the small escape of light

they race

in their soft unlikeliness

out of little tears in the sky

snow narrowed

snow narrows the space

between the sky

and the ground

i very love

being contained

inside

that

narrowness

guardian

steven aged two and the dog of his life a border collie named "mush"

in my memory you will always follow me and protect me and trust me and love me with your own needs so very unmet and yet somehow you knew to make your way here and lead me through this difficult place with no sense of the rewards that might come your way in this or any other lifetime . . . and i hurt you and cared less of you than myself and then your own end came prematurely and beyond your control

- if endings can ever be either mature or within our control -

and i wonder . . .

i wonder where you returned to and what you are and why

. . . . but i still love you so as you are. . . .

in my heart

the sweet and soft space

there's a sweet and soft space that calls to me

a whispered presence

a glance perhaps even a touch

a reassurance

that doesn't so much pull as it draws me closer

by default

by desire

a mouth that parts just so

eyes that crease

with the words . . .

'i've been here a while

waiting ...

waiting so long and then also so very much not so long

because i know nothing of time

and yet

i'm so glad to see you back

so very glad

so very ....."

my chair

there's a chair

in this house

and the sweet glowing arc

of its frame

speaks to me

of jungles

and beautiful bare backs

even as i sit

layered deep

and hidden

from the world

beyond the windows

approaching the day with intention

1. this song this dance this spinning around of the spirit inside -

even in my sleep

i can feel it's hands reaching out and grabbing at the cloaks of me

and i can feel those hands pulling the whirling shadow-softened robes in tight

to my lonely frame

and i'll call that "waking up

and looking around

and counting my blessings

and holding them as close as i dare"

2. "hold still" croaks the crow as i pour past his sitting place in the early morning light

which is as thin as i'm thin

and this day i feel so old i feel so coldly old

layered and coddled by the words

that tumble mumbling from my own mouth

and addressed to no one in particular

something about "always looking for something more, or other"

and i'll call that "crossing from my inner to my outer world

across a bridge of my daily making and design"

tenderness

,

i made my home amidst this human bustle

yet i hear no clamour from the carts and horses.

my friend, you ask me how this can be so?

a distant heart will tend towards like places.

from the eastern hedge,

i pluck chrysanthemum flowers,

and idly look towards the southern hills.

the mountain air is beautiful day and night,

the birds fly back to roost with one another.

i know that this must have some deeper meaning,

i try to explain, but cannot find the words.

drinking wine tao qian

blue crystal fire

arborea's take on the beautiful song written by robbie basho

midwinter

the lights

the very little

coloured lights

all gather

here

in this

very white

desert

still

there's a temptation

to fall inside

your fingers

if only to feel them

holding my face

each day

in the morning

they draw closer

for the simple pleasure

of being near each other

silver chants

upon the spires

silver

chants the litanies

words excerpted from stinging

by e.e. cummings

more

everything

in these dry thin

husks and bones

holds summer in their form

the pale crystals -

a simple promise

tailbone

she called it a tailbone cloud

and i immediately felt

in its soft salmon-coloured waterbones

her knowing

of this world

in the torsional flexing

of her self

as a woman

as a mother

as a lover

mirroring

the entirety

in the wholeness of all her bodies

holds me

you'd know this feeling

if you dug deep enough into your experience

and thought through the likelihoods and the whereafters

and remembered

an embrace so thorough

that only your glittering

astonished

and completed eyes showed

above the surface

"oh be me

be you"

wild grasses in the snow

we meet

over and over

somewhere

beyond these

tidy lines and crystals

you my flower

its sharp-edged dryness is entirely as real as my eyes register

the summer-soft crimson

lost

inside the word

"fleeting"

in the idea

of past

in the wholeness

of death

so fully present

in the richness of living

let's hope it's slow

is it more

than a clustering

of flesh and bone

a bringing together

of the lines

of us

you my love

the last name

on this dance card

my bruvver's birfday

my bruvver david was born on january 26th 1960.

1960 was a busy year but my bruvver was too little to really know what was going on around him.

so here's what was going on in 1960!

here's a pic of when i first really knew him . . . he's the little dude on the left!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BRUVVER!!!

love from steven

this real wish

what are the real wishes

of this plant

this snow

finessed slur

so very like air

so very like water

so bringing its cluttered edges

into the moment of this

finessed slur

the stillness

carried along

by the headlong rush

of every moment

i hold one long enough

to be closer -

to feel its glorious enveloping chaos

their own stories

they listen to their own stories ...

the so very practiced

echoes

of this place

fly from

the blue of a morning

gives way to the red of an evening

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