“Blood is coursing through our bodies”

“As I speak, blood is coursing through our bodies. As it moves away from the heart it marches to a 2/4 or a 4/4 beat and it's arterial blood, re-oxygenated, assertive, active, progressive, optimistic. When it reaches our extremities and turns toward home - the heart - well, it's nostalgic, it's venous blood (as in veins), it's tired, wavelike, rising and falling, fighting against gravity and inertia, and it moves to the beat of a waltz, a 3/4 beat, a little off, really homesick now, and full of longing.

When we first write our poems, how arterial they seem! And when we go back to them, how venous they seem!”

• Mary Ruefle, from her essay On Sentimentality | Found via Art Monsters