I see you, hungry paws.

I see you, yes, you.
Digging about with your hungry paws
deep into what I have put of this earth
into that pot.

I see you,
rooting about for the seedling I planted
in spring,
when you were but a little fledgling
in a warm nest.

Now that seed has grown,
and so have you.
And I see you with your curious eyes,
and your hungry throat,
rooting about for life,
going where your instinct leads you,
and your insatiable hunger.

I see you,
and I see me, in you,
wanting to dig deep into that eternal soil
where we reach for our thoughts,
for our love,
where we find sustenance, hour upon hour,
for our insatiable souls.

I see you, and I see me, in you,
reaching deep
with my hungry paws.

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Wind

I am like that little piece of flag,
that little square of orange, or
green, or blue, or red,
that flutters in the wind, directionless,
until, for a moment,
a very brief moment,
the wind stops, and I know where
my heart lies, and where my soul
is tethered;
But the wind picks up again,
and it is all I can do
to hold on.

Gazing deeply.

I am of this land,

I am of this piece.

I am of the azure above

and all else underneath.

These fingers that would like to grow things…

I remember once, peeling a grapefruit and finding at it’s core, it’s very center, a growing seedling. That fragile sprout looking for light and life. I remember an overwhelming feeling of joy dance through my whole being. What a gift! Very carefully, separating it from the pith and the flesh of the fruit, I planted it in a tiny little pot. After a week or so, it had sprung a couple of tiny leaves. I would leave it out in the sun during the day and bring it in at night. One day, while we were out, it rained and drowned the roots of that poor seedling. I tried everything I could to bring it back but nothing worked. It was so devastating! Took me a good long while to get over it, the regret and the loss.

I have always wanted a garden, a wild one! Flowers, trees, grasses, growing willy nilly. Clumps of flowers hanging off heavy limbs, ripe fruits strewn across mossy paths and tangled roots, scents of rosemary, thyme, sage rising through the mid afternoon air as you brush past them. Birds, bees, rabbits, deer, squirrels, caterpillars, cats and dogs lying lazy in the sun, heavy with sleep and contentment….

Mysterious, lush, green, alive.

But alas, I have a brown thumb. I also lack the patience it requires, and the presence of mind it requires, to grow things. To care for them. I am too careless and absent minded. Nonetheless, this feeling, this desire to grow things has been brewing in me and getting stronger by the day. So I am giving it a go.

Starting small with hot peppers, sweet basil and cilantro.

The floors are too cold. So they are sitting up on the footstool. Yup. Totally mollycoddling.

Under the light. Grow baby grow.

Do wish me luck! I am going to need it.

These things that come from silence.

Liquid gazes; tall grasses; white domes on dark green velvet; pouting mouths abloom; rustling, restless underbrush; furry, quivering tails and heads to match; tag across branches and trunks; a mad crush of wild flowers; mysterious, slithering tail ends that disappear under leaves and twigs; a far away tinkling of water; twittering conversations; floppy ears; nibbling mouths; pelting rain; golden light; the poetry that comes of these things…..

These thoughts that are held in silence. Honest, heartfelt. I have always shared from this space. From this truth. From what my own silence and stillness bring to light. Otherwise, I choose to stay silent rather than be false or forced.

These past couple of years have been so very noisy. I have allowed this noise to overwhelm the silence, to crowd the space I need to be creative, to be observant. Outrage has become the default state of being. I have stopped listening for my silence.

I have a need to change that. And conversely, the one thing that will help me, is being here. Once again looking for and finding beauty to share. And also to take comfort in what all of you have to share through your thoughts, photographs, art, poetry, because there is a lot of comfort in that. So, thank you! For listening and sharing.

And here’s to finding silence and all the loveliness held within it.

Little things.

I want to tell you of little things.

Simple things.

For example, that book on my bedside table, Van Gogh: Letters from Province,

and how my heart trips a little every time I glance at it, which is often, and how incredible it is that this world has known a Van Gogh.

