now east now west

the road has a mind of its own

and my feet obey

the rest of me stays behind
treelike

above

the sky grows gentle

MY HEART OPENS

the road goes on

as if not knowing

which way is best

"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

A broken wing

Who will stop and weep for you,
Who will sing your song,
Who will call a rose a rose
And trace her love in sand?

If still you breathe in silence
And look upon the stars,
Yet you may lift up your voice
And match the wind in time.

Does the storm overwhelm you,
Does day turn dark to black?
There’s none here to see you
Fall and find a sudden light.

The End of the Journey: A Conversation with Neil Longenbaugh

Neil Longenbaugh: Socrates knows he is wiser than the common man because he does not profess to know what he does not. This creates a few problems for me. How can Socrates know for sure that he doesn’t know something? I think the only thing he can be certain of is that he knows nothing for certain, and if this is true then how can someone be wiser than another person if both know equally nothing? This idea is a paradox that can’t be clearly answered unless Socrates is claiming that the craftsman and poets claim to know something and he nothing.

Mr. Himwich: Problem is that the craftsmen and especially those muse-inspired poets think that they do in fact know – but, of course, they don’t, as is revealed under Socratic questioning. You do touch on a difficult issue: Does knowledge require that we know that we know and perhaps even to be able to articulate what we know and be able to teach it to someone else. Absent this kind of knowledge we might categorize our “knowledge” as belief, hypothesis, intuition, educated guess, etc.

Mr. Longenbaugh: I think that knowing something for certain is an impossibility. We can know that we can think, and articulate this to other people, but we cannot know that we know something as it truly is. I agree that we can classify our knowledge as hypothesis, intuition, etc… What is truth though? If it is impossible to know for certain then can we find truth in our educated guesses and such?

Mr. Himwich: So much depends on what one means by "truth," as you well know. For me, the truth is paradoxically the very activity of a mind that searches for understanding. This activity of mind is the very truth it searches for. It is always thus, e.g. we create the very world that we seek to understand as if it were separate from us. The truth is as close as thought itself. I know this will sound mystical or worse -- plain nonsense. What is your idea of truth?

Mr. Longenbaugh: I feel that truth is something sought after. I think that there are elements that we must find within ourselves, but I think that the physical world also contains truth. I think one can find a balance between retrospection and examining the world they live in for truth. I think that truth is perhaps what you do not know, even if what you think is the truth is not really how it is. Since you believe truth to be activity of mind, do you believe that everything we perceive and experience is some sort of dream or separate experience or reality based on your mind’s bias towards the world?

Mr. Himwich: I think your understanding of truth is sound. I must admit that mine is a work in progress. When I say 'activity of the mind', I mean just that: not the products of that activity, just the pure activity itself. That activity is the existential answer to the mind/body question (how the brain and consciousness relate). If we thereby solve the mind/body question, then we will also solve the mind's relationship to the external world. I know this sounds weird. Truth for me is not this and that bit of knowledge or even the collection of such bits into a whole. It is what actually happens. Again, not what physics tells us about the nature of the universe, but the universe itself as it happens. If we could understand our own activity (our own happening), then we could understand everything else. We are part of the happening of things. Again, I admit I am exploring ideas here. Let me try one more time: we are already what we seek to understand. In our very attempt to understand what we already are is the Truth. (I am laughing at myself. Feel free to laugh at me as well.)

Mr. Longenbaugh: I can accept your argument (for lack of a better word), but it does bring about a few more questions. These examples seem to be contradictory or perhaps by the nature of the activity itself they aren’t. Take someone who is in a coma for example or a dream that persists indefinitely, is their understanding subconscious because dreams to me seem to be more of a ride than activity. Should we try to understand these, knowing we can’t control them, or should we try to learn to control them? What about out of body experiences while awake? (I won’t give any examples) These provide a little trouble for me and I’m sure for you too. I think that I can understand what I believe to be awake reality and activity.

Mr. Himwich: This is becoming more about my wayward ideas than yours (not to say yours are wayward). But I am happy to continue. It seems to me that the Truth only appears when we are actively in search for it, but it remains paradoxically and necessarily elusive. The search and Truth are like the sun and the moon, the moon’s reflected light derives from the sunlike mind. (I am expressing ideas here I have never expressed before.) What we want to understand is not the moon itself but the light that illuminates it, yet we fail to recognize the source of the light comes from our own consciousness. This little analogy must be read allegorically.

