast.

Fan Art: ROBIN/TIM DRAKE by MrSpikeArt

Accompanying Podcast: - Everyone Loves the Drake, episode 07

https://thebatmanuniverse.net/episode-7-8/

[wellesleyunderground]

Climate Justice Resources by Hoi-Fei Mok ‘10 (@alifeofgreen)

The latest reports on climate change are hopefully awakening generations of people across the world to the urgency of action needed to make a just transition away from fossil fuels, capitalism, and a culture of extraction to a regenerative society and economy. Managing Editor of WU, Hoi-Fei Mok '10 works on climate justice and policy at ICLEI USA by day and community organizing by night, and we asked them to put together a list of resources on this topic for our readers.

                                                            ---

It can be difficult reading the climate report that came out last week. Knowing that humanity only has 12 years before CO2 emissions builds to levels that cause more catastrophic climate damage is enough to get anyone into a tailspin. Take the time you need to grieve, but also know that the way forward is also very clear. We need collective political action.  

It is pivotal now more than ever to be grounded in a climate justice framework and uplift the communities most impacted - people of color, indigenous communities, low income people, the homeless, the disabled, queers. Climate change is part of the larger set of systemic oppressions facing us and requires an entirely new way of living, from how we engage with each other to how we use resources. It means dismantling capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, and patriarchy. It means listening to indigenous leadership and other grassroots groups, and initiating a just transition to a regenerative society rather than an extractive one.  

The following is a small selection of resources on climate justice, places to plug in, and organizations to support. Local campaigns and projects are key, and I encourage you to look up local efforts on affordable housing, anti-displacement/gentrification, immigration justice, racial justice, and others. Climate change intersects with many other movements, from immigration and prison abolition to reproductive justice, and it is essential to recognize those intersections and make sure we are working holistically.

Want to dig in deeper? Have other resources/campaigns to suggest? Hit me up at @alifeofgreen on Twitter or email us at wellesleyunderground@gmail.com and we can chat more.  

Readings

Just Transition Zine by Movement Generation

If you’re suffering from climate grief, you’re not alone at Grist

The Dangerous Erasure of Queer and Trans People of Color from the Climate Movement at Blue Stocking Mag

The overhaul needed to get the global economy off coal, oil, and gas at The Hill

The problem with the “personal responsibility” model of climate change

What must we do to live? At the Trouble

Five principles of a socialist climate politics at the Trouble

Community Driven Climate Resilience Planning Framework at the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners  

Multimedia Resources

Watch “How We Live: A Journey Towards Just Transition” (7 min)

Watch “Another Gulf is Possible” (4 min video)

How to Survive the End of the World - podcast by activists and sisters adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown on “learning from the apocalypse with grace, rigor and curiosity”

The California Allegory climate justice art poster and other artwork by the Beehive Design Collective

Projects/Campaigns to Support

L'eau Est La Vie - No Bayou Bridge - stopping the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, which is the southernmost portion of the same network of pipes as the Dakota Access Pipeline

Puerto Rico hurricane relief - Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico has worked since 1985 for improved education, housing and economic development in communities across the island. In the aftermath of hurricanes, the org is now also focused on recovery efforts and currently has a campaign for sustainable water/solar infrastructure.

Organizations to Support

Movement Generation climate justice thought leader based in the Bay Area

SustainUS youth led climate advocacy

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance national alliance of US-based grassroots organizing (GRO) groups organizing to build an agenda for power for working and poor people and communities of color.

Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) organization of grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues

Climate Justice Alliance national alliance of grassroots groups and communities working towards a just transition

GRID Alternatives non profit providing no-cost solar installations for low income / communities

Grist environmental journalism and news

Contact me for more Bay Area specific orgs!

Voting

350.org is organizing texting campaigns for strong climate candidates for Nov 2018

Sunrise Movement youth led movement to support the election of climate progressives to office

Movement Voter Project platform connecting donors/funders to progressive candidates/campaigns

Black Futures Lab black organizers working to build political power of black communities through surveying what issues need focusing on and then doing something about it

[thedirtbagdad]

An Adrienne Rich poem on a rainy SoCal day that recalls a old partner. Or perhaps, more than one. For the Dead I dreamed I called you on the telephone to say: Be kinder to yourself but you were sick and would not answer The waste of my love goes on this way trying to save you from yourself I have always wondered about the leftover energy, water rushing down a hill long after the rains have stopped or the fire you want to go to bed from but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down the red coals more extreme, more curious in their flashing and dying than you wish they were sitting there long after midnight 1972 https://www.instagram.com/p/CjwLOOcvPXQ7m7-0Qf7fX89Tn7hvVkqTmuXST80/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[tealottie]

[lapeaudelamemoire]

Auster's poetry really is abstract. It's a bit of a challenge even. Read the first section of his complete poems and I think I'm going to need some time to wrap my head around his vision.

