One clear note

You may or may not have noticed the weeklong break. Been productive. Here's a rare share, two central poems from diluvium. These are part of a conversation that represents a pivoting moment. Noah's wife has begun to leave her depression, having realized that she can take control of her own life. Noah is still in the doldrums, and these two poems are the part of the conversation where she says something that finally gets him to realize that he, too, has the power to endure.

It's the hitting,
not the bottom,
that hurts, mistakes
cause for symptom.

I was wrong.
Go below.
Put your pain
in one clear note.

This moment, incidentally, contradicts an earlier, snarkier note from her that said nobody goes into the underbelly of the ark in order to create art, but to shovel shit. She then spends her own alone time down there and does in fact come to a realization (for which you'll have to wait for the book). Now she can both apologize and stand over Noah on real terms.

Been singin' Blues all this time.
Yes, I been singin' Blues all this time.
Baby, I been singin' Blues all this time
and it never crossed my mind

that the Blues ain't all
about lack.
Singin' blue means you
ain't faded to black.

I've been working on various song lyrics in my head over the past few months, and it's really unfortunate that I'm tone deaf. Some of them are funny ("We said we'd just get a little stoned... / Next thing you're wakin' up next to me, / and I'm wakin' up in Mexico"), some are not. I've been listening to a lot of Blues, which is a useful lyrical format for diluvium, tight-packed with witty wordplay in the best of it. I'm not sure if I'll have to go back now and make Noah more of a Bluesman throughout.