within the possibility

i fold

and curl

and throw myself back to the earth

even as the earth

rises to meet me

but, while held in the sun's hands

i feel an invitation

to stay

that is hard to ignore

every morning

every night

and every moment

that flowers in-between

i am pulled

and stretched

between

the straining hands of the here and now

and the feathered edges of evermore

i was listening to the music of harold budd and brian eno when i wrote this

little bridge

when swimming

from bank to bank

is not an option

the little bridge

(which takes more time

and more effort to build)

repays its existence

over and over

which is why

(when i stand on it

and stare upriver

and out across the bay)

i feel gratitude

dancing alongside

wonderment

rain in the night outside my open window

the air is alive with rain-silvered words

scraping their vernacular in coarse ciphers

that bisect the night air from sky to ground

like so many sentence threads

drawn together

as much by coincidence as by chance

and how

can i

ignore the stories

that slowly flow

inside

each little drop

as if each

were the first

and the very last

note

in a song

i wrote this while listening to thom yorke's "and it rained all night"

evensong

i'm so like a kite

soft-papered and soaring

catching the soft and wild winds of the moment

and ripping across the sky

with fluttering tail

and cross-haired body

seeing and feeling and knowing

the detail of every thing

so minutely

so precisely

and as i turn

and see the sun

its red heat brings me

to the horizon's edge

to the edge of my existence

and i call out

"please

if you choose

to bring me back to earth

please

let me fall

into the arms of the one i love"

wind song

the air i breathe

becomes a song when

the wind flutes words

through your leafless arms

i wrote this while listening to the golden gate quartet singing some righteous gospel from the late 1930's ...

the skin of this place

rising in unlikeliness

from the forest floor

how long can i hold myself

in the hope

that my return

will be more splendid

"small metal gods" by david sylvian (remixed by modesto muniz)

distance (for the very idea of love)

cresting the once and foreverness, i see inside the view a stillness. it sings with unmoving lips, a song, told on furred tongues, of a time when the ice and the snow was all that was known. it sat and moved in rhythm with the moon. the tidal tongue so deep and long it covered almost all and everything until, receding it revealed a landscape as barren as nothing and so in all conscience it couldn't restrain itself from becoming life in all its rich fullness and it filled everything with the colours and the smells and the textures and the tastes of ripeness and when i came into this place i called my world - or my world as i would come to know it - so many distractions and opportunities and possibilities swirled about, that in their essence i came to know as my world through their little fingers, their small constellations, their bodies that sometimes stood and sometimes ran and sometimes even and especially held me close and so often i think in my head how grateful i am for those brief moments when the very little details of this place revealed something to my becoming self of how the whole is held together and especially how it's represented in the very tiniest way by pieces of wholeness that rise up out of the ground of it all and speak in their own sing-songy way about what matters and what leads to deeper places and especially what holds its form as a way-marker in the journey of my own becoming.

ascension

barefooted

i lean into

the side of a tree

stepping on pieces of small shelves

turned sideways

bringing the possibility

of ascension into play

we can be

the sky is full today - like a room filled with smoke -

there's no definition to it

no edges

here on the ground there's constant movement

as leaves in shades of ochre and pale yellow

move on the breath of a capricious wind

that holds no single point of contact

no attachment to anything

it simply is movement

undefined

a title

stop

and hold yourself closely.

entirely.

listen

to the words tumbling

from your soul's mouth

your song

so needs to be heard

that it will find voice

in the most unlikely places

*

life doesn't start with a title

the one

man show

we are water

and return there ........

words excerpted from "a title" by brian holland music by brian eno (from "a title" drums between the bells)

you can listen to the entire album streamed here courtesy of wired magazine online)

for erin

each of us try to fill this space

with possibilities

and it's no surprise

that like all vulnerabilities

it wavers in uncertitude

a fragility

that i see in so many too wide-open eyes

so many thin and tightened lips

and i don't know why

but when i think of you writing

i see you

bent

arced

disturbing

the stillness of a duckweed covered pond

as you draw a wooden bucket

across and beneath its skin

skimming its wholeness

into the small hollow space

i wrote this while listening to music created by ingrid chavez entitled "exhale"

the last tree in the area to hold her leaves

- my beautiful black cherry girl -

felt the soft knives of a winter wind yesterday

a wind that brought with it the blanket that will cover the skin

she has so reluctantly shed over the last few weeks

i gave her a big hug

and wished her good dreams

new love (for jj)

we travel

through strange sometimes beautiful lands

seeking out the places

where the imagined and the real

hold hands

and look into each other's eyes

with the unabashed frankness

of new love

the reflections telling the story

of worlds unfolding

one beyond the other

(best wishes jj!)