Don’t you just want to disappear into that texture for a while? I know I do.

Night bloom

Acrylics on Canvas

10″ X 10″

Available. Please do leave a comment if interested.

Thank you!

Unexpectedly in the light.

There is always something growing, something pushing through the earth’s bind. Pockets of microcosms. ‘…more things in heaven and earth..’, ya? Infinite and infinitely more.

There is a tree trunk in our yard that is lush with these uber little beings growing in the dead of winter. A strange and fascinating landscape.

(The optimal zoom on my phone camera has rendered the images slightly blurry.)

Something dies, something else takes its place. Round and round and round. How wonderful it all is. This place, this land, teeming, diminishing, growing again, thrilling with life and activity. Quietly going about it’s ways, weeding, weeding, weeding, and nurturing, building, supplying, calmly following it’s path and it’s edict.

How sane and level it all is. How wild. How matter of fact and absolutely magical.

How does one not fall on one’s knees in awe. Again and again and again. And yet, it is not enough. This awe pales in comparison to what really goes through our minds, bodies, hearts, isn’t it? That electrifying resonance, Alive!

We are so severely limited by our vocabulary. The limit of our thoughts and emotions that does not allow us to go beyond a certain point. But then why must I question it? Why put words to something that must be felt, lived.

I think this body, though inarticulate, knows. This body that wants to dig deep into the dirt and disappear into the sap of a tree.

What is it like to be a part of this earth in that most fundamental of ways? To grip it, to know it to the marrow, without question, without hesitation. To simply know. Be. Live, in the truest sense of that word. Lords of the earth and sky. No, not lords. Partners then. So integral that there is no tree, no earth, just one pulsing life.

What is that like? HA! This immutable need to put words to things that must by nature be lived, known, despite our selves.

 

Attempting Ulysses.

HA!

The sun, the sun! And I am already in a grounded place! Ummm…warm roots…

Yup! That Ulysses! Me! HA!

The Odyssey, Illiad, Dante’s Inferno, Ulysses…I have ever and always sighed over these. Wanting to read them but knowing they are WAY beyond my ken. No, I am not down playing myself, just being honest.

I am an easy reader. I love stories! I feel books deeply but do not read between the lines. I am not at all curious about what the author is trying to say with each word and line, if at all. My heart lies with the characters, their development, their relationship to each other, the prose, the way the sentences run over hill and dale, up and down, up and down, smooth, and the way those lives rise up and live beside you, weaving their tale with yours, inseparable for those few moments. That is really all I seek from a book.

But….

Maybe it’s the right time, maybe I am in that right place, however that may be, I have cracked the pages of Ulysses.

And let me tell you, it’s a ride! ha ha

It’s a shout, it’s a declaration, it’s rain drops…tup..tup..tup..tup…on the rooftop, each drop separate from the other and yet, as a whole, what a lovely din! The words fall on my ears, separate and inseparable. In the 10 pages I have read so far, I haven’t understood a single reference, and yet, and yet, the language, the flow, the energy, it’s a flinging of arms, arched and wide, into the open sky, it’s a shout into the hurling wind, it’s a dance!

And whether I understand this book or not, I know in my heart I am going to read it once, and then perhaps, for the sake of the dance alone perhaps, one more time.

Dew

Imagine what it must be like,
to wait in the dark, silently,
all night,
now under the moonlight,
now under the stars,
so that come dawn,
before the palest of sheens
has broken the sky,
you can hold out your face, your limbs,
your thrilled and eager body,
for these liquid globes of light,
these cold cold thirst quenchers.

I held
my palm
under
this soft
fur
and tapping
gently
on it’s stem,
gathered
the dew
and partook
eagerly
of this morning
feast.
My thirst
quenched,
my soul
restored,
I waded my way
slowly, fully,
into
the rest
of the day.