From my journal 1993
From my journal 2013
I am Slow Food
The Slow Food movement is designed to counter fast food. The emphasis is on taking your time, taking care, and savoring the cooking and the taste of the dish.
I feel like I am the Slow Food of entertainment. I look at things like Tik Tok, Instagram Reels, and the like, and while I get it, it’s just not me. I like to consider what I write, edit what I post. I like to reminisce about the past, ponder ideas, take my time.
What is popular is immediacy, momentary distraction, disposable fun. I’m not judging it; I am often a consumer of it. I’m just realizing it’s not me.
Can it be? Can I balance my long-distance pace with a sprinter’s burst? Should I?
I’m probably going to try. I have a desire to be noticed, to be hot, to go viral. But I know it’s going to take a lot of learning to become something I am not.
From my journal 6/9/93
From Tao of Thoreau
This is the first entry in my book. You will see that the left side has a quote from Thoreau, and the right hand side explains the connection of his ideas to Taoism. It also talks of a Seeker, a person looking to live a meaningful, balanced and creative life.
Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow out of life, to live so sturdily as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it. Or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it.
Tao
Thoreau begins his quest by radically simplifying his world. Moving to a cabin in the woods enables him to identify distractions and illusions. Being alone helps him strip his life down to find out what is important and true in the hopes of discovering a path that has meaning and value. Realistically, most of us cannot separate from society. Still, Thoreau teaches the Seeker to identify parts of life that drain our energy, hold us back, and trip us up. This is what he means by fronting “the essential facts of life.” What is truly important? What desires are part of my path, and which pull me away from it? Thoreau and Taoism propose a radical freedom from distracting and destructive thinking, mindsets and actions.
I would love to hear what you think about these ideas! Leave a comment.
From my journal
Heron
Blue Heron standing in the shallows: Stick legs Knot knees Twig toes Do you always have one leg raised Or is that the way I want to picture you? The way your body curves Into your long neck Curls into your head Pointing with your beak. Immobile elegance Poised to strike Pierce Capture Eat Immobile elegance Still Outside of time Do you always fly by yourself? You are solitary But The steady, slow wing pace Makes me think you are flying in place Makes me think you don’t know alone When you are above me You are so many things A seamless assembly of geometry Cylindrical Linear Curved Body Legs Wings Straight and curling Never bent or crooked You are dignity Except that one time: I surprise you in the small pond So close to the trail My hiker quiet feet don’t warn you Anna’s dog-pad paws hush on the packed dirt You jump up, water thunder wing crash But The trees are close around you The escape angle steep Up You labor, heavy strokes Slap the air Unsteadily ascend Somehow find a hole in the canopy Escape from me With my hand reached out toward you Trying to bring you back And It’s too late let to tell you that I love you
Blink Instant
Too much
Once of Hope
This is a poem that came from a student mistake, writing “once of hope” instead of “ounce of hope.”
How an ounce of hope Becomes a once of hope That once of hope lasts to this day Is in these words Is in every page I've written This endless dream Started with a pencil Scribbling inside the blue lines On them Across them This true belief Belied by reality Given the smallest sustenance 10 dollars Poems in print Stories imprinted in the cloud Yet the once of hope endures It was hoped so strong Multiplying from the ounce of hope It once came from
Mark Bozeman 