November 20, 2012

Usually in the very early morning, there is nothing much to see.  The sky slowly gets lighter, going through it's usually blues and pinks and sometimes purples and oranges, and the occasional bird, or squirrel, or early morning runner, maybe the cats or the neighbor's black dog.  Some days it's so quiet in the very early morning you feel like the only one awake in the world.  Once in awhile, something strange or wonderful happens.  This morning was like that, so quiet, so still when two common egrets sailed in to the yard on wide-swept wings and landed just past the maple tree.  You forget when you see them from far away just how large they are and how white!  I have seen a handful of them in the yard over the past couple of years, but I was trying to remember ever seeing two of them together, and I could only remember them in solitary splendor.  These were fluorescent white against the early dark, and I would have missed them if I hadn't happen to sit down for a moment just as they glided in.  They walked around, politely stepping around each other, their long legs and knobby knees unlikely for such elegance as they own.  One walked up to the statue I have a an egret and just stepped around it hardly giving it a glance.  Nothing else moved, even the wind did not intrude.  For a moment I lost sight of them, past the edge of the window over by the porch, perhaps they were looking in the glass door, then they walked single file like celebrants as some stately wedding down to the end of the driveway and when they reached the road, they flapped awkwardly a couple of times and sailed away again, past the house on the corner, spread wings of such whiteness, trailing long dark legs behind them.  I sat there a little sorry they did not stay longer, but grateful for getting to see both of them, a grace to bless the morning as surely as a prayer.  Maybe they were a prayer . . .

When I got home from school and went to find the poem, I remembered reading one just yesterday from poets.org about seeing egrets, and went back to find it.  It's longer than I usually send but worth it.  This lady knows what it means to see egrets . . .

Window Seat:

Providence to New York City

My sixteenth

egret from

the window

of this train,

white against

the marshes'

shocking green

cushioning

Long Island

Sound from

Kingston down

to Mystic against

the shoreline's

erratic discipline:

the egret so

completely

still, the colors

so extreme,

the window

of my train

might be rolling

out a scroll

of meticulous

ancient Chinese

painting: my heart-

beat down its side

in liquid characters:

no tenses, no

conjunctions, just

emphatic strokes

on paper from

the inner bark

of sandalwood:

egret, marshes,

the number

sixteen: white

and that essential

shocking green-

perhaps even

the character

for kingfisher

green balanced

with jade white

in ancient poems-

every other element

implicit in the

brush strokes'

elliptic fusion

of calm and motion,

assuring as my

train moves on

and marsh gives way

to warehouses

and idle factories

that my sixteen

egrets still remain:

each a crescent

moon against

an emerald sky,

alabaster on

kingfisher green,

its body motionless

on one lithe leg,

cradling its

surreptitious

wings

Jacqueline Osherow

I love how she paints her heartbeat down the edge of her canvas, and how she calls them crescent moons, they sure do look like that against the dark as well, and their surreptitious wings, because when they stand with their wings folded, you can't begin to imagine how large they are spread out on the wind and how those long legs trail like the streamers on some white kite.  I wondered what they would make of the statue, and all they made of it was . . . nothing much.  They knew it was not kin to them no matter how faithfully reproduced.  I love that it calls to mind the times I have seen egrets in the yard, and how it will stand there and let me look my fill at it, while the wild egrets you have to sort of catch on the fly, glimpse for only the moments they allow it before they vanish.  There is just something so improbable about them, the elegance and simplicity of a painting, yet they walk with their backward facing knees, and take off with their ungainly wobbling strokes until they catch the rhythm, then all ethereal powerful grace.  I love living where I can see such things right here just outside my window.

November 29, 2012

There was a very large white moon last night, fingering everything with the silver of its light.  I am amazed at how much light the full moon can shine down.  This morning the normal vivid blue was washed out under its influence.  Sometimes it shines in the window until I think its morning when I wake up during the night, until I look at the clock.  Because there were no clouds last night, it reigned in the sky like the queen of heaven it is. 

