fragments - not quite what i meant

  a mantra unwavering: trussed 2trust 4light

              you said  something once- 

it was some thing like:  “you think i tend to be too critical of my younger version - my … historical versions of myself lost downstream, perennially time-lined, but some of them - those former selves-  drowning there under scrutiny,

          …. what they went through - gotta hand it to them. so weakened by circumstance;      they were still really strong- don’t know how they did it.   but they did it 

- won’t ever be recognized as heroes  - most people in my life now don’t really care, partly because 

they have no idea          they 

                                have no idea 

                                      some ideas:    

it’s hard to not care about recognition amongst your peers-    

    their ideas don’t ID us 

think again.  (re- cognize)    

listen up close -superstar froze in time

                                   fossilized 

-bone blood turned to stone - faux soul eyes  -a jaw dropped crowd, spoon fed lies -    phantoms spinning dragons spitting phantoms 

sandpaper songsaw left raw crowd roar applause of one hand -  trapdoor- time lapse jack hammer memory collapse beneath that fist or not 

- wait a bit 

 peer up  -  your truest peers peer back  

                big bang visionary idea revision:

long before your birth. light coalesced-many different types -celestial bodies- one round motion,  envisioning inception -  the ether memorized your heart like a prayer towards a long lost  god                that left …

left unexplained gaps where souls ought resonate, but simply … did not.   strange chasms pocked the Milky Way …   startled by the star toll,  a starstruck mass exodus …where did the light go - against the bereft; the senseless absence 

…they wished,  they asked, 

and you 

came true:  dangling from the unknown, an ornament supported by time’s unraveling rhythms  representing no thing anywhere near linear and …

how they wonder what you are 

invisible to the naked ear- harp shards refined, measured exact, alike yet not the same, aligned glass pane- pain box rarified through interface

to touch the light you find so touching - 

💡 ideas …  beyond skin’s thin illusion  

 a language harbored beyond 6senses for those left eloquently, elegantly speechless  

moving body wisdom across time less terrain like a silve with the right size holes to hammock and cradle a lightning bolt or a twin flame, a kindred soul 

https://youtu.be/Z2w0wk2tav8?si=Mg3ICgw6JmQ5u7Vi

husks of dead stars still hung-bundled, dried flowers, a savage saved bouquet that once meant something in the giving 

northern lights open graves nameless soldiers                         

                   clear sky                  

    reflected across 

                         your face - familiar.      i whisper

“ i know you i have

not forgotten -“

…call you by a secret name but have 

                             no idea 

                          if you answer .

epi log ~

{or .. winds of change OR HALT!    you are under a (for) rest}

          -     calling a written work of any length a “piece” is apt -  at least, that’s the word i usually use, rather than poem, essay, … etc      length doesn’t matter- it’s never more than a piece, even if it’s a six inch thick tome -  from Ulysses to the word “is” - in the grander scheme, it’s all haiku. even war and peace is just a piece, always relatively small - and incomplete…yet even still, precious - important- to be treasured.   that said,

i nearly gave up more than once and deleted that last “piece “  -more than once - quagmire… that became my term of endearment for it…  it sat in drafts file- we waited for each other in different ways - for months.

so complicated in its way, because it was so stubbornly homogeneous and complete - a seamless entity; i felt it as a whole- very like a tree itself within its forest amidst Sagan’s billions and billions of… ahem. yes (see the onomatopoeia piece from 1/26/24).

the world presents itself to me thusly, and so simply  -  breaking it down to one word 

at             a                     time is …

rather daunting - patience more than anything else-but that’s largely what human language is and does- breaks it down to one word at a time- our version of language with symbols heard and seen… felt first and ever beyond their actuality or implication -, other versions of language abound and surround, just beyond apprehension-   i believe this because i feel/sense them “out there “ but words are what i land in/on - 

strange to love poetry and prose (and how i so do) whilst also holding such stark awareness of how short they fall in many many ways  - particularly and ironically,  this includes clearly communicating … much at all … (filling in the blanks with blanks, because words ultimately fail and in the stark reality of my own life, in many areas, i finally have nothing left to say, in a tandem existence with so much i wish i could effectively share).

and we’re off on another roll now aren’t we? which brings me to 

                     “fragments”-    

instead of branches connecting and spreading exponentially - each pair multiplied indefinitely -  paring back and down, going out on the singular l.i.m. (less is more).  just a limber twig appraised, appreciated and treated as the entirety in all its incompleteness- something so true about this.   

. ..  feel compelled to go there for a while or two…and hopefully, as well, along the lines of lineage and limber limbs (nice segue way), there’s more to be expressed/explored regarding poetry in motion- gestures rather than words.  whispering bodily wisdom and lithe linguistics that question - redefine the “norm.”

                as for the long awaited epilogue:      

 the signature scrawled by the storm was the striking number of trees that fell- all but yanked up and away by its gusty gutsy grip-  telephone poles too -for awhile afterwards, trucks and equipment all about and busy with clearing away - the forest service and/or parks and recreation guys broke the fallen trees down into reasonably movable logs and were swift about it.

but there was one-  i have pictures, but don’t think i managed to get a photo that did her situation justice. even being in 3 dimensional space with her, she can be easy to miss.

