Bear Us Tenderly

An Improvisation for Angular Momentum

Walking is like

imagination, a


single step


dissolves the circle


into motion; the eye here


and there rests


on a leaf,


gap, or ledge,


everything flowing


except where


sight touches seen:


stop, though, and


reality snaps back


in, locked hard,


forms sharply


themselves, bushbank,


dentree, phoneline,


definite, fixed,


the self, too, then


caught real, clouds


and wind melting


into their directions,


breaking around and


over, down and out,


motions profound,


alive, musical!

Perhaps the death mother like the birth mother


does not desert us but comes to tend


and produce us, to make room for us


and bear us tenderly, considerately,


through the gates, to see us through,


to ease our pains, quell our cries,


to hover over and nestle us, to deliver


us into the greatest, most enduring


peace, all the way past the bother of


recollection,


beyond the finework of frailty,


the mishmash house of the coming & going,


creation’s fringes,


the eddies and curlicues.

~ A.R. Ammons

Even With These Kinds Of Invitations

Any Time

How long ago the day is


when at last I look at it


with the time it has taken


to be there still in it


now in the transparent light


with the flight in the voices


the beginning in the leaves


everything I remember


and before it before me


present at the speed of light


in the distance that I am


who keep reaching out to it


seeing all the time faster


where it has never stirred from


before there is anything


the darkness thinking the light

~ W. S. Merwin

Restlessly Angled

Each Day We Rise, Some Of Us Early

In this muted-silver hour

the clocks are at work

faultlessly tick-tick-ticking,

while the sun beats hard

to burn away the mist

still lingering, midst 

a well-trodden path.

The sun's shine moseys

much like the mind –

each settling silently

beneath sedative sleep.

But pinch I must,

this semi-dream state,

though it proffers

an immense sense

of freedoms.

As the day breaks,

I, the listener,

reluctantly search
for an exit.

Moving slowly,

I direct my feet toward

that other world –

h  e  s  i  t  a  n  t  l  y, 

stepping

away

from

the world,

existing 


within.

Common To Us All

As in some of this sites other posts, click the title 

to hear the inspiration behind the image.

Poised Somewhere Between This Song And The Next

If It Be Your Will 

If it be your will

That I speak no more

And my voice be still

As it was before

I will speak no more

I shall abide until

I am spoken for

If it be your will

If it be your will

That a voice be true

From this broken hill

I will sing to you

From this broken hill

All your praises they shall ring

If it be your will

To let me sing

From this broken hill

All your praises they shall ring

If it be your will

To let me sing

If it be your will

If there is a choice

Let the rivers fill

Let the hills rejoice

Let your mercy spill

On all these burning hearts in hell

If it be your will

To make us well

 And draw us near

And bind us tight

All your children here

In their rags of light

In our rags of light

All dressed to kill

And end this night

If it be your will

If it be your will.

~ Leonard Cohen

Long, Long I Muse

As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods

As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods,

To the music of rustling leaves kick'd by my feet, (for 'twas autumn,)

I mark'd at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier;

Mortally wounded he and buried on the retreat, (easily all I could understand,)

The halt of a midday hour, when up! no time to lose--yet this sign left,

On a tablet scrawl'd and nail'd on the tree by the grave,

Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

Long, long I muse, then on my way go wandering,

Many a changeful season to follow, and many a scene of life,

Yet at times through changeful season and scene, abrupt, alone, or in the crowded street,

Comes before me the unknown soldier's grave, come the inscription rude in Virginia's woods.

Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade.

~ Walt Whitman

It Is As If It Becomes The Thing

The world rests in the night. 

Trees, mountains, fields, and faces 

are released from the prison of shape 

and the burden of exposure. 

Each thing creeps

back into its own nature

within the shelter

of the dark. 

Darkness is the ancient womb. 

Nighttime is womb- time. 

Our souls come out to play. 

The darkness absolves everything; 

the struggle for identity 

and impression falls away. 

We rest in the night.



~ John O'Donohue

Always Within

Colour-Fast And Glassy With Light

Early This Morning

And Who Is To Say It Is Useless

Riding Out at Evening

At dusk, every thing blurs and softens..

from here out over the long valley,

the fields and hills roll up

the first slight sheets of evening,

as, over the next hour,

heavier, darker ones will follow. 

Quieted roads, predictable deer

browsing in a neighbor’s field, another’s

herd of heifers, the kitchen lights

starting in many windows.  On horseback

I take it in, neither visitor

nor intruder, but kin passing , closer

and closer to night, its cold streams

rising in the sugarbush and  hollow. 

Half-aloud, I say to the horse,

or myself, or whoever, let fire not come

to this house, nor that barn,

nor lightning strike that cattle.

Let dogs not gain the gravid doe, let the lights

of the rooms convey what they seem to. 

And who is to say it is useless

or foolish to ride out in the falling light

alone, wishing, or praying,

for particular good to particular beings

on one small road in a huge world?

