I'd say winter has settled in, it's a bright, sunny, frigid-for-here morning, windy and dry, very dry. Everything from my hair to plastic wrappers is full of static, which is not usually a problem. My hair looks kind of like white dandelion fluff this morning, standing out from my head as if repelled by its usual placement! I know that for other places it's not all that cold, and it will get warmer today, into the 60s but for now it feels like the winter we have been expecting. Still my maple tree is green, and my oak has its scattering of new leaves. Since we are so close to the water, we don't generally have hard freezes, but this morning may give those trees the hint that it really is winter!
Today is going to be full of all kinds of work, finishing up presents to be mailed, wrapping, taking things to be mailed, (yes, I know it's late but I've been waiting on that shipment of books). When I decided to give everyone one of my favorite books for Christmas, I had a lot of fun matching the people to the books, and I didn't have to worry about running out of favorite books, I have LOTS of favorites, kind of like favorite poems <smile>! And I have to go to the market or we won't have any dinner <chuckle>! I'm hoping it does get warmer later and that the wind dies down a bit.
When I read this poem, I thought about how hard it is to say what it is we want from our lives, from the world, from each other . . .
The Form of That Which Is Sought
It could fill and take the shape
of the multiple spaces in the pauses
and sliding shrills of a coyote's
long yodel, or it might match
in measure the pieces of the jagged
sky crossed once and split twice
by the screeching tin bells
of two green hummingbirds fighting
in flight. Perhaps, standing alone
in a field of winter grasses,
my back to the gorged and robust
moon, it assumes the configuration
of all the vacancies not silver-
white with light.
Maybe its structure is like the quick
erratic descent and collapse
of the licks of black that allow
the leaping of flames at night,
or maybe it is the shape fitting
exactly the circle sizes created
inside the atom by its theory.
Its form might be the one difference
between the plump red-gold pulp
of a nectarine and the hard wrinkle
of the pit of its living heart,
or it might possess the form
of the similarity held in common
by a gray-speckled longhorn grazing
in rain and a splintered crack
spreading in the glass of an Arctic
iceberg and the final lingering
chord of a requiem mass.
If it could just be put in the mouth,
then one might know it by the tongue,
feeling all the edges and folds,
the dimensions and horizons
of the shuddering bittersweet shape
of its word. Or, how about this:
it is like love in total darkness,
its form moment by moment becoming itself
and tangible through the gentleness
and finesse upon which the blind
will always depend.
Pattiann Rogers
What is the shape of what I seek? I don't know . . . first I would have to be aware of seeking something, I suppose. Perhaps I am too content, perhaps I don't seek anything with the hunger of youthful ambition, perhaps I can think of nothing more I want than what I have already . . . perhaps. Still, perhaps I just have not found the bittersweet shape of the word for what it is I seek, perhaps it is something that I am still uncovering like love in total darkness. The images in this poem all seem to ring like a chime in my heart, from the tin bell of the fighting hummingbirds, to the sliding sounds of the coyote, the moon gorged and robust, the plum nectarine, even the iceberg that reminds me of Annie Dillard writing of the Arctic explorers. Any of them could be part of what it is I might be seeking, or none, the sound of the words describing them is a joy though, a deep pleasure and mystery. Perhaps there is nothing else needed this morning, the sun clear and light, the smooth distant blue overhead, the fitful rush of the wind, and a poem full of images that bring back memories and experiences I treasure, and a chance to share all of it.
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