Drawn Into The Light, Colours Set

No sound.

Just the continuous sweet roar

of pink.

The yellow is

nothing without it.

Words Now Gestured For

For we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue.

We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.

– Michael Ondaatje

. . . . .

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

– Brené Brown

But A Lot Goes On Forever

What did we ever own that hadn't

the quality of seasons

their numerous dyings?

– Brian Patten

. . . . .

Slowly slowly O mind, everything happens in its own pace

The gardener may pour a hundred buckets,

the fruit arrives only in its season.

– Kabir

And So I Write Joy

To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria

where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished.

– Roland Barthes

. . . . .

And so I write joy.

J  O  Y

Reach for it so as to engage in its circumstances.

On A Scroll Of White – The Poem Itself, Lit

Poem White Page White Page Poem

.

Poem   white page   white page poem

something is streaming out of a body in waves

something is beginning from the fingertips

they are starting to declare for my whole life

all the despair and the making music

something like wave after wave

that breaks on a beach

something like bringing the entire life

to this moment

the small waves bringing themselves to white paper

something like light stands up and is alive

– Muriel Rukeyser

We Rise To Greet It

With ourselves glued to its window

let us paint its moments that feed our soul.

. . . . .

The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.

– Auguste Rodin

. . . . .

From bitter searching of the heart,

Quickened with passion and with pain

We rise to play a greater part.

This is the faith from which we start…

– Leonard Cohen

It Gathers Us In

I felt it

in this whiteness –

a    b  r  e  a  t  h  i  n  g    s  p  a  c  e.

* * *

This silence at my disposal – a deliberate ploy intended, perhaps, to slow me down, that I might instigate a conversation or a poem at least, midst this dominance of snow – flakes accumulating as they descend from the sky of the world, each intricately sculpted like an exquisite work of art. Contemplating its beauty, in thick white tones the snow continues its fall, creating a deep layer blanketing the earth like a soft white feathered duvet, partially obscuring an indefinite number of things tucked in beneath it.

* * *

Any great work of art…revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success

is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world – the extent to which

it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.

– Leonard Bernstein

Nothing Moves But The Sun

A limited observer

such as I,

gone alone

into a room 

where others' selves

connected to it

once existed.

In all directions

I turn –

around and around

in this place

because I know it

not well – not well

enough at least

to try to interpret it.

The view seems empty until…

coming through so interestingly,

blending with the listless air,

the raw thrill of morning's light –

it is ever lovely,

witnessing the spreading of it.

A current interest issues forth, 

alleging a form of dialogue

punctuated by an impression

creeping into consciousness,

insinuating itself upon me –

I try to excerpt its poem, 

to write determinately its drama,

finding me where I am.

You Are The Music While The Music Lasts

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

– T. S. Eliot

. . . . .

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)

Consider The Day The Year

THIS HOUR

Happiness, not in another place, but this place…

 not for another hour, but this hour.

– Walt Whitman

THE DAY

The day is an epitome of the year.

– Henry David Thoreau

Something That Passes Through You

Briefly she steals a peek over her shoulder, curious to see who or what is propelling her higher and higher up with the songbirds, into the expanse of a cloud-flecked sky. Enchanted by the flow of her departure, the eyes attempt to trace the outer edges of her exiting shadow. With a winning smile she bears down one last time before pushing off. In unison her hands let go the rope – her body splayed and weightless cast in a glorious arc, extends itself out beyond the frame. Favouring this freedom, her spirit immediately surrenders to the unknown geography advancing on the other side, while everything once familiar, dizzily recedes.

An outline of an incident transpiring sometime before, exists now in the guise of a memory. In its recall, the spark of its reflection carries with it the inscription of a freedom song intensifying in an abstract of light. Drawing it out, a tiny part of self is relived. And even when the image fades and seems no more, its essence shall linger.

. . . . .

She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes.

– Frank Deford

It Begins In This Remoteness Of Space

I try to fill its empty glare,

to purpose it in a different way,

in the rub of an image or a poem.

More readily than before,

coalescing with a smudge of thought,

ideas start to whoosh all around.

Colour Bulked Against The Day

Some days compassionately we run – backwards and forwards, inside and out, chasing a dialogue tinged with emotions anonymously oscillating from a series of personal experiences and chanced encounters. Certain word choices attach themselves to a barrage of images – their colours bulked against the day, their gaze turned toward the eye of a camera's lens. In time we acknowledge that each of these moment's are an intimate gift, composed of a myriad of gestures offering us a means to portray the truest sense of whatever it is we want to call it. Each confrontation can be viewed as a new beginning encouraging a little more light present in small parts of everything. 

. . . . .

All that is important is this one moment in movement. 

Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. 

Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused. 

– Martha Graham

Away From Everywhere

Far enough inside, a touch – half-dark, lineal from the heart, 

full of movement and energy – an intensity if you will, riffling through

an illimitable memory exposes an outgrowth of textured emotions.

Beyond That Simple Space

the idea / is where i've got to go / for now its clumsy conception

is but an impulse / to put it this way / to consider it another

inside a simple space / seeing how the light is cast

through a pane of glass / filling an opening

in a painted frame / a focal point

be it that what one

is looking

for

. . . . .

Position is where you

put it, where it is

– Robert Creely