Relishings

IN MY HEART : : Darn Good Flat Picker

It was nearly 30 years ago he invited me up to his railroad apartment for Thai food and a beer. Summer in the city meant spicy food, usually ethnic. Recently the building had a fire and soot was everywhere.

I didn't know he'd pull out his guitar or that he was good.

Shady Grove.

He said it was a courting song. I think I probably blushed. I know I was smitten. I guessed this was how it would be forever. 

In Maine five years later, out on Forest Avenue at the old road house where the liquor store now stands; I sat just about as pregnant as a girl can be and still go out listening to live music.

Corrina, Corrina where ya been so long?

Doc made me cry. Only my tears and my tapping foot moved freely. It was the perfect name for my new baby girl. 

Doc Watson died yesterday at 89. He had known great love and great loss.

You could hear it in his pickin'. 

 

 

 

IN MY HEART : : IN MEMORY OF ADRIENNE RICH

Diving into the Wreck

by Adrienne Rich 1929-2012

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

IN MY HEART : : The Melting

[the snow is melting]

BY KOBAYASHI ISSA

TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HASS

The snow is melting

and the village is flooded

      with children.

 

IN MY HEART : : Now I become myself

Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It's taken 
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before--"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

    May Sarton

 

IN MY HEART : : If not for you

for Walter...

 

IN MY HEART : : Shoveling Snow with Buddha

Shoveling Snow With Buddha In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok  you would never see him doing such a thing,  tossing the dry snow over a mountain  of his bare, round shoulder,  his hair tied in a knot,  a model of concentration.  Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word  for what he does, or does not do.  Even the season is wrong for him.  In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?  Is this not implied by his serene expression,  that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?  But here we are, working our way down the driveway,  one shovelful at a time.  We toss the light powder into the clear air.  We feel the cold mist on our faces.  And with every heave we disappear  and become lost to each other  in these sudden clouds of our own making,  these fountain-bursts of snow.  This is so much better than a sermon in church,  I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.  This is the true religion, the religion of snow,  and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,  I say, but he is too busy to hear me.  He has thrown himself into shoveling snow  as if it were the purpose of existence,  as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway  you could back the car down easily  and drive off into the vanities of the world  with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.  All morning long we work side by side,  me with my commentary  and he inside his generous pocket of silence,  until the hour is nearly noon  and the snow is piled high all around us;  then, I hear him speak.  After this, he asks,  can we go inside and play cards?  Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk  and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table  while you shuffle the deck.  and our boots stand dripping by the door.  Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes  and leaning for a moment on his shovel  before he drives the thin blade again  deep into the glittering white snow. Billy Collins

 

Happy weekend all! We will be celebrating a birthday, basking in the glow of a great Nordic Ski race, rooting for the Pats, and (with great mindfulness) surely shoveling some snow.

IN MY HEART : : Xin Nian Kuai Le! ~ Happy New Year!

 

 I have read that in China it is tradition to post a poem on one's door during New Years to scare away the monster Niam. 

January 23th marked the beginning of Chinese New Year celebration which culminates during the Lantern Festival on February 6th, the 15th day of the lunar moon. In Chinese Astrology, 2012 marks the year of the water dragon considered sublimely auspicious: a symbol of power, creativity, wealth, success and health. Some consider it the luckiest year of the lunar calendar. (We could all use a bit of dragon right about now.)

I say any excuse for poetry is a cause for celebration! 

 

Vision

Go out after midnight
with the sky trembling
in snowy light --
each star holding its filament
of desire. Merge

your mind with the spiraling
galaxies -- with a movement so
large only Your
heart can encompass it.

Drop your prayer into the ear
of God. Write a poem to help
her hear it.

Notice the moon grow
more distant and
diffuse -- Reappear
as your Beloved

looking out through eyes
vast as a Winter

Sky...

 by Elizabeth Reninger

Happy Weekend all. Around here, we will surely be cooking up an offering to the Kitchen God. Prosper in good health! 

IN MY HEART : : We Shall Overcome

... we shall overcome. And I believe it because somehow the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

We shall overcome because Carlyle is right; "no lie can live forever".

We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right; "truth crushed to earth will rise again"...

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day. And in the words of prophecy, every valley shall be exalted. And every mountain and hill shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places straight...

An excerpt from Martin Luther King's final sermon in Memphis

April 3, 1968

 

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

 

IN MY HEART : : This Blog's Birthday

 

A year ago today, looking for inspiration while scribbling ice cream flavor descriptions, I began this blog. Just for fun just for me. To focus on the pieces of my life that hold the most meaning. The good juicy stuff. I started here. 

One year, almost 200 posts, and nearly 20,000 (not all me) page views later, I am still here. Last January I would have never guessed how much I would come to enjoy being in this space - of the process, of the connections I have made all over the world, of the kind, so kind, words from so many. 

I am not quite sure how long I'll be here or what this blog will become. I have shied away from the networking piece of the blogosphere. But in the meantime please visit often and enjoy!

Find your own passion, make mistakes, stretch yourself some, discover your voice, look stupid, and laugh. Alot. As someone asked me a year ago, exactly what are you afraid of?

Keep the suggestions, comments, and encouragement coming. I am all ears! 

In gratitude,

Wendy

IN MY HEART : : Blessings

It is early morning and the house is full but quiet. 

Fabric remnants are scattered over the sitting room, balls of yarn sit in a pile on the couch, the power tools in the basement are silent.

After several days of perfect black ice, the pond is puddled with warmth. Snow is coming. 

Today we make cookies and we wrap. Alot. 

We (I) let go of unrealistic expectations and relish what is. This simple goodness right now. 

Thanks to them for being here. Thanks to friends, family and neighbors for the caring and the cookies. Thanks to you dear readers for stopping by this space and for your kind words. They mean a lot. I wish you all health, happiness, peace in your heart and peace in your world. And joyful merriment in the coming New Year. 

CELEBRATE!!!