apologies, because i realize it is odd to assign a gender… for the record, i am referring to a tree….  (now in particular, because it feels impersonal and wrong to call it an “it” or “the tree”-  so…).  i saw her a couple days after the storm.  completely blown over but about a third of her roots were still sound and solid in the earth-  behind the zoo on that favorite route through the “private property.” i wondered and worried what the department decision would be about this case during the removal of casualties (which never never are at all casual). Sheldan and i checked on her often, and by grace, the parks service came to such a touching decision:

they let her be,      and now a year and a half later:

this is her root base 

2/3s exposed-

if you didn’t know to look for her, it’s pretty easy to pass right by- just a dirt pile and some bushes…

  … incorrect. 

     she is subtly quite upstanding - we have seen birds in her branches, but also bunnies …once, a little fox.

fragments about her:    a symbolic gift- my doppelgänger -

totem, or a high bar role model?  

depends on the day…

her exposed root base- those above ground - they’ve adapted to pull much from the ether - divining rods reaching for?  to meet new needs evolved beyond her former form.

 still in, but no longer quite of this world - 

limb it less - yes.    poetry in motion can be elusive- one might not even notice its movement- it’s not always graceful- ranges from angry mama bear endeavoring to protect her cubs, to furtive fecundity of poet trees, to … countless examples - hope to find a few and suitably, fragmentarily share via letting them speak

 speechlessly 

for themselves, toppling any and all conventional definitions of stability onto their sides.

4 Shadowed Forecast

   

shadows cast  out of 

nowhere, (though telling it now, from here, back-glancing, i think i felt them coming for a long time):                                                    big dark birds - falcons maybe - no ... what?                       probably hawks  -  wings purposed as freshly sharpened pencils tipped off to trace the wind; its ribbons of sensation made visible for us whom care enough to look up -  there by chance or luck -  coming right this way!???  hinting at the wind's naked grace, embanked across a wild peace of sky - older than timelessness, if only for a moment.    

questions shaped like Ezekiel angels, spinning rapture, spinning warnings,   

guarding, then falling as second shadows from my own within an almost, but never quite articulate echo.      

                                    a perfect storm - years ago, a movie  (with just that title),  a slow build up;  a hapless group of folks in a boat plus a rare combination of several rare meteorological phenomena occurring in exacting order and timing to allow for a particularly rare and awful violent storm.  Bam. Plus, George Clooney. Bam again. people use the term metaphorically now to describe a tragic or otherwise horrific and unprecedented event- brilliant in its awfulness, in a human life, individually or collectively. i don't wish to talk about that. 

BUT 

there can be graced "unlikely's" too, can’t there? maelstroms with no  mal(ice) - repurposing tumult towards soft hope and  secretly splendid mundanity within rare events that happen all the time every day- perhaps it’s just become rare for us to notice them. sublimity slips by our storm radar. i like the word maelstrom - i'd assumed it meant a malevolent (mal -bad) frenzy of a storm, but it's actually descriptive for whirlpools - water not sky - in unpredictable movement.  once, i met a particular storm miraculous  -  a dizzying progression of definitive items made from momentary thought and chance spinning towards lovely effect, even amidst sorrow and anguish  - such contrast can clarify and emphasize their worth, though so many go unnoticed.  i try to notice.    and so, i am obliged to give you this example etched in serendipity's generous analogues, it allowed our souls (Sheldan's and mine) to retrieve what we needed from the harrowing sky, upheld by the wings of compassionate hawks.  

meteorologists were happy to explain all the intricate components of the film's title, but i don't know all the pieces of the miracle that allowed our few minutes to come to bear - these here are a smattering of the jiggy pieces i was aware of- and they continue to endure, age well and hold in my very soul-memory.  

                                            +1   where does wind come from?

    a child's question sorely mistreated in an era of false gods: human’s secretly worshipping ideas.   where does wind come from?      as a child i asked and received -  some disappointed air molecules and different temperatures and pressure 

 and uneven heat and high low brow broo ha hoo hah  (huh?) even the adult couldn't have bought at heart level, edification synonymous to vandalism of all beyond imagination, stripping away the ineffable gasp we dearly need and somehow lost.                                 i imagine most children (sighing sighing long) long for something better somehow, something deeper  in mysterious and more truthful ways.   an abject "i don't know - not really..." from a wide-eyed, childlike unsure adult. i don't know ...

answers are easy to find and good for toppling-  like blocks, whereby we build another and then, same again.  could we spend more time in question realms-  remember quests?  important journeys , that we might arrive at even more uneven oblong lop sided lovely eye spinning four faced many winged angelic questions.     guardian seraphim arching over the children in hallowed recall -  the language of science humbled and hence, beautiful again  -  harken back to when we spoke about the music of the spheres, because first they spoke to us, and we were quiet enough to hear.        but most children eventually  get true questioning educated out of them …

 i never quit questioning-   i just stopped asking aloud. i waited. saved the ? as a sacred symbol, mysterious totem -      seemed important in a way i needed to trust. 

    severe and persevering longing:  stalwart expression manifest with a prayer in every gesture.   don’t just sit there glutting on religion or pious theological conversation - might be a reason they call that bench a pew...  gitty up and move; breathe - there are monks in Africa running marathons daily as a form of worship rich with vitality-not straight down concrete paths or on asphalt running tracks but within truefaced, benignly, roughshod whimsy- up down and through the jungly trees - bonus points for including spins and vine swinging.            

i should like to qualify here: i know some dear souls that have very close relationships with their particular churches-   i am absolutely not criticizing them or any church or religion.  i have also encountered a few fervent church goers that rankled with the sinister but they’re entirely off topic- not worth discussing (at least by me).  here, i am only calling into question the way we seem to have lost the plot- body as temple isn’t a mere metaphor.  let my words be understood, not as confrontational but as reminders- some of the lost, forgotten artistry in being human that renunciates treating a temple like a servant or even slave…or old testament “wife.”   (Shudder)

                                                                    consider the way human bodies are built- our joints, unique in rotational capacity - never mind contemplating the navel, marvel at whirly gig spinny wrists:     a relic from the ocean floor-  my hand affixed- a graceful sea frond caught on the air, sent out scouting to bring sensate impressions home.  