steven

a stranger turn

in the later thicker depths of night, a door opens.

a thin wedge of moonlight makes its way across the space between the window and the doorhandle

it crosses my face

and as i turn to watch it pass through the air

i see the handle moving

as a rearrangement of shadows and light.

i'm transfixed.

is it my imagination?

is it really happening?

the air is electric.

every tiny element of the moment held

in the fullness of a blackness

gently pierced from somewhere

within which there's light ...

a tiny pinprick

almost blinding

in its intensity ...

perhaps it comes from inside me

perhaps

it's merely passing through

still,

the handle

continues turning.

do i move closer to see who is opening the door?

do i stay in bed and pull the covers closer to my eyes?

"come in", i say.

"come in, and tell me your stories".

this

is how love

enters the world

i was listening to "krishna blue" by david sylvian when i wrote this.

elevation

above the lakes, above the vales,

the mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,

beyond the sun, beyond the ether,

beyond the confines of the starry spheres,

my soul, you move with ease,

purify yourself in the celestial air, drink the ethereal fire of those limpid regions

as you would the purest of heavenly nectars.

soar up towards those fields luminous and serene,

he whose thoughts, like skylarks,

toward the morning sky take flight

— who hovers over life and understands with ease

the language of flowers and silent things!

words excerpted from the work of Charles Baudelaire (Trans) William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

reading baudelaire and watching this unfolding sky i was compelled to listen to "i am a bird in god's garden" with words written by rumi and adapted to the world of music by french, frith, kaiser, and thompson

pale yellow becomes gold

the sun is moving lower in the sky much earlier

in its light

pale yellow becomes gold

travel safely

our lives, our work, our becoming ourselves

"the journey" is really so many journeys that last a moment

a lifetime

several lifetimes.

it really is so much easier to draw it all under one umbrella

and protect its fragile rice-paper self

from the weather of this sometimes-harsh

sometimes-kind world

by calling it

"the journey"

thus sparing ourselves the trouble

of unpacking it in detail -

first for ourselves and then for the curious (and who can blame them) onlookers

who are eager to see that suffering and joy

and everything in-between and outside of those two little brackets

are not entirely an experience exclusive to them

but are commonplace to everyone -

and then what?!

then what!

my words - written with love...

break out.

break out and travel safely.

fill this world's roads with your soul

i was listening to the beautiful music of "a produce" and loren nerell when i wrote this

softened edges

i am

so like

the wind-blown

soft edge

of my bedroom curtains

the air moves through

and plays me

i was listening to brian eno's music for 77 million paintings when i posted these images from my bedroom

the call

it was so quiet

all i could hear

was the echo of your voice

little rising cloud

my eyes

held this little cloud

on the line

between darkness and light

until it rose

and became both

and neither

*

this is a day when so many of my children are immersed in their experiencing of the manner in which their ancestors are honoured and thanked. today my class will gather for the first time in my career at the cenotaph alongside several soldiers and honour in a very direct way the sacrifices made by so many on both sides.

it is hard for young children to connect directly to something so vast and old and so my work this year is to bring them as closely as possible to a nexus point of remembrance from which our questions, our empathy, our sympathy, our puzzlement, can be centred and then cast into the great gathering of energy around the world that finds its focus in the hope that war can one day come to an end.

