Tulips glow in the late winter sun / Dec. 2011
"Last night I dreamed -- blessed illusion --
that I had a beehive here in my heart
and that
the golden bees were making white combs
and sweet honey from my old failures."
~ Antonio Machado (thanks Mitza)
Colors on a peaceful late fall morning / New Jersey / Nov. 2011
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
~ What the Living Do by Marie Howe
The miracle of spring, the power of a manifesto / April 2011
"Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection."
~ from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry
This is what your brain feels like while reading through the maze of "ten-forty-anna"
Tax Return Instructions Haiku:
Income from sources
both legal and illegal
is subject to tax
~ Exact phrase from 2010 Form NJ-1040 Line-By-Line Instructions for "Line 25 - Other"; page 28
(Really? I can't believe it actually says this. Does New Jersey condone illegal income? Can you shed some light Mr. Christie?)
Just before late summer sunset at the chapel in the sky / Sept. 2010
“Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.”~ an excerpt from "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour" by the poet Wallace Stevens (born in Reading, PA)
Continue reading "We collect ourselves into one big thing" »
Mitza's reading / Sept. 2010
“You never know what may cause them, tears ...
You can never be sure, but of this you can be sure: whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are but more often than not, god is speaking to you.”
~ an excerpt from Tears by Frederick Buechner
“The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population. That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’ It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair. This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote.”
~ Congressman Alan Grayson
Today Congressman Alan Grayson introduced the Public Option Act, that would allow all Americans to buy into Medicare at cost. The bill is 4 pages long and lets any American choose an unsubsidized Medicare option over private insurance. The bill requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish enrollment periods, coverage guidelines, and premiums. Because premiums would be equal to cost, the program would pay for itself.
On the mountain / Mt. House / Feb. 2010
Anthropomorphism has its place. It's
a starting point, at least. So, I'll say
if i have eyes, then a mountain has eyes,
and whatever happens after that
is poetry, where i become lost,
and there are no conditions, no
consequences. There's only the mountain,...
Watery springs gossip sweet news, gurgling
falling from my throat, calling,
calling, calling: come, always, I Am
here; I Am/Mountain all around, above,
below, within. Come, there is nowhere to go...
I AM/singing, the Sound that is always here...~ an excerpt from How to Talk with a Mountain by Elaine Maria Upton
At the garden's end / New Jersey / Feb. 2010
“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”~ Emerson, The Snow Storm
“The essence of a thing is always elusive and hidden. The dream of art and prayer is to come nearer, even to slip through to dwell for a while in the vicinity of the essence. Daily life is blurred. We live between endless layers of darkening and occasionally brightening veils, but for the most part we remain outside the walls of what Kant affectionately called: 'the thing in itself.' We manage merely to live in the neighbourhood of things. Their essence is beyond our reach. The essence of a person is even more elusive. The medieval mind used the word 'ineffable' to suggest the essence of individuality. Your essence is the utter 'isness', the utter 'youness' of you.”
~ John O'Donohue, The Beauty of the Flaw from Beauty, The Invisible Embrace
