I wonder
about you? What shines
behind those sleeping eyes? Am I tugging
on your dreaming shores? What lies
there?Flotsam from the past? So far
removed now from bayou’s breath, from streams
and home and permanence, I watch in
shifting phases:
Shadowed timekeeper of our sky
Shared once,
shared still…
No-one has
to know but us?
My nightly
runnings through your glass, Drifting in dreamland's technicolored bayou brilliance.
In the olden days, I
believe Mozart also improvised on piano, but somehow in the last 200 years, the
whole training of Western classical music - they don't read between the lines,
they just read the lines.
Ravi Shankar
This has been a very weird, Jungian, connect the dots, kind
of week.First I had a quote from (of
all things) Pet Semetary rattling around in my head.It was the scene where Jud was discussing
Missy’s suicide with the main character, the doctor, Louis.Jud says, “God sees the truth, but waits.”
Hmmmm…
I googled that phrase because it seemed just a little
too good to be something uttered by a supporting character in a movie. Sure enough, I’m correct. Turns out, that’s
the title of the short story by Leo Tolstoy. So now I’m wikipedia’ing the plot of the
story:
"God Sees the Truth, But Waits"(Russian: "Бог
правду видит, да не скоро скажет", "Bog pravdu vidit da ne skoro skazhet")
is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1872. The
story, about a man sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit, takes the form
of a parable of forgiveness. English translations were also published under
titles "The Confessed Crime" and "Exiled to Siberia". The
concept of the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder and banished to
Siberia also appears in one of Tolstoy's previous works, "War and
Peace", during a philosophical discussion among two characters who relate
the story and argue how the protagonist of their story deals with injustice and
fate.
Reading that paragraph was no less than an epiphany to me. “Rita
Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” anyone? A tunnel even plays into the
story….I can’t make this kind of stuff up! I mean, King totally ripped off that
plot right? No offense Mr. King if you
happen to be reading this (my attempt at sarcasm.) I mean they say there are
only 5 basic plots ever written and we all re-form those plots to our liking
but recently tunnels and domes have been showing up as little breadcrumbs
probably telling me as a writer that “It’s okay to NOT reinvent the wheel here.
After all one of your favorite authors didn’t!”
This simmers in my head.
So finally another favorite of mine shows up just in time to
tie this week neatly together: Mr. Ravi
Shankar. I love improvisational baroque kinds of music, especially meditative
ones and find his Ragu Piloo on “West meets East” exquisite. I spin it often in my cd player, but this week
I pulled it out and more than once made myself late to listen to the whole
Raga.I also happen to stumble on his
daughter’s homage to him recently and one of the quotes was what I’ve placed at
the top of the page. ^^
I laughed.
I’m all **about** reading between the lines. It’s what I do
because no matter how rational and pleasing I try to be, I can’t help but do it
because life is more fun this way---and makes more sense. See, to me we are all God’s truth? We all have
a divine purpose here on this earth, and that purpose is glaringly apparent in
our youth as we find our talents. But in
our efforts to “be successful” and be pleasing in other’s eyes, we tend to just
read the lines because we’re programmed that is what we’re supposed to doing.
We create a cycle also because that is what we teach our children to do as
well, to trust our “knowledge” instead of their intuition.
I don’t think it is what we’re supposed to be doing at all?
the first year it snowed.
she recalled the red sled
and her brother pulling her along
belly down among the grid they sped
so gracefully
placing
illuminating antietam.
now they return every year
letting their little lights shine,
winding down that solitary road
that tells the tale so well
l23,110 strong,
stilled voices mourning
illuminating antietam.
this was their civil war:
oxymoronic bandaged plight,
no white or black there
just red and dread of the day
that didn’t seem to want to end.
that day was spent
illuminating antietam.
and so they all still come
one by one;
impressed by the magnitude
of light's solitary witness.
who’s holy war is this?
illuminating antietam.