rain on unshuttered windows

woodblock print hasui kawase "bell tower in the rain at okayama"

i see you coming down the street

the suddenness

of a door opening

i close the window

the field, the trees and my body

i am standing in an old field

inside the house of me

having weathered all manner of storms

and days that i wished would never end

now the trees set their leaves on the ground

i feel the soft fingers of the sun

tracing their loving calligraphy

across my body

there's always more

i'm so careful when i write

that i shouldn't be surprised

when i hear

the remonstrations

spoken

with my own voice

the quiet indignation

that once again

i left so much

unsaid

as a courtesy

to the image

i project

of myself

pressed against the glass

looking in

my angel gabriel

i'm pulled

like a leaf on a stream

to sudden flarings

whirlings

spindrift

they call me

speaking the soft language

using words without form or definition

and i'm absolutely powerless

to ignore them

no amount of experience

or knowledge

of the possible consequences

can deter me

i've always been excited

by possibilities

and incongruencies

by moments left lying around

by doors and windows left open

by the contents of

cupboards and drawers left ajar

by people unfinished

because each moment,

each possibility,

is tied by a slender thread

to the wholeness

and they cry

(so very like a newborn child)

to be held

nurtured

drawn closer

and then

- with the cutting of the cord -

someone

anyone

must lay bare the very real cord

that frees and contains in one experience

this being here in this place

this reason

this artifice

this dance of light and shadow

this awful leaving

this laying bare

and in the very best of all possible possibilities

the someone

the anyone

is a portal for love

the one love

that knows itself in opposition

and in symmetry

and in all the states in-between

*

this piece was written while listening to lamb - "gabriel"

when the future presents itself

scenes from margaret's garden (ii)

i'm at an interesting place in my life and i'll tell you what i can about it

i believe that the work i do is honourable and worthy

and that

(through a lovely and serendipitous coincidence)

it brings goodness to me

just as i bring goodness to it

in fact both

exist

almost entirely

without condition

and yet

i already know

the name

of the work i need to do

which in my strange iteration

of my experiencing of this world

melds into

"the work i need to become"

i can feel its fingers on my shoulders

i can see its eyes

feel its breath on my face

smell its perfume

even as it stands

wings held still

not moments away

from me

and my heart

holding its own wings

as still

as still can be

flutters

like a small bird

cupped

in my own hands

looking inwards

and outwards

i was listening to "i dormienti" by brian eno when i wrote this piece

i like to use this piece of music when i paint

riding in november

the sudden blur -

the quickening

of the wish

to hold

and entirely sense

the fleeting

edge

of the thoroughness

of winter

is contained

completely

and minutely

inside their wind-borne fire

quietude (for shaista)

all the silence

and all the completeness

of an uncharted space

the darkness

the roughness

softened by the layering of accumulated dust

time lies thickly about

us

thickly

ticking

passing

absently

and then sometimes

completely

thoroughly

and utterly

making this

a place to wish

and sometimes

to dream

of worlds

turned outwards

and inwards

all referent points obscured

the cartographer

acting

out of kindness

and then also

as if

there were a gift

to give

i was listening to music called "like pictures" by brian eno and jan peter schwalm when i wrote this piece.

the boat of we

edward brian seago "fishing boats - honfleur"

time washes against

and over us

each wave a measure of our becoming

and our leaving behind.

you and i

and the boat of we

between us

slide

each step upwards into the sky a test

each footfall's hollow metallic ringing

like bells marking an ascension

and standing at the top

with the wind catching in my hair and my eyes

i stop long enough

to see this place

the you

of this moment

expanding

no need to return to earth

for now

i was listening to "indian summer" by riceboy sleeps

wonder

ordinary wonder.

well . . .

the little joys

i find in

the scattered sparkles of you

when

your eyes hold me

until i am

tossed casually skyward

and i'm brought to feel

the ripeness of recognition

as i find myself

suddenly placed

inside my own words

where i find a song

in which each note

is so like

the opening

and closing of an entire universe

and you know

there are days when i could happily trade

all of this in

for the tumbledown stony thatch of a gurgling stream

the soft tangents of

wind-stroked seeds

floating

hovering

looking for an entryway

into the latticework

and i would say

in that moment

"load this light bound silence

and fill it with those simple wishes"

oh you trees

you solemn clouds

oh you dried and colour-bound leaves

tell me you care

about any of this?

no matter

i shall be this way

if only for this very human

being

that i am.

i was listening to michael brook and pieter nooten's music "searching" as i wrote this.