Page 56

Picked this game up from Bec, who picked it up from Gordo, who picked it up from Facebook.

Give it a go for yourself:

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your wall/blog
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Mine is:

"'The Ocean,' 'The Phoenix,' 'The Consort,' 'The Dolphin,' were passed in turns; but 'The Vivid' was my ship, and it seemed she lay further down."

From Villette by Charlotte Bronte - a book I've given up on once or twice, but I'm trying once more to get through it. I haven't yet reached the point I gave up last time (at least, I don't think I have), but I am enjoying it so far.

I thought about doing this twice earlier in the day (when I read Gordo's post and then when I read Bec's) but I didn't have any books close by. The bookshelves were the closest, and then I would have to choose one. I'm in bed now, and although there are two piles of books on my bedside table, Villette was the top book on the closest pile.

Natural Theology

You read it in the blue wind,
the blue water, the rock spill,
the blue hill

rising like a phoenix from ash. Some mind
makes itself known through the markings of light
on air; where earth rolls, right

comes after, our planet’s bright spoor… If you look, you’ll find
truth etched on the tree trunk,
the shark’s tooth, a shell, a hunk

of root and soil. Study from beginning to end.
Alpha and omega – these are the cirrus alphabet,
the Gnostics’ cloudy “so – and yet.”

If a tree falls in a forest, a scared hind
leaps, hearing branches break;
you crawl under the log and shake

honey out of a hollow, eggs from a nest, ants from the end
of a stick; resting, you read God’s name on the back of a bass
in a blue pool; God grows everywhere, like grass.

Kelly Cherry, Natural Theology, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1988, p. 36.