Our fascia spins through our form with the same template that gives dna 🧬 its shape - and those strands silhouette a fetus in the womb like the crossing patterns our limbs fall back into when we  sleep on our sides.   during slumber the body seeks its need- designed to spin through transverse planes. - rotational whirling dirvishes -  we’re ever in orbit of our selves and we  suffer the world where walking straight sidewalks and counting steps via devices counts for… any sort of accomplishment physically.  health clubs full of straight lines of equipment that encourage movement in the sagittal plane (aka straight line forward backwards upwards downward).

for most of (forgotten) history, we held movement in our fascinating forms to be the joy and gift it actually is. once it occurred as an expression of thanks unconsciously, steadily  -  watch a child play or almost any sport centuries before anyone counted ridiculous calories …

body language   poetry in motion           

                 

-whatever church didn’t allow dancing (baptist ?), prohibited one of the most potent forms of thanks giving and worship. 

                 + 2  forest monks -  

 buddhism practitioners living as hermits  -  dedicating their lives to the benefit of all beings. 

                     musical vibrational frequencies.   the profundity of all we can’t see that still affects us.   i am told  church bells used to toll at 432 megahertz -  a mysterious healing frequency that’s been largely replaced in today’s modern ear at 440.  the discussion goes on but i want to get back to forest monks.  - the intention, while living alone, to dedicate everything you do to other beings ... just that mere intention - radiating a frequency-  we talk about people’s auras energy vibes-  like that -  i imagine their life force hits gently, the 432 vicinity.- or something even more lovely - if not healing, then at least soothing towards this world’s mega hurts.    just to know they are there helps a little on some days ... thank you guys. 

imagine  if our species held forest monk intentions as their foundational premise, instilling it intrinsically into our children - a  way of seeing themselves and their world. but don't talk about it - don't brag about all the good deeds of your congregation or political party or how you gave that poor guy ten whole bucks ..... no.   don't say just be - be a church bell -  who are you when no one is looking - what is in your heart?  this- vs a right to the pursuit of happiness-   my guess is a forest monk's heart is a very happy place to be without pursuing anything. 

imagine a woman, nearly 60 years old, spinning through a forest, aspiring towards forest monk(eying  around)    with her golden retriever,   rather than striving to master the art of blending into shadow without becoming shade -falling down a hallway of locked doors ... imagine that maniac -  unlearned and asking, please help me understand me (elementary my dear watt son)  …

                           +   3  learning forest tree 101

the difference between a forest and the woods comes down to tree count per acre and some other features where   Sheldan’s forest  falls short, by literal exacting definition  - but hers is a forest for reasons the dictionary can’t quite reach out to touch.         to most eyes, its a semi-defiled space behind the zoo, expanding beyond itself -

it runs up along the back of the cage for the zebras and the buffalo. you learn how to navigate around concrete and structures, over or under fences and twisted rusting metal to find its beauty.

i've the same navigational challenges around finding my own - its worth working out the detours to create beautiful paths and patterns we understand intimately -in her forest, and in my heart too (i hope).

                       ( Weather Advisory):

high speed gusts exceeding 70 mph - damaging hail and reports of felled trees resultant from drought conditions and poor root systems. stay indoors.

gas gauge at empty 

          “ 10 dollars on pump  6 - unleaded please “

"uh the awful wind" the cashier  said, watching me as it whipped the door out of my hand to slam it shut. “no one likes the wind"

 she finalized.

  the awful wind - likely the most common comment to bounce by her cash register, while all day long she changed dollars into small talk and small change.   "ya' all be careful out there. don't let it blow you away ..."

and off we went at long last to retrieve our answer from the trees   ... (we were blown away).          

where does the wind come from?      

 on such a risky, ferocious day, going to walk around in a forest. might one or both of us been badly hurt?  - perhaps we already were and this was the only potential remedy -though that sounds ridiculous and i  can't really defend my choice to set out on such a day except - i didn't really think about it - it was just time for Sheldan's time.   a brief segue way here will likely be helpful towards explaining:

          (a bit about obligation and its etymology):

old school andy griffith gentleman - i remember andy often saying "i am much obliged."  to aunt bea for things like … chicken and dumplings   (?) …tracing back to texts gone to dust, the negative, grim duty implications for the word obligation - they simply weren't a part of its meaning.  scratch off modern day, quick dry surface definitions - is it under there? a hidden archaic aching master piece? maybe we've just forgotten. maybe it's not even true for us humans anymore. humus - of the earth - connected by humility, estranged by hubris.     obligation's Latin roots:   obligare

 obligatio  

being bound by duty but that bond is interdigitated with thanks - a debt   not infused with commerce - or if you want something you gotta give something -  love is not a trade.     and here is something else about  gratitude - in its truest form it is a form of joy. much obliged. thanks and reverence.   no if and but or also.  

