RAINWALKER IN PARIS
Rainwalker's unbrella is red and it's
Larger than Life and Melodic as Song...
Rainwalker's boots are of red Spanish leather
They won't take-on puddles for long...
Rainwalker's Heart is as Blue as the Rain is
All tumbling fine down from the sky...
And I wonder how Magic in sweet Paris Rains
Sweetens Hearbreaks of Paris Goodbyes....
Rainwalker's not Happy - Rainwalker's not Blue
But She hasn't got Time to be Playin' with You -
Her Liberty's Silver with a Sky-Grayin' Hue
Just a Kind Paris Rain...
And it's Rainwalker's Rain through and through....
Rainwalker's steps are with care on the pavement
of old bricks and cobblestones wet with the Rain...
Rainwalker's coat is a threadbare old slicker
It's got to meet Spring once again...
Rainwalker's Heart is so Joyful it's Singin'
All about Startin' Again...
And I happen to know Magic's Deep in the Song
Paris Rains can poar Hope in your hands....
Rainwalker's not Happy - Rainwalker's not Blue
But She hasn't got Time to be Playin' with You -
Her Libery's Golden with a Sky-Bluin' Hue
Just a Kind Paris Sun
And it's Rainwalker's Sun through and through....
Rainwalker's not Happy - Rainwalker's not Blue
But She hasn't got Time to be Playin' with You -
Her Liberty's Silver with a Sky-Grayin' Hue
Just a Kind Paris Rain
And it's Rainwalker's Rain through and through...
And it's Rainwalker's Sun through and through...
It's a Sweet Paris Rain through and through....
6/30/12
MAKIN' MAGIC BIRD is Lyrics inspired by a line I read that went something like this "...like the Magic you make when you're not afraid."...yeah....
MAKIN' MAGIC BIRD
Makin' Magic like you do
When you leap without no fear
I'm in your arms leapin' with ya
Best trip I've been on all year
You ain't ever gonna fall
Means that I won't fall none, too -
I practically got wings just flappin'
In these skies that you fly through
White Bird, that is what you are, Babe
White Bird, flyin' - by and by,
I'll fly on my own - just learnin'
What you're doin' when you Fly
You ain't got no fear - you say that -
Baby, I got Fear for two -
An' I'm standin' on the nest-side
Flappin' wings and makin' do
But you're jus' Wingin'-it and Goin'
Higher than you really should -
Ain't no 'shoulds' could ever stop ya -
You're jus' Flyin' real good
White Bird, that is what you are, Babe
White Bird, flyin' - by and by,
I'll fly on my own - just learnin'
What you're doin' when you Fly
So go make your Magic, Babe, I'm
Right beneath you if you fall -
An' Fear is what can keep me earth-bound -
You ain't got no Fear a'tall
You ain't got One Fear a'tall
White Bird, that is what you are, Babe
White Bird, flyin' - by and by -
I'll fly on my own - jus' learnin'
What you're doin' when you Fly
What you're doing when you Fly
Makin' Magic like you do
When you leap without no fear
I'm in your arms leapin' with ya
Best trip I've been on all year
You ain't ever gonna fall
Means that I won't fall none, too -
I practically got wings just flappin'
In these skies that you fly through
White Bird, that is what you are, Babe
White Bird, flyin' - by and by,
I'll fly on my own - just learnin'
What you're doin' when you Fly
You ain't got no fear - you say that -
Baby, I got Fear for two -
An' I'm standin' on the nest-side
Flappin' wings and makin' do
But you're jus' Wingin'-it and Goin'
Higher than you really should -
Ain't no 'shoulds' could ever stop ya -
You're jus' Flyin' real good
White Bird, that is what you are, Babe
White Bird, flyin' - by and by,
I'll fly on my own - just learnin'
What you're doin' when you Fly
So go make your Magic, Babe, I'm
Right beneath you if you fall -
An' Fear is what can keep me earth-bound -
You ain't got no Fear a'tall
You ain't got One Fear a'tall
White Bird, that is what you are, Babe
White Bird, flyin' - by and by -
I'll fly on my own - jus' learnin'
What you're doin' when you Fly
What you're doing when you Fly
6/29/12
EGRET is simple, simple Lyrics about passin' by an Egret in the Delta....
