All the world, in our eyes, they will say

"All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity."

The incomparable Mary Oliver

Give back your heart to itself

Awaken your spirit to adventure

FOR A NEW BEGINNING

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

 

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

 

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

 

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

 

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

 

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

 

JOHN O'DONOHUE

From his books 'To Bless the Space Between Us' (US) / Benedictus (Europe)

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

The Best Part

The best part of life is not just surviving, but thriving with passion and compassion and humor and style and generosity and kindness.

—Maya Angelou (1928)

the thing itself and not the myth

Diving Into the Wreck 

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

 
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

 

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then

it is bluer and then green and then

black I am blacking out and yet

my mask is powerful

it pumps my blood with power

the sea is another story

the sea is not a question of power

I have to learn alone

to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

 

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

 

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed 

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

 

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he 

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass 

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

From Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich. Copyright © 1973 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 

Book love

A special treat arrived from Amazon today, the magical faeries who are keeping hearts and minds connected across great distances.

Life is good.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Second Law

Second law

Samiya Bashir

Who was warned about these things:

the neverhush, the maddening chafe

sliding down a reddened bridge, print

disappearing            disappearing?

Who was told how to brook it?

The houndstooth stench of olding.

That time just runs itself out. That

we Sisyphus ourselves to glasses,

hobble wreckage down stair

after bricky stair. 

That once we leave home—its gaseous

oven—that once we walk the same slow

steps as our hide-and-seek sun that

once we face our anti-lovers’ anti-gaze:

bright, open, later, now eyes smoldered

coats swept open to flash our own

scarred bellies our own hot hands

ablaze with spent matches with burnt-out

love —

Remember love? 

How it loosed its jaw to our kisses?

How it unhinged us? How it tried us 

like so many keys like so many rusted

locks? How it missed its target despite its

kicking? How maybe its force could kill us?

Without it what’s left day after day

to trundle our legs? What’s left to push

breath ragged and torn from our lungs?

Who was warned

how these solar winds would leave us

brown and bruised as apples over-

-ripe host and blowsy      seed dis-

appearing     disappearing?

Were you?

Me too.

A Psalm for Heidi

A Psalm for @theheidifeed

The orange bursts like a prophecy;
the pomegranate declares Eureka!
Carry me up to your God; let Him admire
my layers o'er delicate layers of wrapping.

The door to the Temple is stuck,
and nothing will move it but love.
Remember the planet accreting its dust,
caressing its water and coaxing its gasses back home.

     Prepared eons ago,
     even the gale is a careful thing.

Tiny Poem

A poem today, written just for me by the always brilliant Ali Trotta. Poetry will save us.

You watched the sun rise, a riot

of colors, bleeding softly

into the sky, bright as ink

swimming through water,

growing brighter

and more miraculous,

until everything crested,

and the day began,

stuffed full of such ordinary

hope. 

#TinyPoem

Just Like Yesterday

Washing the dishes
I see a man rapping
In the gravel parking lot.
He has been there for half an hour
Bouncing, swaying, beating the rhythm of life
The empty cars surround him and stare
At the silent street.
Just like yesterday
I wonder if he will be there tomorrow.

For the Anniversary of My Death: W. S. MERWIN

For the Anniversary of My Death
W. S. MERWIN

Every year without knowing it
I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

Poems Like Flowers

Send me poems like flowers
Bouquets of verse, collected
At roadside stalls, overheard
Truth in a turnip truck wearing
Overalls and work boots as it makes its way
To market.

Send me poems like friends
Companions to keep me
Company in the dark
Journey of the soul.

Send me poems stolen
Cyrano the Vandal
Ripped from books and folded into peace cranes,
Graveyard blooms that the dead will not
Miss to brighten the living.

Send me poems.

Life as a Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

---- Rumi

The Why of You, Two

Proof: The Why of You

If y = f(u) and u = g(x), then

The why and you, continuous
At a point wthout limit
Transforms you
Until
The change in you becomes
The change in why.

The change in why appears, over
The change in you, of course.
Until
The change in you comes
To nothing.

Limits show. Leaving
Until
The change in why becomes
The change in you.

I Want a Goddess Who Stinks

I want a goddess who stinks.

I’m tired of these

Tired goddesses

Their shoulders white and sandals neatly tied

Their back quivers and bows 5

Their lack of men and their pristinely polished shields.

I want a goddess who ruts in the mud,

Back quivering

Who bows to no one but bends

Close to the earth 10

Who buries her face deep in the dirt and the scent of life

Who gathers life and living close to her nose, nuzzling

Who gathers life up gently and pulls it into her bosom

Who licks it and knows it in the dark.

I want a goddess who holds on 15

With hair and teeth and claw

With dirt under her nails and hair under her arms.

I want a goddess who plays and romps

With twigs in her hair

Mud on her toes, come on 20

Her thigh jiggling

Her scent thick about her

Breasts keeping time to her dance through the woods

The flesh of her butt nestled in a crevice

In a cave as she lights a candle and talks to the albino spiders there 25

Whispering their woven secrets.

I want a goddess with food in her mouth

Light in her soul

Fire in her belly

Blood on the ground 30

As she cradles the

Life she creates.

Be gone with these sterile, civilized he-women

Supports of your nicely approachable reality

Systemized and sanitized 35

Beyond recognition

Relegated to the wall

Flowers in your halls of

Destruction, despair and propriety.

I want a goddess who stinks. 40

Chain Rule Proof

Proof
(The Why of You)

The why and you
Continuous at a point
Without limit
Transforms you
Until
The change in you
Becomes
The change in why.

On World-Making

I Want a Man I Want

I want a man who is quiet

Who leads by example

Who believes in respect

And respects belief.

I want a man I want to listen to

Not one I have to.

I want a man who is clean

Whose touch cleanses my soul

Whose kiss is redemption.

I want to believe

in myself more because

he believes all

the things that I am

and doesn’t care about the places

I have fallen

and will fall again.

I want a man to whom I can be

released by surrendering,

In whose waters I can dive deep and come

Up for air with full lungs and a whole heart.

I want a man who can

Support without pedestals

Hold his own in a room

Give without smothering

Accept without embarrassment

Argue without anger

Protect without diminishing

Assist without condescending

Fight for me without forgetting I am

Real

Passionate

Whole

I want a man who sees me

Whole, disregarding the pieces

The shattered tatters of my soul

Littered on the path behind me

Shivered dust of all the mirrors I have been.

I want a man who romps and stomps and drinks and frolics and explores

With me sometimes as good, sometimes better, sometimes needing his hand

Who cherishes me

Before

During

After.

I want a man to whom I can give

Without giving away

Touch without being consumed

Trust in the darkness

With the sounds encroaching

Have at my back never

Holding me back

Build

Explore

Create

Nurture

Hope.

And a decent game of chess would be nice, too.

I’m greedy like that.