The birds flew south
Walking in the forest
I heard silence
With echoes of sadness
After you left
The books remained unread
Arranged on top of each other
In alphabets of absence
Some words are missing
In discordant conversations
The strings were adjusted
I was able to sleep
After a very long wait.
A month ago.
If birds can talk
Like on my other days
I perched that morning
On a flowering fennel along the river.
I saw you coming towards me, holding
In your left hand a walking stick,
A camera in your right hand
I waited for you to get close
Close enough to take my picture
Before I flew away.
Like on your many other days
You might not notice or remember
The little things, good things
You could do
For others.
To have known you
You are brimming with gaiety
Paddling the kayak together for one hour
One foggy morning
The river at high tide
The moments of astonishment
Are more than enough for me
To welcome winter.
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.
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.
edgarone2