Mr. Longenbaugh: That is a good analogy. This raises an interesting question. Is the moon necessary? Can we simply look straight into the sun and try and find Truth? I think that before we can journey to the sun, we must first understand the moon, or start searching. It seems maybe that the moon is more tangible than the sun. We can travel, and search for what the moon and its light mean, but I don’t think its ever possible to make it to the sun. In the context of this analogy, we can keep getting closer to the sun or Truth, but the closer we are, the hotter it is. This slows us down and eventually burns us before we can ever get there.

Mr. Himwich: I think that consciousness, before it is consciousness of something, is nonexistent, or rather exists as a potentiality only. This goes back to that question in class: if you stop thinking, i.e. stop being conscious, do you cease to exist. That is a very live question. I would hasten to add that in the mystic traditions, especially with respect to meditation practice, there is a possible turning away from the object to consciousness itself. The reported experience is the usual wonderful mystic nonsense (of which I have a great share): a sense of unity with all things and then joy.

Mr. Longenbaugh: I’m turned toward thinking that consciousness is existence. And going away from this consciousness I think is a good thing, because I’m not sure even if there is necessarily one direction that you must head. Turning away could very well be just as real as going in the “normal” direction if we have to call it that. I can’t say I’ve experienced many of these traditions but I have a basic understanding. Do you believe that there is a certain direction, or is there a possibility or two, even an infinite amount of suns, or levels of consciousness?

Mr. Himwich: I am thunderstruck by your statement that consciousness is existence. I have made that very same statement on another occasion. First, there are some esoteric eastern philosophies that do in fact speak of levels, e.g. personal consciousness and transcendental consciousness, in which one experiences the loss of the self that the personal consciousness has constructed. I hardly know what to say about such things. I would rather discuss this "turning away" that you speak of. Speaking for myself, the "turning away" is the journey that, through experience, leads back to the sun. This means that only by going away from the sun can we ever really know it as the source of our being. Thus, the journey, as in epic journeys, always leads through the Underworld where there is little or no light at all. That may sound poetic, but it involves real suffering. Is such a journey the good? Yes, but I speak only for myself here.

Mr. Longenbaugh: I think that 'the turning away' is a perspective. If you turn away from the sun, you can see how far you have come and what you have experienced. I think it can help you appreciate the sun more. I am concerned whether it is possible to turn away and never go back? Hopefully, death doesn’t bring this but I think that a loss of consciousness means that there is no more journey.

Mr. Himwich: Just to sum up: There is both an objective and subjective aspect to this: reality is and is not what we are aware of: there must be something that is apart from consciousness itself and yet that there is anything at all, existence itself, is due to consciousness. This is why we both search for truth/reality as something external to our consciousness and why we keep returning to consciousness as the ground of being. It is the paradox upon which the journey hinges. The journey is the effort to return to oneself. It gives meaning to our life, precisely because we never arrive.

It's March but spring it's not

It’s March but spring it's not,

Not the preamble or invocation

Of a pleuraplenty of sight and sound --

This time there’s choking

And thoughts best forgot:

A friend who's gone,

A cough, am lost.

O well – there's time,

hard rain, a simple rime.

Ber Himwich Photography: 266-270

Ber's Photography.

For Rita Dove

Not psyche but a nail

that bites hard, holds

true and rusts into

spring ahead of

the flowers, she

outlasts the wood

the pain

me.

Uva uvam vivendo varia fit (explained)

Uva uvam vivendo varia fit.

This Latin phrase from Lonesome Dove is neither nonsense nor bad Latin. It means "A grape becomes mottled by being a grape," with the sense: it is the nature of a grape to become "mottled" as it ripens. In the context of the novel, this means, "Character is destiny" -- the truth of which is illustrated time and again in the novel. The repetition of the 'v' strengthens the point. It is lovely Latin.

vivendo here is a gerund of vivo, in the ablative (instrumental).

uvam is a cognate (a play on vitam vivendo) or internal accusative, a not uncommon feature of ancient Latin.

