Just to escape the doomscrolling for a while and center a post this late-afternoon Sunday on a ‘shine‘ in music and in words, we try to visit a brightness from inside with all the darkness prevailing on the outside.

What the fuck is that shit?

One of my favorite songs of all time — and I still love The Beatles — and comes from most-likely best rock/alternative rock decade ever, the 1990s, is “Shine” by Collective Soul, off their debut album, “Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid,” released in 1993, and the group’s first single:

And to put all this bullshit in context — none better with the brightness of the written word, my most-favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, a writer who lived life as a literal poem, writing for poetry’s sake.
A bright mark in literature: “I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”

And those words from Miss Emily, “A word is dead”

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

A couple more to keep the ‘shine’ from Miss Emily — “A Man may make a Remark”

A Man may make a Remark –
In itself – a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature – lain –

Let us divide – with skill –
Let us discourse – with care –
Powder exists in Charcoal –
Before it exists in Fire –

Even with Miss Emily, words can be changed, edited — two versions of “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”
Original (1859):

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—
Untouched by Morning
And untouched by Noon—
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection—
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them—
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence—
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

And an updated, edited variant (1861):

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—
Untouched by Morning
And untouched by Noon—
Lie the meek members of the Resurrection—
Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!

Grand go the Years—in the Crescent—above them—
Worlds scoop their Arcs—
And Firmaments—row—
Diadems—drop—and Doges—surrender—
Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow—

Although hating to disparage Miss Emily, I thought the latter version sucked — really, really missed, ‘Light laughs the breeze,’ an alliteration-induced euphoria-like sense of hope. Gone into a hodgepodge of words.

A place similar to the nowadays, so, once again, here we are…

(Illustration out front: ‘Shelter in the Storm,” found here).