we don't pray while walking, the walk, the walking is that already and our only prayer is thank you  -   obligation swaha (sanscrits for yippee!   loosely translated). obligation is a privilege -  seeing your happiness rescues me entirely from an unthinkable otherwise. much obliged to you Sheldan, and this upends to extend to how we are obliged (Sheldan and i) to frequent this forest with the best possible frequency's  we can,  via witnessing and loving it and offering it important questions  ....? courage whole hearted fearless     - is that enough?   i pray it is - it might be all i have,

         

  

a favorite route for us - on the other side of a private property sign. we weren't outlaws and had express permission from the landowners to wander in this "best spot." the man who decided we were "ok" on his land, told me Sheldan was beautiful; her colors complimented the grass and other landscape, particularly in the autumn - and he said i looked to tread lightly, as if my feet didn't much need the ground to propel me, so i wouldn't likely pose much of a threat to anything

 what a lovely thing to say… that touched me as one of the nicest things anyone has said to me  

                                                                   + 4 EXCELLENT BIRDS

 we’d just cleared the “No Trespassing “ fence when i first saw them 

-they flew directly and with purpose (seemed to me) to us,  then stayed.  4 of them set their wings and each in its own dance with the air currents, arabesqued, air a breast the space above our trudge -  how long?  i am not sure … maybe ten minutes or a bit less-  that’s a long time though for something like this. might it have been a coinciding dance coincidence, and they just seemed to be with us, but really would have hovered there regardless of our presence (?)  -  sure. i remember though, how it felt - it FELT personal -  they were there -with us - companions  forever in a way and there still or, at least, - 10 minutes -     and then just as they had come, they let go and allowed the wind to carry them away to gone.  

                                                        Melissa is  the one other person we tend to see in the forest,  regardless of temperature or weather.  she loves it here as much as we do, i really suspect she does- on our way back to the car, we met:     “did you see them?   those black birds or ... i don't know what color … all birds reel in; take on their shadows, in dark storms …if you saw (?) do you know?"

   she smiled "hawks - yes i saw - listen - that's them - that shriek/shrill call (?) - when they do that - stay over and travel with you like they did - that was something - it means - i forget what- something about compassion  love   courage  maybe… i forget but  - it’s a blessing ...you are somehow blessed - i remember that.”

what are the odds -  they chose a wind  that led to us,  readjusting the angle of wing to air - a bright light blade slicing away wrong directions and floating like lost  pages from a love letter,  finally into the intended recipient’s surprised hands (and paws).

  tiny web of bone affixed via joint to their bodies near the heart -wings architecture by design, holding up the heavens filled with the winds that lift the hawk and its cry.  needing no anthems of reverence,. they are themselves, the hymn.

prayer  answered even before uttered, long before, before … brow bent to altar in composition, the calm position of wing set across  turbulence- 

by the time mankind builds a temple, writes a sermon,  does sunday’s best dress for church, learns to play an organ, rehearse-   chorus- verse -   

 they are always already there - nobody likes the wind? the gas station clerk forgot about hawks-  or any winged creature that seeks out strong winds... just watch them:  just cuz.  not to get somewhere or accomplish anything-  more like humming  sacred tones with one’s essence. wing finding its identity as much in the wind as the feather and bone  - maybe most of all -  it looks like they are having so. much. fun.    and this - i imagine, makes the creator very happy - i imagine god 

beyond all imagining, weeping maelstroms of joy, obliged to this creation: hawk soaring in surging forest monk level frequency brought to fruition - poetry’s motion and all the rest... why though, by what graced occasion occurring. why on earth - it’s over our heads.   they saw our  SOS for

 ANY kind of warmth with only  skinless blizzards on the way  ...  those birds felt us and they answered and we were rescued-excused for a short time from time - a moment stuck, stranded,  and we 

            are much obliged (Sheldan and i).

                and            by the way 

 if a child ever asks you about the wind’s origin- according to hawks, it’s something like this:    ALL breath begins basined and tangled through root systems deep in earth's belly. it then rises with bellow-like thrusts through foot soles to heart/soul - the collected exhale from all and any breathing beings, is again recollected via tree branches and with these, redirected - conducted orchestrated …

of course, much more complex than this quick sketch but likely you already understood, albeit unconsciously, that your inhale was never taken  by you so much as given - and the exhalation - is let fall from your being back to the place it never left  - one’s very life participates in upholding the hawk that balances the whirling universe across its gracious back …  skeptical? good - maybe go ask a forest or one of its monks, for yourself 

Revisiting Flight (Myth of Separation)

Part ONE  -  Bird watching

                                                                                 Blue Jays:

   

                                                           come back to this:

separated by one heartbeat                      one 

heartbeat tactile                    a gasp

~a lifetime.