Just as a grape or a man can become nothing other than what each is, pigs remain true to themselves. "We don't rent pigs. . . Goats and donkeys are neither bought nor sold," only cattle and horses whose character man has fundamentally changed.

Tags: HH Latin

In libra rerum

In rerum libra lacrimae auro gravius pendunt.

The Mask: Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Maya Angelou

Poetry Matters

Lawrence Dunbar with Maya Angelou, WE WEAR THE MASK:

Download The Mask- Lawrence Dunbar Maya Angelou

Leonora's Photography: 41-45

The Black Swan © Leonora; all rights reserved

♫♪ (Saint-Saëns - Le cygne-) youtu.be/zNbXuFBjncw

You can find more of Leonora's superb work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/150410475@N04/.

Spring before spring

The spring before spring

is in the eye,

Awake in the deepest

sleep of winter.

"America" by Henry Dumas

America
by Henry Dumas

          If an eagle be imprisoned
            On the back of a coin
            And the coin is tossed into the sky,
            That coin will spin,
            That coin will flutter,
            But the eagle will never fly.

Henry Dumas: Background

SEVEN SINILITIES

SEVEN SINILITIES that PREPARE YOU for the AFTER-LIFE

Talking to no one
No longer celebrating your birthday
Not recognizing yourself in the mirror
Not getting the joke
Forgetting your SSN
Wearing out your welcome
Falling asleep with your eyes open

Night Birds

Black stone white rain
Blue smoke soft pain.

Night comes. I do not sleep
Yet dream of birds climbing
The sky to find the sea.
I fall like fire and sing

To strange boys and girls
Who close their eyes and turn
To the sea and hear

The birds singing like rain.

When they wake, they dream.

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Yo-Yo Ma -- The Swan

https://youtu.be/3qrKjywjo7Q

Where the Pino Trail ascends to the Crescent Trail, cloud settling

in Hugh's Photos

Ber Himwich Photography: 261-265

You can find more of Ber's Photography at https://www.flickr.com/photos/berhimwich/.

Laughing at the dawn

You arrive in college out of an all boy’s boarding school and in the first week meet your assigned mentor, the professor who will guide you through your undergraduate years. The professor has published books that are lauded by fellow scholars as groundbreaking and brilliant. It turns out that this celebrated scholar is to be your teacher in an advanced course for which your high school background has qualified you. You are enthralled – the professor’s wit, teaching style, and knowledge of literature are of a caliber you have never before encountered. As it happens, during the day you occasionally meet your professor by chance, have coffee, chat about family and literature, etc. You also sometimes visit him in his office to discuss insights you hope he will find of value. He is invariably pleased, offers guidance and encouragement and tells you how much he enjoys these sessions. By the second semester, you dare to think you and the professor are friends. He takes you out to dinner and introduces you to fine Italian wine and cuisine and entertains you with gossip about colleagues. The professor increasingly commends you for your ‘wild’ ideas and insouciance. You don’t know what the word means but take it as a compliment. One evening at a restaurant where they always reserve a private table for the professore, he mentions a composer, Nielsen, of whom you have never heard, and invites you to his apartment later that week to listen to the music. You eagerly accept and when you hear selections from Nielsen's glorious symphonies. you are thunderstruck and grateful and say so. He then tells you that he would like you to come up with him to his cabin in Maine. He also mentions other occasions when he will introduce you to influential friends at Harvard. They will enjoy getting to know you, he says, and will help you advance professionally. He then reads a high talking poem by W.B. Yeats and asks you what you think about the last line, “Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.” Whatever you said, if anything more than a stunned shrug of the shoulders, is now lost to memory, but you do remember his praise for your comments being out of proportion to even your own grandiose sense of self. He repeats his invitation to come to Maine. And then everything suddenly becomes unreal or rather all too real like having your face slammed against a wall. What do you do?

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.

