Elegiac Simplicity

The Innocence Of The Scene

While out walking on this beautiful day,

attached to my own venerable solitude,

I glimpsed a gorgeous autumn leaf,

finding ease and rest by the side of the curb.

Looking up, I spotted the tree from which it fell

and noticed yet another leaf twirling, then floating

with such a sleepy, effortless tranquility, down toward me,

as though lullabied by the wind’s sweeping breeziness.

Sadly, I could not hear its primal cry

and the innocence of the scene became 

all the more affecting as the leaf, 

by force of nature, pirouetted to the ground.

Newly severed, it lay limpid and mute,

yet its plume of flame continued to blaze

with such splendour and acute simplicity,

even though one day, it would vanish into nothingness.

The falling of a leaf is a simple, common occurence,

yet I am constantly filled with overwhelming wonder

as the beloved, sometimes ignored background

of this earth awakens me to its serendipitous circumstances.

The Light In That Hour

As we travel through our days, sometimes something takes hold of us, be it an image or thought, and it stirs our imagination. As we become captivated by its essence, we find ourselves leaning closer into it, in hopes of getting a better view. As certain moments lend themselves to us, we are overcome by an almost immediate vocabulary, where each phrase cumulatively formed, forms another, until suddenly one can’t help but acknowledge the knit of each word.


Take for example, the image of this goat. On first glance it appears to emanate a language all its own, yet I continuously struggle to grasp even the slightest melody of its spirits inner song, which I realize, could remain too deeply intact for one to gauge. This shadow of a body caught in another hour, has become a fixture of sorts to my story, embedded here in this spot.


Yet as I reflect back a day or so ago when I first approached this scene, my interest had not been peaked. I was not at all bemused by the way in which the goat had silently leapt within the parametres of my view. The sight of it was nothing at all, something that I’d probably barely ever remember.


Yet now, not only my attention, but my whole soul is suspended, however briefly, to the warmth of its attributes as it comes to me, saved in this light. My thoughts begin to sway langorously as my eyes stare into those eyes scanning mine with a somewhat reflective opacity and I am centred in the lull of our gaze.


This figure fixed forever to this space and looking as though caught in mid-dream amid the drift of a September haze, leaves me in search of an answer. The question being, "Where is it within each minute of our day, that time presents us with a clear statement in acknowledgment of what is and what we initially see?” Surely, like mist from a river that lifts in the hush of an autumn day, this query too will be lifted, when by happenstance, the answer is presented within a moment’s wonder. Such is the folly of my long-winded thinking.

The Idle Dance Of Spent Leaves

I have become restless, like one caught in the dance of spent leaves that idly fall, drift, and coalesce within the dank undergrowth. Emotions seem to swell then fade beyond the borders of my hearts forbearance as I witness my spirit pale, standing at a distance from the place I once called home. Peeking in, for nostalgia’s sake, I desperately try to honour the reflections of the place that held my past.


The finality of an absence sits heavy and unbudegable deep inside me. All those former joys, once saturated with significance, feel now as though they are lost to me forever. There is nothing left of the panorama that embraced me as a child, save for a few overgrown trees and shrubs. The house and its contents, disrobed of all reticence, have completely vanished. Pausing in this frame of mind, I think about the toppling of that life that was once so vividly lived, that now rests remote, in both time and idiom. Curious, this combination of familiarity and stark unreality that hits you.


Glancing at that landscape that held and guided me from season to season, I feel now as though the earth is no longer aware of the child I was at that point in time, and I begin to feel sharp pangs of dissappointment. But I come here as part of the process, slogging through each moot point, even as my soul requests I turn, turn, turn back to that beginning, toward that initial diminutive. Though I speak differently now, than the child I was, I am always discovering remnants of that girlhood that rests atop the worlds forgotten ledges. No matter what, I will always be rooted to this now impotent soil, where daily life was once majestically cultivated. In time, surely this heaviness will dissipate, as I am lifted back to a more simpler present which must exist somewhere within the din of the busy world.


As I look closer with a more conscious state of mind, I catch a faint glimpse of a single burnt-orange rose, whose petals are resting just outside memory’s perimeter. Maybe the spot where the rose resides is where ones wisdom can be reclaimed as it appears before me, in perhaps a spirit of give and take. As it bends toward the light and this raw human need, other structures of consciousness emerge, slowly creating an inner coherence of so many things. Shaped by forces primary and irreducible to Mother Nature, the rose works in shifting my reality toward new perspectives with a global, timeless manner.

Fleeting Landscapes

There is something to be said about the graceful ways in which our days unfold. Though I try hard to conceive their fleeting landscapes, the days all too quickly vanish, dissolving into the vast untranslatable universe. Each separate slice of memory re-emerges in time, but I am unable to name or place individual pieces that butt up against the world's rough enchanting edge. Somewhere out there I dwell, content in the transience of such moments, pausing within the extremities of their environment. One is always in search of those intriguing dreams, those illusive encounters, those configurations of a day, summed up simply as pockets of truth that we take to be real within the cusp of deep perception. We find harmony in the shapely cut of our finely wrought landscape and in the way our lives navigate the roaring currents of time and its unmapped geographies.