In other news finished the book of Kapuscinski's collected poetry. Also finally bought two of Ernest Volynec's paintings!!

Currently nursing a headache but went to class and had a chat with the very lovely tutor for it.

More books arrived in the mail - Cixous and Derrida and one slim almost chapbook of Camus.

Boyfriend texted to ask how my day was and if it was productive/enjoyable. Am I productive? Consumption-wise possibly.

Also nursing some tenderness in general. But I've always believed integrity and faith are told in the things you do when no one else can see, or you're left alone. And I think I pre-empted myself at the very outset, painting a sentiment taken from Blue is the Warmest Colour.

Infinite tenderness. Anger and tenderness, Adrienne Rich says she is; but I think, no tenderness without stoking the coals, or heating it over a pan. You know? Like toasting a slice of bread gone stale in the fridge.

[deepartnature]

The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers

“DONDON, Haiti — Adrienne Present steps into the thin forest beside her house and plucks the season’s first coffee cherries, shining like red marbles in her hands. The harvest has begun. Each morning, she lights a coal fire on the floor of her home in the dark. Electricity has never come to her patch of northern Haiti. She sets out a pot of water, fetched from the nearest source — a mountain spring sputtering into a farmer’s field. Then she adds the coffee she has dried, winnowed, roasted and pounded into powder with a large mortar called a pilon, the way she was taught as a child. ...”

NY Times (Audio)

In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and founded a nation.

[her-moth]

two from Adrienne Rich

For the Dead

I dreamed I called you on the telephone to say: Be kinder to yourself but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the left-over energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down the red coals more extreme, more curious in their flashing and dying than you wish they were sitting long after midnight

Implosions

The world's not wanton only wild and wavering

I wanted to choose words that even you would have to be changed by

Take the word of my pulse, loving and ordinary Send out your signals, hoist your dark scribbled flags but take my hand

All wars are useless to the dead

My hands are knotted in the rope and I cannot sound the bell

My hands are frozen to the switch and I cannot throw it

The foot is in the wheel

When it's finished and we're lying in a stubble of blistered flowers eyes gaping, mouths staring dusted with crushed arterial blues

I'll have done nothing even for you?

[elisaenglish]

A Promise to Dare

“What the poet is searching for is not the fundamental I but the deep you,” Antonio Machado writes in Proverbios y Cantares. “The eyes you’re longing for – listen now – the eyes you see yourself in are eyes because they see you.” To see, to be seen resonates here as I type just as it did in 1917 when Machado added the poem to his Campos de Castilla and made the dedication to José Ortega y Gasset, a man he both admired and admonished throughout their lifelong dialogue of ideas. Such was the regard, such is the power to flush us through with reflection too – if we’re so inclined. And I like to think we are, by the way.

But of course, as goes the philosophy of it, there are always other reasons worthy of the eternal why. Not least of all that our survival has depended on it. “Don’t hunt for dissonance,” Machado warns, “...because, in the end, there is no dissonance. When the sound is heard people dance.”

People do, indeed, both in literal and euphemistic terms. We may succumb to paralysis – fear, hostility, superstition – but the core of our being is something altogether indefatigable in the right eyes, and hands, and heart. And I speak merely of the “honourable human relationship” Adrienne Rich presents as part of her essay, Women and Honour: Some Notes on Lying, that she first read at the Hartwick Women Writers’ Workshop in June of 1975, more than half a century after Machado declared, “Look for your other half who walks always next to you and tends to be what you aren’t.”

Balance, then, and dignity govern the impetus to love and to remain so in love. But here too, in the magic, are the complements.

It isn’t the taste of notions otherworldly, I think. The value of survival has long been defined by art, by beauty, by affection – our soul necessities, if you will: recognition and belonging. After all, some peace you own, some peace you find. But the pieces? They’re never quite what you expect, even as they are – the only to your lover, the always to your friend. But still, your opposite.

Love can and does thrive in these conditions. It is both wholly individual and entirely universal. And no, I’m not talking about anything bartered or bought, the banal exchange of like for like or the approximation of a feeling, superficial, thrown away, like us in the absence of dimensions – or worse, in the throes of too many to count.

“The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people, are a kind of alchemy,” Rich posits. The complexity can feel overwhelming sometimes, yet with an authentic eye, we may overcome. As Rich explains:

“It isn’t that to have an honourable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you.

It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.”

Whoever I am, whoever you are, the meaning and the measure of the bond is in our commitment to warmth over cynicism, tenderness over terror, to honesty, belief. It is the crux of all our hopes, the selfless reciprocity we’ve ached again to know. It is, as for Rich, “The possibility of life between us.” Or, for Machado, “To talk with someone, ask a question first, then – listen... It is pure and intense play... You’ll see the coal burning.”