The Man Who Couldn't Love Someone Like You

He had once been a happy man. He had loved everybody, boys, girls, old women who thought themselves still vibrant and sexy, and old men with dangerously foul breath. He found lovable what others considered obscene, like protruding teeth or flapping ears or a nasty looking scar across the forehead. He even found drooling as naturally becoming as sweat. He couldn’t help himself. Others thought he was delusional or simply a dirty old man, until one day, he suffered a head injury, having slipped off a ledge while ogling sagging sunbathers. After he recovered, he now found 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 or had dull brown hair or had one too many eyes. He reserved a special place in hell for redheads, whom he previously had loved to distraction. Some remembered the “dirty old man,' but now putting their full faith in what had before been but a naive myth, that he had once been a lovely 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 the faults he found in others in himself: unruly hair, yellowing and missing teeth, wrinkles that made his flaccid face look like a prune -- he even thought his skin had turned dark purple. So be it, he concluded, and banged his head as hard as he could against the glass. This time he didn’t wake up.

The Sound that Wind Makes

(for Maya)

I want words to breathe like I do, weep when I do, and bruise easily.

I want words to dream and remember those dreams that first set me on this path.

I want words to grow old with me and become like the lines in my face and tell me
old stories that keep my stumbling spirit from falling and new ones that tell of
love forever young and freely given.
I want words of no regret even for the sorry waste of all I have left undone, unsaid.

I want words to hold up a mirror and see there all who at some time have gone hand
in hand with me through this life.

O what a wondrously crowded reflection that would be, all of them in the morning
of their lives, young and old alike.

O that words would fall like these tears and mark the page in silver and gold, the true
colors of night, that these words would live on in their hearts and find some rest there,
though I myself be nothing but the sound the restless wind makes on a cold night,
the wind that sweeps down the mountainside and past all the houses in which loved ones
have died and gathers up all those lost souls and scatters what is but dust and ash
through the deep space of time.

Two Part Invention

If all there is and comes to be
A child to hold a dying sun
Then let the world our night to know
And let this song be what we love.

If all there is and cannot be
Two to bind a trinity
Then let our love forever shine
And hope for dark eternity.

Rise, O child, as a single note!
Lift this song on the desert sea
And make us all forget-me-not
That all may know love's levity!

The question yet I put to thee:
Does Death herself sing harmony?

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.

Somewhere Else

I am thinking, my friend, that you have already seen this article: The Art of Dying.

It's a long, rambling read. I haven’t read every word, didn’t need to, very familiar. I’ve been comatose for the last four days, though I expect any time now to wake up and be somewhere else:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

    I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
    And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
    Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
    And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

    And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
    Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
    There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
    And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day
    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
    While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
    I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

As it happens, breaks from the routines of teaching are not good for me or rather not good for the first week or so until I can think about something other than tomorrow, which I am trying to do now, the ‘something other’. The words begin to write themselves, yours truly not really there at all, but there is a prophecy I’ve heard: If you are patient, you really will not be here at all or the words Which brings me back to the New Yorker article. May you be doing better than I am, and dear Pauline.

Hugh

    If the sky should fall
    Or worse, there will be no one
    To know and no one to care
    That there ever was an open space
    Where old love comes to rest
    and pretends still to be,

    though I would not that
    be the final word
    or any word at all.

Dry Grass

It was not you I was looking for or needed nor was I the Ramon or Ramona you hoped for. We made do, as they say, and built a house and a life several miles from the Itacah River to be safe when the spring rains came. There were no children, of course, but there was a garden of stone, sand, and stalks of jibati that kept the land and constellations in place. When you died, we went right on living together in the house built when you were as young and old as you would ever be. The folks on the other side of the Itacah never come this far west. They say these are the badlands, but we call it home. There's no need for talking. There's nothing to say. Don’t mistake these words for speech. It's just wind sweeping through tall dry grass.

December 12: Arthur's Day

Arthur's Day

for Arthur Sze, December 12

To you, who’ve written

Some slip of verse

That made me fall,

A fool in love

With words and you --

To you, who’ve hidden songs

In a worn-out sock

That now you use just for rocks--

I say, Barefoot and all,

Come out and play:

It’s Arthur’s Day,

When all who sing

Shall sing along.

Download Arthur Sze Poster

Download Poetry Matters 2

Download Arthur the Owl and the Dragon

A wise fool

One day a young monk asked his master, How can one find what one has never lost? You are a fool, the wise master replied.

The monk, who had been the master's most devoted disciple, turned his back and rejoined the world. The wise master smiled and continued teaching what cannot be taught.