EGRET
There's an Egret in the delta
In the Fields all water-full
Lookin' for another meal
Tryin' to take Life down it's bill
I'm so like that Egret, baby,
So alone and white as snow
It don't snow here ever, baby,
Jus' I feel lonely so
Egret, I see four or five of
Other White Birds jus' like you
You could maybe fly with them
If you got nothin' else to do
Or maybe you could share your time
Be side by side - not so alone -
Maybe make some Egret Chicks
Or make some nest and call it Home
I'm gonna drive right past ya now
I'm on my way some other place
Ain't gonna look you in your wild eyes
Fathom your silent Bird Face
Still, I'll remember you in green grass
Wadin', silent Delta Ghost
Watchin' for your meal jus' passin'
In the waters you love most
There's an Egret in the delta
In the Fields all water-full
Lookin' for another meal
Tryin' to take Life down it's bill
I'm so like that Egret, baby,
So alone and white as snow
It don't snow here ever, baby,
Jus' I feel lonely so
Egret, I see four or five of
Other White Birds jus' like you
You could maybe fly with them
If you got nothin' else to do
Or maybe you could share your time
Be side by side - not so alone -
Maybe make some Egret Chicks
Or make some nest and call it Home
I'm gonna drive right past ya now
I'm on my way some other place
Ain't gonna look you in your wild eyes
Fathom your silent Bird Face
Still, I'll remember you in green grass
Wadin', silent Delta Ghost
Watchin' for your meal jus' passin'
In the waters you love most
6/26/12
CONFESSIONAL is a bit of a poem or maybe Lyrics about small-town-Catholic-Kid angst...so there it is...small, and long, long ago....
CONFESSIONAL
Shop-Liftin at the Five and Dime
When I was pretty darn young
Was candy and not much more -
No mam, wasn't me:
It was some other kid
Who isn't sure just why...
What it means to a Catholic kid -
You have no idea, mam,
No idea a'tall:
What it means to got to tell
That Shadow in the Confessin' all -
Without one dang Sin ta tell...
It's not good - makes ya feel
Low - so see, I gotta go
An' steal some candy here
Where it's out for the takin' -
An' maybe get caught an'
Got somethin' to say
To my Mom and God and
Sister Superior-to -me...
An' all the Catholic kids
Who ain't got one thing to do
An' nothin' much to say
In Church where everybody knows...
God knows ya did 'it' anyways -
God knows, ya did 'it', any ways....
Shop-Liftin at the Five and Dime
When I was pretty darn young
Was candy and not much more -
No mam, wasn't me:
It was some other kid
Who isn't sure just why...
What it means to a Catholic kid -
You have no idea, mam,
No idea a'tall:
What it means to got to tell
That Shadow in the Confessin' all -
Without one dang Sin ta tell...
It's not good - makes ya feel
Low - so see, I gotta go
An' steal some candy here
Where it's out for the takin' -
An' maybe get caught an'
Got somethin' to say
To my Mom and God and
Sister Superior-to -me...
An' all the Catholic kids
Who ain't got one thing to do
An' nothin' much to say
In Church where everybody knows...
God knows ya did 'it' anyways -
God knows, ya did 'it', any ways....
NOT ONE MORE WORD TO SAY is Lyrics about how all tongues talk themself right into silence some times, when Love is Goin', Goin', Gone....
NOT ONE MORE WORD TO SAY
Away from all the chatter, baby,
Far away inside my head:
I can hear the Nothin', darlin',
Where I've thought -
An' what I've said -
An' nothin's goin' on there really -
Nothin' left I want to say...
Tho got to admit now, darlin':
Nothin' was 'said' anyway...
Not between us now, my baby,
Not between us then, my baby,
Not within us, anyway....
These are Blues without a note -
Without a word - without a sigh...
Ain't not a thing ta chat about -
Ain't no reason to even cry...
You're just you - and me, I'm
Nothin' worth the worry -
Hardly worth this little song...
But I can hope another lifetime
Growin' in me all along:
Where I'll be a better Lover -
Where I'll be a better Friend...
Bring us somethin' - in the end....
Heard some chat and left some text
An' then twittered some Baby Song...
About how all this Noise meant somethin' -
How I loved ya all along...
Couldn't stop my second-guessin'
From rattlin' inside my Mind...
Guess I got no where to go here -
Guess I got to be right kind:
Tell ya that I have to go -
On account of, just today:
Learned that I really don't have
Another word to say, my darlin -'
Not one word to say, my baby -
Not one more word to say.