This morning when I was looking for a poem, one of the first ones I came across was one about the moon, and it was one I had not read before.  Here is an excerpt from it, as it is a pretty long poem, and this is the verse about moonlight.

from Blue Dark   

the moon might rise and it might not

and if it brings a ghost light we will read beneath it

and if it returns to earth

we will listen for its phrases

and if I'm alone at the bedside table

I will have a ghost book to refer to

and when I lie back I'll see its imprint

beneath my blood-red lids:

not lettered ink

but the clean page

not sugar

but the empty bowl

not flowers

but the dirt

Deborah Landau

I am sure you could have read by the moon last night but I did not try it.   The moon holds light the same way a mirror holds your reflection, borrowing from the source and sending it back into the world reversed and paler.   I suppose the moon does not reverse the light but it does seem a different quality, something more . . . tenuous, bluer and thinner, more fragile.  Yet, the moon can hide the light of stars that burn brightly with their own light but not bright enough to be visible near the full moon.   While sunlight sustains us, we often think of it as ordinary and the frail light of the moon . . . magic.  Perhaps it is the inconstancy of it, not appearing the same every night, moving through the heavens like a coy maiden only showing what she wants to be seen.  The ghost book of the moon can only be read by the light of imagination, like the blank page filled with our own story, the bowl waiting to be filled with sweetness,  the dirt ready to release hidden life, the flowers growing in the dark waiting to rise into the light, both the magic of moonlight, and the warmth of the ordinary sun that feeds them.

I love poems that show so much with so few words.  Have the ordinary light of the sun today, bringing warmth and cheer, and tonight maybe the magic of the moon showing its sometime hidden face.

November 28, 2012

That light between night and dawn is so lovely, I never get tired of seeing it, such a deep vibrant blue, almost too dark to be called blue, maybe indigo, but it seems to me indigo has more green in it than this blue, which seems to lean more toward the purple or red shade.  No matter what you call it, the color is just spectacular, and free, and occurs most clear mornings so its a prolific kind of beauty as well.  There were birds out this morning, but just the regular cardinals and bluejays and woodpeckers and mockingbirds and a couple of vultures flying silently in lazy circles; no big flocks of black birds nor even any doves, so by contrast it was pretty quiet!  Now it's nearly noon and all the clouds have vanished and the sky is mostly blue and blue some more.  It's warming up, now it's mid fifties, will be mid sixties pretty soon, not warm enough for me but better than this morning when it was cold and windy.

I read this poem a few days ago and decided to save it for this week.  I had to look up the panoramic picture of Mars, and found a really neat one.  It's like you are standing on Mars and slowly turning in a circle.  Some of the mountains look hauntingly familiar, kind of like the Organ Mountains but redder.  I love what they can do with video and cameras, and our very vivid imaginations.  It's almost like visiting Mars.  Perhaps they will make a spectacular find, but even if they don't just getting to see another world is enough for me!

Panoramic View

Last week Mars suddenly got a lot closer.
It used to be the place we'd throw out
as impossible, utterly unreachable, so red
and foreign and sere. Not anymore.
And I'm trying to figure out why watching
the panorama makes something in the hot core
of me crumple like a swig-emptied can,
intoxicating though it may be, vibrant
with out-of-this-world color like the whole thing's
a sand painting, a dimensional mandala
some galactic monk took her sweet time pouring
freehand, blowing on it between sips of her tea,
ruffling up the most dramatic of its rumpled crests.
It's bluer than I thought, attained. Like most things
I wish we could take back.

Shanna Compton

I found a really nice site that had a great treatment of the panorama from Curiosity.  So here is the link if you want to see the view the poem is about :  www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/high-res-curiosity-panorama  Actually this site had a bunch of panoramas that were really cool but the Curiosity one was the neatest.  Mars was the unreachable, but now it seems not so far away, and looks a lot more like places here on earth.  I wouldn't wish to take it back though, there are always going to be new things to explore, we don't nearly understand even our little corner of it all that well.  So there is lots of work for us to do and places to go in reality and our imaginations.  The lady monk can pour us a new vision any time, while sipping her tea, and I am sure there will be poets in whatever world to tell us the story. 

November 27, 2012

You know, if you don't like the weather here, you can just wait a day or two and get a completely different experience.  Today it's winter, or looks like winter, 20 degrees colder than yesterday, gloomy, gray, and windy.  A front is blowing through, and blowing here is the operative word.  We had thunderstorms last night, lots of noise and a little rain.  This morning no rain, but a blustery wind that really making things feel cold, and I know mostly it's just the suggestion of cloud and wind that makes it feel that way.   With the temperatures at the moment in the mid 50s, it sure does feel a lot cooler than yesterday when the high was 83.

I am always amazed at how some little thing can make me see the bigger picture, or at least a picture that was taken of the same thing in a different light.  Isn't it a nice thing to be able to get out of your rut and perhaps into someone else's for a little while?  Even the grooves of a new rut can sometimes take us to a whole new place.

Parallax

You never know

What will change the world-

a word lightly spoken,

a touch from a stranger,

a glance from a woman

in a red dress,

or a flower opening in your garden.

What you do know

down deep in your bones

is that the cells have

lined up in a new arrangement,

muscles grown

where before was weak and hollow,

and when you woke up this morning,

something else was on your mind

because the old furniture had moved

around to make room.

