Poetry on A Well-Lit-Path

the cry of i'm alive

Mon, 04 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A child wakes before dawn crying Mama, mama Every cry her name Every name his breath:

Breathing in, he breathes her in Breathing out, he exhales her:

The cry of I’m alive:

Want was will wait when Now how he has here:

His mouth fills with what is A cry an inarticulate sigh As the earth wheels The sun to the point of being

“Proverbs Chapter 22, verse 6” by Kevin Williams @ DeviantArt.com

grateful for the given hour

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

grateful for the given hour an open hand that lets the sparrow fly wings return the spirit from the sky like water to a flower

every element is born to die like water to a flower becomes a scent, a color fills the senses of the passersby

like water to a flower they, becoming blossoms, smile and sigh the petals fall to ground, the sparrows fly grateful for the given hour

Convava l'ou de la mort blanca

Sun, 08 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I was drawn to the spirit of Brazil before I knew two words of the language, through the open-hearted music of Milton Nascimento, playing over the vegetable fields in Glencoe, Minnesota. Similarly drawn by the music of Silvia Pérez Cruz, I wanted to translate this rendition of a poem by Maria Mercè Marçal, a Catalan poet who lived and taught in Barcelona.

A few days ago we learned that Catalina’s cousin in Sevilla had passed away from cancer; that afternoon I began this translation, only to discover with a chill and a cry that it was Marçal’s poem about her own impending death, from breast cancer, in 1998 at the age of 45.

comfort

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

what was simple once that you assured me the color and the weigh of wool sustains the body

this fruit as well sustains the body and this word the soul

we talked, so often birds chattered in the eaves our breath frost on the window your hands were so young

and all our easy prayers easily answered: keep this family well

before we were tested

Nov 2003

the elements

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

the tide is made of the arc of the sun of the moon

a wave is wind over water over sand over time

I thought I was alone: but alone is only a thought

how many elements am I

“Lumi” by Raluca Dumitru @ DeviantArt.com

A Practical Justice

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

For Arthur Henry Schultz, 1898-1961

He poles a stem of rye before his face
	wide as the number one, true as it is.
		“But son, have I ever turned you from your place?"
			“I am I, not we,” the younger says.

The dove depends its wings upon its breast
	then bends its head, as if to think on this
		then falls upon the door-sill, dead.
			Whose fault was this?

The statement, or the question weighed amiss?
	A word is a want with decoration;
		a nod is a sword, unclassified;
			without a sound a dove has died.

The younger turns as though to turn the world;
	the elder lays a hand upon his chest.
		“It was I who made you bone and blood.
			Don’t forget. I fed you of the best;

Were you in need, my interest stayed;
	if you would call, I left my place;
		My day began when your sun fell,
			my night was by your day erased.

Whose is this ground beneath your feet?
	Whose harvest shod you, set you walking straight?
		And now you tell me – tell me to my face –
			to work with me is your disgrace?"

Guilt is an arrow will only pierce the good
	while good already lives as best it can:
		the younger stays, a boy, or leaves, a man.
			“Father,” he shows his hands, “here’s blood:

for every cell of me, a cell of you
	your dust in which I sleep, your clothes I wear
		your field-stone keep kept me secure;
			from birth this was your child’s due

his blood watering the fields you till
	his blood trickling at your heels.
		Now I make my first and one request:
			stand aside,” he straightens. “Let me pass."

Youth and wind demand a destination
	that bends around an indistinct horizon.
		The old man steps away, a little older.
			The door sighs to a rest against his shoulder.

“Wait!” His blind hand fumbles in his vest
	to find a coin, the smallest he can guess
		and throws it in his son’s unyielding wake.
			“That’s the last of me you’ll ever take."

The copper tumbles lifeless onto stone
	a spiral ringing til its breath is gone;
		the doorway holds the shadow of his boy,
			the nothing but the rust of evening sky.

Canção Amiga

Sun, 15 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The year is 1990, and I am standing in a field in Glencoe, Minnesota. The horizon is wide here; the trees that rush from the east to greet the Mighty Mississippi seem hesitant to venture far from her safe waters, into the wide, wide prairies, and huddle here and there around farmsteads, brought two or three generations ago by the sodbusters who begged shelter from the merciless Alberta winds, even partially, even for a moment, that sped unimpeded from the Rockies to the Great Lakes.

Two

Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The broad sheet billows and embraces wind The wind escorts the voyage out to sea

The shoreline spies the receding craft: Why have you gone away from me?

The passengers seek the shrinking coast: Why have you gone away from me?

As the racing stars and their distant masses Faintly lighting the slumbering planet

Reflect the infinite choreography: Why have you gone away from me?

Porto Alegre, Brazil – December, 1990

The Argument We Never Had

Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

To live inside of words… how could I unlodge him?

My body spoke, my eyes listened; a stone, he heard nothing.

I said, Boot; he answered, Dollar.

The mind feels no wind! I cried; The wind’s in the mind, he replied.

With time the bell tolled measuring a death.

I walked to the fields, where the sun was rising.

I asked my questions there and all the grasses bowed to me.

men and flowers

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

“Offering” by Niavaah @ DeviantArt

If a man forgets he was a child
	the flowers, I am telling you
		will have to regard themselves.

If a boy is never asked his opinion
	does it matter if the flowers were planted?

remembrance

Thu, 27 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

"… only perchance remembrance breaks the heart"

You won’t find that phrase in any Internet search engine – at least not until I post this page. You won’t find it in a book in the library, or on a video clip; buried, maybe, in a tattered notebook in some out-of-the-way cottage, hidden in an attic box or gathering dust under a bed, with pages as weathered as last season’s leaves. Probably the ink will have faded, if that notebook exists, or the pencil-line will have by friction and time been dissipated, so the words once alive in thought will have been undone, like a whisper in the wind.