Away from all the chatter, baby,
Far away inside my head:
I can hear the Nothin', darlin',
Where I've thought -
An' what I've said -
An' nothin's goin' on there really -
Nothin' left I want to say...
Tho got to admit now, darlin':
Nothin' was 'said' anyway...
Not between us now, my baby,
Not between us then, my baby,
Not within us, anyway....
These are Blues without a note -
Without a word - without a sigh...
Ain't not a thing ta chat about -
Ain't no reason to even cry...
You're just you - and me, I'm
Nothin' worth the worry -
Hardly worth this little song...
But I can hope another lifetime
Growin' in me all along:
Where I'll be a better Lover -
Where I'll be a better Friend...
Bring us somethin' - in the end....
Heard some chat and left some text
An' then twittered some Baby Song...
About how all this Noise meant somethin' -
How I loved ya all along...
Couldn't stop my second-guessin'
From rattlin' inside my Mind...
Guess I got no where to go here -
Guess I got to be right kind:
Tell ya that I have to go -
On account of, just today:
Learned that I really don't have
Another word to say, my darlin -'
Not one word to say, my baby -
Not one more word to say.
LOVE IS LIKE SOME BRIGHT BIRD'S WINGS is Lyrics about passionately opening to the idea of Light coming from you and from me...in our Practice of Compassion....
LOVE IS LIKE SOME BRIGHT BIRD'S WINGS
Love is like some bright bird's wings
Hate's the Dark in everything
You can't see your self at all
Until you let some Light in
Until you light the Night Wings
Until you welcome Light...
So go to where the Sun is shinin'
Go to other shores and see
You are breathin' just like I am
Life is good to you - to me -
An' you can let some Light in
It won't be too bright - really...
Show Compassion with such Joy
Nothin' will bring back the Dark
You can really grow some wings -
You can truly be some spark
That lights the Fires in some Souls
That brings Light right on home...
Love is just some natural bird's wings
Hate's the opposite of Light
You can't be your self a'tall
Until you open Light in
Until you spread your Dark Wings
Until you welcome Light...
An' scare off Hate - like Night
Is cast off by the Dawn...
By the Light of Dawn....
Love is like some bright bird's wings
Hate's the Dark in everything
You can't see your self at all
Until you let some Light in
Until you light the Night Wings
Until you welcome Light...
So go to where the Sun is shinin'
Go to other shores and see
You are breathin' just like I am
Life is good to you - to me -
An' you can let some Light in
It won't be too bright - really...
Show Compassion with such Joy
Nothin' will bring back the Dark
You can really grow some wings -
You can truly be some spark
That lights the Fires in some Souls
That brings Light right on home...
Love is just some natural bird's wings
Hate's the opposite of Light
You can't be your self a'tall
Until you open Light in
Until you spread your Dark Wings
Until you welcome Light...
An' scare off Hate - like Night
Is cast off by the Dawn...
By the Light of Dawn....
6/25/12
THE WARM LIGHT THAT HOLDS YOU CLOSE is about not being afraid: the Light that comes from Love will see you through and warm you...It's LYRICS....
THE WARM LIGHT THAT HOLDS YOU CLOSE
When your dreams are low and you're not awake
It's the warm light that holds you close
And you feel alone and yet not afraid
It's the kind light that holds you close
Sailin' in your dreamin' - poor old ship at night -
It's the sweetest light out there at sea...
Harbor is some far-away - you can't find home...
Off to other ports your bound to be...
Never mind the lonliness - it's not so bad -
You are never that alone....
When your dreams are low and you're not awake
It's the warm light that holds you close
And you feel alone and yet not so afraid
It's the kind light that holds you close
Up there on the riggin' you are by your self
Keepin' all your hopes out there at bay...
Watchin' for your Mate who isn't by your side -
Hopin' that your Love is strong and safe...
Not afraid of possible- or even fear -
You will not be still alone....
When your dreams are low and you're not awake
It's the warm light that holds you close
And you feel alone and yet not so afraid
It's the kind light that holds you close
It's the sweet Love that holds you close
In the dark night, that holds you close
When your dreams are low and you're not awake
It's the warm light that holds you close
And you feel alone and yet not afraid
It's the kind light that holds you close
Sailin' in your dreamin' - poor old ship at night -
It's the sweetest light out there at sea...
