Drawn To The Window

Trying To Unearth Something Unheard

It's Not Just About The External Event

Open To A Lot Of Different Assumptions

I Saw The Landscape As Reflecting

Undisciplined Habits Of Mind

In a similar way

a blur of colour moves,

thought breaks apart, 

until words on a page combine.

In the foreground

I picture several things but wait

for some form of meaning to amass.

Already how much heavier

my thinking becomes, even before

the imagination is able to pin down a vocabulary.

My mind sweats, shape-shifting words

in an effort to create a language equal to the breadth

of that particular vision in a similar way a blur of colour moves.

For A Brief Spell

NATURE!

We are surrounded

by her

and locked in

her clasp: 

powerless

to leave her, 

and 

powerless

to come closer

to her. 

Unasked and unwarned

she takes us up

into the whirl of her dance, 

and hurries on

with us

till we are weary

and  f  

                                                                         a

                                                                               l

                                                                           l

from

her arms.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I Tried To Picture It

As happens sometimes, 

a moment settled and

h      o      v      e      r      e      d 

and remained for much more

than a moment. 

And sound

stopped 

and movement

stopped 

for much, much more

than a moment.

~ John Steinbeck

Liminal Space

Sidetracked

If you can find even a hint

of inspiration in any of this, 

may that singular tiny spark

dance freely through your soul.

Of Mystery And Fate

A Space Of Emptiness Rekindled

This pillar-like sculpture meticulously pieced 

together atop a weathered wooden plank. 

. . . . .

A poetry of stones tactfully recreated 

through the medium of a man-made pile of rocks –

its massive bruise-like complexion,

regally illuminated by the glory of the sun.

Elements of Colour – Strong And Compelling

Entranced, the mind quickly plots

for a way to preserve the scene –

so natural and all-embracing this

momentary rupture of colour.

Drenched In Scattered Thoughts

Earthy moments.

Transfigured rocks.

Loud and fast.

An appetite for talk.
The river.

. . . . .

Graceful and ferocious

its sacred text – forever flowing,

teaching, teasing out subtle insights,

reaching what it aims for.

Nearly Forgotten Portions Of A Life

So well hidden from the crowd, these leaves.

So old, but beautiful – glamorous enough.

So intent on giving up the game.

So attached to the play of time

in this world in which they are embedded.

So unstoppable, the forest's actions,

its ongoing code of behaviour, seasoned with panic.

. . . . .

The leaves finally succumb as the rest of the forest

carries on in silence, sinking into a deep, sombre reverie.

And All That Remains Falls Into Place

To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.

In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

~ Dag Hammarskjold

At That Border Of Silence

Inaudible Influences

Every moment, from very far or very near, minimal interventions emerge. From their shadows they appear – these small mercies just sprouting up. In the wake of some modest publicity they gently lift us out of ourselves. Polite their plea – a sweet diversion of sorts, 

to the routine of our day.

The Mind Triumphant Like The Spirit

Insofar As The Eye Can See

An order coheres

in a climate of winter.

                                                *            *                   *

                                                       *              *

                                                                             *

                                                                 *

An element of poetry

multiplies a hundredfold

under a bed of white.

Intricately Precious

The world becomes somewhat artful. 

Its delicate curve excellent enough

to encourage a new turn of mind.

Untitled

There is always that in poetry
which will not be grasped, 

which cannot be described, 

which survives our ardent attention, 

our critical theories, 

our late-night arguments. 

There is always 

(I am quoting the poet/translator Américo Ferrari) 

"an unspeakable where, perhaps, 

the nucleus of the living relation 

between the poem and the world resides".

~ Adrienne Rich

In Ways You Never Expected

Your handwriting.

The way you walk. 

Which china pattern you choose. 

It’s all giving you away. 

Everything you do shows your hand. 

Everything is a self portrait. 

Everything is a diary.

~ Chuck Palahniuk

Surrendering With A Certain Hesitation

To Understand Its Perceptibility

Where the world ceases to be 

the stage for personal hopes and desires, 

where we, as free beings, 

behold it in wonder, 

to question 

and 
to contemplate, 

there we enter the realm

of art and science. 

If we trace out what we behold 

and experience 

through the language of logic, 

we are doing science; 

if we show it in forms

whose interrelationships are

not accessible

to our conscious thought

but are intuitively recognized

as meaningful, 

we are doing art. 

Common to both is the devotion to

something beyond the personal, 

removed from the arbitrary.

~ Albert Einstein

To Dust Be Returning From Dust We Begin

I meant to ask you how to fix that car

I always meant to ask you about the war
And what you saw across a bridge too far
Did it leave a scar…

~ Emmylou Harris (Bang The Drum Slowly)

Enter Into Its Speechlessness

A Light Uplifting, Breaking Through The Hours

“And that was what she often felt the need of – 

to think; well, not even to think. 

To be silent; to be alone. 

