Book notes: I’m currently reading, Underland by Robert Macfarlane.
I finished reading a long poem, A Part Song, by Denise Riley, about a grieving mother after losing her son. Also just finished a book, Time Lived, Without Its Flow, an essay on grief, also by Denise Riley.
“We just arrived,” say the fishermen
“It’s a Siberian huskie,” he says.
“They become cold easily,” she says
Both dogs are wearing colorful sweaters.
Day’s radiance lifts my feet
I meet them in my walk
The same path every morning whenever I can
As if I’m trying remember each column of trees,
Their abundant leaves and shades.
I often think of Camino de Compostela.
I hold with interest Appalachian Trail.
I hear the sounds of hot air balloons overhead
I better get going
Thoughts can escape
I can’t separate appearances and their contents
The dogs, fishermen, river and its tides
One doesn’t have to wonder where poems come from.
The walk brings life to life.
Fragments can nourish a hungry mind
Arranging the pieces into new perspectives
Leaning on a tree you can gleam a slanting light
Sifting between the leaves.
A time of windy days, of falling leaves
Trees of fertile, intricate roots, anchored
Rarely do we enter the woods
As if we are afraid bears or snakes may cross our path
Thursday afternoon or any day,
Any ordinary day, is a day of sauntering,
Luminous time of spending an afternoon
Without concern of looking backwards
Not to imagine but to experience kindness of time passing,
To experience ourselves vulnerable and alone sheltered in the woods,
I like to think distant birds return because of me, a selfish notion of enticement,
Dreams die not because of unimportance
Though lustrous, their solace is celebrated no more
If you are struggling just to survive, are you missing much of life?
I encounter the homeless and heard of refugees
They crowd the margins, tiptoeing the edge of the cliffs,
The deep sea below and jagged rocks.
Each morning they look for a clean place
to be alone.
Life of abundance, life of scarcity, life of loss
And the liminal spaces between
What are the life’s possibilities and questions?
Intense experiences challenge the boundaries.
Solirude. Tumult. Arrested time.
The book I’m reading, page 37, asks,
“What’s the measure of your worth?”
Priceless, I shouted.
It’s the stillness that we observe
Because we feel intolerance of waiting
We bounce like a ball, one silliness to another
Not unlike a series of romantic interludes
While rafting in white waters
We can be swept from one swirl to another
Racing the heart perilously close to scare
Before finding a sweet flow of comfort.
We fall silent once more
Attend to the present
Embracing the moment
We arrive at reality.
We mistake our will, it’s power, as savior to attainment
Once ignorant we discover achievement, knowledge
We forget limits to our powerful striving
Little miracles carry us over the last hurdle.
Every step carries a gift of gratitude
Every step an act of praise
Where all our bewilderment come from
Where we bring our final homage.
I walk to the river this morning
listen to the songs the birds are singing
and the sounds of my feet touching the earth.
Have you heard recently
the sound of your feet
walking over autumn leaves?
Last week Mrs. Abstract and I visited Gearhart, a small village next to Seaside, Oregon with some friends one of which was celebrating her 80th birthday. We occupied a house situated on the bank of an estuary. Every morning I woke up early to glimpse the sunrise, stayed all day watching the high tide comes to the estuary. In the afternoon we watched the sunset.
There were many birds that came ove to the shallow pond left by the tide. It was a relaxed five days with clear and temperate weather. We told stories while sipping wines and eating home cooked meals.
Calamities, distant or vague
Bring tremors to the mind
Where do you want to be
When the sun goes down?
Can you be anywhere,
Ubiquitous like the sun?
But the mind though untrammeled
Can not occupy all spaces.
A fisherman bruised by absence of fish
Will pursue with ferocity
Any hints of trout presence
In whatever weather or distance.
He will not be deceived by color
Or pitch of whirling waters
Or exasperated by any sinking thought
The oars are focused, desire is steeled.
Does begin the intellectual incarnation
A reverence for beauty and truth
The universe forever expanding
I’m feverishly reaching for your hand.
The trees color my morning
My morning walk expands my day
Mixing two colors brings a third
Juxtaposition of two words or phrases
Brings a fresh thought
A ladder standing next to an empty garden
Or goats knocking on my door
A glass of scotch or a glass wine
How do you start
To add meaning to your day?
What’s the meaning of starting your day?
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