Poem

John Ruskin Drowsing in his Stone Seat at Brantwood

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. . . yet neither asking for pity; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days; but useful still. . . .       — Modern Painters

 

These days have been like cracked plaster on old walls or canvases long lost, but much can still be found within the mind—although even I sometimes find mine fading—like the light along this little lake I have so long loved, sitting here year after year. …………………I can get dizzy, thinking of thought, what one ought—or ought not—do or say. But I cannot think my mind might really not be right, have gone awry, or been eluding me in the way it did those who so often thought my thought oblique—obtuse. Imagine that! ………………………What did they, really, ever know? I know I’ve kept counsel in the strictest order: safely intact. I contradict myself only for the sake of contradiction itself.  I’m never, ever, really confused. I know what I know. And the facts are the facts. Truth truth. ……………………Some like to say that, recently, I’ve been delirious, even might be a little mad. I confess, I’ve sometimes thought I’ve lost so much that mind would only be just a little less… …………………………..Here, in my favorite chair, turned tight against this wooded hill, it isn’t always easy to watch or see the fireflies sparking in the dark through the broken starlight—so like the lonely stars themselves, burning, slowly burning out, before they, or it, can be caught. …………………My only wish, now, in these recent days of days, is that William Turner would have put me into one of his famous fiery conflagrations—for I burn to burn.