...~* Poetry from my heart of hearts *~...

[Kätzchen]

Diving Into The Wreck
-- Adrienne Rich (1972)


First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Costeau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder,
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise,
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down,
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down,
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me where the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not the question of power
I have to learn alone
to trust my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed.

The thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned faced staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermei cargo lies
obscurely inside the barrels
half-wedged and let to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-beaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our name do not appear.

[Kätzchen]

It's an wistful, warm and sunny afternoon here at home. And all afternoon, in-between texts with my mother and coming across literature I've kept on my cloud drive, I came across the poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (The Invitation).


I saved that poem years ago, when I first came across it. It's an very favorite poem; it's strand of thoughts conveying an particular reality that's often something I struggle with - concerning ideas of relationship ideals, ideas interconnected with an culture of perfection, and the often misunderstood ideas surrounding grief, heart ache, betrayal, and 'cardinal sins' which shape your life in unexpected ways.



Especially the italicized part of Oriah's poem, below. Truthfulness and honesty carry an lot of weight (Integrity), in my world. I don't really understand this strand of thought, in this particular passage of her poem. But, I often meditate on this poetic portion of verse.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


The Invitation



It doesn't interest me what you do for a living:
I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are:
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon:
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own;
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true:
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day:
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have:
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here:
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied:
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Photo Credit: Kristin Elmquist

[Kätzchen]

“The passionate heart touches the sky. The meditative mind enters it.”
― Yasmine Sherif (The Case for Humanity: An Extraordinary Session)

[Kätzchen]

Burned Forest
~ Nichita Stãnescu

Black snow was falling. The tree line
shone when I turned to see -
I had wondered long and silent,
alone, trailing memory behind me.

And it seemed the stars, fixed as they were,
ground their teeth, a stiffened nexus,
an infernal machine, tolling
the halted hours of conciousness.

Then, a thick silence descends,
and my every gesture
leaves a comet tail in the heavens.

And I hear every glance I cast
as it echoes against
some tree.

Child, what were you seeking there,
with your gangly arms and pointed shoulders
on which the wings were barely dry -
black snow drifting in the evening sky.

A horizon howling, far from view,
darting its tongues and anthracite,
dragged me forever down the mute row,
my body, half naked, sliding from sight.

In distances of smoke the town afire,
blazing beneath the planes, a frigid pyre.
We two, forest, what did we do?
Why did they burn you, forest, in a toga of ash -
and the moon no longer passes over you?

From the book Bas-Relief with Heroes
English translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.

[Kätzchen]

How It Was

~ Czeslaw Milosz

Stalking a deer I wandered deep into the mountains and from there I saw.

Or perhaps it was for some other reason that I rose above the setting sun.

Above the hills of blackwood and a slab of ocean and the steps of a glacier, carmine-colored in the dusk.

I saw absence; the mighty power of counter-fulfillment; the penalty of a promise lost forever.

If, in tepees of plywood, tire shreds, and grimy sheet iron, ancient inhabitants of this land shook their rattles, it was all in vain.

No eagle-creator circled in the air from which the thunderbolt of its glory had been cast out.

Protective spirits hid themselves in subterranean beds of bubbling ore, jolting the surface from time to time so that the fabric of freeways was bursting asunder.

God the Father didn’t walk about any longer tending the new shoots of a cedar, no longer did man hear his rushing spirit.

His son did not know his sonship and turned his eyes away when passing by a neon cross flat as a movie screen showing a striptease.

This time it was really the end of the Old and the New Testament.

No one implored, everyone picked up a nodule of agate or diorite to whisper in loneliness: I cannot live any longer.

Bearded messengers in bead necklaces founded clandestine communes in imperial cities and in ports overseas.

But none of them announced the birth of a child-savior.

Soldiers from expeditions sent to punish nations would go disguised and masked to take part in forbidden rites, not looking for any hope.

They inhaled smoke soothing all memory and, rocking from side to side, shared with each other a word of nameless union.

Carved in black wood the Wheel of Eternal Return stood before the tents of wandering monastic orders.

And those who longed for the Kingdom took refuge like me in the mountains to become the last heirs of a dishonored myth.


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Czeslaw Milosz is an widely respected author of poetry, prose and historical accounts of two totalitarian regimes he survived, during his life time. Milosz is an Polish literature author (Nobel Laureate), who has since passed on, once taught at UC-Berkeley. He's my favorite author of all time (hands down).

To learn more about Milosz, click this ~~>>>>>> LINK and this ~~>>>>>> LINK.

The first book I ever read of his was The Captive Mind (1953), for which he earned the Nobel Prize in Literature.

[Kätzchen]

Once in a blue moon, I feel inspired to share a poem that has meant a lot to me, even if the poem is authored by someone else other than me. I've shared a few of the poems I've written over the years, but I've also shared poems authored by others whose poetry has helped me to process what I think and feel about things in the world.

Today, I want to share the poem penned by Leonard Cohen: Anthem. It's off his 1992 album, titled The Future.

My favorite strand of thought from his poetic verse, is as follows:

"There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." ~ Leonard Cohen (Anthem).

Anthem

by Leonard Cohen


The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Yeah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent:
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts
You won't have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in


Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in








Link to story about this particular song by Cohen is found @ Quartz magazine ( HERE).

[Kätzchen]

Here is a poem I penned and contributed to Arwen's 9 words: a poetry challenge thread:

9 words:
perfection, beauty, truth, damaged, trick, proud, demons, pretty, control

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hiding behind the veneer of
damaged beauty, is
nothing but sheer love
of self interest, in
the name of proud demons
not worthy of a sinner's reproach.
Truth is, control is no
Perfection:
It's a trick, if you trade
Self worth ---
In exchange for
What's yours, by birth.

-Kätzchen-
(May 14th, 2013)