heathervescent

Poems

I wrote these a decade ago and they have been rattling in my head a bit more than usual the past month. I put them here to remind myself.

I went,

I went and took.

What did I leave in return?

My Change.

(upon my first visit to Foz de Iguacu / South America, 1995)

*     *     *

I'll give you what you want,

mind,

body,

soul.

Except one thing,

I have to escape.

This poem is pretty much the crux of my existence. I can't explain it. You just have to get it on another level. The closest thing that comes to it is the phrase "ghost in the shell."

Packing it up. Civilization Return.

I took.
I went and took.
And now I am not the same.
What did I leave in return?
My change.

- - - - - - - -

One cannot relive, re think
enough of the power of water over rock
Not a little water, a trickle over a pebble
But the crashing of ten Niagra's in the heart of South America.

Nature rises out of these small border towns.
She is strong.
The plastic products can not sugir her breath -
the mist of her climax, water over rock.

We climbed to the top to watch the swallows.
I saw the vultures waiting.
I could not give my body, bloody water over rock.

Out of these small border towns filled with
plastic Chinese Christmas tree decorations.
I was changed by water over rock.

------------

I love the earth.  And when I feel her power, I want to die. The sunset over the Missouri River. The falls at Iguazu. The Jagged Sierras. And many other places.  I am a witness to this beauty.  I am left breathless.  And so I will remember myself in those effervescent moments in the river of time.

Favored Poem

Yesterday I was inspired by telling you about my bookshelf, so I'm going to quote to you my favorite poem - mantra - for many years - edited the way I think about it! I hope you like T.S. Eliot. ;)

V. What the Thunder said
by T.S. Eliot, edited by heathervescent

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
... with a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water

If there were water
And no rock

If there were rock
And also water
A spring
A pool among the rock
or the sound of water only
the sound of water over a rock

---

Who is the third who walk always beside you?
When I count, ther are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you

---

In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust

Bringing Rain

Transcendeffervescence

A friend sent me a link to a galley page by Jonathon Earl Bowser. I don't usually go for this type of imagry, but one caught my eye. Gee, I wonder why??? Source.

Now, if she only had purple hair....

WeHo Morning

Coughing
A single bird chirp
The pitter patter of a soft shower through an open window
The slow scraping of an insect moving a leaf
A male voice singing opera

The Sky is overcast
The Air is moist and cool

No sound comes from my fountain
Water flows noiselessly over curved ceramic
No piercing sirens invade this early quietude

The potential of the day stands before me - around me
And I am in the center of that potential
inspired, refreshed by the sounds surrounding me.

A Poem on InotI

I am not I.
                 I am this one
      Walking beside me whom I do not see.
      Whom at times I manage to visit,
      And at other times I forget.
      The one who remains silent when I talk,
      The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
      The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
      The one who will remain standing when I die.

- Juan Ramón Gimenez
(Translated by Robert Bly)
via Pita