A momentary alignment of planets

has opened a door somewhere.

You never know how or when,

only that it means

Everything.

Lenore Horowitz
 

Sometimes when I think about teaching classes, I like to think that something I have said or done would make a new arrangement in the thoughts of one of my students.  Parents have told me that their students are still making beadwork I taught them, but I hope when they go to make a choice they remember they make good choices, they have a little more confidence in those choices.  Maybe a door has opened somewhere, and the furniture inside the mind has moved a little bit to make room for new ideas, new skills, new confidence.  Because I so enjoy looking at things in strange new ways, I hope some of my students get infected with that desire.  However, even if they don't, it's worth it to me to have the opportunity to perhaps contribute to that door opening, and to enjoy their excitement as they master a new technique,  to share one of my "enthusiasms" with bright new minds!

November 26, 2012

A Monday after a holiday . . . hard to start Monday, and such weird weather for late November, 83 degrees, humid as early spring, with clouds and sprinkles and a generous helping of sun.  Yesterday we had birds everywhere, it sounded like Alfred Hitchcock's rendition of The Birds, kind of scary they were so loud and so MANY of them.  At first I could only hear them but once I went outside I could see them if I looked, small black birds, and I am not sure what they are.  I know more what they aren't, not crows or grackles, maybe starlings or perhaps redwing blackbirds.  Since for the most part you can only see their black silhouette in the trees, and waves and waves of them flying overhead.  The huge crowds of birds had even the larger birds stirred up, vultures and hawks, though when the hawks flew overhead there would be perhaps a minute of total silence, then the cacophony would start up again.  When I came home this morning from school, they are at it again, trees full of birds but no waves, just sitting there cheeping and whistling and generally making a fine racket!

Being Monday, and inundated with birds, I think this poem I have been saving is just exactly what is needed!

Morning Poem

Woke early one morning,

the earth lay cool and still,

when suddenly a tiny bird,

perched on my window sill,

it sang a song so lovely,

so carefree and so gay,

that slowly all my troubles,

began to slip away,

it sang of far off places,

of laughter and of fun,

it seemed his very song,

brought out the morning sun,

I pulled back the covers,

and crept slowly out of bed,

and gently shut the window,

and crushed his freaking head,

I'm not a morning person

Danielle D. Curtis

After raising three children who are not morning people, this poem had me laughing so hard I had tears!  And I can think some of the neighbors who are not morning people would be inclined to such drastic measures for all the really loud bird noises today! 

I hope you all have a terrific Monday, no matter how it starts!

November 25, 2012

Well, the hardest part about having the boys home is having them go again.  I'm glad to see them always, but it's so hard when they leave; you just miss them all the more from just having seen them.  I would not want to give up their visits so just have to put up with the hard part.  I was glad to have Mendi and Jeff as well, and hope they come again.  Here is my blessing for this Sunday, I knew I would make one because who else can say what is in my heart.

Blessing for Parting

May you go safely home, the way swift and clear.

May you enjoy the travel, noticing new things, time
to talk and grow closer.

Take our gratitude for the time you spent here,
for smiles, and meals we shared, for new understanding.

Take our love with you, warmth against any chill.

Remember, you are always welcome, though we know
you must have your own life, as we all do.

May the joy we shared go with you, and make memories
you will be glad to keep.

We are all blessed by the love gathered and shared, by hugs
and conversation, by memories and their making.

May we continue to be so blessed through every season
yet to come.

As they left, a huge crow flew through the yard, granting them the blessing of wild things, and the sky overhead, blue and boundless, promised fair weather.  There is no place to keep all that you love except in the shelter of your heart and in light of memory.  And so I do.

I hope this holiday, everyone had a feast of love and made their own memories to keep.

November 24, 2012

The wind and the dawn arrived together this morning, the light quietly, and the wind with more bluster.  The deep tolling of a wind chime, and the soprano sound of mine on the porch combine to greet the north wind with music, the deep trailing sound of a jet the continuo.  The air is clear, no fog, sharp as a lens magnifying the blue horizon, bringing it closer, whitening the edges, while overhead the sky falls away from the earth in a long continuous ribbon of light.  Chill has settled into the cracks, and seeped through the walls.  Hunched in the middle of the yard is a squirrel, tail flashing, waiting for something or just restless.

I am the Wind

I am the wind that wavers,

You are the certain land;

I am the shadow that passes

Over the sand. 

I am the leaf that quivers,

You, the unshaken tree;

You are the stars that are steadfast,

I am the sea.

You are the light eternal—

Like a torch I shall die.

