the work

life

in this world

can be

like so many fingers

and as you know

those fingers

- sometimes tiny and soft

sometimes bony and hard -

can pull gently and kindly

and sometimes very insistently

at the fabric

of your self

they stretch your very fibres

until every so often

the world

as you have created it

is suddenly

and almost inexplicably

undone

and if you keep your eyes open

in that moment

of undoing

you'll see

that the air

of your knowing

is suddenly

and beautifully

filled

with coloured filaments

dancing

spinning

and turning

and if you watch them

closely

you'll see

in their movement

that they are searching

for form

it's a purposeful dance

that resolves

as some sort of

coalescence

or aggregation

that says

"this is me"

or perhaps

"this is

recognizably

my self

as i imagined

i might be"

and at the centre of that dance

of whirling filaments

your soul

gathers

its edges

gains its worldly form

moves

and then

truly

moves on

again

a certain slant of light

a winter's morning

coffee

snow

a kind light

the warm silence

of a home

saturday

~

emily dickinson wrote these words some years ago.

there's a certain slant of light,

on winter afternoons

that oppresses, like the heft

of cathedral tunes.

heavenly hurt it gives us;

we can find no scar,

but internal difference

where the meanings, are.

none may teach it anything,

'tis the seal, despair,

an imperial affliction

sent us of the air.

when it comes, the landscape listens,

shadows hold their breath;

when it goes, 'tis like the distance

on the look of death.

david sylvian sings these very words in a musically sparse environment.

convolution echo

in the echo

of water

held

in the moment

of an icy puddle

i have a sense

that

beneath

the stillness of everything gone, and being still,

being and sitting still, something resides

italicized words wallace stevens from "autumn refrain"

wind and water

the wind seems desolate

and emotionless today

it wavers

swaying from side-to-side

and then rushes onwards

headstrong and careless

sometimes though

i can hear its voice

dropping to a whisper

i can feel it

slowing down -

almost stopping

and in those places

i find

a delicate frozen painting

as carefully crafted

as any man or woman could wish

or imagine

a gift of wind and water

tomorrow never knows

turn off your mind, relax

and float down stream

it is not dying

it is not dying

lay down all thought

surrender to the void

it is shining

it is shining

that you may see

the meaning of within

it is being

it is being

that love is all

and love is everyone

it is knowing

it is knowing

that ignorance and hate

may mourn the dead

it is believing

it is believing

but listen to the

colour of your dreams

it is not living

it is not living

or play the game

existence to the end

of the beginning

of the beginning

of the beginning

of the beginning

of the beginning

of the beginning

john lennon

the fountain of all light

i know people

places even

that pour goodness

and light

into this world

with no expectation

of return

or payment of any sort

they seem to know -

they just seem to know

henry herbert la thangue winter in liguria

like as the fountain

of all light created

doth pour out streams

of brightness undefined

through all the conduits

of transparent kind

that heaven and air

are both illuminated

the beams of being,

moving, life, sense, mind . . .

words by william alabaster

on this day

two years ago today my father flew away.

it's the strangest thing.

the last time we hadn't talked for this long

was when he emigrated to canada

in nineteen sixty-five

leaving me, my mum, and my brother behind

in england

for a year.

the hard part this time around

is that

through our parallel growing

upwards

and outwards,

and inwards,

he and i developed understandings -

an appreciation for each other.

you can have no idea

how unexpected

that was.

so i'm

sad

about losing that

whole piece

of my life

he arrived -

the son of a methodist minister

and astonishingly flew away

a buddhist

his life an unlikely parabola

i take great joy

in knowing

that he flew away

a much more whole person

his work in the form he took

more-or-less

done.

one small part

of his work

was to make a path

down which

my brother and i

could walk

more directly

towards our own purposes.

so i'm thankful

and grateful

for his life.

and even though

i know his

spirit

has returned

in its next

necessary

incarnation

i miss him

setting sail

anne packard knows this moment . . . "sail"

i think that there are watershed moments in our lives

that feel like we're setting sail

you can sense them almost as they begin

***

scatter my wishes

drape my dreams

unfurl my hopes

let them

find tiny entanglements

across the landscape

and i'll happily call those my life

~

emily dickinson also knew this moment . . . .

setting sail

exultation is the going

of an inland soul to sea, --

past the houses, past the headlands,

into deep eternity!

bred as we, among the mountains,

can the sailor understand

the divine intoxication

of the first league out from land?

hey da ba boom

on a thin

cold

winter's morning

lying

ever so briefly

in bed

i'm wondering a "wish i may wish i might"

and there are no stars in the sky

that i can see

(not even the local one)

but my wish?