So...

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

So they set me at the crossroads where no way crossed and said, Here you go, boy… thus a vast horizon. I admit it attracted me. There I saw a life progress man or woman, who could tell home upon the trackless savanna!

“The Savanna in Sweden” by Erik Tjernlund @ DeviantArt.com

a wind from the north, the sky is clear

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

last night I had to close the window, woke up shaking, dreaming ice in a frozen ocean shifted around my bed, that I ran barefoot on a glacier; found the blanket thrown, I was naked in the dark with the first northern night, as it breathed frost into my room
◦
and this morning I swept a few early leaves from my step, sweet maple red, under a sky turned cool, the color of a clean December lake, thinking so it was no dream. there was a letter fallen in my box, my friend in Indonesia asking another fifty I don’t have, she the grandmother whose shoulders like dried sticks no longer carry water from the river. “how is your job?” she writes. “I am almost well again.” she needs the water pump most, but today the poor can spare nothing for the poor. I tell her, “my bills are never paid, in America, the wealthiest nation. I am glad to hear your heart still speaks to you.” I carried the broom to the upstairs closet, knowing leaves would be falling all the next week, the maple gone, last of the elm, mountain ash, the two oaks.
◦
when noon came and the wind came down from the north with its sharp teeth, I was in the street where screaming oh god help me a woman lay on the pavement, was dragged, two men into their car shouting quit lookin’, and we did, not knowing this woman to die for her, not like a sister, not family; doors slammed like fists against metal, the wheels’ scream longer, a curse, the sneer of the city, around the corner, I ran safely after, saw no plates, no police, no neighbor, let my anger shape itself in words, one more swallowed sound, one more inch my heart squeezed smaller as the abduction disappeared; I stood with my brother and as the cry rang like electricity in our heads he whispered what we did not wish to think: she’s still out there somewhere.
◦
there is this wind from the north; I stand against it, both hands raised to hold it back, discovering a wind as wide as a nation, wide as the world, a tongue lashing out quit lookin’ as one woman dies carrying water, another because I did not know her name.
◦
so I have folded newspaper into all the windows, worked extra hours for oil for the furnace, put in a supply of candles, washed the wool coat. it’s all I can do, and I know it’s not enough, the dream of cold still huddled in my walls, waiting the decay of insulation, or the last drop of steam in the pipes, waiting for the earth to lean away from the sun, as it always does: I will wake up naked and alone, hands out, protecting nothing.

“Shadow Cares” by Samuel Moulin @ DeviantArt.com

Tiger is Tiger

Wed, 28 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Muscular I took the tiger’s tail in hand As his stripe in terrible elegance flashed Into view, in the sun, in the tall, tall grass Me at my prime – just past my prime – and confident I owned the gift of taming still…

But still

Tiger is tiger, and man is man And man, I did the best deluded can ‘Til he ran away and away he ran. I looked around to reassure me, friends Had each eluded the talon’s tear

Eastern Window

Wed, 21 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Every day I want to write a poem to you but every day I swallow my song

then every day a small bird rests and every day a shaft of sunlight brightens him why not be alive? and right now? every day he takes a little breath there at the height of the eastern window and every day my song is in his voice and your voice is in my song

villa verdad

Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One reaches back to draw those memories forward. You catch the hand of the child and when you pull, he ages or she ages, the seasons spin yellow green brown white and those colors light the face as bulbs on a carnival ride, light the smile as well as the fallen eyes, light their delight and their terror, the waves of time washing from toes to ankles, from knees to thigh, until fully a woman or a man they stride into the ocean, confident in their ability to swim, til the tide takes them away.

the emigrant pauses on the hill of mirrors

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The world spins and we spin with it. Years ago I was born near here; a year later I moved to there; then there, then there, then there. I changed cities, I changed countries, I changed continents; I walked as far as I could, and took a train when the road stretched too long; I boarded a plane when I ran out of rail; I ended up here.

I each of those places I called my home, I had the fortune to arrive after strife and depart before strife, at least as my heart measured it: others might have called my smallest journey struggle, and certainly the act of getting to know a new culture, and you yourself in relationship to it, is not for the faint of heart. Still, it becomes an art. (As Elizabeth Bishop famously, sadly wrote: The art of losing isn’t hard to master…").

too many names

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I was introduced to my first second language in seventh grade, at a particularly progressive time in a particularly progressive school district in Minnesota, where our monoglot heritage – an assortment of Northern European languages cast off, to be replaced by a new, common identity – had begun to feel uncomfortably small against the backdrop of a the rapidly expanding world. Since my parents and older siblings had already studied German, I of course chose Spanish, one year, two (Estaba Susana en casa? Sí, estaba, para la gran parte de mil novecientos setenta-y-seis, en la cocina…) before a change in district, a change of heart. Later, there would be German in High School and at University, then accelerated French, a dash of Greek, a dose of Indonesian, a dousing of Portuguese… but that first ear-opening and tongue-thrilling experience, that was the seed from which all the other flowers bloomed.

five steps to standing up

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

1	the day begins with stillness, then a bell drops into a pool of the night your sight ripples; you sip sunlight

2	dreams are water you leave behind your hands smooth the linens’ sands for tomorrow’s dreamers’ wandering

3	oh, yes: the metallic chime of saucepans silver spoons, frypans, saucers, porcelain teacups topped with steamed milk, memory

4	is the morning’s recipe your finger follows inward, traces your childhood table raise this to your lips, yes, first taste best