You are the surge of deep music,

I but a cry!

Zoe Akins

Is there more merit in one over another?  Is it better to be wind or the certain land?  Or is each its own essence needing no approval or agreement?  When you start a comparison, you begin to include more and more, and the metaphor goes where the reader takes it.  Here who could choose between the stars and the sea?  The leaf and the tree?  Music or the human voice?  Wind or the land it moves over?  I want to be wind one minute and the eternal light another, first the music then the voice, or who would not want to be as a star on a dark night, or ocean roused and rowdy joining with the shore?  I grant myself the power to be all of that or something more, or something small and intimate.  What every human heart holds is everything there is, it's acknowledging that possibility that comes slow, and there are days when I want to be something wild, and hours when I want nothing more than hot tea on a cold morning, the light at my window, and the wind rushing down from a great height to scatter gold coins of leaves, the riches of fall.

November 23, 2012

I sincerely hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Several times I started to do the morning note yesterday but I was too distracted by everything going on, by food, and family, and just general busyness.  It seems a shame to sit at the computer and look for a poem when I had the poetry of family all around me, so I chose the moments I had.  Today Mikayla has to go to work very early, and so I am up in the house, the only one awake, Mikayla having left for work already.   This is the first morning in a while I have heard so many birds, cardinals and jays, and perhaps a mockingbird or two, hard to tell if you don't actually see them, they could be anything!  It's cool and damp and still out and there are birds everywhere.  I thought I actually saw a hummingbird buzz past the window but it's early and I might have been mistaken.  It's really late in the year for them, they should be gone to some other lovely place by this time.

Usually I see people out walking or jogging or even running by this time; it's light already, but this morning, no one.  Several cars have gone past, but no one on foot.  Perhaps it's the combination of post-holiday fatigue and the clouds, it's not raining but it looks like it might if the clouds pile up just a little more.  The squirrels are out, several just ran down the power line in a kind of squirrel train, nose to tail, moving in their fluid way. I don't know if they were chasing each other or just moving on, but they are certainly fast!

Sometimes I find a poem that I like, and when I read it, even though I have read it before, it's like the first time all over again.  Nothing about it is the same as the first time, I get a whole new world from it and am happy about that.  It seems like . . . cheating to get so much from so few words and that the joy in it is you can keep coming back and getting something new each time.

From . . .  what counts

The world's body is not our body,

                                                            although we'd have it so.

Our body's not infinite, although

This afternoon, under the underwater slant-shine

Of sunlight and cloud shadow,

It almost seems that way in the wind,

                                                                  a wind that comes

From a world away with its sweet breath and its tart tongue

And casts us loose, like a cloud,

Heaven-ravaged, blue pocket, small change for the hand.

I used to think the power of words was inexhaustible,

That how we said the world

                                                    was how it was, and how it would be.

I used to imagine that word-sway and word-thunder

Would silence the Silence and all that,

That words were the Word,

That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,

As though it were geographical.

I used to think these things when I was young.

                                                                                    I still do.

Charles Wright

  
And here the power of words, how everything lives in them, how even silence is related to words and can't escape them.  Here it's not afternoon, and there is no wind, but I know what he is saying, I feel cast loose, looking out my own window, and experiencing the Word, knowing I am blessed this morning and have so much to be thankful.  When we went around at dinner and said what we were thankful for, things lost out, it was people, and work, and love that counted more than any other things, discoveries, exploration, learning, cooperating, accepting each other and all our kinds of love that was important, and being together, though we are never truly apart.  Language can leads us inexplicably to grace, over and over again.  And I am glad of a world where I have the joy of telling my family, all of them, how I love them, and can send words laid down by other people to give them that love in so many different ways.  I am not limited to just telling it the way I can tell it, I can invent it and reinvent it by sending other people's words too.  And so, I am grateful today for . . . words, for all the writers and poets who have given me their lives in words and so enriched me, and given me their stories as gifts to share.  I am grateful I have the kind of family, actual and extended, with whom I can share this grace of words.

November 21, 2012

Fog is fading as the light deepens, wisps rise and vanish, sunlight painting the road a lighter gray, the leaves a brighter gold.  Most of the trees are still in shadow, an occasional oak stands out, its arms raised and spread out like a troupe of dancers, catching the wind's music.  Some tree, I cannot tell what from here, has turned green-gold overnight, its white wood now visible.  The pines hold on to darkness, their long feathered branches, mysterious, absorbing light.

