Artemis - Gary Snyder
Artemis,
Artemis,
so I saw you naked —
well GO and get your goddam’d
virginity back
me, me,
I’ve got to feed my hounds.
The world would be a better place if the socially acceptable noun to express a person’s attractiveness was not “hotness” but rather “heat.”
Like metal.
In the end all the
perfect metric metal
laws
in the clouds of minds
can never surpass
this sweaty tangled nonsense
truth on the ground,
no matter how I turn
my immaculate key
in the air,
it can find no purchase.
And o how these
lines
begin to bend.
![After years of consideration I have come up with an image that I want tattooed on my body for the rest of my life: the Hebrew word “ruach” [ʁu-aħ]. It can be translated as spirit, wind, breath and courage. Having all those tiers of translation on my wrist, on the place where I check my pulse, increases its meaning in my eyes.
But I honestly don’t know how I can justify getting a tattoo. I don’t know how I can overlook the fact that my body is a work in progress. I both accept and I embrace this notion. Change is necessary. Change is valuable. If I have learned anything from yoga, I’ve learned that bodies are always changing, and fitness can really amplify that. I know that if I ever get pregnant or if I ever get old, and I hope to do both someday, there is a total certainty that my skin will change, and therefore the quality of my tattoo would change. Having a tattoo would only serve to make me resent any change in my body. And knowing up front that the quality of a tattoo will inevitably change makes the whole enterprise feel, well, pointless and short-sighted.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3sr5f7Rbb1qbff82o1_250.jpg)
After years of consideration I have come up with an image that I want tattooed on my body for the rest of my life: the Hebrew word “ruach” [ʁu-aħ]. It can be translated as spirit, wind, breath and courage. Having all those tiers of translation on my wrist, on the place where I check my pulse, increases its meaning in my eyes.
But I honestly don’t know how I can justify getting a tattoo. I don’t know how I can overlook the fact that my body is a work in progress. I both accept and I embrace this notion. Change is necessary. Change is valuable. If I have learned anything from yoga, I’ve learned that bodies are always changing, and fitness can really amplify that. I know that if I ever get pregnant or if I ever get old, and I hope to do both someday, there is a total certainty that my skin will change, and therefore the quality of my tattoo would change. Having a tattoo would only serve to make me resent any change in my body. And knowing up front that the quality of a tattoo will inevitably change makes the whole enterprise feel, well, pointless and short-sighted.
This is…just beautiful.
I really love this image, but it troubles me that the original tags for it were “football” and “touchdown.” Oh dear.
