the worlds i live in

the little worlds

under my feet

that i feel

as surely

as the clouds overhead

know more of me

than i do

of myself

pagan angel

love was a promise made of smoke

in a frozen copse of trees

a bone cold and older than our bodies

slowly floating in the sea

every morning there were planes

the shiny blades of pagan angels in our father's skies

every evening i would watch her hold the pillow

tight against her hollows, her unholy child

i was still a beggar shaking out my stolen coat

among the angry cemetery leaves

when they caught the king beneath the borrowed car

righteous, drunk, and fumbling for the royal keys

love was a father's flag and sung like a shank

in a cake on our leather boots

a beautiful feather floating down

to where the birds had shit on empty chapel pews

every morning we found one more machine

to mock our ever waning patience at the well

every evening she'd descend the mountain stealing socks

and singing something good where all the horses fell

like a snake within the wilted garden wall

i'd hint to her every possibility

while with his gun the pagan angel rose to say

"my love is one made to break every bended knee"

all words iron and wine

cicada

he had the whole garden

the whole world

to fly in

he flew into my shoulder

a tap

"hey, whatsup?"

so when he landed on a fencepost

i went over to him

and admired him

and told him how beautiful he was

as if

he didn't already know

tinariwen - tassili

the thrill of hearing good new music has been with me since i first put on a 45 of the beach boys sloop john b, or maybe it was the lp of beatles for sale, i dunno, what i do know is that the rush is still there. when something new crosses my path, i've got to listen and if it's "good" it'll get played over and over

tinariwen are a group i've enjoyed since stumbling across their womad performance a few years ago. i couldn't believe my ears and eyes! pure rock roots completely and precisely melded into the bass-driven groove and chicken-pickin' guitar of malian trance with the kick-in-the-teeth edge that revolutionary lyrics always carry.

four albums since that time, tinariwen's edge is still sharp. their latest album entitled "tassili" will be released at the end of this month but if you'd like to hear the entire album streamed (courtesy of npr) please go here. to hear individual tracks and read the review by npr writer bob boilen go here.

four years

this blog is now four years old - an astonishing feature of my life through which i have managed to share at least one posting per day since its inception on august twenty-seventh, two thousand and seven.

i'm proud that in one way shape or form i have kept my commitment.

no matter what or why or who or when or even how i have been or am.

i have watched the digital soil in which i have carefully planted the seeds of my becoming self,

grow from wishing for readers and reposting current news on technology, art, and coolness in general, through my relationship with nature and its relationships with me, to its current place as a journal for writing that speaks as much of the nascent momentum of my wish to speak in a poetic tongue

as it does of my wish to express both the expressible and the inexpressible

with equal understanding.

the significance of this is that despite my very public and social work as a teacher, i am in fact very typically and cerebrally english in my need for a considerable amount of personal space in which to be able to take several steps back and observe the animal i live inside.

then again, perhaps that has no cultural context and is expressly a feature of the person i am.

no matter - the peculiarities of the digital realm afford me the sweet luxury of

expressing my experiencing of this state, with a delete button mere centimetres from my index finger.

i am grateful to all of you who arrive here each day and to those of you who respond in whatever manner to my thinking, my photographs, my riffs on old paintings, my poetry, my stories and especially to whatever it is that compels the sharing of my work which finds in part a place to locate itself in process right here.

love of course . . . steven

evening closes

lift your eyes

from the sliding shadows

on the path

and you are

the soft light

you paint

the pale clouds

as evening closes

riverside

a dusty, narrow, root-crossed trail led steeply downwards to the water's edge.

a tree with a wide strong trunk had grown out over the river.

i crawled on my hands and knees along its rough body

and then straddled it with my legs

until i reached a place where i could see

up and downstream.

rainrings

look at this leafless branch

torn from a tree

carried to the sea

on a river

of rainrings

americano

i like to go out for coffee sometimes.

americano's are a special pleasure.

when i am in my hometown, this is where i like to sit and enjoy coffee.

see the little boathouse near the top of the picture.

it's a small cafe called the silver bean.

