Saturday Morning (Soul Train)

Posted on by Live & Learn

There is in the soul a desire
for not thinking.
For being still.

~ Raymond Carver, from “Radio Waves,” in All of Us: The Collected Poems

– – –

the body remains at home
tending to the housekeeping. It sweeps
and sweeps while the soul sits on a
riverbank somewhere, looking at clouds
The soul, it seems, has kept the best
memories: a silver dress that
knew how to dance, a kiss from mama,
and the one good year. Or maybe two…

~ Eleanor Lerman, from “A Myth Sitting by a River”

Notes:

 

20 thoughts on “Saturday Morning (Soul Train)”

  1. That poem!!!! (Eleanor’s one)…..
    I love those still and serene moments.

    Are you getting better yet? Take your time, will you?! Pleaaaase…..

    1. Yes, Kiki. Resting and getting better. Thank you.

      Yes. Eleanor Lerman is so great. Here’s a few other nuggets:

      Except, stop here, just for a moment: where there
      is summer. Where there is this scene, composed
      of fireflies, children, wet bathing suits on the porch
      Yes, that house, where you did not live, which
      was not yours, though something else was. Is.
      Invisible and hungry. Lost, lost, lost, it says,
      and bares its teeth

      ~ Eleanor Lerman, from Dog Years from Strange Life
      ——–

      This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
      the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
      stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
      your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
      down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
      the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
      is this a message, finally, or just another day?

      ~ Eleanor Lerman, Starfish from Our Post Soviet History Unfolds (Published by Sarabande Books. Copyright © 2005)

      2. Just had to check her out. What a dark horse (I don’t know if I use this term correctly, that was just my thought!) – very intriguing… Thanks again – do you have her books then? Or have you found these online. There aren’t that many quotes by her nor poems.

  3. The soul at peace – allowing the busyness of life to continue without its participation, allowing it to savor the deliciousness in grace.

  4. Thank you, David…for reminding me of Carver–resonating to: “There is in the soul a desire
    for not thinking.
    For being still.” I believe that that is where the healing happens.
    I’m wondering if Eleanor Lerman spent time in Martha’s Vineyard…so much like what she so sensitively cherishes in this poem.
    In our current “weather” what is there to do but go inside and re-ignite our souls….

    1. Valerie, your thought of stillness and healing and souls reminds me of this passage:

      After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence,
      which had a dimension all of its own.
      I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture,
      which of course, it was impossible to express in words.
      I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence,
      which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there.
      Without the distraction of constant conversation,
      the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self.
      They were no long expressing ideas
      that were simply interesting intellectually,
      but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.

      ~ Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase (Knopf Canada, Jun 4, 2010)

  5. I love that photo, but then I looked again and saw the curtain and the open flame. I hope they’re watching that candle. But it looks so perfect. The scene outside is gorgeous and the candle in the window makes me wonder whom it’s for.

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