Wednesday, November 30, 2011

within the possibility


i fold
and curl
and throw myself back to the earth
even as the earth
rises to meet me

but, while held in the sun's hands
i feel an invitation
to stay
that is hard to ignore

every morning
every night
and every moment
that flowers in-between
i am pulled
and stretched
between
the straining hands of the here and now
and the feathered edges of evermore

i was listening to the music of harold budd and brian eno when i wrote this

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

little bridge


when swimming
from bank to bank
is not an option
the little bridge
(which takes more time
and more effort to build)
repays its existence
over and over

which is why

(when i stand on it
and stare upriver
and out across the bay)

i feel gratitude
dancing alongside
wonderment

Monday, November 28, 2011

rain in the night outside my open window


the air is alive with rain-silvered words
scraping their vernacular in coarse ciphers
that bisect the night air from sky to ground
like so many sentence threads
drawn together
as much by coincidence as by chance
and how
can i
ignore the stories
that slowly flow
inside
each little drop
as if each
were the first
and the very last
note
in a song

i wrote this while listening to thom yorke's "and it rained all night"

Sunday, November 27, 2011

evensong


i'm so like a kite
soft-papered and soaring
catching the soft and wild winds of the moment
and ripping across the sky
with fluttering tail
and cross-haired body
seeing and feeling and knowing
the detail of every thing
so minutely
so precisely
and as i turn
and see the sun
its red heat brings me
to the horizon's edge
to the edge of my existence
and i call out
"please
if you choose
to bring me back to earth
please
let me fall
into the arms of the one i love"

Saturday, November 26, 2011

wind song


the air i breathe
becomes a song when
the wind flutes words
through your leafless arms

i wrote this while listening to the golden gate quartet singing some righteous gospel from the late 1930's ...

Friday, November 25, 2011

the skin of this place


rising in unlikeliness
from the forest floor

how long can i hold myself
in the hope
that my return
will be more splendid


"small metal gods" by david sylvian (remixed by modesto muniz)

Thursday, November 24, 2011

distance (for the very idea of love)


cresting the once and foreverness, i see inside the view a stillness. it sings with unmoving lips, a song, told on furred tongues, of a time when the ice and the snow was all that was known. it sat and moved in rhythm with the moon. the tidal tongue so deep and long it covered almost all and everything until, receding it revealed a landscape as barren as nothing and so in all conscience it couldn't restrain itself from becoming life in all its rich fullness and it filled everything with the colours and the smells and the textures and the tastes of ripeness and when i came into this place i called my world - or my world as i would come to know it - so many distractions and opportunities and possibilities swirled about, that in their essence i came to know as my world through their little fingers, their small constellations, their bodies that sometimes stood and sometimes ran and sometimes even and especially held me close and so often i think in my head how grateful i am for those brief moments when the very little details of this place revealed something to my becoming self of how the whole is held together and especially how it's represented in the very tiniest way by pieces of wholeness that rise up out of the ground of it all and speak in their own sing-songy way about what matters and what leads to deeper places and especially what holds its form as a way-marker in the journey of my own becoming.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

ascension


barefooted
i lean into
the side of a tree
stepping on pieces of small shelves
turned sideways
bringing the possibility
of ascension into play

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

we can be


the sky is full today - like a room filled with smoke -
there's no definition to it
no edges

here on the ground there's constant movement
as leaves in shades of ochre and pale yellow
move on the breath of a capricious wind
that holds no single point of contact
no attachment to anything
it simply is movement
undefined




Monday, November 21, 2011

a title


stop
and hold yourself closely.

entirely.

listen
to the words tumbling
from your soul's mouth

your song
so needs to be heard
that it will find voice
in the most unlikely places



*


life doesn't start with a title
the one
man show
we are water
and return there ........

words excerpted from "a title" by brian holland music by brian eno (from "a title" drums between the bells)

you can listen to the entire album streamed here courtesy of wired magazine online)

Sunday, November 20, 2011

for erin


each of us try to fill this space
with possibilities
and it's no surprise
that like all vulnerabilities
it wavers in uncertitude
a fragility
that i see in so many too wide-open eyes
so many thin and tightened lips

and i don't know why
but when i think of you writing
i see you
bent
arced
disturbing
the stillness of a duckweed covered pond
as you draw a wooden bucket
across and beneath its skin
skimming its wholeness
into the small hollow space



i wrote this while listening to music created by ingrid chavez entitled "exhale"