it sits by a river that flows through the middle of my town.

i always meet people i know ... just by sitting there.

a simple pleasure.

easier said (than done)

when they wrap their arms and eyes and lives around me it's the most exquisite form of containment.

immersion in the wholeness of them.

all my life i've heard that it's easy to let them go when the time comes.

i think my parents were glad to see me go. i have no regrets. no recriminations.

i made it really easy for them!

i think it made it easier for me to return when i became more of who i am today.

we were all ready!

i feel my children so deeply. they are entirely me.

they are entirely themselves.

music today, some summer pop from rahsaan patterson: easier said than done

claremont august 13. 2011

i slept on the lawn of this house

and woke to this flower

evening of august 12. 2011 bronte creek

a silver edge to every cloud

scallop-shelled out from above the very late sunset trees to the south.

a small growing point of light, it rounded and swelled, pregnant with moonbeams that lit

the small enclave of tents i was one small part of.

music for alongside the moment experiencing: "last night the moon came . . . " jon hassell

i am here . . . very briefly

their beautiful unlikeliness

a family of fungi grew overnight outside my tent

ferry

water knows nothing

of borders

water knows nothing

of place

or thing

looking down the side of the ferry between kingston, ontario and cape vincent, ny, usa

moonlit

a space

lit by

wished upon stars

in the small eternity

i traverse

in an instant

between the world

of my imagining

and the world

of my living

===

something has happened.

the moon lit up the room.

God knew about it

tomas tranströmer

so much more

you and i and we

know

we know

there's so much more

than this

so for now

settling here

let's enjoy ourselves

and each other

knowing

that

there's so much here

and

there's so much more

than this

a careless arrangement

landscape: a shinnecock vale william merritt chase

against summer's

soft and careless expanse

time's melody

fragments into formlessness

Time Is Like A Melody by fulltimehobby

immigrant

moving

in one airplane flight

three thousand

four hundred

and twenty two miles

from the chafed skin of working class subsistence

to the heart of working class modernity

i am eight years old

looking through

a window

a large plate glass window

through which i can see

the very big american cars

travelling past the very big building

i now call home

my entirety contained

in two bedrooms

an l-shaped living room dining room and kitchen

and in that kitchen

a fridge and an electric stove

a bathroom with hot and cold running water

there's food in the fridge

and

in the cupboards

none of this possible

or even imaginable

twenty four hours earlier

in the same world

at the same time

side-by-side

mine and not mine

a beginning

and an end

my heart

stretched

to transparency

-

far off i found myself standing in front of one of the

new buildings.

many windows flowed together there into a single

window.

in it the luminous nightsky was caught, and the

walking trees.

it was a mirror-like lake with no waves, turned on edge

in the summer night.

excerpted from "out in the open" by tomas tranströmer translated by robert bly

tracery

i had been reading all that i could find of the writing of j.g. bennett who

had passed through the work of gurdjieff.

i was immersed.

in love with the ideas, but through applying my own habit of reading and learning

and then believing that "i knew",

i wasn't learning anything that i could truly apply to the details of my daily work.

one evening, i saw in the newspaper that "meetings with remarkable men" a film by peter brook depicting the early years of gurdjieff, would be showing at a small cinema on the west side of toronto.

i arrived in a state of great excitement and walking down the late summer streets i moved between the shadows of the buildings full in the hope that i would experience some sort of transformative experience.

surprisingly, there was a small crowd outside the theatre.

among them were sufis.

as i approached i was compelled to absorb their appearance.

and then their presence.

i must have been holding my gaze for some time,

for i became aware that one of the men was holding my eyes.

not in a harsh or judgemental manner.

rather, i felt compassion and encouragement.

afterwards i considered that this man

- much like i -

lived in a city.

he benefitted ffromood and shelter and love and warmth.

and was who and what and why and how and when he was.

much like i.

from that moment alone

everything has flowed.