The crows are out, three of them, their rough cries assaulting the air.  In the old counting rhyme, three crows are for a girl, but even the poem does not say which girl.  I have always thought three crows meant body, mind, and soul, and the conversation all three have, trying to live together.  Crows and ravens have always been part of my own mythology, and their meaning is fluid, and they have never been ill omened to me, though I know others deem them so.  And, of course, the owls, one of my other favorite birds, don't like them.  Crows are birds of the daylight, of sun oiling their slick feathers, and showing them shiny things to entice them.  Perhaps that's why I find them sympathetic, we all love shiny things, things that sparkle and gleam.

The poem this morning from poets.org is perfect for the day, something that seldom happens.  I had not read anything by John Moore before, I don't think, but now that I have, I want one of his books, and still have a little gift money to get it.  His book Invisible Strings is full of spare, thoughtful, delicious poems that have the air of haiku, that ask more questions than are asked in this one poem, but are clear as a still lake where you can see the bottom deep down and be surprised.

Twenty Questions

Did I forget to look at the sky this morning

when I first woke up? Did I miss the willow tree?

The white gravel road that goes up from the cemetery,

but to where? And the abandoned house on the hill,

   did it get

even a moment? Did I notice the small clouds so slowly

moving away? And did I think of the right hand

of God? What if it is a slow cloud descending

on earth as rain? As snow? As shade? Don't you think

I should move on to the mop? How it just sits there,

   too often

unused? And the stolen rose on its stem?

Why would I write a poem without one?

Wouldn't it be wrong not to mention joy? Sadness,

its sleepy-eyed twin? If I'd caught the boat

to Mykonos that time when I was nineteen

would the moon have risen out of the sea

and shone on my life so clearly

I would have loved it

just as it was? Is the boat

still in the harbor, pointing

in the direction of the open sea? Am I

still nineteen? Going in or going out,

can I let the tide make of me

what it must? Did I already ask that?

Jim Moore

Did I notice the cardinal while listening to the crows?  Does the cane still sprout, its white tongues wagging in the wind?  And for me it's the broom, that needs to be used more often, and not a stolen rose but for days driving past trees laden with oranges or lemons or grapefruit, yellow and full and ripe, I have thought of stolen fruit.  It would be wrong not to mention joy, yes, it would be wrong, though I am more reluctant to mention sadness.  Do we all have that one moment when our life could have changed immensely?  Do we all wonder what it would be like if we had chosen differently?  Can we love our life as it is now?  And did I already ask that, and will I ask it again and again through all the days?  It seems as we get older, we ask more questions, perhaps we need a space of time to do it, perhaps when we are younger there is so much to do that we don't have time to notice so many things, and now, older, life slower, we can take that time and ask more questions, even if we don't get more answers.

Today is a day of preparation, of looking forward to having the boys home, of the start of holidays and the long month of anticipation.  Hope if you are traveling today you have safe journey, and if you are staying home, hope your preparations go smoothly and you have fun creating a joyful holiday for yourself and your family! 

November 20, 2012

The sky has come closer, grayed with a light fog slowly lifting, the trees so still you'd think they were a painting.  Great swatches of yellow and gold now light up the trees, and the red berries quietly turn black on the vine.  A dozen small birds, gray in this light, fly through the thin branches of the crepe myrtle, rest a moment, and are gone with rustle, vanished in a flip of wings.  Morning moves through the yard, the light more subtle because it has lost its brightness to the overcast, but still making shadows and spots of gold, the shimmer of a spider web with one leaf caught in it, twirling on a thread.

I think morning must be my favorite time of day, when everything seems fresh and anything is possible.

Morning

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on expresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on expresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

Billy Collins

I can see him buzzing around the house on expresso, and though I usually only have one cup of coffee, I am glad to have that one to sharpen my brain for the morning work.  The dictionary and the atlas are now the Internet, and it's the keyboard waiting for the key of the head, and Dessa on the Ipod, but still the same essence, just a difference in the particulars.  But we both have the window and the trees and the clouds, we both seem to like the movement of the morning, the newness of it, the possibilities inherent in starting again.  Though the kids are all night people, I'm not sure where they get that, and I am sure they would tell lovely tales of the night blooming with its many-pointed stars, I will take the morning, and the early light changing instant by instant into something brighter.

November 19, 2012

The sky is closer this morning, the blue hazed in by a dusting of clouds; small planes buzz overhead like throaty bees, their bright red and yellow, sparkling in the sunlight.  The loud thrumming of a truck engine adds to the noise, a big tow truck come to take the neighbor's very small car away, like a broken toy.  Having found my ipod again, the cheerful music of Paul Simon's Graceland has supplanted the news, as this is a late start.   The African rhythms just seem to lift my spirits whenever I hear them.  I find it amazing that they can make so much music with just human voices.