Saturday, November 19, 2011

the last tree in the area to hold her leaves


- my beautiful black cherry girl -


felt the soft knives of a winter wind yesterday


a wind that brought with it the blanket that will cover the skin
she has so reluctantly shed over the last few weeks


i gave her a big hug
and wished her good dreams

Friday, November 18, 2011

new love (for jj)


we travel
through strange sometimes beautiful lands
seeking out the places
where the imagined and the real
hold hands
and look into each other's eyes
with the unabashed frankness
of new love
the reflections telling the story
of worlds unfolding
one beyond the other

(best wishes jj!)

steven

Thursday, November 17, 2011

a stranger turn


in the later thicker depths of night, a door opens.

a thin wedge of moonlight makes its way across the space between the window and the doorhandle
it crosses my face
and as i turn to watch it pass through the air
i see the handle moving
as a rearrangement of shadows and light.

i'm transfixed.

is it my imagination?

is it really happening?

the air is electric.
every tiny element of the moment held
in the fullness of a blackness
gently pierced from somewhere
within which there's light ...
a tiny pinprick
almost blinding
in its intensity ...

perhaps it comes from inside me
perhaps
it's merely passing through


still,
the handle
continues turning.

do i move closer to see who is opening the door?
do i stay in bed and pull the covers closer to my eyes?

"come in", i say.
"come in, and tell me your stories".

this
is how love
enters the world


i was listening to "krishna blue" by david sylvian when i wrote this.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

elevation



above the lakes, above the vales,
the mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,
beyond the sun, beyond the ether,
beyond the confines of the starry spheres,
my soul, you move with ease,




purify yourself in the celestial air, drink the ethereal fire of those limpid regions
as you would the purest of heavenly nectars.



soar up towards those fields luminous and serene,
he whose thoughts, like skylarks,
toward the morning sky take flight
— who hovers over life and understands with ease
the language of flowers and silent things!

words excerpted from the work of Charles Baudelaire (Trans) William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

reading baudelaire and watching this unfolding sky i was compelled to listen to "i am a bird in god's garden" with words written by rumi and adapted to the world of music by french, frith, kaiser, and thompson


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

pale yellow becomes gold

the sun is moving lower in the sky much earlier

in its light
pale yellow becomes gold





Monday, November 14, 2011

travel safely


our lives, our work, our becoming ourselves
"the journey" is really so many journeys that last a moment
a lifetime
several lifetimes.

it really is so much easier to draw it all under one umbrella
and protect its fragile rice-paper self
from the weather of this sometimes-harsh
sometimes-kind world
by calling it

"the journey"

thus sparing ourselves the trouble
of unpacking it in detail -
first for ourselves and then for the curious (and who can blame them) onlookers
who are eager to see that suffering and joy
and everything in-between and outside of those two little brackets
are not entirely an experience exclusive to them
but are commonplace to everyone -
and then what?!
then what!

my words - written with love...

break out.
break out and travel safely.

fill this world's roads with your soul



i was listening to the beautiful music of "a produce" and loren nerell when i wrote this

Sunday, November 13, 2011

softened edges


i am
so like
the wind-blown
soft edge
of my bedroom curtains


the air moves through
and plays me




i was listening to brian eno's music for 77 million paintings when i posted these images from my bedroom

Saturday, November 12, 2011

the call


it was so quiet
all i could hear
was the echo of your voice

Friday, November 11, 2011

little rising cloud


my eyes
held this little cloud
on the line
between darkness and light

until it rose
and became both
and neither

*

this is a day when so many of my children are immersed in their experiencing of the manner in which their ancestors are honoured and thanked. today my class will gather for the first time in my career at the cenotaph alongside several soldiers and honour in a very direct way the sacrifices made by so many on both sides.
it is hard for young children to connect directly to something so vast and old and so my work this year is to bring them as closely as possible to a nexus point of remembrance from which our questions, our empathy, our sympathy, our puzzlement, can be centred and then cast into the great gathering of energy around the world that finds its focus in the hope that war can one day come to an end.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

rain on unshuttered windows

woodblock print hasui kawase "bell tower in the rain at okayama"





i see you coming down the street

the suddenness
of a door opening

i close the window




Wednesday, November 9, 2011

the field, the trees and my body



i am standing in an old field
inside the house of me

having weathered all manner of storms
and days that i wished would never end

now the trees set their leaves on the ground

i feel the soft fingers of the sun
tracing their loving calligraphy
across my body


Tuesday, November 8, 2011

there's always more


i'm so careful when i write
that i shouldn't be surprised
when i hear
the remonstrations
spoken
with my own voice

the quiet indignation

that once again
i left so much
unsaid

as a courtesy
to the image
i project
of myself

pressed against the glass
looking in

Monday, November 7, 2011

my angel gabriel


i'm pulled
like a leaf on a stream
to sudden flarings
whirlings
spindrift

they call me
speaking the soft language
using words without form or definition
and i'm absolutely powerless
to ignore them

no amount of experience
or knowledge
of the possible consequences
can deter me

i've always been excited
by possibilities
and incongruencies

by moments left lying around
by doors and windows left open
by the contents of
cupboards and drawers left ajar
by people unfinished

because each moment,
each possibility,
is tied by a slender thread
to the wholeness

and they cry
(so very like a newborn child)
to be held
nurtured
drawn closer
and then
- with the cutting of the cord -
someone
anyone
must lay bare the very real cord
that frees and contains in one experience
this being here in this place
this reason
this artifice
this dance of light and shadow
this awful leaving
this laying bare
and in the very best of all possible possibilities
the someone
the anyone
is a portal for love
the one love
that knows itself in opposition
and in symmetry
and in all the states in-between


*


this piece was written while listening to lamb - "gabriel"

Sunday, November 6, 2011

when the future presents itself

scenes from margaret's garden (ii)



i'm at an interesting place in my life and i'll tell you what i can about it
i believe that the work i do is honourable and worthy
and that
(through a lovely and serendipitous coincidence)
it brings goodness to me
just as i bring goodness to it

in fact both
exist
almost entirely
without condition

and yet
i already know
the name
of the work i need to do
which in my strange iteration
of my experiencing of this world
melds into
"the work i need to become"

i can feel its fingers on my shoulders
i can see its eyes
feel its breath on my face
smell its perfume

even as it stands
wings held still
not moments away
from me

and my heart
holding its own wings
as still
as still can be

flutters
like a small bird
cupped
in my own hands

looking inwards
and outwards





i was listening to "i dormienti" by brian eno when i wrote this piece
i like to use this piece of music when i paint

Saturday, November 5, 2011

riding in november


the sudden blur -

the quickening
of the wish
to hold
and entirely sense
the fleeting
edge
of the thoroughness
of winter
is contained
completely
and minutely
inside their wind-borne fire


Friday, November 4, 2011

quietude (for shaista)


all the silence
and all the completeness
of an uncharted space

the darkness

the roughness
softened by the layering of accumulated dust

time lies thickly about
us

thickly
ticking
passing
absently

and then sometimes
completely
thoroughly
and utterly

making this
a place to wish
and sometimes
to dream

of worlds
turned outwards
and inwards
all referent points obscured

the cartographer
acting
out of kindness

and then also

as if
there were a gift
to give


i was listening to music called "like pictures" by brian eno and jan peter schwalm when i wrote this piece.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

the boat of we

edward brian seago "fishing boats - honfleur"


time washes against
and over us

each wave a measure of our becoming
and our leaving behind.

you and i
and the boat of we
between us

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

slide


each step upwards into the sky a test
each footfall's hollow metallic ringing
like bells marking an ascension

and standing at the top
with the wind catching in my hair and my eyes
i stop long enough
to see this place
the you
of this moment
expanding

no need to return to earth
for now

i was listening to "indian summer" by riceboy sleeps

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

wonder


ordinary wonder.

well . . .

the little joys
i find in
the scattered sparkles of you

when
your eyes hold me
until i am
tossed casually skyward
and i'm brought to feel
the ripeness of recognition
as i find myself
suddenly placed
inside my own words
where i find a song
in which each note
is so like
the opening
and closing of an entire universe

and you know
there are days when i could happily trade
all of this in
for the tumbledown stony thatch of a gurgling stream
the soft tangents of
wind-stroked seeds
floating
hovering
looking for an entryway
into the latticework
and i would say
in that moment
"load this light bound silence
and fill it with those simple wishes"

oh you trees
you solemn clouds
oh you dried and colour-bound leaves
tell me you care
about any of this?

no matter
i shall be this way
if only for this very human
being
that i am.



i was listening to michael brook and pieter nooten's music "searching" as i wrote this.