All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; 

and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being

oneself. 

When life sank down

 for a moment, 

 the range of experience

 seemed limitless.”

~ Virginia Woolf

Without Elaborate Preparations

Mindful of its fall,

the eye eye’s the leaf

hung like a work of art

midst an aging landscape.

Breezing in by chance,

the leaf and I.

Drawing Attention To The Flux Of Beauty

Her complexion dramatically changing

before the season's completion.

. . . . .

Within the hour

you enter a room.

Everywhere you look

colours are burning.

The fire awakes in you,

an impassioned excitement.

You p a u s e,

shift, then turn, 
just as a gush

of fresh air 

                                                         m

                                                     i      s        a        t

                                              d                           n         e

                                                                                  l        

                                                                                          s 

the omnipotent
pit of depression –

grounding you with 
positive, restorative steps

until journey’s end.

Curious Dimensions

She no longer exists inside this vacant house, but her spirit lives on…

. . . . .

She wishes it would all go away – the imbalanced inflections that have recently settled upon her will. As energy is spent toward fragments of thought, a great aching loneliness crushes her spirit of self-reliance. Minute details pile up in her psyche, twining midst the dark and the light. Images rise then fall within the unease of the mind and its curious dimensions.

Outside, not a breath of wind stirs. Inside, a deep-seated impassivity binds itself tight, troubling her mindfulness. Unsure of the rhythms that once held her, time circles – each second hastily giving over to the next. With an aura of uncertainty her mind wanders as her eyes wearily encircle the darkness that thickens with the fall of night.

Every now and then she is lost deep within pockets of fond remembrances, yet at other times, every intimate connection with her past appears to be lost to her completely. All she ever wanted was to return to the comforts of her home – to the familiar whispers of the walls where the corner dust settles, to the warmth of the woodstove as it commences its recurring roar.

Through an effort of will

a brave voice speaks; 

Sshh, it says. 

There, there. 

Sshh, it will all be alright. 

Sshh, now…

The voice lowers 

and forces its way 

back inside 

where it lay hidden, 

becoming almost indistinct.

How insidiously it all unfolds. As the days pass, her frail frame becomes lighter and lighter. As silence precedes, insight and retrospection recede and her spirit lifts toward the pitch of the early morning light. Leaving that known place behind, she arrives at another. Her spirit coasts, then orbits the far-reaching heavens, where it is soothed as it is rocked and lullabied in a perpetual communion of mystery.

And there she drifts, feather-light at the edge of space and time, existing not as some recognizable physical entity, but as a sweet presence that beautifully moves from season to season. Its language – love, is housed forever in the heart’s and mind’s of all she knew.

. . . . .

There’s a lovely flame

that burns through 

the long night 

as the music plays 

behind the doors 

of fond remembrances. 

Carrying A Grace And Strength That Belies Her Age

The Face Of A Stranger

Moving singular,

untangling the strings

within the bend

of an idea…

…when suddenly,

a silence opens up.

. . . . .

I'm free, yeah…
joy is rising!

. . . . .

I'M  FEELING

BETTER!

With An Inquisitive Inclusiveness

Calling out to us –

this creative body of eyes…

…painted on every wing,
colours dance with
a hushed intensity until –

unpredictably

d

                                                             i         s

                   a         p

                                                                             p 

e                 a 

                                                                                       r 

                                                                                  i

         n         

                                           g

as they disengage –
continuously circling

the uninhabited ethereal air.

In The Arc Of The Moment

We are the music makers, 

and we are the dreamers of the dream. 

Wandering by lone sea breakers, 

and sitting by desolate streams. 

World losers and world forsakers, 

for whom the pale moon gleams. 

Yet we are movers and the shakers 

of the world forever it seems.

 ~ Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

Brilliant, Fragile, Unpredictable

Recommencing A Connection

What if

LIFE

and its delicate

BALANCE

isn’t finished with

YOU

yet.

What if

it is

STILL

steeped

in the art of

BECOMING.

. . . . .

 Up ITS ante.

 Flirt with IT.

. . . . .

 Let life wow you

beyond complacency

and those aching

dimmed interiors

until it moves

in you – becoming

something more gracious,

more able, as it relinquishes

its vigorous release.

Wouldn’t the effort

be better than

the compulsive comfort

afforded of

NOTHING

and its slouched,

defeated form?

Go ahead, take on life –

extraordinary its beauty,

at the height of its power.

Flick it

into being

with a graceful

urgency.

Relearn its pulse

as you leap into its

one wild centre.

Color in

the glare of nothing,

so nothing,

no longer exists.

Unearth life’s colours

that speak its

exuberant expression.

Embrace that inborn stamina

as you begin again.

. . . . . 

“Only as high as I reach can I grow, 

only as far as I seek can I go, 

only as deep as I look can I see, 

only as much as I dream can I be.”

 ~ Karen Ravn