To celebrate the bright strawberry in the sky (what some people refer to as the sun), I'd like to share a number of my favorite Russell Edson pieces from this, my favorite Russell Edson book. As if slices of scrumptious strawberry pie, I hope you find the writing delectable.


TURTLES
Bales of turtles descend like floating oriental villages; and still they come, until the hills are only turtles, until there is no surface of the immediate earth that is not a turtle. They cover the trunks of trees, the branches. They are everywhere!
People are forced to shovel their way to the roads; forced to shovel out their beds at night; only to awaken from dreaming endlessly of turtles, covered with turtles.
People becomes so distracted they no longer remember how to speak, they do not know words anymore; only turtle . . . They stare, their heads askew, whispering, turtle, turtle, turtle . . .


THE GINGERBREAD WOMAN
An old woman wishes she could climb into her own basket, like a gingerbread woman, the one who would have naturally married the gingerbread man, had they been made with more detail in their genital areas.
. . . How nice to lie in a basket on a linen napkin, near a pot of jam and a chicken leg, being kissed by a gingerbread man . . . Summer shadow, summer light, branch sway . . . Delight!


IN THE FOREST
I was combing some long hair coming out of a tree . . .
I had noticed long hair coming out of a tree, and a comb on the ground by the roots of that same tree.
The hair and the comb seemed to belong together. not so much that the hair needed combing, but the reassurance of the comb being drawn through it . . .
I stood in the gloom and silence that many forests have in the pages of fiction, combing the thick womanly hair, the mammal-warm hair; even as the evening slowly took the forest into night . . .




Similar to the illustration at the very top, this woodcut print is by Russell Edson himself. As something of a bonus, here are the first several lines of the prose poem:

A ROOF WITH SOME CLOUDS BEHIND IT
A man is climbing what he thinks is the ladder of success.
He's got the idea, says father.
Yes, he seems to know the direction, says mother.
But do you realize that some men have gone quite the other way and brought up gold? says father.
Then you think he would do better in the earth? says mother.
I have a terrible feeling he's on the wrong ladder, says father.
But he's still in the right direction, isn't he? says mother.
Yes, but, you see, there seems to be only a roof with some clouds behind it at the top of the ladder, says father.
Hmmm, I never noticed that before, how strange. I wonder if that roof and those clouds realize that they're in the wrong place, says mother.
I don't think they're doing it on purpose, do you? says father.
No, probably just a thoughtless mistake, says mother.