 I can sit,

 floor center and hold

 in my hands                 words, the uberspill from cupped-palmscattered around me.

to other eyes finding me here, just now, i must seem to have been 

searching for something -

torn my world asunder seeking,,,

futile.             futility

 ~ now 

defeated at the center ...

word scatter, 

spread seeds, the 

hand gestured

 release                           how a wrist spins length into opening fingers 

birds come in a phrase      unfinished

 FLIGHT

a triplicate triple felled - "shatter" - an incidental crash

pulling forth response upon encounter, 

then stopped.

speaking in unison - sharing the 

same thought

       same time. 

without intention.

you are not alone

I am not

 at peace with circumstance 

yet                                  

rest in it             the inevitable wrestle 

the tug of "if only" that moves thought and catch/resists time -

why                   didn't             i just

 leave before 

... too late

"your 'turn and run' muscles aren't firing properly." -

a physical therapist once told me this - yes really. 

travel each breath long,            long as a dream RECURRING IN A LIFE 

that is done.

fear's elaborate presentation -

a rolling whisperstretchingtight 

still stretching - remaining 

steely.                              startled into flight,

birds and parts of my own soul

respond to fear by reaching layers of wing across

the unknown            ........             holding there

without pattern in something wilder than chaos 

- unnamed and opening 

 into expanse -

ever shy of certainty un-coddled  

 locked down safe from safety

something in me

a capacity 

a rhythm

a line drawing and how again 

 the line's sometimes tangle

- momentum

ravels taut -             slowing, mottled irony - 

used light through overworked clarity; eyes adjust.

one becomes too used to the aged, 

dim daily din daily riveted to three steps ahead of

wherever the next footfall presents 

what this moment implies.

how to comport oneself through time's mine field   [?]       not a pessimistic question - just practical - just asking because sometimes times is like this: spinning dials dwelling in lost translations,                              from deeply grained to pristine surface.  

beneath simple speech, whatever the words, your dreamer-voice dreamy,    carrying otherworldly yearning; bones stretching past illusion into fine clear filament maneuvers, windows bending like sheets caught in earth's           warm breath hanging time's broken lines out to dry.    

 quiet webs built for beauty,                 not appetite's tight heartless threat, 

and wings             that don't stick to outdated journeys -  

there is no blood lust - just light - banded, filtered, carried on thin-plated sheets that reject reflection upon narcissus - ENOUGH. 

enough already.      already enough 

just now.    elegant thought 

without quest for knowledge. thought

 because sometimes thought just 

sets out  

and the wakened heart 

warily,

courageously

 follows.  

After aftershock after SHOCK after

 shock                                 

            shock after

a journey interrupted before much begun and then

same again, again seeking refuge -

bomb shelter itself, 

is the bomb.

the aftermath,

 where nothing adds up: 

they have habituated into using the word

trauma - this word does not help her - its tones ring dull.

she paces the length of speech,

sidelong glances past surface, to its vast

 lack. she loosens, streams into 

the gaps - before, during,

after ... expands.  

she's not spoken 

for weeks. 

 

silence, acutely exhausted. 

listen, nod, 

understand within a 

flat drop abandonment - 

herself of herself 

assuming form, lost

in the sound of 

sound.

                resuming deep study - subject:  the sky, reeducating herself on color and things 

before things had names, before 

the divisive unravel.  in the beginning of the end: word-ing - 

intellect-launched capacity to worship

itself.  cutting apart each

 moment 

in 

aphasia-like 

halts.  

there is no third person,

no different drum.

winds heavy with the scent of other lives,

leaking wet lavender brush fire - an arsonist's emotive pressure -

sore, inflamed and livid.  fast curves, stay focused on the yellow line.

somewhere, the elements collide and make 

rain made heavy with pulled down dust.

elevator drop-fail to catch itself - thunder shifts her heart to an anatomically 

unlikely location. 

in correct incorrect

- alleys full of couches without pillows, gutted appliances, dying plants 

and she grasps why some pretty things get ran dumbly

thrown away - lightening frames the inconsequential 

with reverence - this picture, here in the alley

 of her 

in an alley, gets missed by 

museum curators in the thick 

subzero.                                

warmer months, walking below a streetlight that flickers and dies - 

right as she's passing under.  does this happen to everyone 

or so often?   it's happened again and again ...

to happen.

the possibilities of taking one firm step towards 

any compass point leaves her spinning.

smoke odor, burning plastic, 

she walks through electricity towards anything carrying a pulse.

it is all carnival; there are men in

 shadow and she hears earth shifted by their feet.

no entrance to focus on, entranced, scattered energy,

all the places she's never been to, pulling. 

half sleepwalk, half-life, half empty - becoming another element, 

tasting salt - life giving. controlling the moon, the pressure 

of blood, a cliff eaten back, is still 

a cliff.  thoughts like and unlike this adrift and crashing against 

her stillness, in waves, their birth and aliveness,

 rich stores. moment initiates,

again, again.  

everything is always new. she is too tired to smile in the throes of her own madness 

and too polite to air its bright gloss tangles, all spit spark and greased slick TICKING.

she prefers incoherence, cacophony abstracted - this, she needs

so much. legs feel weak though they are

stronger than a man's - vocal chords sting with a song that has wanted inside her 

for longer than longing - soft and hoarse and filled still 

with ugly poetry men whisper to women 

who are lost.

she doesn't know why he touched her or his name -

 disconnected - a visitor to the hour

    un   frightened.

old memory. no safer from her than she is from it. 

un.  huge hands full of calluses that catch in her hair  

pinned down by the centrifugal force of 

her own awareness - coherent and calm and listening

to light burn out somewhere very far away 

but this streetlight, she was not there to see.