"I will put Chaos into fourteen lines" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines

And keep him there; and let him thence escape

If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape

Flood, fire, and demon—his adroit designs

Will strain to nothing in the strict confines

Of this sweet Order, where, in pious rape,

I hold his essence and amorphous shape,

Till he with Order mingles and combines.

Past are the hours, the years, of our duress,

His arrogance, our awful servitude:

I have him. He is nothing more nor less

Than something simple yet not understood;

I shall not even force him to confess;

Or answer. I will only make him good.

A perfect thing

A perfect thing is known by its imperfection

thus a man whose sole desire is to die well

or a love endangered only by fulfillment

or a paw without an opposable thumb

or a cut that bleeds so cleanly

that one regrets there’s not enough of you

to feed those starving for something else.

Digging in the garden

Digging in the garden I find

but earthy loot: worms, beetles,

pebbles and ocean shells

and a blackened shard to cast away

for luck and there in the shade

of a supple palm, taking hold

where it should not be, a girl :

I think of Phaiakia and Nausicaa

washing her clothes for some

beggar like me, rough-hewn

in all but speech and she lingers

beside the pool, wondering

if it be a god or beast or bard

that shapes her soul seaward

to be free. She looks and looks,

not believing what she sees

or what she feels. He tells her

of a younger, stranger man

who will come for her

when the spell is broken

and she as wild as the sea.

Though she's lost her way

a river runs through her veins,

the moon in her hand.

Painting by Magdalena Ramos Mullane

I was lucky to be able to purchase Maggie's painting. I had admired Maggie's writing and art from the time she was in the eight grade. She was never my student.

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.

Maria Metzger: Photo 1-3

Ber's Photography: 256-260

The Boy Who Flipped My Mind

for Caulder

It always scared me when he did his flips. What, I thought, if he should misjudge the landing or slip on take-off and break not just an arm or a leg but his head, already balanced precariously on his shoulders. A mere shrug, it seemed, and he would be unrecognizable. I decided it was best not to mention my concern. Then what I feared most happened, but he was smiling, asking me who I was. It had been fun.

For the life of me

Yesterday before school I watched the sun rise over the trees but for the life of me I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do next.

The trees

I can’t remember

Yes! It was

The sun

Life

Above . . .

Come the revolution

At night you could hear the wolves cry or was it my own voice coming from afar, searching out like a comet in the night a nesting place where all would end, burning out, and begin again come the revolution and the downfall of the sky and all that keeps us from knowing who we are or what we're doing, always returning like birds in spring, hunting seeds and love and laying up treasure against the day when the revolution comes and we are what we have always been and will be again but this last time riding on the backs of storms and galaxies, spinning spun and spent all at once.

The Woman Whose Lovers All Had Green Eyes

The Woman Whose Lovers All Had Green Eyes -- or so she told me, though when I looked, my eyes were as blue as the sky, just like hers. She said that’s because I’d had other lovers too. That was hard to figure, but then I remembered my first love and her eyes were as blue as the moon, though she said I’d mistaken her for someone else. Maybe so. Maybe I was thinking of you. It’s hard to know. There’ve been so many.

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.

Once begun

Across the lake the sun falls

Water rises to the night

The moon divides

Lets loose a silent keening

Human bird and spark

And then there’s naught

But clap and clatter

Of constellations:

Your story once begun

Leonora's Photography: 36-40

Homo communicans

"L’exercice le plus fructueux et le plus naturel pour notre esprit, c’est pour moi la conversation. Je trouve cette activité plus douce que n’importe quelle autre dans notre vie. Et c’est la raison pour laquelle, si j’étais maintenant obligé de choisir, je crois bien que je consentirais plutôt à perdre la vue que l’ouïe ou la parole (...) Etudier les livres est une activité tranquille, calme, qui n’excite pas ; la conversation apprend et exerce en même temps. Si je m’entretiens avec un esprit de valeur et redoutable polémiste, il me presse sur les flancs et m’aiguillonne à droite et à gauche: ses idées stimulent les miennes. La jalousie, l’attrait de la gloire, la compétition me poussent et me font me dépasser. Etre du même avis, c’est quelque chose de tout à fait ennuyeux dans une conversation (..) "

Michel de Montaigne, philosophe français du XVIe siècle, in "Les Essais"

Urban blues: youtu.be/J1I_sO81eL4. (Albert King - Blues At Sunrise-)

Terre sacrée

Le temple marin de Tanah Lot sur Bali, construit au XVIème siècle en hommage aux esprits de la mer, est un haut lieu de pélérinage de l'Indonésie

Tanah Lot is a rock formation off the Indonesian island of Bali. It is home to the ancient Hindu pilgrimage temple Pura Tanah Lot.