5	I remember how many days I remember the same old sun lit the same old skin warming this little room I’m in

Image credit: Before you wake up, by Darija Blue @ deviantart.com

A Topic of Leisure

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The branching of the Arne River is by this hill where its voice grows adult from upstream child, no longer rippling and eager to overflow in this course or that, but gravity-bound for the north and a great flooding finish, a heavy waterfall managed by Verlag dam; were you here to see the ages change? That stone, wider than the rest, severs left from right channel, seems to halve the river while leaving it quite complete, all rush, boiling to be one again; there’s the damage that makes the flow more determined, cuts the deep bed; later on, past three dry fields and under a county bridge, it joins again, but never with this spirit. I watched birds spinning over a pool; I was waiting for wind to blow loose leaves or seeds to turn several times in that water question then head downstream, as everything does. And, listening to a little water over a few stones I imagined a running child, the same light step, or myself in the water, or the water in me; there is sure to be a common language through these things. I would see the ages change, too. Let someone drop a paper boat up by the mill, and we know nothing of the act, but wrapped here in the autumn chill see it float, white and half-capsized, around that bend, over the spill of tangled logs, into the brief frame this view allows – then around again and out of sight forever. So we could be delighted and puzzled for a while, imagine our own fingers bending paper into that shape, how would it feel to be so young, or young-intentioned, and with such faith that two people involved with the current, away downstream would see the boat and know it for a careful gift. Well, someone may yet do that. Or, we may have to be content with sticks and other wood debris that weather slips into the river, a slight downward-casting scene down from treetops, down from hill heights, down the slope of the land, down to the sea.

sing or be silent

Sun, 16 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

the complexity of peace all I want for me		what we call lack of striving is to eat

beyond that		there is a world, must be

banners and fine streets children carried the smell of rich air with advice of elders move it toward the lake its changes below		shoulders lifted the delicate portage hands strong put to a stone a dark mirror we cannot see

towers of solitary men polite but sorrowing what we cannot see inconstant motion		windows facing north beneath the sorrow the traverse of blood what satisfies the hidden

thousands of these it gives you nothing you had hoped for what you expected but more complexity change to change wheels of birds, beggars men do not change but birds sing or are silent artists wonder this beautiful		and then the sea: not the empty roar not the likeness yourself to be water speaks to water the arousing, rising artists and brides do not become husbands beggars die brides first believe half-truth

under the haycart a stray cat		I heard a cry finishing its prey

what should I say? our world is this way? we are taught to sing our lowered eyes to spend blood more costly		look, love this is the song under our breath the complaint of the dead to have blood spent more weighted than gold?

Parade by Toms Murnieks @ DeviantArt.com “Viewers smile and troops are marching on: an army parade (18th November, the day of independence of Latvia)”

dark and spark

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Two lay side by side: one dreamed a moon, one dreamed a sun: when done a heaven- dance was made.

Now light was doubled; now it was snuffed; and any Thing that skipped or seemed inanimate Was that dream’s reflection:

white-washed morning into whose epiphanies the sleepers stiffly rise fog in their eyes what was that? what?

(Oh, dream with me longer if you can: for us, the domed forever’s held suspended on the stem of a single flower that you tended plucked and gently placed into my hand)

What is and has been

Thu, 30 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A few days ago, my friend from abroad suggested I might bring a poem to his gathering: a men’s circle to meet and honor his upcoming wedding. Some take any excuse (including a night before their marriage) to degrade themselves; others welcome every opportunity to become more noble, more responsible, more human.

It’s been many months since poetry has been one of my languages. If words have wings, the weather had been too cold, and their sounds had all flown south; some inattention on my part, or brusque gesture had brushed them away… So I greeted my friend’s request like spring sun: I walked through finished works and works I had partially-completed, and each one alit like another forgotten flock, and with many smiles of recognition, the trees were suddenly filled again!

the day I went away

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Caetano Veloso is one of the founders of the Tropicália movement in 70s Brazil, a great songwriter, an amazing voice, a remarkable and unique spirit. This early song shares traces of the rural roots of that country, and for me at least reflects the generational and geographic distances between the small-town “campo” families and their urban and world-hungry children.

Elis Regina was the most-loved Brazilian singer prior to her death by unnatural and self-induced causes. Check out her cover of Aguas de março by Tom Jobim, available on YouTube.

Respuesta al tiempo

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

El día comienza con memorias dulces de la noche: hizo más melosas al recordar los toques de la mañana

Así el tiempo no és la muerta distancia entre fechas pero historias vividas momento en momento por los que conocen amor

“Time to Grow” by goRillA-iNK @ DeviantArt.com

An Answer to Time

The day begins with sweet night’s memories: made sweeter still remembering the morning’s caress

So time is not the dead distance between dates but stories lived moment after moment by those who learned to love

Declaração de amor

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A number of years ago I prepared to leave the country for the first time. Later, I prepared again… and again. Each time I departed the shell was thinner; and each time I returned, the distance between those I loved at home and those I loved abroad was shorter. I held and was held by wonderful people of all races and all religions and all economic levels – those who were easiest to love often possessed (or were possessed by) the least material wealth.

Canción de la soledad

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Casi no hay quién pasa por áqui en el sábado solitario sábado de las ausencias

cuyos ángeles, de bocas cerradas posan detrás de las ventanas del piso más cercana al cielo.

Es el sábado de tu silencio. Sin tu voz, tus palabras se manifiestan hasta en las llamadas de los pájaros

para las cuales no tengo respuesta sino aproximarme más aun a la tierra: yo no sé del lenguaje de las alas.

Earth to earth

Mon, 28 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Some of the hardest physical work in recent memory is 72 hours on the Improv dance floor.

Also, the most rewarding. I haven’t built a house, or surveyed for a map, or planted a garden. But by listening listening listening I’ve followed the sprite of movement, and on her scent traced the outline of home; through repetition memorized (in the body’s threads and cords) the navigation lines I might follow to get there; and inadvertently collected in these outstretched arms so many wild foods along the way – fruit of this adventure – that I am fed.