The horse bears me along, like grace, 

making me better than what I am,

and what I think or say or see

is whole in these moments, is neither

small nor broken.  For up, out of

the inscrutable earth, have come my body

and the separate body of the mare:

flawed and aching and wronged.  Who then

is better made to say be well, be glad, 

or who to long that we, as one,

might course over the entire valley.

over all valleys, as a bird in a great embrace

of flight, who presses against her breast,

in grief and tenderness,

the whole weeping body of the world?

~ Linda McCarriston 

Things I Know, But Don't

The tree keeps evolving upward toward the inspiriting sky –

stretching, searching, never ceasing to give up.

It wants to know everything that exists surrounding it, 

while allowing air to pass freely through its modest open windows.

. . . . .

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, 

have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, 

and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what

"the story of the trees" would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, 

or we ears fine enough to understand.  

~ Author Unknown

Saying Nothing Yet Gesturing

Clicks at a time

something unique is caught,

y i e l d i n g –

in some regards,

a sense of

completeness.

 And so it is,

without direction,

the eye moves toward

different perspectives,

born of a moment

of individual attention.

It is a process.

 Today,  tomorrow

and yesterday –

fragmentary pieces

pour out as ink,

while others remain
stuck in the freeze of time.

Flowing Freely

Into the air various letters were flung. Instantly they fell – soft like drops of rain, scattering hither and thither. Drawn to the scene, carefully I look around and begin to play with the possibilities that exist between the letters and I. Individually they disappear and then come again, in a different form. Anxiously my hand begins to scribble the life of their voice, carried by my thinking and lead by a thread of thought. Soon enough something is discovered that the letters had previously neglected to tell. Into my mind various words were flung.

Walking Into The Sunlight

I am

not lost in you,

though your lovely spirit

consciously exists,

intriguing and beautiful –

lost, I am not.

. . . . .

Your hushed mysteriousness

in these privileged moments

is what I draw on – but wait, 

in the silence of this hour
you have secretly broken free…

In Altered Tones

Within this misty silence

a peacefulness is glimpsed.

In altered tones,

a simple image speaks.

I am touched awake,

clinging to its heavy abandon.

Looking around, I witness again,

and again, the hem of the spider,

laced so brilliantly with morning’s dew.

Closing my eyes, I breath deep

the world, as it begins its daily assembly.

Reluctantly I turn, stepping away from the cold, 

yet I see myself still, standing there gathering thoughts.

Then the image is gone – returning, I suppose, 

to the home and everything else it had previously fled.

. . . . .

And yet there is only one great thing

To live and see the great day that dawns

And the light that fills the world.

(old Innu song)

In This Block Of Daylight

Affected Trajectories

It is not the destination that counts

but the journey we take to get there.

Thinking…

…Still Thinking

In This Place Where We Are For A Moment

One Day Or Maybe One Night

Once I heard a song

and then I had an image.


. . . . .

The two

f  l  o  w   f  r  e  e  l  y

once again.

In what the mind reveals,

a certain movement is noticed

as the lines, the colours 

and the music refine themselves.


. . . . .

Something contemplated,

one day or maybe one night.

Poetical Metaphors

In Hours Like These

My friend took a sand dollar in his hand

and tossed it horizontally across

the open emptiness of the Pacific Ocean.

It skipped ever-so-swiftly across the water, 

tickling the surface, producing a ripple of thought –

willed by a force in the flick of his hand.

And You Are Gathered Into It

Intertwined Processes

Within my frame of thinking

I think a flower.

Immediately I colour it pink –

staying within the lines.

Next,

I paint a vase

for the flower thought.

Already Given To Memory

To Be iS To Do

Your work

is going to fill

a large part

of your life, 

and

the only way

to be

truly satisfied

is to do

what you believe

is great work. 

And the only way

to do great work

is to love

what you do. 

If you haven't found it yet, 

keep looking. 

Don't settle. 

As with all matters of the heart, 

you'll know when you find it. 

~ Steve Jobs 

. . . . .

RIP

Hushed Certainties

Endless Dialogues

In Some Out-Of-The-Way Place

Inimitable

So vast, so rich, so everlasting –

the mystery of nature and

its diverse mixture of strategies.

Forever it pendulates

within time's passing –

stimulating and colourful,

it is unlike any other.

It Is Illimitable

I looked tenaciously to poetry

TO NAME

TO TELL

TO AVOW

the meticulous order of things.

. . . . .

This is what

I want to know…

To know

something more

of the abandoned house

existing still

at the farthest edge

of an open field,

dotted with stones

and crickets.

To recognize

the principle of a thing –

the paradox of feeling

held in the

desolation,

isolation,

mysticism

of its modest landscape.

. . . . .

It is crucial.

It is everything.

It is an exhaustive effort.

You have no idea

where the words are going.

It is

what is
there

developing.