-

there is a kind of out-of-sight dreaming

that never stops. light for other eyes.

a zone where creeping thoughts learn to walk.

faces and forms regrouped.

we're moving on a street among people

in blazing sun.

but just as many - maybe more -

we don't see

are in dark buildings -

high on both sides.

sometimes one of them comes to the window

and glances down on us.

tomas tranströmer

waiting as we do

i was a little boy

in wales

once

long ago

we had stopped at a village market

to buy bread and cheese and tomato

which we ate in our car

beside us

a hill

pulled back into the sky

so steeply

such a sharp ascent

and the wind

thin and pierced

with embroidered eyelets of rain

slanted sideways

as if

pushing

against my wish

to see the top

where i imagined myself

telling my daddy

that i had done it

i had climbed to the top

his wish

fulfilled

-

there's a tree walking around in the rain,

it rushes past us in the pouring grey.

it has an errand. it gathers life

out of the rain like a blackbird in an orchard.

when the rain stops so does the tree.

there it is, quiet on clear nights

waiting as we do for the moment

when the snowflakes blossom in space.

from: "the tree and the sky" tomas tranströmer

this was the day of my dad's birth so very long ago

move with the water

as i write this in the summer heat i'm thinking back to this same place, this same time, six months ago.

-

in february living stood still.

the birds flew unwillingly and the soul

chafed against the landscape as a boat

chafes against the pier it lies moored to.

the trees stood with their backs turned towards me.

the deep snow was measured with dead straws.

the footprints grew old out on the crust.

under a tarpaulin language pined.

one day something came to the window.

work was dropped, i looked up.

the colours flared. everything turned round.

the earth and i sprang towards each other.

tomas tranströmer

music rain tree crow

carried by darkness into the light

the stairs are wooden

and old

the bannister

worn free

of its last coat of paint

is now palm smoothed

and supple as skin

it holds my hand

as i climb

to my room

the window

of my room

overlooks a small

whitewashed courtyard

shadows dance

on the bricks

each night

as i sleep

a man

picks me up

and throws me through the floor

the floors beneath

that of

my room

have disappeared

giving my body

egress to leave this world

and enter

the otherworld of the cellar

where i am given

the opportunity

to find my way

without a map

from that crawling and shifting darkness

into the light

each morning

i wake up

glad to be alive

"the happiest little boy i ever knew"

-

carried by darkness.

i met an immense shadow

in a pair of eyes.

tomas tranströmer

the sighing rain

i am filled with secrets ...

in one small corner of my world

there sits an apothecarist's cupboard

whose tiny compartments

are filled

with admixtures

of dreams still sleeping

desires let fade

humbled hopes

wishes waiting to be released

each is filmed

with a soft fine dust

that rises in tiny spore-like clouds

when i reach in with questing fingers

seeding the moment

with unimagineable multiplicities

-

hear the sighing rain.

i whisper a secret, to reach

all the way in there.

tomas tranströmer

saray

in the little world

of my creation

there is a courtyard

filled with woods and rivers and ponds and skies

trees and flowers and rocks

birds and fish and animals

and on the walls of the courtyard

are pictures of my history

sometimes

something in the courtyard will enter

one of the pictures

and in its leaving

a song will emerge

and i write it here

holding it

in place

all the better

to see it

all the better

to know

-

a lamasery

with hanging gardens.

battle pictures

thoughts stand unmoving

like the mosaic tiles

in the palace yard

words tomas tranströmer

in a cage of sunbeams

i arrived

listening to the tall thin man

he was part of what i knew as

'the world'

he believed

that he was better

than he

was

and i was his

in name

and form

and so

he expected much

in return for so very little

i remember arriving at a time

and a place

filled with the feeling

that a lot of the world

i was compelled to be a part of

was ugly

and wrong for me

and that like i was told

so often

"could do better"

so i constructed

a little world

all of my own

and filled it

with the most beautiful music

and words

and art

that i could find

or create

building walls

of knowledge and understanding

that few could climb over -

there were no doorways

sometimes i would come out

and play with similar minded people

in their worlds

they knew we were different

for doing this

we just didn't talk about why

at the end of every day

i could smile

and feel that deep love

i felt for my little world

when i returned

-

on the balcony

standing in a cage of sunbeams –

like a rainbow

tomas tranströmer

the fifty-fifth lap

today marks the end of my fifty-fourth transit around the sun.

by coincidence, friends who own a little cafe that i sometimes drop in on at the end of rides

put this sign out yesterday.

that sort of stuff can go to my head so

i dropped by later in the day and added at the bottom "i know the guy - he's a chump!"