Choro Bandido

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

What was the greatest gift I received, through my years living in Brazil? Was it perspective on our own nation, and my place in it? Was it the sights and sounds and flavors of the Other, of another portion of our planet, one physically quite as large as the continental United States? Was it the friendships, the loves, my children born there (as if to two mothers), the great efforts, the greater successes, the greatness of the failures?

Rest

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

home is where I rest (where I rest is home) at times my house at times my town this region where the hills like waves go up and down sometimes the seas’ rhythmic dances drown desire that wants to martyr me

"This is a chair" (original orientation), by Gordon McBride @ DeviantArt.com

sometimes home’s not found so I wander round and round touching every body every room as if to ask if I might rest as if they had to pass a test as if my feet weren’t on the ground as if I couldn’t just sit down

meditation on morning

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

every tree branch sings what wind teaches

these limbs become the world’s tongue

the morning strums our body’s strings

the wind learns what love teaches

"In The Wind" by Michal Kochanek @ DeviantArt.com

Ocean's Edge

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Ocean’s Edge - Mark Schultz

The city spread below me jeweled by the night its soft stars lit-a-million among the sleeping and awake coursed on broadening avenues like a watershed of light that pulsed and pooled and called all divers in

I descended from the western hills leaning as I traveled toward that ocean’s edge then waded into the huddled multitude dry from my mountain-far retreat

What would I find? Not wind - not silence of the mind but a certain spinning revelry a dance of hopes and veiled unveiled desire

Marry

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Will you tie me in your arms and before the ocean hold me? We may be shelter for the other.

The photograph: colored sheets flying, fieldstone and fruit trees, a house on the bay.

The music: one gull, I whistle, I shout, I sing songs, I would speak no more of the storm.

So tie me to this place, let our roots go down to water and us rise up, leaves, shade, flower, child!

"Tree" by Kühn Martin @ DeviantArt.com

fronteira

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Entre eu e eu há fronteiras que apenas o tempo cruza

e tu lado de lá esperando alguém.

Te vejo banhada na nudez da manhã escondida por fumaça por desejo revelada teu botão querendo desabrochar sem terra.

Entre tu e tu a fronteira que se cruza por abraçar a dor:

assim banhado pelo sal das lágrimas o raís abre vão na terra fecunda penetra o escuro úmido para acabar com sede.

My Mother Believes in Me

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

My mother believes in me so the odds bow more to my favor. She guards a heart she carries through life like a basket filling with flowers she doesn’t know are hers.

Love also believes in me. She holds the opening key to my houses and turns in at my door and sits on my bed and waits for my fear to grow tired. If I touched her like an heirloom glass… or as I lift bread from the oven… or as rain covers the ocean… but I have cursed my hands with the ten doubts of the Christians and often they are coarse as sand or still as basalt. Though when she sees me, she smiles.

Keep Your Heart Clean

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If there is the sound of a bell ringing in a church
	two neighborhoods distant
even if the god of that church does not smile
	upon you
even if the bell is tolling the slow breath of a life
	being rung away
take that one pure draught into yourself
	like a sweet liquor
and keep your heart clean; the truth of bells
	will not be argued
and even the air hanging heavy with soot
	should never harm your love
nor the blankness between buildings, or stories
	of dangerous youth
or wars fought and bled dry sometime
	before your birth
what are those to draw a bleak line
	through your health?
Keep your hearts clean, so no words
	may drown them
keep them clean, almost white, bend
	in fierce weather, fly before a gale
wear the wings of angels if you need to
	stand among the clouds if you need to
let everywhere hear the sound, however small
	of your life’s ringing
	Keep Your Heart Clean - Mark Schultz

a snowflake

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000


a snowflake fell through light as light as breath depends on this our sky our night	light as the sound as a breath is caught suspended by a thread from the vault of our sky	the world waited as I waited as I watched watched as the light crystal descended from the end of our night	and the world shook! as the flake as slight as thought alit lit up vanished into heat in the light in the palm of my hand

A Snowflake - Mark Schultz

life is simple

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I would have told the secrets of my life long ago but there were none: life is simple like a house of four walls and only one door through which you enter and leave. That house braced against erosion that house weighing its foundation a long way from the sea; the house that wishes to be dismantled wishes to burn down in the night or find blood on the floor; wishes a man would enter and sleep and another man, quite different, wake and depart.

Motorcycle & I

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There are advantages to learning to clutch with your left hand, and shift with your left foot. You might have the opportunity of riding down a gravel scree near the sacred beach in central Java, girlfriend on the back, wondering if at the bottom it would be a gradual recovery, or an abrupt conclusion; or you might be able to escape the teeming lost/party scene in Goa, to dodge cattle and wild pigs and dogs, to wiggle your head greeting to the locals, and to look out over bicentennial portuguese ruins at the Indian ocean… ah, where you might go, if you could ride a motorcycle…

What is Native is Not Mistaken

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The shell boy hides his eyes in shallow sleep: if she falls into her sadness like the wakened who wanders a secret night he hopes to follow

gather medicine for anguish as he travels so together they might soften what has been: he should tear his hands collecting blades of corn

or find the root of a plant he’s never seen or steal the tune a meadowlark has sung and could these wash the silence from her rooms?

Longe das planícies

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Longe das planícies fúnebres onde contra o inverno cultivam grãos suas raízes ténues e fúteis frente ao frio iminente e a foice nas mãos tragei o ar inspirador do mar de tudo nascente.

Foi longe das planícies inmensuráveis as léguas ou as horas, os desejos… entre aquele passado e este presente quantas guerras quantas mortes acompanhando tréguas quantos enterros e flores de caixão quantas orações de despedida batizando vidas desviadas ou vias novas a chamar.

Orpheus

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

That’s why I sang these songs: the art of writing down my name might call up hers or, reaching the true cause of me (a reason? a meaning?), might find a home, or build one that is why I sang

In evening when light fades you feel it, or in the night where nothing shines but stars that gleam from the far end of the thinnest thread: those strands that catch the corner of your eye and rouse your sounds, widen your smile so song is woven on the melody of her curve, harmony in the curl and moisture of her lips; that is where I sang; and where our voices met we settled in, the sunlight came so every seed we planted surged and opened leaves in sweet upswelling fountain-spilling flowers, fruit, future as though I sang them into life

the days that passed him

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

He thought that what he made would decorate his days; instead (a rule of thumb) it was who he had become.

He thought: “The house I build will garner summer’s rays, and I’ll be warm when summer-comfort wanes”; instead, it was the one who shared his bed, how long she stayed.

He thought and thought. But what the days that passed him taught was far from his imagination, caught in the fingers of his outstretched heart.

my reflection in the photograph

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Several years ago I was “improving” my photo collection, which had become a wobbling tower of Kodachrome, balanced precariously and in no particular order in a hidden corner of my closet. Every time I saw it, I felt a vague intolerance; and each time I saw it, I felt that intolerance grow, until finally the intolerance was itself intolerable, and I furiously shoveled the concealing junk out of the way, and hooked those boxes and stacks out into the middle of my bedroom floor.

Our Sound

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It’s not who she is that begs the lyric; not what he wants that’s the melody’s thread. Instead: when something stirs and merges one and one; makes failing math, is short two by a half; when boundaries gently blur; when bodies move without one saying stay, one saying go…

There is Music’s spring, if not the spring of everything.

Or, what I mean: it’s where the spirits meet that fuels the fire; it’s where they part that puts it out.

Rue

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I turned to face the evening she was there her arms a circle cool November: mist the light, a fallen curtain and her hair a silken flicker turned to mask her face

all given, all received in evening’s arms we fell, we turned the shawl November’s mist to circled warmth the lightest curtain furled

til darkness fell on everything, and gave November back to us returned our names

a circle cannot end November can

Rue - Mark Schultz

Sambamaré

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

O coração baía aberto ao maré as águas vêm as águas vão prá onde eu não sei

Chegam de tempestade ao suspiro elas vão escrevem nomes na areia que as ondas apagarão

… instrumental

Correnteza agridoce pôs tesouros à beira-mar que beleza me traz sorriso despedida me faz chorar

Correnteza agridoce faz tesouros aterrisar que beleza ao alcance dos olhos mas nas mãos é que nem luar

Beleza ao alcance dos olhos desagua das mãos que nem luar

lição das horas

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Com idade se ama mais

voices

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Arriving at the far end of the day
the passengers who had not stepped from the train
composed their books and closed their eyes
and sighed: we have arrived.

as quickly as our sight is shuttered
the blank horizon of the mind is lit
as though a sky inside, through sudden sunset
brightens with those quiet constellations
that seed the canopy of inner night

We survived the challenges of day
- those who, lost in thought, collided
- or, lost in fear or sickness, were derailed
and reassure ourselves that we were right
in all we did: we have arrived.

Inuksuit

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The inuksuit born of the weight in our hands as stone after stone they choose to stand their lives take form in the foundry of the heart they rise and arise on the bank of the fjord to wait in the wind for the one who returns they speak without speaking but when? but when? lighthouse without light that shines on the bay poem without words unwritten by hand sentinel to a moment that refuses death the spirit of the stone leans toward the south the spirit of my stone will not close its eyes as some leave their hearts and new stones arise our village of inuksuit grows and subsides they reach toward the sun and they bow to the tide.	Inuksuit sont nés du poids dans les mains pierre en pierre ils choisissent de se lever leurs vies en formant dans la fonderie d’un coeur ils se lèvent et se réveillent à la rive du fjord à attendre dans le vent pour lequel qui revient ils parlent sans parler -- mais lorsque? -- lorsque? un phare sans lumière que illumine la baie poème sans mots pas écrit à main sentinelle d’un moment que refuse de mourrir l’esprit de la pierre penche vers le sur l’esprit de ma pierre ne ferme pas ses yeux comme quelque-uns lèguent ses coeurs et pierres nouvelles se lèvent notre village de inuksuit s’agrande et diminue ils atteignent au soleil et s’inclinent aux marées.

Some inuksuit were used by those hunting caribous, when the caribous were coming the young ones were fed milk not to make noise. The land without trees was called The Place for Feeding by the elders.

Many inuksuit together are called nalluni. We placed nalluni where we would want the caribous to swim before they reach the end of the lake or reach the other side.

Almost all the land had inuksuit; all of them were useful. Some inuksuit were on the way where caribou herds were walking, beside lakes or at the end of big lakes.

When they start to swim, we will go to them by kayak. Before they reach the shore, they will be hunted with harpoon (kapuutinut) This was the way to get many caribous. In the summer the skin and the fur were good and used for clothes. The meat was buried underground, that way it would be the food for the winter, it was like that in the past.

Some inuksuit were there for people not to get lost when they were moving around; for example, inuksuit were followed to go to a lake or anywhere.

On lakes where there are fish, there are rocks who point to the lake. The two rocks are on top of the flat rock point to the fishing whole. We should try to fish where it is pointing. But we don’t even notice it because we don’t know what our ancestors did. Back then they built these pointers to a lake where there is fish. We never worry about them, we just hunt when we are camping.

All the big places have an inuksuit. We use them to recognize where we are. Even to this day, they are used. Inuksuit building was taken seriously by our ancestors, they were built to be used. If there were no inuksuit, many people would get lost, especially in the blizzard. When we see an inuksuit we are thankful and we feel more confident.