This week will be Thanksgiving, and I will be thankful for a lot, especially that both the boys will be home and we will be all together for a few days.  They probably won't be able to come at Christmas, but at this stage in all our lives, you take what you can get <grin>!  There were plenty of years I was not home for Christmas, too far, too broke, too hard to travel with little ones, lots of reasons, all good, and all still meaning I was not home, so, I understand, but that doesn't mean I like it <chuckle>!

I found a funny poem to start the week.  We all get stuck looking at familiar things the same way all the time.  Here is a poet who imagines what a Martian might observe about some ordinary things.  Actually, there is a whole class of "riddle" poems; May Swenson wrote one of my favorites "Southbound on the Freeway" but there are lots of others I've read over the years.  This one has some very original . . . views.

A Martian Sends A Postcard Home

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings -

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside -
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves -
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Craig Raine
Certainly there are some "alien" takes on ordinary things.  I love the one about fog, "dim and bookish", and about time tied to your wrist.  The caxtons got me but when I stopped thinking about the word the item came clear, it was the perched on the hands but not flying, and the bookish description a few lines late made me think I was right.  Still, a good exercise in thinking from a different perspective, even the most ordinary things take on an air of mystery.  For Monday, sometimes we need to get out of the box and do a little exploring, things can seem so ordinary, all the little routines instead of comforting can just seem boring.  However, there is always something out there to make things interesting, even if it's just tilting your brain a little to see things another way.  I'm sure that striped cat would like to see the little sparrow a different way, closer and slower!

November 18, 2012

Wow! A gorgeous morning!  Sun and blue and . . . just wow!  A little breeze is stirring, and the temperature is going up and up, will be in the 70s later.  This morning the trees are full of tiny birds that I have not seen before and boy are they happy!  Just bouncin' around and making cheerful chirps and whistles.  One little one has kind of a reddish belly and black on the back but what is striking about it is this white line along the side of its head and over its eye, and it's just chortling and calling and having a terrific time out there.   Several tightly woven flocks of small birds have flown past the window, they are so fast!  It seems like the whole outside is alive and active in the beauty of this morning.  I saw a couple of white butterflies as well, who would have thought to see them so late in the fall?

Sunday blessing, and I am really feeling blessed this morning, so much fun yesterday with all the birthdays!  Food, and family, and fun, my idea of heaven!

For Belonging

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be generous
      enough for your dreams.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
      whispering in your heart.

May you find a harmony between your soul and
      your life.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become
      haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives at the
      heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look
      within.

May you never place walls between the light and
      yourself.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world
            to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in
            belonging.

John O'Donohue

With some of my birthday gift certificates, I bought John O'Donohue book To Bless the Space Between Us because I have used his work before and love how he makes blessing accessible to all, to anyone grateful for anything, or yearning, or wanting to ask questions that don't have easy answers.  His prayers often go right to the heart of what we fear, and what we need.  This prayer has one of my favorite lines, "May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within."  Why is that so hard for us?  We can look with kindness on everyone else, and we often make a real effort to do it, but when we look within, we are often a lot less than kind?  Do we not deserve the kindness we would show to others?  If we do not have kindness for ourselves, with all our faults and fears, can we really show sincere kindness to anyone else?  And the line about eternal longing also says something to me, we are always going to be longing for something, it's the human condition, and there is no escape for it, but I do believe we can choose what we long for, and that makes all the difference to who we are.  This Sunday blessing sure does give me a lot to think about, and as I watch the beauty of the entirely visible world, I would like to invite the invisible world in also, that invisible world of intangibles, like honor, and joy, and gratitude, and love!

November 17, 2012

It's another perfectly lovely fall day!  High and blue, windless, the leaves still, the shadows deep in the corners of things.  It's my husband's birthday, yesterday was Dawn's birthday, and November 8th was Brian's birthday, so today is the day of the November Birthday Party!  A celebration of three birthdays in one, with homemade Indian food, German chocolate cake, and family!   There could not be a more perfect day for me, married to the man I have loved all these years and continue to love, celebrating birthdays of people I love, celebrating their lives with food and fun and a gorgeous day!

Imagining Heaven

makes me uneasy and superstitious, so instead I read books

where people understand purposes and goodness,

and am full of wonder. Some days, especially, I know

how impossible it is that heaven exists; I unfurl on the couch

like a fed snake and won't leave the house

until the day is inhaled back into its sea.

As a child, my imagined heaven revealed how basic

were my wants: a red porch littered with projects,

many animals, benign accidents to be tidied;

all movement like ice skating and everyone about twenty.

