Into the mug of morning
pour yourself, warm
and dark, your aromatic
presence hugging the hand-formed
divide between inside and out.
Ease from empty into full
until, brim-level, you
rise an swirl, a steamy
mist rejoining its source.
~Sharon Sharp
Notes: Photo: mennyfox55. Poem: Thank you Make Believe Boutique
But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the frail cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.
~ Billy Collins, from “Tuesday, June 4th, 1991”
Notes:
It isn’t long after we arrive
that everyone starts pointing
and telling us where we need
to be and what we need to do
to get there. There’s no time
to really ask why. Soon, things
happen and we’re thrown off
course and now there’s all this
effort to win their approval. If
lucky, love will distract us more
than suffering. If blessed, we’re
broken of everyone’s plans and
regrets and thrown like a hooded
bird into a sea of light.
If trusting
the fall, we find our wings.
~ Mark Nepo, “Where We Need to Be” in The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting
Notes: Photo: (via Your Eyes Blaze Out). Poem: Thank you Make Believe Boutique
Art: Esa Riippa with NENÄLLEHYPPIJÄ, 1978. (Translated by Leena Gonzalez as “Jumping on the Nose.”) Riippa is a Finnish visual artist who was born in 1947. (via Carnet Imaginaire)
It’s 5:40 a.m. An early jump to beat the morning rush to mid-town Manhattan. I’m in a 50 mph zone, and traffic is blowing by me as if I were standing still. No matter. I’m not chasing them, not today. I’m on the West Side Highway. Manhattan condo’s tower overhead on my left. Hudson River flows silently on my right. Sun is rising and casting a dreamy glow over all things. Passages from Richard Powers’ new book (The Overstory) flick through consciousness: “It’s morning like the morning when life first came up on dry land.”
And the mind panned from Now to yesterday. From Richard to Rachel. To my Rachel.
Rachel’s birthday was yesterday. She took the day off and came home. “You don’t expect me to work on my birthday do you Dad?” With Mom and Dad both working, she was going to spend the day alone at home. Now that doesn’t seem right. I cancelled meetings, worked from home and scheduled lunch with Rachel at the Rowayton Seafood restaurant.
She orders the Lobster Roll (butter poached with lemon on brioche). Plus fries. Dad orders the blackened salmon on a bed of corn, tomatillo and asparagus. Plus fries.
Waitress asks her if she’d like a glass of wine with lunch. “No Thank you. Ice water would be great.” I watched her interaction with the waitress, her unfolding of her napkin and placing it on her lap, her straightening her dress over her knees, her ease in the surroundings, her comfort in her own skin. Wow. Look at what you’ve become. [Read more…]
Turning to the head of his bed, he noticed a single camellia blossom that had fallen to the floor. He was certain he had heard it drop during the night; the sound had resounded in his ears like a rubber ball bounced off the ceiling. Although he thought this might be explained by the silence of the night, just to make sure that all was well with him, he had placed his right hand over his heart. Then, feeling the blood pulsating correctly at the edge of his ribs, he had fallen asleep. For some time, he gazed vacantly at the color of the large blossom, which was nearly as large as a baby’s head. Then, as if he had just thought of it, he put his hand to his heart and once again began to study its beat. It had become a habit with him lately to listen to his heart’s pulsation while lying in bed. As usual, the palpitation was calm and steady. With his hand still on his chest, he tried to imagine the warm, crimson blood flowing leisurely to this beat. This was life, he thought. Now, at this very moment, he held in his grasp the current of life as it flowed by.
~ Natsume Sōseki, “And Then” (1909)
Photo (edited): commorancy with Pink Camellia, Hakone Japanese Gardens
I cannot tell you
how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.
That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.
That it has a fondness
for the body
for finding its way
toward flesh
for tracing the edges
of form
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.
I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still
to the blessed light
that comes.
– Jan Richardson, How the Light Comes
Notes:
Tell me a flashlight.
at 2:30 in the morning.
Here come sparklers.
Use them to trace letters of light in the darkness.
Tell me the world.
Here comes light, unspoken.
Light hooks a claw on the horizon, pulls itself into view.
Here comes water, saline, scattering single-celled organisms.
Land is a puppet. It climbs hydrothermal vents like stairs.
Lava congeals. Land rises.
Here comes land, hand-springing out of water.
Wind is a comma, pausing the day…
~ Rebecca Lehmann, edited from Natural History (Brooklyn State Hospital, December 19, 2015)
Notes:
