palace of winds

I just finished the first half of the most depressing project I’ve done all year: my nonfiction project for Literature for Young Adults. I really should have given more consideration to what topic I was choosing before I settled on AIDS. Truth, I chose it because I’d taken two YA fiction books on the subject out of the library, and it was easier to choose a topic I’d already read a book about. Anyway, I spent most of the afternoon despairing and wanting to cry. The AIDS Quilt is especially moving.

Now I’m listening to “Dance Me to the End of Love,” a song I downloaded at the impetus of Jo’s journal. It’s so soothing and wonderful, and for me it is also a little bit sad.

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

That is my favorite part, along with the line “Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn.” If I could sing, this is one of the songs I would.