Sometimes, the long view is good. Taking a bit of distance, height, whatever. This too shall pass, etc. But close-cropping is good too. When the garbage overfloweth, the dirty dishes pile up, books, files and important papers threaten to swallow you up whole.

Close-cropping on a wilting birthday bouquet and the low table relieved of several kilos of written material.

Later this morning, two people with no place to go will land on my couch. There’s nothing like an up-close and personal emergency to keep the brain juices fizzing along.

Where to apply pressure and how, I wrote to myself earlier this morning. The lawyer? The préfecture? Forget the media – saturation leads to reversals and violent rejections. How many dire dire urgent please please messages can anyone absorb in one day without zoning out?

Right now, I’d like to read through Seamus Heaney’s Wheels within Wheels again. I’d like to copy it out. Let’s settle for a glimpse, right now and a full write-out later:

Wheels within Wheels

I

The first real grip I  ever got on things

was when I learned the art of pedalling

(By hand) a bike turned upside down, and drove

Its back wheel preternaturally fast.

…

III

Nothing rose to the occasion after that

Until, in a circus ring, drumrolled and spotlit,

Cowgirls wheeled in, each one immaculate

At the still centre of a lariat.

Perpetuum mobile. Sheet pirouette.

Tumblers. Jongleurs. Ring-a-rosies. Stet!