Soliloquoys

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I. Our Daily Dance

The waning moon has this hour turned above the crowns of trees, and spilled its liquid light into the yard. So this evening is accompanied by a shadow of sun’s heat. The same moon that years and years ago was torn from earth’s belly, born from her and borne away on some celestial tide: once blazing with the fire that gave us life, now its patient ashes spy upon our daily dance, at times shy and out of sight, at times winking at our plight, or otherwise full-faced and offering its white-washed world for these our fine somnambulisms.
With no one’s arms to hold you from these sights, the dimensions fall one into another, you join the ranks of every color-blinded creature as it flies or crawls or navigates the night, employing sharper, duller vision. A leaf-rattle makes the paw pause mid-step, a stick snap shakes the courage of the smallest, while above the sudden flush of air or nearly-silent slant of wing makes cowering the act of statues, whose hearts race from one moment alive to the next, still alive, alive yet still, praying to not be prey, hoping for no tooth nor talon’s spike to rake the nerves.

Some of us are larger: suffer less.

But suffer even so, adventure when better ventures aren’t reached by opening fingers, opened hearts. A footstep starts the body where the spirit would prefer to stop. Still. A stick snap stops the world around the boots of men: who goes there? What would a man be wanting of the night, if not a hunt of one sort or another?

The moon will not stand still; her mother moves below her, always at arms-distance, always departing. The child spins as if to turn away; the weight of their connection means she’s always falling toward her elder. A pure, white face: smiling as she rises her hello, sad as she departs. A desert of desire, whose fires went out so long ago, depends on stars’ impressions to light her further face.
Who wouldn’t see a spark up there? Some ember that was better than its gray surround, some flickered flash of life that kindled past to second sunrise, companion star, golden guide to keep us honest and awake and in each other’s arms, to banish sleep in favor of a man or woman’s favored sleep companion.

II. Gift of Sight and of Delight

One can speak more plainly. An apple, for example: there was nothing woman ever gave a man that would be his unmaking. Genesis requires rethinking, since its metaphor is cactus-garden, is painful to embrace. If (for example) Eve opened Adam’s eyes, it was to preciousness of life. I suppose that might be blinding, but hardly expulsion from the Divine; invitation, rather.

There is some bland assumption by the readers of those ancient runes: a paradise was lost, to be regained at last when body’s been betrayed as temporary residence, reminiscent of a slum-lord’s tenement, reminiscent of a child who’s given no delight or - more likely - never found its gratitude.

I do not sign that lease.

Paradise is every moment, but skill in seeing clouded by emotions or events. The paradise of creation is in company of men and of women, building walls or raking them down, raising pillars of life or whirling in the great river of each other’s dancing, scratching at the earth or forging teams to push back need, or needing the sweet waters of ourselves to wash upon that labor, to loose the earth of us and make us one.

No, an apple, or a pomegranate, maybe have been a gift of fruit, of sustenance, of sight or of delight. The days that followed, simply striving to maintain that paradise. If missed, at times, or if (at times) we fail to be delighted, still there’s no mistaking it exists.

The Way West

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Flying out of the east in splendor the silver beauty of the wings, oh beauty poised and driving like twin knives, and all those migratory lives depending, as it happened, on the magic of rivets and steel webs and pilots immune to fear – so be it, he travelled west, before the sun could dog and trouble him, falling headlong into a desert ground, seeded with aloes and yucca and dryland sage: if the least of these seeded also a desire to dive, to dig and bury his winged feet, to cover his travel with a delicate frost and keep his eyes from leaning further west: to say I will decide contentment as one decides the right soap for the wash, or chooses the ingredient for a meal – so be it, may the peaks there overtower him, reminder of his measure and short life, let the wind lift every morning with common scents, and expected small delights, his name be humbled and diminished for lack of yearning: Ah, yes, a clever man, but where his passion went–? Continued on, unmindful of the desert, the terrible, bleak terrain of it, and perished in a gully, dried to a fine chili-dust that mixed with the sand and disappeared for all its fire and redness. That may be a kindness: to cull from his ambitions a circle smaller than his shadow, an innocent hedge-row with a few slow flowers; not to ache so for so many colors; that is why he travelled west, dismissing Eden, perfect in its past, to praise and kiss his partners for their human dress and dreams; to balance the rolling rock with the slanted path, the day’s graces with the night’s small death; oh, let the rest depend on silver wings and say enough, as final as it seems.

certas canções

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Certas canções - Milton Nascimento

Certas canções que ouço cabem tão dentro de mim que perguntar carece como não fui eu que fiz?

Certa emoção me alcança corta-me a alma sem dor certas canções me chegam como se fosse o amor

Contos da água e do fogo cacos de vidas no chão cartas do sonho do povo é o coração do cantor

Vida e mais vida oferida chuva, outono, ou mar carvão e giz, abrigo gesto molhado no olhar

Until the sound of waves alone

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Nick Van Alstine, 1982-2010

There’s a shout from the water:
a man is struggling with the current,
his mouth fills as he goes under.

He clears the surface, spits out salt,
finds clean air, gasps it in,
shouts again.

He is drowning.

He knows it.