Le livre de la rose

````````````````````````````````````````

Je te vois, rose, livre entrebaîllé,
qui contient tant de pages
de bonheur détaillé
qu’on ne lira jamais. Livre-mage,

qui s’ouvre au vent et qui peut être lu
les yeux fermés

(..)

Rainer-Maria Rilke, poète autrichien (1875-1926)

Safety lines

You can find more of Leonora's superb work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/150410475@N04/.

Autumn Rain

This autumn rain comes
on me strange
as you and I lie
beneath the ledge
hold hands and kiss
and say goodbye.

When shall I see you again:
in Winter when I am dead
or Spring when you flower
or Summer when you rise
with the waves upon the beach
and make love
to every passing eye?

No, it will be as today:
the rain drop drops
like leaves like tears
that hold our love
and all that's lost.

I shall come
as surely as Winter
and die a thousand deaths.

You too will come
and lie upon these
fallen leaves
and give me up

again.

You shall come
as you always do
dressed in pearls
and make it rain.

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For my students (2019 - 2020)

For Yoshi

Here an old man on his crane-like legs unfurls his wings and tucks

his head into the clouds

Here a young man who does not know he has wings begins to flutter

like a leaf in the wind

*****

For Mateo

Here the seasons wait in line to fall upon the land

Here a young boy already old and bent in two spins the wheel

Here Mateo, young in winter, dreams of hunting

*****

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?"

Leonora's Photography: 31-35

L'étang aux lotus (The lotus pond)

youtu.be/d2bdn2RIsVY (Schumann - Romance for oboe & piano-)

Entre les lignes

The Feast

..."It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again “invisibly,” inside us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible."

Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet (1875-1926) in "Letters Of Rainer Maria Rilke"

Mosaïque

"Le monde entier est une mosaïque, le monde entier est une mosaïque de croyances, de langues, de communautés différentes, et la question n’est pas de savoir si on peut les faire vivre ensemble, la question c’est de savoir comment on va les faire vivre ensemble, parce qu’on n’a pas le choix."

Amin Maalouf, écrivain français né au Liban en 1949.

Watching you

"What’s that mean—been seen? Who’s been seein’ me?"

(In "Milkman", by Anna Burns)

youtu.be/MBR4cn2flRU (Shostakovich- Cello Concerto Nº1-)

Les murs parlent

"(..)

Il me souvient de chansons qui m'émurent
Il me souvient des signes à la craie
Qu'on découvrait au matin sur les murs
Sans en pouvoir déchiffrer les secrets

Qui peut dire où la mémoire commence
Qui peut dire où le temps présent finit
Où le passé rejoindra la romance
Où le malheur n'est qu'un papier jauni (..)"

Louis Aragon, poète français (1897-1982) in "Les yeux d'Elsa"

See more of Leonora's superb work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/150410475@N04/.

Ber's Photography: 246-250

Dividing the night

If you were here

All aflame in the evening light,

If it had been you running

through my fingers

like long summer grass

If it had been you curling

Like a wave upon the shore

So much like my own heart

Beating for night to come

And you close upon me

Your eyes dividing night

To hide away the tears,

There would be no sound

Or silence, no hour,

just you and all delight.

hhimwich is the author of all poems and other writing unless indicated otherwise.

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David Chalmers: Fragments of consciousness

The New York Review of Books

Poetry 180

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The Black Swan © Leonora; all rights reserved

The Lake Isle of Innisfree BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

© Leonora; all rights reserved

Terre sacrée

© Leonora; all rights reserved

Le livre de la rose

© Leonora; all rights reserved

L'étang aux lotus (The lotus pond)

© Leonora; all rights reserved

© Leonora; all rights reserved

© Leonora; all rights reserved

© Leonora; all rights reserved

Watching you

© Leonora; all rights reserved

Les murs parlent

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS