On Being

I am so amazed at times that I am actually alive.

How different we see things, you and I. I wonder at times how I came from you. And grew. And learned. And transformed. Into this difference.

But as the poet says:
“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you.”

I can’t breathe for beauty. An idea expressed so perfectly.
We cannot own another. We may give our love, but we cannot give our thoughts.

Between my new watercolor paper and the after-energy and delight of an excellent story, film, and childhood memory (Little Women), the creative juices are bursting from the seams.

And so I share some (un)ambiguous thoughts with the world wide web.  Honestly though, Life is pretty awe-some.

Reading: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and The Once and Future Great Lakes Country by John Riley
Listening: Lights of Endangered Species by Matthew Good

Much love,
Thoughts from the AM.

To obscured moments

I could try and describe this
This coordinates, compass points, the quick step of contour lines
Slip into these karst cave holes in our memories of moments
That occurred here
And here

But a forest of metaphors only obscures the trees
So lie down now
Belly spooned to dull stone spine
The collected seductive sedation of sediments

–  Excerpt from Tanis  Rideout’s Reclamation

I like her beginning. I could try to describe this.  (Whatever this is.) But my metaphors only obscure the trees. Or in this case, the Lake. And the sky. 

I was looking for poetry about Lake Ontario (there is not enough. If you know of any, please direct me to it!), and came across the name Tanis Rideout (poet). I could only find this video, of her performing the piece “Reclamation” on Sarah Harmer’s (singer-songwriter) “Escarpment Blues” tour/documentary film. “Escarpment Blues” promoted the protection of the Niagara Escarpment and protested proposed quarry development.  (I’m only learning about this now, so I’ll have to do more research, and look up Rideout’s and Harmer’s other work!)

When Death Comes

by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.