His voice leans out in all directions,
asks assistance from everything that hears.
Everything that hears measures compassion
and the weight of that current.

belo horizonte

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

uma palavra balançou
na ponta da língua
falada, calada, falada, calada
batuque rítmo de coração

será que este por do sol
seja à medida do seu nascer?
o menino enraizado só
(arvore-gurí, criança-flor)
se sente o peso diferente
nas almas dos seus pés;
de cima, entretanto
sol é sol

até o día em que sangue dispara
com tamanho desejo, o corpo canal
com gritos do mar e da morte
falado, calado, falado, calado
uma gota de sal como vinho
da ponta da língua traçada
doçura na linha ereta
boca garganta ventre

plum

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Plum was heaven Plum was stem Until the season’s turn And early rain’s intention Until the bud’s desire Until the blossom-burst Until bee pollen-scattering And Sun’s divine attention The fruit imagination Until its flesh uncovered Until its curve encountered The touch of tongue and teeth Until the sweet surrender Its sugar-water tendered Washed us stem to heaven Bud-desire, blossom-burst Victoria-by-the-Sea, PE

what is and has been

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe it was - seems long ago - I danced on a flickering flame
so my feet would burn if I stood my ground
and another tongue, insistent, called my name
I’d lean into tomorrow as though I were bound to the wind

Where does an echo lead? I heard a sound, I turned; again;
the globe as it spun was the head of a pin
whose angels (lost souls, too) so crowded in
they jostled one another, profane, divine, profane, divine

November

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Here is the canvas of the sky: one long stroke of gray where it is brushed upon the blue blue pastel of the day, it is an overhead wave, a sun-shade, a blanket pulled up past the eyes, water-color wrung from a sponge, a light’s-decay. And then it rains, of course. As cold as it can be, with just enough vigor in the shortening sunbeam strands to heat those flecks of ice and melt their hearts as they hurl earthward. So they fall instead of float, merge instead of mass, drop instead of drift, and winter waits another week or more to make its white appearance.

Very good, Sir

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

the eyes are a chamber of the heart
and the lips and tongue, a chamber of the heart
the fingertips and skin are a chamber of the heart
the sense of smell is a chamber of the heart
and the ears are a chamber of the heart

so near enough to see you
to taste you and to kiss you
to touch you and to feel your warmth
near enough to catch your scent
to hear “I love you”

offering

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

we decorate our lives: with loves contrived of scent and sweat and secrecy and grateful dancing, toward and away; the rocking cradle of the heart beats and buoys the body’s arc that ripens, rises, tires and moves on

its flower opens and opens when the water pulsing through its vein urges the petals wide to welcome sun

we decorate with silks and bangles scents and sweat and filigree: when spirit first flicks into form until it forms the canvas given you and me each day desires paint and every touch the painter’s brush might blush a smile upon the skin that all who witness can breathe in

love, not love

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

“So is it study or is it art?”

The first is a wick drawn by a practiced hand, straight through wax. Patience dipped again and again to fill out a candle’s form, layer on layer for length, strength and stability. There is dedication in study, repeated practice like a mantra, mastery a form of devotion. You give yourself and you give your time, your attention. You receive something human-born, earthy, quiet.

two true stories

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Somewhere in between acquaintance and friend I asked why?, and she answered: I survived cancer.

It was some years ago, she said, a decade now without another challenge. I counted back: how young! And the thought dissolved - as some thoughts do - becoming a gentle interior rain, washing down to common ground, what is was lost, is loosing its grip, will be taken away. I was trying to remember where that exact feeling, or a feeling closely akin, had touched me before: it is aligned with beauty. It might have been the first curl and browning edge of a rose petal. It might be a spot on the stem. If there were no beauty, the sense would not be the same…

joía

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

entre lágrima e sal
seca sal, sol que seca
entre chuva e a mão
horas, memórias que dá

a lágrima como chuva cai
cámera lenta, amor
ví o rosto de espelho
na sua joía líquida

descendo como raío
doa sal, olho que olha
de luz de dor de benção
que faz fechar as mãos

there was music so loud you could not sleep if you wanted to - but of course you did not want to sleep. the river of rhythm carried your body, unlike the river lethe, instead the river life. maybe it was better yet a river i had not witnessed, that my youth did not spoil its beauty in familiarity, rather deepened its shout and the shine of the lights upon its surface. the faces saw but did not acknowledge me: they were my face, and i was theirs. one body moved with the beat of a thousand hearts. and a thousand minds let go and became a single thought, held by the drums and the dance and the dream.

let go

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

a river doesn’t practice how to flow it lets go

from the instant it was born and falls into the arms of its bed

its being wells up against what you or I would call an obstacle and melts around it

if you think you are dammed up, well ask your breath for a word of advice

a lover passes easy hours on the simple tasks of living but cannot bear a second of her beloved’s voice outside the door her dam is burst and river runs to meet the ocean

simple blossoming

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Was there not a flower found its sun
through simple blossoming? I thought that’s how it’s done
ignore the driven wooden root, ignore the thorn’s intent
instead, invest in feminine receipt
and open petals, welcome summer’s heat.

Was there a flower couldn’t find the sun
through simple blossoming? Its wooden nail
is buried in the soil; still all its vigor’s spent
to cripple stone and guzzle draughts of earth
and bloom: that’s what its living meant.

Music Master

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend, 60 people gathered to celebrate the art of love - as expressed in the gentle and sweet music of Enid Ames, modern musician and composer of southern New Hampshire, and in the words of Jelalludin Rumi, b 1207 in what was then the eastern margin of the Persian Empire, and what is now the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan.

Enid’s sets were interspersed with a spoken verse; asked to read a favorite, I opened Coleman Barks Essential Rumi to Chapter 8: Being a Lover ~ The Sunrise Ruby, and found a poem I had not read before.

In Flanders Fields

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The back of the Canadian $10 note bears the motto “In Service of Peace”, and below it, a poem.

Although Lieut. Col. John McRae had been a doctor for years, and had served in the South African War, he could never dull himself to the suffering, the screams, and the blood, and had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last a lifetime. As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, he spent seventeen days treating injured men – Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans – in the Ypres salient, one of the more horrific battlefields of WW I.

