Wanderling❁

letting go

 

 

---

if being replaced

looks the way it feels

then I would be

crumbling

drowning in air

floating up to the trees,

disappearing with the wind

I would be repeating to my wounds

that holding on

is an act so far beneath me

yet, like any sacrifice

of the unnatural world,

it must be easier said

than done, and I am sorry

for every stolen destiny

for the quiet, dark nights

for the loss of meaning when

you walk in the woods,

and the pain

---

 

photo: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina, july 2018

from above

 

 

---

when I look at you

I think of a future

once seen from the past

 

when I say a prayer

I close my hands

to give a home to the light

 

when I look into the valley

I imagine a lifetime

surrendered to love

---

photo: Capitol Reef National Park, march 2018

by evening

 

---

I find myself drawn into you

the way the mind succumbs to a dream

and yet I am the one to hold you, willing captive

between my hands and my soul, and this,

this is how I will remember,

by all the bright pieces

finding their way into our eternity

still dreaming,

still dreaming

---

 

siren call

 

 

---

she believed she could change him,

her man of little words

even as the tempest drew near

and she drifted, out over the ocean

hearing the voice of the sirens

a song from beyond the rocks

beckoning with truth

the allure of solitude found

amidst one thousand dreams

and when she heard, she knew

there was nothing

in the sound of her voice

or the beauty of her heart

that could have kept him

from answering the call

for suddenly, it called her, too

---

 

photo: Naples pier, november 2017

This week's words

 

---

 

I've lost count, the number of times I've been asked to read this poem by William Carlos Williams, and reflect via some critical analysis. It just happened again. I fear I've run out of things to say. But poetess Mary Oliver, in her poetry handbook, says it perfectly. "The Red Wheelbarrow", arguably the most (or least?) minimalist poem in American history, is over-read. But it still holds secrets. Of course, Oliver's opinion of it makes sense only if you read the poem first:

 

" so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens "

 

Just like that, it's over. The poem abandons you. But Oliver says:

 

"If there is any single poem that might serve as a 'text' for a discussion of free verse... this eight-line poem has passed through endless scrutiny, and still it refuses to give up all its secrets.

What does its apparent simplicity mean? Perhaps that for this writer a poem is not a matter of some serious predetermined subject, but of concentrated focus and attention upon an "ordinary" simple subject - a mere scene - then, through the elevation of art, the scene is lifted into the realm of something quite extraordinary and memorable."

 

The ordinary becomes extraordinary. Embracing the beauty in small, simple things. Amen.

 

---

- Mary Oliver, "A Poetry Handbook", (1994)

jaded

 

 

---

and maybe, that's just the way you'll leave me

not some shade of green

that echoes of love,

but some darkened sentiment, like stone

harder than I've ever been before

---

 

photo: the Mist Trail, Yosemite National Park, june 2018

still breathing

 

---

you say, I am

the very air you breathe 

and that is what makes me

so irreversibly afraid 

scared, you will forget me

does anyone remember

the feel of their exhale

for even a second

after letting go

---

 

 

salvation

 

 

--- 

crush me under the weight

of your sunless Spirit

do you want to be, struck

do you ache to hold me, down

and leave them, the many scars

I will smile at later

hands on fire, caress

make me hurt beneath

my skin, where the Soul lives

release me, from the hell

of motionless Being

don't make me beg,

sometimes the body

wants to be burned

---

 

photo: campfire at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, january 2018

dear you,

 

 

---

I am yours, but not yours

and my heart is not a reservoir 

that I've allowed you to fill

but an ocean expanding

to touch other shores

and to offer more

in greater ways, beyond the self

as I have learned, to offer myself to you

... and I've never loved anyone,

with purity, the way I love you,

but now I know how. 

---

 

photo: Ft. Lauderdale beach, august 2018

the distance

 

 

---

waiting, to wake up

still worlds away

from the immortal, who lives

unafraid in less atmosphere

but I change, as I walk

I transcend, as I write

I shift, as I sit

beside the talking forest

and I remind the wild

she cannot claim

all the power

meant for me.

---

 

photo: view of Mt. Whitney in Inyo National Forest, june 2018