Just Jazz

There is something beyond magical that happens when it snows. It's almost mystical, the dancing of the flakes in the wind and the slow blanketing of the world. A night of freshly fallen snow doesn't look nearly as pretty in the harsh winter light. And I wonder why that is. The branches, nearly breaking under their load - Dull November brings the blast // Then the leaves are whirling fast. And now there are no leaves left here, in the frozen, forgotten North. There is no whistling wind, but only the soft fluttering of flakes. It's just ... it's like The Unicorn, by Rainer Maria Rilke, yeah?

Der saintly Einsiedler, auf halbem Wege durch seine Gebete plötzlich
gestoppt und angehoben seinen Augen, um das unglaubliche zu zeugen:
für standen vor ihm das legendäre startling Weiß des Geschöpfs,
der sich genähert hatte, soundlessly, plädierten mit seinen Augen.

Die Beine, so zart geformt, ausgeglichen einem Körper wrought vom
feinsten Elfenbein. Und während er umzog, glänzte sein Mantel wie
reflektierter Mondschein. Höhe auf seiner Stirn stieg das magische
Horn, das Zeichen seiner Einzigartigkeit: ein Aufsatz hielt Senkrechte
durch seinen Alarm, dennoch leichten, schüchternen Gait.

Die Öffnung der weichsten Tönungen von Rose und von Grauem, wenn Sie
etwas geöffnet werden, aufgedeckt seinen glaenzenden Zähnen, die
weißer als Schnee sind. Die Nasenlöcher bebten schwach: er suchte,
seinen Durst zu löschen, stillzustehen und Ruhe zu finden. Seine
Augen schauten über der Einschließung weit, reflektierenden den
vistas und den lang verschwundenen Fällen des Heiligen hinaus und
schlossen den Kreis dieser alten mystischen Legende.

It's something beautiful, and magical, and of ancient, mystical legend.

I wish I could capture moments like this, forever.

( //Morgan// )

Hey Morgan O'Hare,
Will you come to Feast with me
And dress like a Queen?

Hey Morgan O'Hare,
If you say yes I'll be Bard
And you I'll adore.

( //Morgan// )

( //Paige// )

( //Ian// )

Would all those interested in Poetry Club let me know, please?

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

The entirety of the poem, which does include mentions of the naked female form, can be found here, for those interested. It's a poem about a dead girl found in a peat bog, so don't get all excited.

It's not that I don't get the desire for revenge, especially when you feel that someone whom you like has been wronged. It's the lack of restraint that gets to me. Charming something so that a Prefect cannot see it doesn't make the abuse any less - it certainly doesn't make it right. It just means that you're a coward.

Yes, coward. A coward, sitting the shadows, perhaps laughing, perhaps merely watching, perhaps nothing.

But you know what?

Those who know something and don't speak? Are also cowards.

We come to this school to learn, to breathe in the magic and the wonder. To breathe in maths and the spells and the stars. Of plants, of creatures, of history tales. And we can't walk away. There is no home to go to at the end of the night. All we've got is a dorm and hopefully some mates who are friendly and then we wake up and do it all over again.

I know none of this will make a difference to the cowards that roam this school, seemingly unchecked, but maybe it'll make a difference to those who know the cowards and say nothing. Understanding revenge doesn't mean you have to fall prey to it.

//Perdie//
I can't see the posters. I wish I could. I'm assuming someone got mad at you for something, not that it was your fault. Because there's no way, from the way it was described to me, that this was random.

I wish there were something else I could do. If you'd like, I'll quote some more Dickenson. Or perhaps Frost. But only if you'd like.

//Morgan//
Well ... fuck. Hrm. Wanna come over?

ABIGAIL MAGDALINE KIRKE!

THIS ISN'T RUBBISH - WHY WOULD YOU EVEN THINK - THIS IS AN OLD ITALIAN BOO - you know what? Thanks for the Ice Mice.

Now that I'm here ... someone mentioned a Runes study group a while back?

I agree with everything that Hare said about Prefects and respect. That goes for relationships too.

