Hughlings Himwich

Moon walk

Walking through days
I have walked through
long ago, same
step and stride, same
heart wanting something

more; yet today
is the only day
I can’t remember you
Walking through the years
to find me standing

here alone, longing
for the moon,
Its light buried
in my heart of hearts:

Be with you soon.

Some

For Emily

It's but a drop of rain -
However slight its sum -
It will dissolve the sky
and swallow up the sun
. . . . .

What can lift the fallen soul
And make it feel its toes?
Don’t hold your breath
That is the key
And be it but the air
You’ll light upon a wayward word
And turning -- dancing there

She

She unraveled
at my feet
like the sea

like the sea
She rose and wept
and called to me

Now I call to you
with a thousand voices
of a thousand seas.

What soft tune

What soft tune
Turns the moon
Through its stations?

No lover's art
Shapes the night
And makes it move

Only the note
Of a dying bird
In its dark nest

Sings it round
The earth
And calls it home.

To be wholly there

If we were wholly open
To earth, tree and flower,
There would be no poems
Only the chattering silence
Of wind, hoofbeat, and rain.
For to be wholly there
Is to die 10.000 times,
Each sight and sound
A thread that binds us close
and makes us whole.

5 Pieces

What you see is not the flower --

Lo, the flower unfolds itself

Within you and Behold! You

Are there as though one apart

from the blossoming of your soul.

Were I young once only 

I would not know now 

how to walk with trees 

or fly south with the geese.

Would you know yourself

If you were to see the beauty

Of your eyes in mine

Or would you see the mountains

Rise up and kiss the sky?

The journey

makes this rock

a place to rest --

so too the moon.

Be still.

Even the wind may rest.

Some More

Sewing

Is it possible to love
and be alone? he asks,
but she, worrying at buttons,
just mutters, Some days,
my love, are better than others.

Nothing but wind

I’ve stopped dying and breathing,
But you, my love, fall upon me like skin,
Like rain that streams through my veins,
And you teach me to breathe again
And how to die again and again
Until I become nothing but wind.

What is not there

Though I am known to God
As Hughlings, my friends call me
Hugh and leave it at that --
Grace takes care of the rest.

Though I do not believe
In anything or have any Jesus,
Yet I retain a kind of genius
For harmless lies.

It is as if during the day
I can still see the stars
Blazing out of the night
And truly see what is

not there. Some say
it is a harmless madness --
My friends though look deep
Into what were once my eyes

And all they see is night.

Getting it up with Shakespeare

Love, friends, is deadly. You may wonder,
Am I suffering from a broken heart
Or has love, freely given,
Not been returned? To which I say,
Yes, O Yes, Yes!
Beat the drums and let the bagpipes play
And I will march ripe into that narrow patch
Of mind and sand and play, She loves me
She loves me not, and haply saw
My soul in two.
I shall send her flowers,
Long purples that prickly boys
Call a grosser name,
But she will say as maidens do,
"How could you be so lame?"

Buttons

Smoke rising burnt orange then down around the edge until the tenderness binding flung into the night curving endlessly, her gift her fire dying in my arms her body rising until nothing but the bloom of sighing herself to sleep tight as the moon and flying.

(untitled)

You will come to the end
of your high story,
your body broken,
your spirit weak and alone,
the goal still distant,
yet on your lips a song
of no regret as you
set out a final time
on a ship unrigged,
your self the wind
and sky and sea.

Kiss and Tell

Who but a god

Could look at you

Sweetly laughing

And not die

For a kiss, dying

Again and again

Like gods of spring

that never truly

Die. Your lips

Like night

hold back the day

And close my eyes . . .

Awake! Awake!

You are no god

To kiss and tell

Of life and death.

"Written in pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car: Dan Pagis

WRITTEN IN PENCIL IN THE SEALED RAILWAY-CAR

here in this carload

i am eve

with abel my son

if you see my other son

cain son of man

tell him that i

-- Dan Pagis

Oracle

For far too long
I’ve been hostage
To the fates.
No more.
I will not play.
Do what you will,
I will not obey.

Of course, you will.
So runs the wind.
It's the air you breathe,
the song you sing.
So stirs the day,
You hear it still.
You will obey.