A Timeless Naked Practicality

Flowers are things of beauty – so wild, free, and spontaneous. To be overcome by their fragrance is a kind of distant, forgotten joy. Their scent is found within but is never walled off. As we enjoy the air we breathe, so too, does the flower. Each variety exudes a certain timeless naked practicality that surges forth from their silent eyes, offering an intimacy disclosed only within the stricktest anonymity, revealed with a quiet incisiveness in tones devoid of excess. Though some remain haunting and inaccessible, others equip us with a vibrant new vocabulary, wrapped as we are in their long living metaphor.

On This Evening While I Walk

Beyond Remembering

Lured by the aroma of fresh-cut hay, I threw on my coat and headed outside. Barefooted, I immediately ran towards the nearest field. It was early morning and the dew could still be seen and thus felt, clinging to the tall blades of grass. Once through the barbed-wire fence, I skipped lightly over to a fresh-cut bale of hay, one of many that dotted the landscape, and cozied up to its puffed outer edge. 

Just beyond the spot where I had positioned myself I noticed above me a small whisper of birds, hovering between the grassy green earth below and the cloudy blue sky above. As the sun beat hot upon my brow, I began to sense that Mother Nature was observing me, held in this suspended mood while time vanished into the scenes vast expanse.

Suddenly, my eyes caught sight of an opening in the sky and as though struck by some sort of grace, I was brought out into the fields as witnessed, long ago in my youth. Every summer we would gather hay, truckloads full. After a couple hours in the sweltering heat, I always exemplified an indelible thirst and could hardly wait for the water canteen to touch my hands. The cool canvassed bag felt so refreshing as water seeped through its pores. The days were hard back then, yet we were happy in their pale morning light.

I fell deeper into a fathomless reverie and visual images of loved ones jostled in my head. Inside, I was aware of nothing but the echo of voices and traced images that swirled like a flutter of butterflies. Fragments of dialogue resurfaced with a haunting quality that lent such depth and texture to that interior landscape. I was more than eager for reunion, surrounded within the realms of that holographic haze.

Impressions began to formulate of the many friends and family members whose love and laughter over the years had touched my life, leaving a distinguishable mark. And though many of their voices have been scattered through the swirling winds of away back when, time endears but cannot fade the memories that their loving kindness imparted. And like any well-kept secret hidden within, we are able to rejoice time and time again as we recall those mute fond remembrances tucked deep and held close at the core of ones heart.

As each apparition appears before my eyes with a different kind of clarity, once again I find myself mourning their loss. A silent, placid awe fills my heart as my emotions start to exude a certain kind of piety. My soul cleaves to the grand collage of all those who have passed on, yet an interior canvas that holds each of their images reassembles itself once again.

Wrapped up in this strange intimacy, I am brought back to the scattered regions of revelation as single bits of truth and brief snippets of wisdom arrive, still gracefully intact. It brings about a sober honesty as each face recalled seems to reflect an individual kind of hidden wisdom. Each image becomes very distinguishable within this depth of insight, yet there is something fleeting and evanescent about their constant succession. 

These tokens of friendship and its continuity enters each of us in curious ways. Every minute detail of fond remembrances becomes encrusted in memory and we are never fully aware of their islets of meaning until their next resurfacing. Those who have bestowed on us their special gift, offer something beyond what was ever required by circumstance. The steadfast inertia of their love, delivered always with the grandest measures of pride and humility.

A distant kind of joy surrounds me, arriving from all sides. And then, as though by conspiracy of grace, this private space falls silent and I find myself at the edge of a high precipice. It is at that moment that I realize the love of family and friends comes to us unbidden, and we must learn to appreciate its blessing while it nurtures our souls, smoothing the sharpest of edges. As our hearts awake to gifts of love, may we continue to receive its grace throughout the scattered links of our existence.

Subsiding within the various pixels of nostalgia, I begin musing over their mystery, drawn out by time and engraved in ones mind. As both light and shadow apply their alternate brushstrokes to ones reality, little by little the interior landscape reveals itself and a new spirit, if allowed, begins to pulse. We can all be comforted within the space of such intimate reverie and be anchored once again to the soft sound of our own breathing.

I have become a firm believer that we should try and steal away from our familiar surroundings as the day offers each of us invites into its boundless depths of possibility. As the hours open before us, one after the other, surely we can find time for ourselves. In doing so, I feel we can become more observant, more focussed and more able to muster those diverse acuities of the mind.

Far off in the vastness of contemplation we are able to resurrect details and dramas while looking back on the receding perspectives of time that exists somewhere far beyond remembering. Wrapped up in this sentimental embrace my spirit responds with an intense longing and I am always touched with a certain sweet religious melancholy, left in the wake of each receding hour. Yet, there exists a strong sense of elation and freedom that offers a brief reprieve as the minutes press on and the day resumes its previous pitch.

Isn't it amazing how some luck into a spot as though pinned there by chance. As the chapters of our lives circle back again and again to certain people and the love they've inspired, it becomes not only a blessing but also a teaching. But, how do we endow it all with a proprietary name so as to convey to others its elemental pulse?