20 April 2004

BIRDS ON THE CHUSOVAYA RIVER     High flat sun, sour light draining like whey through muslin cloud. This bird’s geometry – square-winged, turning on the axis of its hunger, reorders the sky.  The berkut, summer eagle, sideslips into the treeline.   Where the river croons over stones, where we drink from clear channels, this bird scars the water’s skin. The swallow, stippled in the ribbed water, turns on a wide wheel centred in a blue orbit.   Night’s sheet is torn at the corner.  This bird has a knife in its voice. It slides on a wire, the owl, from maple to beech, a yellow light in its eye and acid on its tongue.   Night rain boils in the river.  Young moon hooks clouds into ribbons and rags.  This bird, the heron, rising from the reeds, climbs on its long arms from dark towards light. #     Rather disappointingly, I’ve dropped off the radar of the Ranking by Page Reads list, the Hot 100 Salon reads for the first time in a long while.  Having maintained a fairly steady 30 – 40 hits for the past 8 or 9 months when checked at late PM & early AM, for the last two days I have been below the minimum of 21.     I’ve never flattered myself that the Patteran Pages would, post by post, clamber its way up the Page Reads ladder & take its place amongst the Salon big hitters.  I’m a Brit amongst Americans & I can neither compete with nor match the in-depth analyses of the American political & cultural scene that characterise Salon blogs.  Nor can I aspire to the barnstorming variety & innovation of the most colourful of the Salon residents.  I post poems, slightly off-the-wall stories that have come my way, bizarre lists, photos of my infant son, bad-tempered political tub thumping & variously assorted bits & pieces from an enjoyable but pretty unremarkable life.  In short, I cultivate a small pasture at the edge of a mighty estate &, by & large, I’m happy enough pottering around it & being visited by a small but cherished circle of friends.    But egos are tender & it would be disingenuous to pretend that falling from the bough doesn’t matter (whatever I might have said so complacently in an encouraging comment to a new Salon blogger the other day!).  My weblog, along with yours, is intended as a forum wherein argument & accord will take place.  If I rant, I want you to heckle; if I pontificate, I want you to prick the balloon; if I hit the right note, I want you to resonate.  Lots of you.    However, shrinking constituency notwithstanding, I shall, of course, press on.  Ego may be tender but it’s still pretty active & part of me will always assume in advance of every post that heads for the clouds that this will be the one that garners the global hits.  The triumph of hope over reasonable expectation…         11:08:33 PM    Mmm? []

© Copyright 2004 Dick Jones. Last update: 01/05/2004; 23:09:47.