Feb 3
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A photo of the keys as I was using them for sunpainting, aggressively manipulated in Photoshop and printed out, then cut into neat little squares and placed in a grid. I like the look, but next time I might use a ruler to get the pieces lined up better. And the time after that I will go really cuckoo with the placement. You are warned.

We are thinking of what 8 of us can do for an act for the Circus School recital in the spring. Probably a strength and balance kind of thing, where we loft small children and balance large ones, and the other grownups. It is fun to think about. Our teacher is gaining confidence and skill teaching, and it is nice to be able to tell her that.

To my sorrow, I missed this: Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Silent Poetry Reading. If Brigid will accept latecomers, I humbly submit the following:

THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY

is not silent, it is a speaking –
out-loud voice in your head: it is spoken
a voice is saying it
as you read. It’s the writer’s words,
or course, in the literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of your voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer srote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally– some people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and in a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled chirrr of oats from a split sack,
the bony filthy haunches of cows. . .
And "barn" is only a noun– no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.

                                        — Thomas Lux

It was in a New Yorker years ago, and has been on my fridge since then.

I’ll be back with a postcard after Family Circus.