I am living my new shrunken life
The one where a few hours make a day
Where a walk in the park is worth a hike

It feels like half the life I had before
Scratch that — not even half, it’s thinner too
And bumpier, with potholes and broken parts

I am living my post-accident life
The one I believed would be just for a while
I feel less sure now, it’s a pretty slow crawl

I took so much for granted
I didn’t think I was
I’ve been patient, hopeful, optimistic
I still am
But now I’m also starting to be scared.

Avec la patience de la tique sur son brin d’herbe
J’attends le chat aux moustaches blanches
Son mulot s’est enfui, pas fou le rongeur
Ne cherchez pas, c’est l’air du ventilateur
Moi je cherche, je cherche les mots
Qui parfois viennent et parfois pas
Comme quand on appelle un chat
Qui sait bien que la pipette l’attend
Il faut chercher dedans, mais oui
Dehors aussi
Tendre un fil entre la tripe et le lexique
Harmoniser ou contraster, peindre ou raconter
La tique est patiente sur son brin d’herbe
Elle tend ses petites pattes vers le corps chaud qui s’approche
Souvent en vain, mais elle prendra le prochain
Elle n’a besoin de rien avant de faire le grand saut
Alors que moi je suis comme chacun
Je cherche le mot aux pattes de velours
Tic-tac tic-tac c’est l’horloge de la vie
Qui n’attend pas, elle, elle n’a pas le temps
Face aux mots qui s’effacent
Filent parmi les brins d’herbe
Emportant avec eux
La tique affamée 
Et les jours de ma vie

Sur mon arbre aux mille branches
Tu viendras t’asseoir
Quand le vent le traverse
Dans la chaleur du soir
Il mangera tes secrets
Comme les feuilles d’automne
Et quand tu t’envoles
Pour rejoindre le soleil
Sans chant ni fracas
Il s’effondrera

Do you know the line? “All my good intentions don’t add up to very much…” It’s been coming and going in my mind since 1997, probably. There is a mismatch between intentions and actions. Always has been. Always will be.

The world is too small for our intentions. They’re always struggling to get out there into reality, but there is not enough space, not enough time. It’s not just me. It’s me of course. It’s some of us more than others. But it’s everywhere. In our lives, in our companies, our communities and societies. In our friendships and our governments.

It’s like inflation, in a way: if our wants and our intentions didn’t pull us onwards, beyond, further faster more, we would stagnate, or worse. We need this gap. It’s where action comes from, the desire for change and for better.

But when the gap becomes a chasm and intentions pile up in our heart right up to our throat faster than we can turn them into something real in the world, they start feeding off each other like hungry beasts and threaten to rip us open and smother our soul.

How do we set them free, all those good and worthy intentions that can’t find a place to bloom? Where can they go to find peace? I wish we had a way of letting them loose, all of us, and that I could sit on my balcony and watch them flutter across the sky like dancing clouds of coloured butterflies.

You know, sometimes words need to clash in the heavens of your mind to take you where you didn’t need to be. They could have been brought together on a whim or painstakingly chiselled into being. It doesn’t matter. Meaning rips through the cracks as you try to reconcile fireworks with reality. It’s the wave on the ocean in the depths of a cave. What is true about lipstick? Are eagles the future? A lightening bolt stretches through time and you are lost in the woods. You grasp at something that has to be there because the words told you so – but they just might be lying. And you just might need to be precisely here. Or not.