Gauze of Midnight

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Under the gauze of midnight, where the mirrored starlight wanes
boughs of the aging branches range in the city’s floodlit lanes
like the arms of assembled sentinels, who saluted you as you came
then recruited the shadows in your wake to softly repeat your name

Softly they hold your name, my love, as a breeze will hold the song
two smiling, gently sighing lips released to the game of alone
like falling stars, the words reduce the dark, if not for long
but a flash of light is enough for a sight of the ground and the path to home

I would not change it

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

"
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference; as, the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

Circle of Golden Sunlight

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Circle of golden sunlight
and at its margin, shadow;
obscuring body of midnight
and of its limbs, meadow

if I walk from one place I find
the road leads to the other

I loved the easy glance of youth
and tried all ways to keep it:

circle of golden sunlight
we’re dancing with our shadows;
robes of velvet midnight
around our limbs is gathered

1 - 2 - 3 - 4
the names of numbers spoken
learned in the rote of the daily
while nightly the rote is stolen

11:11

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Beautiful in its glory, the mask as thin as gossamer
as fragile as the mist rolls in, as vagueness is its glory;
the child leaves the hospital without a mark upon her
but the cipher of her living is the mark she carries in her
and she staggers as though broken, she’s the standing-stone forever:
so their quicksilver and cameras could find no trace of dying
while they wonder’d as they wander’d through the mirrors of her hallway
on the mask as thin as gossamer, the mist that we call beauty

since feeling is first

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

i carry your heart with me

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
not fate (for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

i thank You God for most this amazing

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

What you cannot touch touches you

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

As though an apple fell
on my head I stopped
what I was doing
looked up

Oh - it’s you

Sometimes a prayer is answered
before the words are said;
but since you were not listening
you say them anyway

The apple falls
when the earth calls
for its seed

Oh, it is you

And when your prayer
is met with silence
you curse
the miser god
who gave you everything

Seasons

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Love
my last and greatest companion
this heaviness will pass…
just a salt wind from the ocean
stale air before the storm
that seems can never break
will break

I thought once that the source of our creativity was the height of our joy – but then I found it difficult to write about joys without writing also of sorrows. I found it difficult to kiss without also feeling the tears, or dance without feeling the pull gravity somewhere in my heart. It slows, you know, the heart slows in its beating, as though it were in less and less of a hurry, has less somewhere to be, or less desire to be there. I found it difficult to smile without remembering…

Becoming Human

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s the script: from an early age your interest in intimately knowing what my daughter would call the Greater Spirit (I like that) drew you to science, to the arts, to T’ai chi and yoga, to cooking and foods, to learn, to learn, to learn.

And along that wild and sinuous path, you do learn - or at least, you make some decisions: these things I hold true, for now, until further learning modifies or disproves them. I have written poetry for some years, well, since I was a boy, so now it is lots of years. And it dawned on me (that’s a nice turn of phrase, if you think about it) it dawned on me that a poet’s poetry rests on the fact that everything is in everything else, that all the things around us and far away from us are made from the same stuff of Being, and so being, has at their core a common thread. When a poet opens her mind or his mind to that broad ocean, metaphor isn’t only obvious, it is inescapable.

Teacher's Back

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Under the cover of darkness, or in the blaze of mid-day, there are the brief encounters with the teacher: the real teacher. When we are young or when we are misinformed, the lessons are ignored or avoided. As though that final test could be dismissed, no thank you, I prefer not. It cannot be dismissed. Under the cover of darkness, when we are most exposed, or in the blaze of mid-day, when we least expect it, we are offered these little practice sessions. Just listen! It is Guará come back not to haunt, and neither to taunt, but to instruct.

Questions of Travel

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
-- For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains
aren’t waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.

Season

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

With even a few years, the act of creation begins to blend itself with the feeling of loss, as the cycle of seasons turns round and round. Some traditions have seen the wheel as pain, where what is given is taken away, and what is made crumbles. It is perhaps the habit of all living creatures to associate the pain of loss with failure, and a single tear in the eye washes beauty away.

My House in the Sun

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I built my house with the sun
there were four walls against snakes
empty windows to admit the breeze
no roof so the stars would visit me

The sky grew cloudy and rains came
one night I slept in water
then reluctant raised a roof
this is how I lost the stars

The winds descended from the North
I slept one night in ice
then reluctant glazed the windows
this is how I lost the breeze

Sunset

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

You must acknowledge the beauty of loss: it makes your smile more natural, your glance deeper, your touch more compassionate. How many adults have been toughened to rigidity by the demands of a life, only to be snapped – like that – by an event that should have been expected?

It’s too bad if you try, try, try to get ahead, try so hard that your body becomes stiff as a board, your kisses dry up, your lovemaking becomes the memory of a memory… Too bad. But no fear, the world won’t forget about you: tomorrow or the next day it will give you a gentle nudge… then a nudge that is slightly less gentle… then a firm shove… and finally stick it’s foot out and drop you in the middle of your next step, what nerve!

Uma carta é o coração dobrado

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

uma carta é o coração dobrado endereçado, enviado parcela de pétalas brancas pétalas derramando do livro aberto das mãos uma carta é coração destilado decifrado, recombinado em músicas de pétalas de flor pétalas oferecidas aos vasos abertos das mãos cinzas nas veias vegetais trilhas à caminhos traçam passagem-fogueira dos tempos deslumbrantes ao atardecer do seu calor cujas linhas sugerem o sol e o vôo foguete de Ícaro…

Nov 2006, Karnataka, India

Is today Ecoday?

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t been amazed at least once today, you haven’t been paying attention.

Meaning, there are so many mundane tasks begging this moment of your life, and the next and the next, that quite easily – predictably, I would say – an entire day slips along on that bubbling and familiar current, sunrise to its setting, and nothing remarkable seems to have come of it. Yes: the employee or employer or colleague at work who never fails to get under your skin. Or: the story about someone that someone you know knows, who won some money, lost some money, recovered or lost health. All of it swirls along the surface, most comfortably, as one day becomes the next, the wheel of a month becomes the wheel of a year…