to have these three boys

magically appear

and warm up my heart

by playing

"hey da ba boom"

go boys!

voices raised with the sails

in the autumn wind,

hark! voices raised with the sails,

these boats approaching

cross from a skybound shore:

the geese are here.

the words were written by an anonymous poet who entered a poetry competition

held by her majesty the empress during the kanpyo era

how to get here from there

there are times

when i catch myself

swinging inside this

heaven on earth

and it's all

too much to bear

let alone . . . to understand

and so i've found

that moving inside

the knowing

and looking at it

like it's a signpost

can be more revealing . . .

i get a point of reference -

sometimes

i even think i have

a clearer sense

of the point

of this place i call home

perhaps that's arrogant

perhaps it makes assumptions

i really shouldn't

perhaps it's about convincing

or reassuring myself

of a purpose

so far removed from my knowing

that the words and pictures

point in the wrong direction

i sometimes feel

what is beneath all of this

and wonder

the unlikeliness of it all (ii)

dreams

are like the seeds

of something wished

perhaps already done

and forgotten

or overlooked

or perhaps still waiting to become

sometimes

they stop

and gather

together

to become better acquainted

with their surroundings

like angels

looking

for the place in which

their purpose can be realized

to greatest effect

we see them hovering

seemingly caught

ensnared

just waiting

for the windsong

of a soul

to blow them to ground

the unlikeliness of it all (i)

still and hardened

its seedhusks

feel like exoskeletons

brittle almost

and yet

inside

the softness of a cottony heart

beats with gossamer tenderness

waiting to burst its playful self

about the landscape of its knowing

acts of love

i like to visit

the little close places

especially those that are filled with

the tiny beautiful details

that to me

are

the most gracious representations

of love

~

love is the crooked thing,

there is nobody wise enough

to find out all that is in it,

for he would be thinking of love

'till the stars had run away

and the shadows eaten the moon

william butler yeats (excerpted from "brown penny")

the rootbound path

one day, in woods about forty kilometres north of here, i came across some low brush and i noticed

an opening in the brush and so of course i went inside.

memories of being a little boy and finding something very similar flooded my mind.

it's the purest magic.

to hide or to be hidden.

what was especially cool is that you could pass through this tunnel and follow its connection to others. the sun dappled the ground as it passed through little openings in the branches above my head. while beneath my feet, the soft-silvered feathery roots coiled and bent their way around each other.

i used the knowledge to my advantage later in the day while playing a game of manhunt with my class. i waited at one of the exits as one after another my boys popped out blinking into the sunlight only to be "captured"!

beneath the skin-deep beauty

of the surface of this world

in the underbrush

under the evergreen brush

is a world

of labyrinthine

rootbound

complexity

tunnels

that have appeared entirely by chance

and which are used

as byways and secret passageways

from one part of this world

to another

november ride

i worked at the university today

so gift of gifts

a quiet, peaceful take-my-time

frosty afternoon bicycle ride

the temperature somewhere below freezing

the birds flutter nervously

beneath clouds skittering

across a scattered sky

i allow the bike

to find its own speed.

the slope

coming southwards

is slightly downwards -

it's an old railway line

paved

a route that must have

enchanted

and enthralled

the people who rode it

now it enchants

and enthralls the many people

who use it

to move quickly

in a human-powered manner

into the countryside

it's lined with quiet waystations

places that beckon

to you as you roll past

and if

you are at all like me

you slow down

and turn your bicycle around

and venture off the trail

into the scrub

and into

these little places

where timelessness

and goodness

are the only tickets you'll need

to travel

to lands beyond

those we know

and where we are known

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

i also write a blog called "cycles: the journey within the journey"

it's for people who ride a bike because they have to

because they love to

and especially because

for undefinable and inexplicable reasons

they need to!

floating

in the syrupy slide

of a barely-formed moon

my thoughts

glide with her glowing body

between the ink-black branches

my heart

my life

floating

in the floating world

the altar

before the altar, bowed, he stands

with empty hands;

upon it perfumed offerings burn

wreathing with smoke

his sole condition

love

and while the moon

swings slow across the sky

he gazes:

his soul

upon the wings

of shimmering moonbeams

"for you.

into the night i toss

my offering to you"

from the altar, bathed in moonlight,

the smoke rises straight in the quiet night.

words selected and juxtaposed from amy lowell's poem "before the altar"

choices

while some ride the winds

and others tumble through the woods

these choose to settle and slowly drift

holding closely

chance encounter

this leaf travelled

some distance

before settling in the pale brown clouds

of a hydrangea

it looks like

they'll winter together