If there were a heaven we would be given a glimpse of it

once in a while, as we stumble over memories—

on a long drive, a flash comes and we try to reel it back—

wasn't that a dream? Where was that? What a marvel,

how terrible—to have nearly lost that game, that trip,

the buttons on that dress, the grief of that cold water

on that early May morning; his room without pictures,

her jewelry box, that bowl of oranges. I can do nothing

so I put myself in the old heaven, sprawled out

on the red floor. I am youngish, the dog is with me,

I can whistle and do, having left behind this life

in New Hampshire with the car and children.

Alison Powell

I don't have to imagine heaven, I have it every morning, when I wake up to such love, and such a pretty place, and look out my window and feel blessed!   The poet's imagined heaven showed how basic her wants were as a child, well, I think mine are still pretty basic and having all that, I like to spend some time acknowledging my blessings, being grateful, and hoping things continue on, that having left behind childhood, I still imagine heaven in the same way, a place where you have what you need, people love you for who you are, and surrounded by beauty you recognize it and feel part of it, and of all that love.  I would like the whole world to imagine heaven and look around and find themselves surrounded by it already!  It's a prayer of mine, and I think I will just keep on praying it! 

November 16, 2012

A bright sunny crisp fall day!  Just the thing to lift your spirits and make you see lovely things everywhere!  Well, almost everywhere, the girls had an inordinate amount of knots and "something happened" today!  I am going to get tee-shirts made with "Something Happened" and a frowny face on them at some point to wear to class.  The girls will recognize the significance of it right away!

Sutra   

Looking back now, I see

I was dispassionate too often,

dismissing the robin as common,

and now can't remember what

robin song sounds like. I hoarded

my days, as though to keep them

safe from depletion, and meantime

I kept busy being lonely. This

took up the bulk of my time,

and I did not speak to strangers

because they might be boring,

and there were those I feared

would ask me for money. I was

clumsy around the confident,

and the well bred, standing on

their parapets, enthralled me,

but when one approached, I

fled. I also feared the street's

down and outs, anxious lest

they look at me closely, and

afraid I would see their misery.

I feared my father who feared

me and did not touch me,

which made me more afraid.

My mother feared him too,

and as I grew to be like him,

she became afraid of me also.

I kept busy avoiding dangers

of many colors, fleeing from

those with whom I had much

in common. Now afternoon,

one chair in the garden. Late

low light, the lilies still open,

sky beyond them preparing

to close for the night. I'd

made money, but had I kissed

a single lily? On the chair's

arm my empty cup. Its curved

lip struck, bright in late light.

I watch that last light going,

leaving behind its brief burning

 which will come to nothing.

The lilies still open, waiting.

Let me be that last sliver of light.

Let me be that last gleaming sliver of silver,

there for an instant on the lily's petal,

light speaking in tongues, tongues of flame.

Marilyn Krysl

I looked at the poems I have been saving, and in this one I saw myself, over and over.  I looked out my window and saw not a single robin, but mockingbirds instead, still for here an ordinary bird, and am glad I remember, at least for the moment, what their song is like.  I remember how sometimes standing in front of my students I suddenly become too conscious of myself, and trip over words I've said hundreds of times before, how fear or lack of confidence makes even simple tasks harder.  That often I am struck by how someone who says she likes people can think of them as frightening.  How I flee dangers of many colors, and realize lots of them are dangers of the mind rather than real physical dangers, that what I am afraid of is being embarrassed or put down.  Growing older has helped some of that, but actually has brought with it a whole new bunch of things to be self-conscious about, and I try not to give in to that, but found that still needs work.  Yet, I am further along than I was when I was younger, and hope to get further still, because when I am thinking so much about myself, I find it hard to think of other people and what they might say or think or need.  I like the idea of being the last sliver of light, but for me it would be the light making the honeysuckle berries glow like little lights, and the white of the new cane fluoresce in the early dawn, the light speaking so many tongues that my eyes and mind try with great resolve to translate!

November 15, 2012

This is one of those rare mornings when I truly did not want to get up, when staying in bed warm under the covers seemed like the best idea!  But eventually, the little voices of all those things you have to do just keep getting louder and louder until they are too loud to ignore.  Still, I was in bed a lot later than usual!  All the clouds have vanished and the sky is huge this morning, high and blue and unmarked.  Wind is still wandering through but not with the determined march of yesterday, today it's just tickling everything and making it twitch.  Since we have gotten no rain, things are beginning to look very dry.  The maple leaves, mostly a faded yellowing green look like paper, not smooth and moist, but rather like thin dusty leather.  There is some kind of berry ripening but I have no idea what it is, it looks like a vine with soft stems but the berries are really bright red in little clusters where the leaves meet the stem, and where they are ripe they are black, very black.  The birds don't eat them, neither do the squirrels, and Mikayla says the raccoons eat the grapes that grow wild in that corner but not those berries.  They are all over the back neighbor's fence, making it look like Christmas!

And you have got to love the Internet!  I couldn't stand not knowing what they were! They are honeysuckle berries!  All this time I never realized honeysuckle made berries, though now that I am not so fascinated by the berries I can see the leaves are the same.  They say some honeysuckle berries are edible and some are poisonous, seeing how the birds don't eat these they must be the poisonous kind.  We live in a terrific time, where you only have to have a little patience and you can find out whatever you want to know!  What a blessing to have so much knowledge available, people willing to post pictures and help with questions and put out what they know so others might learn too!   There must be thousands of images of red and black berries on a vine posted in various places!  It tickles me that I could look at something for so long and just not recognize it, that being so curious about the berries I never recognized the leaves.  Human beings are sure interesting creatures, full of foibles and contradictions!

Plump red berries
glowing brightly on the stem
promising sweetness

Deliver poison
hang around turning deep black
their truest color

They are just so pretty it's hard to believe they can't be eaten, kind of like the apple in Snow White, lovely outside but corrupt in the meat of it.  It seems there are a lot of things like that, things that look good at first but turn out to be harmful.  I guess, like the birds, you either have to trust instinct or experience to tell what is lovely inside and out!

November 14, 2012

This morning when I left early for school, there was a woodpecker making that weird laugh and then banging his head against that old oak snag for his breakfast.  The only reason I could see him is he happened to be on the side of the tree facing the driveway and making so much noise he would have been hard to miss.  That bright red on his head is like nothing else you might see in a tree.  Because the wind has blown for days now, everything is looking dry and thin.  The maple leaves particularly have been thinned almost to translucence by the wind, and they are moving more and more into the yellow range, though only the very top is gold now.  The cane, in the places where it has been cut back the most, is only putting out thin white sprigs that are not growing with the rabidness of summer, but still not giving up the fight, no matter how cold and windy it is.  We are slowly sliding back into the drought pattern with the jet stream splitting right over us so there is one north and one farther south, but nothing really to bring us much weather.  The clouds that thickened up yesterday are still here today, though they promised they would be gone around noon; that gives them an hour, more or less, to vanish, and somehow I don't think they will be on schedule.

I have been thinking about that woodpecker . . . his determination, and wondering if I would ever get breakfast if I had to bash my head in that fashion to obtain it.  Charles Wright has written a poem with a woodpecker in the title and nowhere else!  I read the poem several times and, nope, only in the title does the bird appear, other birds, but not the woodpecker.  I saw a short film on YouTube of him reading it, and he said he liked the title, thought it was humorous, and so used it.  Well, I like the poem, and the title is humorous and has that woodpecker in it, so it is the poem for today <smile>.

THE WOODPECKER PECKS,
BUT THE HOLE DOES NOT APPEAR

It's hard to imagine how unremembered we all become,
How quickly all that we've done
Is unremembered and unforgiven,
how quickly
Bog lilies and yellow clover flashlight our footfalls,
How quickly and finally the landscape subsumes us,
And everything that we are becomes what we are not.

This is not new, the orange finch
And the yellow and dun finch
picking the dry clay politely,
The grasses asleep in their green slips
Before the noon can roust them,
The sweet oblivion of the everyday
like a warm waistcoat
Over the cold and endless body of memory.

Cloud scarce Montana morning.
July, with its blue cheeks puffed out like a putto on an ancient map,
Huffing the wind down from the northwest corner of things,
Tweets on the evergreen stumps,
swallows treading the air,
The ravens hawking from tree to tree, not you, not you,
Is all that the world allows, and all one could wish for.

Charles Wright

And, yes, I know we will not be long remembered, all the ones of us living ordinary lives, we fade pretty quickly, but it was enough to have lived, to see the woodpecker, the grasses, the sky, and even the ravens.  It is enough to have that ordinary world for however long I have it, to love and to have been loved.  Those ravens do talk sometimes, calling out for notice, jeering from branch to branch, chasing the owl from sleep, and hunting for their own breakfast.  You might think the woodpecker with its determination and hard-headed business would be more admirable.  But, its the crow and the raven, the owl and the vulture that attract me.  It's the ones that see something in the shiny things of the world, who awake in the night keep me company, the ones that go about the thankless task of cleaning up the wild places for which I have such fondness.  The woodpecker's laugh means more to me than its industrious pounding <chuckle>!  The oblivion of everyday a warm waistcoat over the cold body of memory until even memory become warm with it, all one could wish for!