Uncommon Wisdom 1 & 2

If you want to praise acceptably, be very precise. Inattentive praise is almost an insult.

-- Eva Brann, Open Secrets / Inward Prospects: Reflections on World and Soul, p. 423

I hope whatever you’re doing,

you’re stopping now and then

and

not doing it at all.

--- James Fadiman, quoted in Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind, p. 282

River Notes

As I sit here writing tonight at my desk I am on the river and see myself in the flow of all things . . . the sounds of water, bird and wind are my voice, and all my senses are alive as though the stars were at elbow and foot . . . I breathe in the night and orion, aldebaran, and procyon come closer, and there you are again, musa, luna puella, your body curving and folding in the current, laughing and inviting me to dive with you beneath the rippling and lose myself at last, these words nothing but the falling rain.

The Fall

He fell (he was always falling)

Or rather, he jumped, missing the water

That would have taken him, leaving his remains

to flow in the rhythms of his speech,

Washed clean like one hoping to please

Instead of what was, a silent heap,

Though there was heard from a nearby street

What some would call a melodious scream.

By lamplight

There is before me in my room
An old lamp that burns
With no bulb screwed in.
It gets its light from years ago
When my father would read to me
Of little mice who ruled the house
And left my room a fearful sight,
My toys and clothes all here and there --
He smiled his smile, as I do mine,
Beneath this lamp and its brief light.

Reading lesson

(for Peter)

Mom, who is dad talking to? Friends who write.

Where did he meet them? In books.

Is he talking to himself? Yes.

Is he crazy? Yes, a little.

Will I be crazy like dad one day? Just keep reading.

Can I read dad’s books some day? Of course, he is talking to you.

Are you crazy too, Mom? A little. I am talking to you, aren’t I?

But Dad is so quiet when he writes. Yes, he talks and talks.

Like me? Yes, little one, like you.

Poetry Stinks / Antipoem

This poem has elicited the dreaded no comment except from one good friend who did me the kindness of asking about the word ‘gimble'. Nevertheless, I continue to enjoy the poem as if it were written by someone else for whom poetry brings into view such beauty that we but suffer the more for its absence. It is a backward way of praising poetry. That’s what I think antipoetry is doing. Anyway, here is the worthless little bit of a stinker in its final ode-rous form. Hold your nose . . . . .

Poetry Stinks

Poetry gives us just enough of what is real

to make us howl and gimble in the night,

too far from moon and what is our fate

To make it right. It stinks a lot!

A shot in the dark

Fault these eyes prying out the pain a bargain this time but next in line a drowning or sketching this day or night like any other point the shortest distance is dying is such a drag who were shot out of the dark and would go on bitching and so here we stand or suffer for what praying is to breathing and sometimes bark and other times bite like fire and god knows where you're bleeding

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Who could love someone like you

He loved everybody, boys, girls, women and men. He found lovable what others considered shortcomings like protruding teeth or flapping ears or a nasty looking scar across the forehead. He even found drooling a reason to rejoice. He couldn’t help himself. Others thought he was delusional or simply a dirty old man, until one day, he suffered a head injury in a bicycle accident. After he recovered, he seemed to find crippling fault with everyone. His constant refrain was, “Who could love someone like you?” He said this whether the person was overweight, stuttered or blinked too much. Some remembered the “dirty old man” and said to each other, “He used to be such a loving human being.” They asked him what had changed and he said, “I woke up.” One day he took a good look at himself in the mirror and saw all the faults he saw in others in himself and banged his head as hard as he could against the glass. This time he didn’t wake up.

Love is so strange

Every time he looked at her he scowled. She finally had enough and asked him what was his problem. He said, “You’re so beautiful. I can’t help myself.” She didn’t understand. “But your face is so ugly when you look at me?” He didn’t understand and, of course, all the while he was scowling and making himself look ugly. Finally, she asked, “Can you smile?” and he answered, “I thought I was.” “No, a smile looks like this,” and she smiled for him. He scowled. Then, for some reason, she kissed him. When people see the two of them together now, hand in hand, he scowling and she smiling, they wonder aloud, “What an odd couple!" Love is so strange.