-   blood and ink - every writer tattoos this 

world. its flesh says only yes. 

even to the graffiti.

an utterance of night

that is curative - a salve murmur.   

the human perfume and chant in scent 

heard suddenly as if just delivered 

but vortexed in the old, old.  

ugly wax flowers fighting sunlight and steam 

- places where earthquakes occur daily - 

the rocks move more quickly - you can witness their breath

and direction - a willingness towards courage

to love - again - or just, in continuum: still and yet still. 

but travel only during nights 

without clouds - drink only one love's sweat and paint that likeness

in the sand - right on the fault line.  we all have them.  

she remembers this vow - she almost speaks - 

instead, closes her eyes.   

she's not spoken for weeks.  acute exhaustion 

in silence. she listens nods understands within 

flat drop abandonment - herself of

herself and how it assumes form studying 

the sky, reeducating herself on color and things before 

things 

had 

                               names ...

                                                                   

before 

the divisive 

unravel.  in the beginning of the end          cutting 

apart each

 moment 

in 

aphasia-like 

halts   ........  

Stuff the Cleaning Lady Thinks About ...

                                                             

                                                                                                                       

                                                              (Making Beds)

                                                                     not a poet not a poem - just

...thought quilts - lots of people collect scraps - scrap metal, bits of cloth, any scrap to fit a scrap book..

members of quilting bees save fabric swatches in  bags - my scraps are images, feeling tones,

moments of or from, then hunting past                     the material world;

the bag proper, is me, i suppose.  

writing, i grab at random, a handful, and  put them 

where they already actually are (together) sutured with scars sometimes, or

sometimes light; threads silky and fine - no matter what, they always

                             fit so easy.

in me, a wrinkled mess that in graced nano-second flash-inspiration, can be pulled taut, 

a fitted sheet - metaphors shift, tumble then settle back towards what is so vast, pointless

 and crucial,                          and so ascendant to a

thinking mind's splicing-ly specific topping and popping off topic-subject-word

one           at         a             time                                   logic is unreal somehow

tidily ugly amidst awestruck speechless everything all at once

don't mind me

 or my opinion

i am without drawn conclusion - drawing blanks, snapping open a blanket, smoothing 

a bumpy quilt aka comforter - (quite sew, for me) pulled up around my chin, i am not going out there,

 risking the divine, to debate or defend, fist on table, heart off-line,

                                                              ever again

                                                   (Dusting)

i don't believe in ghosts - he said - the dead desert us.

ghosts are among the living. (this to me, sounded so much

like statements of belief - like ghosts he could not see - but i said

nothing).                   yet even still, his words leave me deserted

and haunted.                   waking in the grey slivers at dawn's lead edge, to sweet

scented sharp warning: the shape of my mind and this day itself, are awry now and

from now on, strongly influence the shape of the moon, 

the moon the moon 

so much better than the sun,

 taking fierce light head on, to let me

look deep without fear, and wide eyed into its calm

 face. meanwhile, the first bird

long before dawn, somewhere between 3 and 2 a.m. folds itself open in and ode to

fractal patterns, reminding me that i am the green breath of a 

fallen forest which did make a sound in its falling, regardless of whom did

 or did not show up

to hear.

                                                                  ( [yes, she does do] Windows)

imagined absence beating back

illusion's persistence within cause/effect. enormous

moth hung at the window.

i hear only wing shuffle.

a deck of cards played 

in a gamble

at light's jawline.

my heart swarms there, held firm against the backdrop of "instead."

                                                      (Kitchen - wipe down stovetop, counters, sink)

thin-lidded, weak filter, eyes still feel you

 bright on the other side. 

 a glow -   out and far and to

and fro  from a cloud front

in backslide.

agile and weightless, thief-like anguish -

a flash temperature i can't

measure against my own skin, making itself 

clear as an "is not" is not there to touch, though

it does so touch me.  flowing slick, sibilant winter

entrained to the same soul same ol' silence, sown in

an in between that snuck through harvest time less

                              (Dishes - sink is below a window where she can see a factory)

few words in language, few that hold meaning to coax

unrest towards its fuller form: beauty - she asks much - but so gently, take care not to slip

by her request - an ash flicked off consciousness (like that) a pencil

lead feathered through soft paper, impressed and made right - just write

with greater speed than a hand can

longhand til the page lets loose innocuous flame

- sustaining itself yet unconsumed.

insurgent sensor

ship

in a base fog. the very ground lifts,

disperses, engages speech -

supple yet weak and loose-pivoting round through stifled inventions.

still, the lunar high pulse presses on - the first longing

to make it all last - silenced in and by its own

ineffable outpour it cannot edit or retrieve.

again abandoned again, left behind,

breathlessly leaning into the last breath where, i hope,

my ghost waits

and believes. 

onomatopoeia -

                                                 (ONOMATOTREEah)         

                                               

                                           

                                                        Traumnesia:

 a loss of recall, abandoned by all the shimmering echoes once left by life itself. . .                                                                       stranded, untethered in an ache for          

                                                          remembrance 

of what song(?),  once  carried in the heart, yet still uncontained, merging towards the tree line at the same point that the tree line moves back into my being, singing ... singing ....

 how one speaks to oneself:   aware of the participation with thoughts that rise too fast to be caught in words.                   my private lexicon.   recognized or no, every human has one ... part of what limits us to humanity ...

meanings, associated images scatter seed so softly - across sawdust or concrete -  growth nonetheless occurs - so swift, unconscious feeling tones below liminal lines - if pulled  together to produce some physical version of a book - a dictionary, "airy" indeed - mine, floating up out of the reader's hands and bidding or forbidding them to follow - come move through the world with me

                                                                       i will show you my language 

 ~words not defined with more words in endless tedium but defined with images -  things more often found in scrap books, or Lost and Tossed Antique Shops ....  

however,  even "cat" would not then simply have a picture of a cat - wish in a way it were that simple.

                                                                     it is not - not like that.     a tree would certainly not have a picture of a tree.  

but the word wisdom. 

there would be the tree.  having stated that words make poor tools for explaining or defining inner language, i now set out to use them towards explaining why i feel this is so

... a fool's errand.      

                                                       Defining Wisdom 

over the last year, the "wisdom tree" has become an  ungroomed forest tree with just a few limbs, maybe a couple,  fecund and foliaged, but most are bare: no longer growing or showing signs of new life. the whole of it still potent with a tender volition, it is clearly a life force - inclusive -shimmering with a silence that is and does what it does in love - at least that is what i see ... 

that's what i see and this is the pivotal point - how it does that - how it "knows" which branches to leave alone.   there are problems with that question in itself and why knowledge has NOTHING  to do with my dictionary's wisdom.           

                                    HOW TO DRAW A TREE

 recalling a favorite art class (and teacher) in college - on a warmer day nearing spring break, he sent us out to (wait for it...)  draw a tree.  the class scattered at distance for better perspective.  i sat with my knee resting on a big base root at the point it began its subterranean plunge. 

our teacher let us work for a couple hours, then gather to share what we'd done.   everyone else, and i mean every one - had a full drawing of the whole tree. lots of talented people in this class, so they were all very, very good .   mine was  ... i don't know .... it was nowhere near complete, and miniscule as compared to the whole; part of a part of a limb - i'd worked on one segment of a branch - striving to include every junction and crook  ~ following one, then going back and REALLY trying to be true to each unraveled, twining limb and its countless offshoots with each of those, same again,  sending out sending's ... from stick to twig to tendril.   thankfully, no leaves yet - imagine the vein schemes in every one of those  (and again, the root system with its mostly unseen implications)  -  i painstakingly over-describe what i went through in that couple of hours, intentionally,  i looked up synonyms (which I RARELY do but had few in my own recall)  for "branching out" and there aren't many that satifactorily invoke that thing trees do so well - the exponential tributary phenomenon. it occurs all over ... our bodies and the natural world - my drawing was an earnest attempt at the impossible, a pencil draft of possibility - looking back, i think too, i was drafting (most especially)  an image of the way my thinking mind presents thought itself. 

train of thought ...   not - no clear linear clean bullet train where word by word, one idea connects to the next in logical fashion and order, A pretty good metaphor for this - Lego blocks  -  clean fit  -    this to this - things make sense, yes yes that clicks for me - very satisfying -   

  

                                                           a problem: one place to fit one block (maybe two),  the Lego chosen is  not the only one that would have worked, though. we wish it so simple. it would be easier to be right. but there are so very many Legos  that also might have fit       

                              so we argue about this - which one the right one, well, the one i chose of course, and no other, ad infinitum, plus one .. that and not this, clickity click .. this and not that click clack - .

 and we surround ourselves with folks 

that agree with us                    

 because they are smart ...

like us 

and .... 

 - it's always already never  been Legos for me - the inherent ache in communicating via human speech - a grief built into its lack -            Legos cannot touch .... much.  not really.    "When you come to a fork in the road, take it (Yogi Berra)."    sage advice ... and humbling -  this conundrum, drumming my fingers at every fork with various varying prongs, pronging on and on .... 

                                          what rises to the surface, at a granular level - what word chosen in stark relief against that which is absent and must be left behind                                   as words must be one 

at a time. despite so many other possible directions in the might have been              

The Lego Solution does have its appeal - on the surface - a false comfort offered in  the age of reason - through its mechanisms we become logically "inoculated to mystery (Joseph Campbell)."  In my dictionary -years of acquired knowledge or learning or erudite scholarship or IQ or books read do not add up to wisdom 

... .... 

 French philosopher Derrida will not use the word KNOW unless he puts an x through it -Peter Attia (physician and researcher)  comments about research and the scientific method:  "no thought structure is right, but at particular times for particular people, they can be profoundly helpful .... until they quit working ...  (but) even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes." his skepticism might offend, but Ben Bikman PhD and many other care full researchers point out that science SHOULD be most skeptical, especially of one's own agenda and confirmation bias. We have lost this and  scientific enquiry has been largely replaced by consensus and science fiction.  

RESEARCH (versus)   INVESTIGATION (verses) 

 met so many people that "do their own research" by typing questions into their favorite search engine and clicking on a link they are predisposed to prefer.  This generally comforts them and reinforces their Lego pieces are the right ones. if they accidentally find something counter to this process, they can click again or talk to someone that agrees with them and will help them explain away any horrible encounter that may have rocked their certainty. 

whereas investigation requires an investment- it's time consuming, confusing and uncomfortable, if not painful (this might be a sign you are actually DOING it). it's likely to deconstruct some of your favorite Lego blocks down to bare boned false presumptions (those self evident truths we take as given to be correct but are often ... not).  investigation seeks asking unanswerable questions that open into more of the same and call one to wander into places where you listen to those people, once so disagreeable to your own sensibilities, and realize your beliefs were  lacking - missing something or maybe... yes ... ok.  you were wrong. you made a mistake ....     