I wrote this poem this weekend after reading about the yearly illumination of one of the civil war's bloodiest battlefields. It reminded me of a picture I saw looking at the earth from space at night. There I saw no country, no nationality, no race or religion, but millions of points of light....and hope. I hate war and the idea of all those young men dying in what some might find futility because everyday things change, but basically they stay the same. And as I read and thought about America's bloodiest battle, I thought of the world today...and where I'd like to shine my light.
I like it when history makes me live more in the moment.
Because that’s all I had then….all that was conveniently at my fingertips
Daintlily reading titles,so different from one another….
FromThe Next Table to Herodes Atticus
From barely trying to trying somehow too hard
Impressive still.
Such a pretty book in blues and browns…blue dotted binding made me laugh
Unexpectedly…
I read the preface.
And I discovered my poet brother:tormented and secretive, classically erotic…
Was also gay.
Then I replaced my scissors.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Ocean’s breath for Stephen and Lorca
green how I love you green:
the tint of my faerie wings in
gossamer’d foamy ocean love
whispering to the gypsy moon above:
I hear him calling me from that foamy wide?
familiarly around my waist his laced fingers slide
so perfectly willing and thrilling my soul
green goddess beauty in love made wholly
free in silver flight, misfit hazy skimming
across that ocean’s breath this starry night ~
green how I love you green,
the silver blue green mingling of the sea,
phosphorus currents mixing magically
igniting imagination’s fire, your eyes shining
free in desire, poet’s hazy dreaming
upon that ocean’s breath this starry poem is agreeing~
with that green fading into blue, silver laced melancholy
falling ~ I hear your ocean’d breathy voice calling
I've been thinking alot about falling lately. Or failing, because its something we *all* do and some of us do it more gracefully than others. It's been really easy to teach my daughter to succeed. She set foot on this planet intrisically motivated to do well, and doesn't mind hard work-- so she usually does succeed.
But we all have "one of those days" and teaching her navigate such is well, a little different.
She had one of those days a few weeks ago.
We were at a practice archery meet, same as any other meet and for some reason on this night she couldn't hit the side of a barn, much less the target. I wondered was it nerves? Her bow? Her arrows? Did she suddenly get the equivalent of the shanks? hmmmmm...
So, knowing she would be unhappy with her performance, I got her to the car and let it spill. After she got out her initial upset I determined that her weight had been loosened at practice to work on grouping and and and we didn't know what else?
The last thing I wanted was to assign blame, because really there isn't any, and never is. Bad days happen and will. So I told her all I know to do was tighten the bow back to where she'd shot well before and go from there....to pick herself up and we would practice some at home.
And then something wonderful happened. Jennifer Lawrence fell down at the 2013 Oscars. Now granted I'm sure that wasn't a happy place for Ms. Lawrence, but timing for me as a parent couldn't have been better. Jennifer is the face of Katniss, the Hunger Games heroine, and much to mine and my daughter's horror we discovered she can be clumsy just like us. The falling was AWFUL, what she did afterwards was amazing.
Jennifer Lawrence knows how to fall. She knows how to laugh it off and keep moving forward, and hopefully learn something from the experience.
Long story short tightning Savv's bow helped her find her aiming point again, and her confidence. But more than that I've noticed a huge change in how she approaches her passion. She knows the comfort of messing up and each time she has a flight now, I *see* her relax.
And that is a different page out of a silver linings playbook.
have you noticed?
even those with all the right reasons
wrestle with it each and every night
unable to settle their days
their seasons….
with reason that used to make sleeping people
feel all is right with their world….
nobody sleeps…
the moon even stays out during the days now?
how odd? what she is hiding inside….
shining mostly during the hours
so late….so humbling when you’re wide
awake silently walking the floors
seeing houses stilled dark all around you
wondering if within them…wondering if
there’s someone…
someone noticing….
nobody sleeps…
not in these hours. In dormant day’s end
there’s anonymity perfected in faces illuminated
with other lives….other worlds….other
