A storyteller

“A man can stand anything, except
a succession of ordinary days,” says Goethe
You altered the way I see
and even the way I feel
You ride the arrow
Of time and nudge your neighbor
To follow a voice you are following
Not the herd
But a voice from another mountain
A struggle to climb
The sweat and the joy
How to tell a story, a generous
Telling from your grandfather
You hear a Park Ranger and tell it well
One can be born twice
And be a storyteller.

Affection

Surround me with leaves
Carry me
Or simply serve me with ramen.

A visit

note: Mrs. Abstract & I took our granddaughter and her college classmate to Universal Studios and visited Harry Potter.

It’s me in red.

Yearning

Completeness

You bend your head to listen
Changing the direction of your thought
The umbrella collapses against the wind
You stand up and leave the conversation
You are afraid you lost something
Your life yearns for completeness
Something bold and ordinary
Like the hundred quests to fold origami
Imagine the mystery of longing
With a simple lantern to guide the way
To find the piece missing
And all the steps to the last breath.

note: Mrs. Abstract and I visited Sequioa National Park. We stayed at a B&B with a beautiful miniature fairy garden.

Mrs. Abstract enjoying the morning reading a book next to one of the three rivers.

HAPPY ALL SAINTS’ DAY

HAPPY ALL SAINTS’ DAY

Sometimes

Sometimes we walk randomly in distant places visiting townsquares,
straying in fisherman’s dock loitering in public parks

Sometimes we meet strangers, randomly in booksstores and get into conversations

Sometimes we exchange informations, ordinary and simple notes

Sometimes we extend invitation to continue the conversation

A short walk becomes long, morning extends into evening
Randomness becomes a purpose and goal

Goes on and on and offers an option
an awareness of feelings, association of certain thoughts

Cutting sentences into fragments and rearranging randomly
We feel distance and attentiveness of each other

We are not walking dictionaries waking up tired words
We are solitary walkers walking randomly and meeting

Where do you want to go?

The Little Things

The Little Things

To search a question is not to find an immediate answer
But to hear a voice that may lead to an understanding

Unfurled, uncoiled, unchained
free like a kite unleashed
You glow while saying each word
as if they are sacred

She goes out with her camera
anxious to discover a world,
new and independent from her mind

Where do you start
When you want to piece together a broken bowl
You will learn from the small pieces
Opening the closet and selecting a new pair of slacks and blouse
Which scarf to wear on a misty day
What to prepare for dinner
The little things like learning to love again

Vanishing point

Pearls of laughter, precious and soft
The laundry hanging, rhododendrons of peach and purple
Photos of them together next to a giraffe
Arranged themselves in her mind
While she walks on the beach
with no vanishing point
Where children are playing,
Two are chasing the gulls
and laughing
They will not be at the tea ceremony
dainty mountain of gestures and formalities they want no part
One day the memory will rise
And remember one own’s happiness
Like a child waking up
Her eyes looking at her mother
Her mother smiling at her

She turns around and walks back
The children and the birds are gone
The sands are changing colors
Someone waves from a distance
She continues her walk on the beach
With no vanishing point.

Pilgrimage

“To set on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life…The naked glitter of a sacred mountain stirs the imagination; the adventure of self conquest has begun…. pilgrimage is always an inward journey— …You needn’t don a hairshirt for obstacles enough will erupt. But by attending to them now—openness, attentiveness, and responsiveness are the essence of pilgrimage—you will be able to surmount them by yielding to them in the way that life always requires that we yield to it.

Dawn is breaking. It’s time to head out.”

by Huston Smith, from his Foreword to the Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau

A pause

Secluded under the palm tree
a bed of autumn leaves
I’ll lie down and sleep.