Ber: Picture of the Day 114, 115, 116, 117, 118

Ber: Picture of the Day 112, 113

For more of Ber Himwich's Pictures of the Day, go to his site at https://www.splitsushix.com or see Picture of the Day links on the left side of the page.

Song for Richard

You spoke the only true word I know
And that word became an open wound
They cleaned with lye, not knowing
Your pain, your tears were like wine
That would save their shining souls.

Pick up the rifle, son
No you said
That’s no SIR, son
Pick up the damn gun!
No you said.

They called the captain
They called the priest
They called the doctor
Are you crazy, son?

No no no

Come with us!
You walked away.

I see you now forty years later
alone on that far thundering shore
“I will not fight your fucking war!”
You are carving a face out of driftwood
the face behind the face of everyone I meet
I have it still and think of you.

You came back. True to your word.
And they sent you to Leavenworth
Where your bruises became sores
Your sores gaping wounds
Your screams the blessing
That saves our sorry souls.

Ber: Picture of the Day 110

For more of Ber Himwich's Pictures of the Day, go to his site at https://www.splitsushix.com or see Picture of the Day links on the left side of the page.

Memorial

This tree grows to the stars

in remembrance of the dead

lost to all memory, its root

the earth upon which I stand

searching through the night,

its leaves leaping into fire

giving to each lost soul

a home in the deathless dark.

Ber: Picture of the Day 108

Ber: Picture of the Day 107

Fragmentum cordis fracti

Quae me amat magis quam fas est

Neminem magis quam Bubonium amat.

. . . . .

She who loves me more than she should

Loves no one more than Bubonius.

Viktor Frankl's poem on surviving the death of his wife

You weigh on me, you whom I lost in death.

You’ve given me the silent charge to live for you;

So it is for me now to erase the debt of your extermination.

Until I know that with each ray of sun

You wish to warm me and to meet me;

Until I see that in each blossoming tree

There’s someone dead who wants to greet me;

Until I hear that every bird’s song is your voice

Sounding out to bless me and perhaps to say

That you forgive me that I live.

-- Viktor Frankl, 1946, from his autobiography Recollections

The Man Who Cried When It Rained

Why are you crying?

Am I crying?

Yes, you are. Is there something the matter?

No. I’ve had a good day except, of course, for the rain.

Maybe you should get some help.

What kind of help?

Like from a friend.

You’re my friend.

But I can’t help you.

Why do you think I need help?

Because you are crying for no reason.

But I told you.

What?

About the rain.

Ber: Picture of the Day 105, 106

For more of Ber Himwich's Pictures of the Day, go to his site at https://www.splitsushix.com or see Picture of the Day links on the left side of the page.

Ber: Picture of the Day 103, 104

For more of Ber Himwich's Pictures of the Day, go to his site at https://www.splitsushix.com or see Picture of the Day links on the left side of the page.

Ber: Picture of the Day 101, 102

For more of Ber Himwich's Pictures of the Day, go to his site at https://www.splitsushix.com or see Picture of the Day links on the left side of the page.

Ber: Picture of the Day 97, 98

Ber: Picture of the Day 95, 96

Ber: Picture of the Day 93, 94

Ber: Picture of the Day 91, 92

Ber: Picture of the Day 90

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Maria Metzger: Photo 1

Ber: Picture of the Day 87, 88

Ber: Picture of the Day 86

Ber: Picture of the Day 83, 84

We are totally transparent to each other . . .

The terrible, wonderful truth is that we are all totally transparent to each other; there is no place to hide. Why not stop trying? No sly, tacit agreement to act as if no one can really know what it is like to be another can change what is in fact the case: I know what it is like to be you and you know what it is like to be me. How could it be otherwise? How else would love be possible? It is a truth so fundamental to our being in the world that it is easy to miss altogether. Or maybe it is a reality that would threaten to overwhelm the space we have marked out as our own private realm. Of course, being a man, I don't know what it is like to give birth, but I do know what it is like to be. That is enough. More than enough. It saves us from the objectification of the other. That's no small thing. It is, as Heraclitus, might say, a matter of perspective: the way up and the way down are one and the same.