Breathing

I know how to breathe from my diaphragm.

That deep breath that supports my frame,
my voice, my

self.

That deep breath.

It has been my constant companion.

I sit outside this cold December night.
I watch my breath
blossom like cotton candy against the wine dark sky


And hope I can breathe you out, once and for all.

You and I both know,
this is the land we call nowhere.

We hang on to little pieces, thinking maybe
it is enough.

that we can make it sufficient.

But life is not made of little pieces
and

no matter how tightly or loosely held,
little pieces are never enough.

And so I watch the vapor of my breath
on the cold air.

I watch the way it vanishes

breathing you out.




© Nancy A. Smith
2009

Oh, how I wish I had written this! Other writers humble me!


I have tried hard to have appropriate feelings

I have folded them away like sweaters.
Kept my distance from the moon, visited the sick.

I am proud of the life in my head. Nobody knows
the garden I've seen. I am tender with the suburb.

Some days even the ceiling worries me, the way
it keeps the roof on.

I only cry when the polar bears get to me.
The ones stranded on the melting ice.

Otherwise I'm kept in line by the steady curve
of my driveway, the tight fists of the roses. I can easily
converse
about the sweet peas and our eventual disintegration.

The sky has more to say to me than I could
ever hear, given the restricted space between
houses. Frogs sing at night and the whine of the train.

When moths circle the porch light
I think they might be coming for me.

Susan Denning
By Permission

I will post her bio as soon as I can get over the technical difficulties.

The Greatest Generation

Courage is Fear holding on a minute longer.

George S. Patton

Indolence
High summer seems a time for it,
for nothingness

abnegation of ambition which has
driven me
far too long.

Better my dog’s intention,
to follow
bliss of sensation
to drowse in heat
to drink when thirsty, which is to say

always

to revel in relaxation, to
let that sweet
sleep creep
into me and

Not. Care.

that I am

Not. Productive.

today.

High summer.

May I know no song but thanks.

George Eliot - An Unconventional Life

George Eliot - also known as Mary Ann Evans - led a quite unconventional life for her time. In thinking about the nature of fate, relationships, and roads not taken, I stumbled across this quote from her.

"Anyone watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots, sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on another ... Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand."

On my way to work today ...

Blue Heron - The Meaning:


According to North American Native tradition, the Blue Heron brings messages of self-determination and self-reliance. They represent an ability to progress and evolve. The long thin legs of the heron reflect that an individual doesn't need great massive pillars to remain stable, but must be able to stand on one's own.

Blue Herons have the innate wisdom of being able to manoeuvre through life and co-create their own circumstances. Blue Herons reflect a need for those with this totem to follow their own unique wisdom and path of self-determination. These individuals know what is best for themselves and need to follow their hearts rather than the promptings of others. Those with the Medicine of the Great Blue Heron may sit until the rest of us loose patience. And, when they follow the promptings of the heart, they are one of the most magnificent when they choose to soar.

This is the message that Blue Heron brings.

A hopeful omen.

Gratitude


The Place I Want To Get Back To


is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness

and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is
and why she is sitting

on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.


"The Place I Want To Get Back To" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst. © Beacon Press, 2006.

What's Past is Prologue

Elizabeth I. Most people know her as Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. Most historians agree she was a complicated woman. Many people know she was highly educated and intelligent. Fewer people know she was a poet.

This woman eschewed much in the way of love. Here is her verse that I love best. It speaks to me.


I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

An Amazing Thing happened in my backyard...

In our unexpected two days of welcome warmth, an amazing thing happened.

I tried to capture it in words. The below falls far short, but, for what it's worth -


Cherry Blossoms

Hard winter aweigh
through unlikely feet of snow
to today
a sudden April warmth.

The ground coolly uncertain which green thing
might still reach its tender
head into the sun.

I sit quiet
at the peak of the afternoon warmth.
Quiet - so still - I harmonize in my mind
to my old dog's
sleeping musical breath.

and in the stillness
(me - stillness in the warmth) a sound -

tick -tick-

not rhythmic but cascading,
like a herd of tiny feasting birds
breaking seed with sharp beaks.

tick.

tick-tick.

Like the smallest of small rain on an aluminum roof,
no cadence but drifting on the air in little waterfalls of sound.

What could that be?

Without disturbing
the music of the old dog
I quietly pace the backyard,
behind the bushes,
along the feeders,
up the tree branches to see if
that grey squirrel might be
teasing me with his ventriloquy...

I sit back down and let the silence,
except for the tick tick tick,
engulf me.

And then, all senses roaming,
my ear turns to the cherry tree,
leaning toward me like a longing old love,

and I knew.

I knew.

That the ticking astounding sound was the music of a thousand cherry buds
releasing from their green and swollen cases.

A mystery, revealed.

Humbled,
I harmonize the music of the old dog
to the sound of the bursting tree,

and for the first time in a long time

I am

amazed.



April, 2009