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!