little lanterns

i respect and honour

the very brave

ittle lantern lights

that hold away the dark

hovering

so very like soft eyes

wondering

and so curious

about all the little whisperings

and the wind-hurried goings on

around

and within

the gnarled branches

of the winter-bare trees

it tears through

the wind

hovers like fingers tearing

the crisp cut edges off

the paper of a day

be the light

sometimes

you

have to be the light

i took this picture by pressing a pair of prismatic glasses

(that my cool essence sister ali brought back with her a few years ago from the burning man festival)

against the lens of my camera.

all the thoughts

in the tangled weave of the skin of this place . . . .

all earth’s memories

are there,

all the thoughts

of heaven, sacred

(italicized words excerpted from "19th march 1823") vasíly zhukóvsky

settled in among

try to find

(let alone follow)

the threaded and woven possibilities

settled in among

the soft clusterings

of a day

of a minute

of a moment

remembers

i know the art of evoking happy moments, and live again my past curled up in your lap.

for what is the good of seeking your languorous beauty elsewhere than in your dear body

and in your so gentle heart?

i know the art of evoking happy moments

baudelaire (from "the balcony")

this

this day i ran along a snow-covered trail through woods and marshland

the sun danced soft and warm

through the trees

and so like fingers

traced tender echoes

of the summer

across my face

everything changes

the weather changes

the inner and outer atmospheres

the skin of the sky

the face of the earth

the horizon disappears

behind the imprecise movement

of millions of small crystals

faithful indeed

two souls drawn together in this incarnation as tiny purple flowers!!!!!

a summer shot . . . i'm swimming through these in a sort of cathartic meditation . . . . .

faithful indeed

is the spirit that remains

the spirit that remembers

such a spirit

returns

over and over

repeatedly

asking the same questions

offering the same possibilities

but with fresh words

softer brushes

gentler

more knowing ways

a kindness

grounded in the essence

of goodness

i wrote this while listening to this beautiful piece of music "the spirit that remembers" by the astonishing yorkshireman bill nelson from his new work "realms of light"

sunrise

in the slow stumbling morning that dances in floor bound piles under my dragging feet, i catch a small thought passing by. i am failing to see the shifting of a glorious opportunity as in the mid-winter, the sun rises later, negating the need to further upset my fragile body (upon which i already place so many demands) by getting up exceptionally early to see this daily event! and so mother nature, mother earth, sister sky, brother sun and to all the stars who glitteringly gather just before the unfolding, the unfurling, the grand revelation

of this glorious and wondrous event, a heartfelt thankyou.

you're all beautiful!

really, you are!!!

with

as i slept

i could feel her

brush against my face

i dreamt of wings

and small moths

a candle that guttered timorously

i even saw my own eyes

wild and glittering

gone to earth

all filled with scent

and wish

and the wholeness of her

late by myself

claude monet the studio boat

late, by myself, in the boat of myself,

no light and no land anywhere,

cloud cover thick. i try to stay

just above the surface,

yet i'm already under

and living with the ocean.

rumi

gone . . .

in the early evening of a cold january

the house is suddenly so very empty . . . my bedroom window shakes with the wind . . .

its glass is fractured . . . moisture leaks through the fault and freezes

forming a pale film of ice through which i watch a flock of small birds race across the sky

like so many smeared pencil lines . . .

the trees turn inwards . . . in the winter, they keep their thoughts to themselves . . .

the maps of me

each day

i pull the maps of myself

on like so many clothes

pick a map

i'll be that terrain

keep the map

and memorize those contours

hold me to them

as i'll hold you

to yours

so very flow

you flow

so very far

past the horizon

and the ache of distance

draws the wires of us apart

i stand here in this emptiness

feeling the last breath of this night

pass through me

and turning to return inside

i breathe out the space we contain

to the scattered and far-flung places

we call home

i got scared

i knew you

and for that reason alone

i couldn't look

directly into your own knowingness

and yet,

from our tiny entireties

we spoke the unspeakable

"i know you"

and began

again

sharing all that we could

of what we believed had passed since last

we had known each other

and the details were like points

on a map so vast and so detailed

that it passed through and beyond us

and drawing that map about us

with the thoroughness of our eachness

we named it love

from memory

i was listening to a very brief but beautiful piece of music by "clouded staircase"

called "i got scared" when i wrote these words.

love, in a very cold climate

serendipitous and chance events arrive

because they're intended to

and most especially they arrive because

there's some sort of necessity

about life being filled

with unlikely possibilities

-

i came across a sweet story that i'd love for you to read and look at.

it's by 23 year-old isabel greenberg.

i sure like this story.

light falls

light falls

into the cupped hands

of a snow cloud

skyward

the most unimaginable complexities

are so simply

and beautifully expressed

in trees

wave

in this life

we are compelled to live

so thoroughly

and completely

together

there are

so many wishes

so many hopes

and so many dreams

racing across the skin of us

and as each holds our hands

or kisses our eyelids

or whispers brave words in our ears

they wash across the body of us

so much like a wave

smoothing

and softening

the edges

of who we are

and given time

we become

an inseparable

and polished singularity

a point

of completion

a place of peace

a locus for the energy

that draws us together

simply because the universe

loves

love

and so wishes for us to lose

ourselves

in its love

that it draws us together

into deliquesced forms

and says:

"this is

how it is ...

this is how

it must be ...

leave everything behind,

and become"

-

with love

as one year ends and another begins

-

one of my favourite pieces of music - wave created by david sylvian and robert fripp

here are david sylvian's words for this song......

i'm also very fond of this instrumental rendering of wave which appears on the 'camphor' collection