-

i was born at 8:30 pm. it was a monday.

a holiday! (but not for my mum, who was in labour off-and-on with me for two days!)

thankyou for having me mum!

here are my mum and i just over a year ago

my mum dropped by yesterday with a tasty cake, beer, jam, pickled beets, and many other small wonders that mums somehow know to bring with them when they visit their children's homes!!!

-

i've enjoyed a lovely year filled with all the blessings and challenges of being a dad and a husband and a friend and a teacher and all the many things that i am and each of which i treasure for the gift that they are.

my children!

i'm most grateful for the continued opportunity to bring goodness into the world to whatever degree i am capable as that (in my view) makes up much of my purpose for being here.

this will be a busy day as i am preparing for one hot thrill lap of lake ontario on my bicycle (that leaves peterborough tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.) in the company of my ride for africycle friends. i still have to pack and finish preparing the maps of the route that will get us all around this great body of water - all eleven hundred kilometres of the way around - and then also find us locations with opportunities to stop for nice cups of coffee, devour pastries, eat lunch, and down beers at appropriate junctures in the course of each day.

-

thankyou bloggy friends for your many kindnesses. your comments, your own blogs, your insights, passions, acknowledgement of life passages, and celebrations that have contributed towards making this point in my journey so amazing!

thankyou for all that you are and do.

as walt whitman says . . .

"you have done such good to me,

i would do the same to you."

have a peaceful day!

with my love

__________________________steven___________________________

and now, to get all the household chores done before i leave . . . . . . . . . . .

gently fading

the sun was slowly drifting to the horizon when i saw these fading lilies against the background of their flourishing brothers and sisters and i wondered if my age predisposes me to see them as perhaps more beautiful in the gentle convolutions and softened tones of their aging bodies than their

more colourful and well-formed siblings.

america

when i was young

i believed that the world

turned inside the spinning vanes of america

the veins of america

ran with chocolate

a rectangle

that bled sweetly into the stars

up above the world so high

each star a nexus point for countless dreams

dreams painstakingly crafted

by hand and by head and by heart

and then carefully placed inside

each five-pointed form

like a diamond in the sky

at each vertice of the star

a wish

hope ... compassion ... tolerance ... change ... opportunity

of these hope

the most precious

the most fragile

how i wonder what you are

hope

the most vulnerable to the capricious winds of change

the most easily pocketed

by those who for whom opportunity

is measured in material terms

the most easily crushed

by those for whom

compassion tolerance and change

are synonymous with

the dark drudgery

of a stasis

that is most easily hidden

in the empty landscape that is

change

for the sake of change

-

america

i see sadness

when i look

into your eyes

knowing as you do

that there are those

who would contain hope

he could not see which way to go,

if you did not twinkle so

that there are

those who would take

the shimmering thread

that is woven

through and around each dream-filled star

fixing each

to the firmament

knowing

that they would

wind that thread

around the spool of politics

the discordant songs of empty rhetoric

and false promises

when the blazing sun is gone

when he nothing shines upon

then you show your little light

-

i wish for you

america

i wish upon the twinkling stars

that you can

in the fullness of time

remember the love

that you hold for yourself

as your bright and tiny spark

lights the traveller in the dark

welcome the angels

-

visual prompt (skip hunt) provided by tess at magpie tales

go here for the full text of twinkle, twinkle, little star

the red tree

i have so loved shaun tan's work since i shared with my class his book " the arrival ".

he has a sense of the details of living and being in this world that i admire for his gentle insight as well as for the freshness of his perspective.

the red tree is about many things.

most especially though, the subtle appearance of hope.

morning

fourteen fingers

reach out from her face

hopeful

appealing

inclined in supplication

drawing first the sun

then the sky

inwards