Girls: Talking! It's the only thing you need! You don't need a magazine to tell you how to pleasure a man, and he doesn't need one for the same thing! All you need to do is bloody talk! This is why so many couples wind up so unhappy - they don't bleeding talk to each other! Seriously? Is all of humanity this freaking complicated about things?

Guys: Please, please, please tell me you don't buy into any of this? Also: TALKING. It's your friend. Good grief.

Now: I am going to settle in front of the fireplace, with my new-old book on Italian. And see how much of it I can understand. If anyone wants to join me, they can.

//Ian//
My sister is dating Colin.

//Ian, Adam, Carter//
You all will join this Poetry Club. Right? Also, please never be an idiot if you wind up in a relationship. Spare me the agony.

It's funny sometimes, how simple things become important things.

I like when it rains. I like when it storms more.

The beauty of the rain is how it falls. Such a beautiful song. A very quiet love song. I like that, too.

And you know the light is fading all too soon / You're just two umbrellas one late afternoon / You don't know the next thing you will say / This is your favorite kind of day / It has no walls / The beauty of the rain / Is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls

And there's nothing wrong but there is something more / And sometimes you wonder what you love her for / She says you've known her deepest fears / 'Cause she's shown you a box of stained-glass tears / It can't be all / The truth about the rain / Is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls

But when she gave you more to find / You let her think she'd lost her mind / And that's all on you / Feeling helpless if she asked for help / Or scared you'd have to change yourself

And you can't deny this room will keep you warm / You can look out of your window at the storm
But you watch the phone and hope it rings / You'll take her any way she sings / Or how she calls / The beauty of the rain / Is how it falls, how it falls, how it falls / How it falls, how it falls, how it falls

//friends//
I'm going to do it. Start a Poetry club. I think. Maybe.

//Ian//
Soooo ... you think a poetry club will help me get laid? Abs says I could score some artsy girls that way. I'm all for that. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing this wrong. Life, I mean.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- Wendell Berry

Language is my peace of wild things, and when that is not enough, I curl up with some poetry and forget about tense and verbs and how to construct a sentence. And instead I focus on the soft ebb and flow of language, the dancing of words across a page in rhythmic beauty. The way emotion curls into the ink. It is one thing to learn a language - to learn words and what they mean, and quite another to learn how to make it bend to your will, instead of you bending to it. I learn languages, but I'll never be a poet - such talk of poetry on these journals! There's a book club, but I wonder why there isn't a poetry one. There's a theatre club, but nothing that says 'let's all describe the moon and if there are forty and ten of us, there shall be forty and ten moons that could hang in the sky'. So perhaps we don't all see the same moon. A poetry club would be nice. Even if the membership were only three or four.

//Ian and Abs//
I accidentally bought a bag of chocolate frogs instead of ice mice. First dibs, and one of you can have it.

//Ian//
One would think, with me being such a hopeless fucking romantic, I could get a girl. I wish I could flirt like you could. I wish girls appreciated more the quiet romanticism instead of the crass flirting. Where did it all go wrong? Fuck. I need some Firewhiskey. Or something. Now I'm bitter.

Et puis regarde! Tu vois, là-bas, les champs de blé? Je ne mange pas de pain. Le blé pour moi est inutile. Les champs de blé ne me rappellent rien. Et ça, c'est triste! Mais tu a des cheveux couleur d'or. Alors ce sera merveilleux quand tu m'aura apprivoisé! Le blé, qui est doré, me fera souvenir de toi. Et j'aimerai le bruit du vent dans le blé…

Simple things trigger memories. Maybe they aren't all as poetic as wheat fields, but they are there, and each one of us carries our own wheat fields. Some of us try to hide them, and others aren't afraid of them.

What are your wheat fields?

I'm good for the secret, if you don't wish everyone to know.

That being said, anyone caught displaying cruelty to animals will be swiftly and severely punished.

What is innocence?

A question I find myself asking a lot. Not something that will ever come up on a quiz, or surprise exam, or anything of the sort. Not anything quantifiable, but I'm not sure if it's qualifiable either. Innocence of what? To what? For what?

So many questions.

//Ian and Abby//
I miss innocence, sometimes. Latin is a very difficult language
//end//

In other news, there are 13 ways of looking at a blackbird.

( APPLICATION )