i had a  counsellor that oh so gently corrected me in my word choices - when i said i had made a mistake and was wrong  -   she clucked her tongue and said a better way of putting that (espoused by more than one dharma teacher i've listened to)  is to say i was unskillful -

 i thought about that and well - a couple things - it could be something lost in translation to western culture, but i don't see this semantic shift as helpful (this probably deserves much more musing and elaboration -as does, about everything ... to my point - but  i will press on). Mis-take - what's your take on this?  ever been asked that?  what's your interpretation of .... something - and that is all we ever do as humans, and so. if you misinterpret. or mis understand - which is another thing we often do as humans - it is a mis-take.   i don't need flowery language to obscure this - it isn't a bad thing. i think it is quite skillful to say i was wrong. it was a mistake. 

i heard a story about Gandhi- i don't have the details, but he was at a huge conference and disagreed with someone about a line of text from a book they were discussing - they went back and forth - until someone provided the actual book so they could look it up. when it was revealed that Gandhi was incorrect, he started to laugh gleefully and say over and over, i'm  wrong, i'm wrong .....!!!

 a joyous event - i applaud such a gentle rebellion against hubris, and the unfortunate human stance that we could ever be "right."  being right is a fantastic way to stunt growth.  we risk dependence on it as more and more individual's habitually begin sentences with "I am a..." and then  identify with ideologies, labels, organizations - I am a democrat, nra member peta founder bra burner pacifist authority ... please see the sign in my yard and correlative bumper sticker .... gonna be hard to shift those beliefs if one's me maker is defined and infused by them.  

Lego my ego - a tree doesn't categorize or cling to any limb  - or judge its self as compared to its neighbor  - or perhaps even do the "self" thing at all - it's innate "wisdom" to know  which branches require attention so they will foster leaves and growth and which hold a dormant place in time at present time - still part of the whole, but inert in forward motion - archival somehow for the system - connected to a deeper ring in the trunk from a gone season.   

my mind's splatter paint ruminative tendency, heat lightening volleyed between memory and imagination - looking through its wild spinning schema  - towards them - the trees - how to hold an old branch without returning and tangling through its dormant intricacy - lost in replay  - all  the different reasons it's no longer in my present life. - neural branching beliefs and habits are tricky, those symbolizing relationship with others - particularly difficult - especially with those, now gone - by death or decision,  theirs or mine - i do not want them cut away -   there my be a place for bonsai or landscape services,  but not in my dictionary. not in my heart.

 - some of the most comforting, loving relationships i have currently are with beings (people and a dog)  that died some time ago. i still consult them and our connection is as good or better now than when they were alive - what about a branch like that?  still growing? just sketched in smoke, and only deeply past dusk - expansive where no one can see?  it still shapes me. 

 

                                           

                                                       Let go the Lego   

pushed far enough, most metaphors and verses start to break down.  left empty and open on wonder's doorstep and there is                                   - the branch  - in winter, full of dead leaves - how? the winds have gusted up to 70 mph amidst blizzard sub-zero, but still they 

did not let go.  

                                                   in mid-january, right after a cluster of yet more sub zero,   i noticed limbs - several - 

still in still semi-frigid, long shadow, holding already green buds - i broke one open because i couldn't believe -  it was not mummified from a past season, but fresh, sappy and bendy (and wishing i'd minded my own business and not done that).  what is that? my business?    maybe to share this, 

in a what ever way of some how, even with no one to listen - an awkward anonymous author setting  down word bunches, heart wrenched and run-on long towards  an ironic, silent offering ... a wordless, defining moment...  

  how many past times, passed by, unseeing, because we have the word "tree" blocking intimacy with   that being or phenomenon that has little to do with the word or concept (Legos tend to do what they are).    

                                                              the season of winter.   

 levels the playing field. not as a season of death, absence of life ...you simply can't tell - life might await anywhere in continuum -  is the branch without buds or leaves dead?    can it feel me here asking  - can it feel ...                                          WHAT IS THE      FEELING                         in feeling  from the inside out, without out or in - liberated from description and proclaiming.      then         saying, without script and reverence without scripture, scripting love and service without lip service                    questions not towards answer              questions branching into more of their own kind in kind  askance,               not toward eureka exclamation but a soft honor of possibility             humbled at the              anterior of what's possible  at all,                                                                                                                             and that most dear                       the  possible connection with a thought or another soul - as if i could ever be aloof to this, to you, whether you are here now or far gone, 

 those portrait lines retrace and skin scent rises ascendant, hidden fallen into the understory. 

if you are gone 

i will not fear you for that absence; 

 i will still sometimes call and recall you, aware there can be no voice on the wind to answer.  and in this i am fully human (humus - of the soil) and i don't know what to do 

 about that beautiful lively branch hacked away with a dull blade and a twisting fist.  how does wisdom carry this?  .

. 

                                     

                                                                  phantom limb syndrome

                                                                     2023 Christmas Tree

neverrmind  -forgetta bough dit -   what IS the nevermind - where is it - what is trapped or lost there - ?

  ~ hold the weight of absence with a strength that won't notice or complain about burden - 

                           dynamic memorial, without rumination -

                                       poet tree in motion -   . 

   

no recovering - just uncovering  

messages i sent to myself for so very long, refusing  to sign for delivery...   

every tip of every limb in its suchness, 

with or without a bud, in prophetic susurration - 'til hushed on the  weathered rim of unknowing,

                             whether it opens or not - suspended, ever in arrival 

                            upon a horizon of tender, intuitive brilliance, 

                       creating a collaborative netting to hold the moonlight secure, 

                                    yet free in its  sojourn  through NOW's vastness. 

 "  ....   who we are is how we mourn .... (line from past entry somewhere in this blog)."