Harbor is some far-away - you can't find home...
Off to other ports your bound to be...
Never mind the lonliness - it's not so bad -
You are never that alone....
When your dreams are low and you're not awake
It's the warm light that holds you close
And you feel alone and yet not so afraid
It's the kind light that holds you close
Up there on the riggin' you are by your self
Keepin' all your hopes out there at bay...
Watchin' for your Mate who isn't by your side -
Hopin' that your Love is strong and safe...
Not afraid of possible- or even fear -
You will not be still alone....
When your dreams are low and you're not awake
It's the warm light that holds you close
And you feel alone and yet not so afraid
It's the kind light that holds you close
It's the sweet Love that holds you close
In the dark night, that holds you close
SAD DREAM SONG is Lyrics about days and nights of Dreams going by with little to show for 'em...how you make it through by holdin' on to the one who loves you most and truly best....
SAD DREAM SONG
Not movin' anywhere, my Darlin' -
No where I can go
Where I don't find my self still dreamin'
Of some time from long ago
When I was all quite thin and pretty
Didn't really see you good
Cuz I didn't know from nothin'
Didn't know Life like I would'
When I was older, yeah, my Baby...
When I was me, now, older....
So hold my hands and hold my Heart
An' Baby, never let me go
Cuz I'm alone if you're not with me
An' I really love ya so
Got a lot of Friends and Family
Got my years of Work and Gain
Got my loss of Health and some Hopes
Got plenty of Grief and Pain...
But you know, I've always had You
In my Heart, strong from some Past,
Where this Love was always Young
An' where this Young Love was to last....
Where is Time about to go, Love?
Are we gonna make it through?
Can we live or can we die
Without feelin' lost then, too -
Unless we hold on and we cry
Together, Baby, yeah my dear,
Together...yeah, Together....
So we're older - still we're wilder -
Not as wise as once before...
An' we're gonna live on Hope
An' open up most every Door...
Have Adventures by the dozens -
Have a lot of Mishaps too...
Fight the Poverties and Hurts
Fight the Chance to Feel Blue...
So hold my hands and hold my Heart
An' Baby, never let me go
Cuz I'm alone if you're not with me
An' I really love ya so.
Not movin' anywhere, my Darlin' -
No where I can go
Where I don't find my self still dreamin'
Of some time from long ago
When I was all quite thin and pretty
Didn't really see you good
Cuz I didn't know from nothin'
Didn't know Life like I would'
When I was older, yeah, my Baby...
When I was me, now, older....
So hold my hands and hold my Heart
An' Baby, never let me go
Cuz I'm alone if you're not with me
An' I really love ya so
Got a lot of Friends and Family
Got my years of Work and Gain
Got my loss of Health and some Hopes
Got plenty of Grief and Pain...
But you know, I've always had You
In my Heart, strong from some Past,
Where this Love was always Young
An' where this Young Love was to last....
Where is Time about to go, Love?
Are we gonna make it through?
Can we live or can we die
Without feelin' lost then, too -
Unless we hold on and we cry
Together, Baby, yeah my dear,
Together...yeah, Together....
So we're older - still we're wilder -
Not as wise as once before...
An' we're gonna live on Hope
An' open up most every Door...
Have Adventures by the dozens -
Have a lot of Mishaps too...
Fight the Poverties and Hurts
Fight the Chance to Feel Blue...
So hold my hands and hold my Heart
An' Baby, never let me go
Cuz I'm alone if you're not with me
An' I really love ya so.
6/21/12
WAKIN' FROM DREAMIN' is lyrics about the sleepy time before actually 'gettin up'...when I realize I'm wonderin' where to 'go' next with the Love in my life...happens some times - especially when I'm on my own....
WAKIN' FROM DREAMIN'
When I woke from my dreamin'
Things were on my mind, and
You were on my mind...
I was restless...couldn't sleep again -
Had some hopes to find...
When I woke from my dreamin'
Love was on my mind....
Turns out, too much thinkin'
Leaves me feelin' sad, yes,
Leaves me feelin' so bad...
I get upset...can't even eat then -
Have some faith to find...
When I'm thinkin' too much
Hope is on my mind....
An' I get these feelings: Life
Is playin' tricks on me...
Leaving me alone:
No more Love...
Less to live for...
No way Home....
When I wake here without you
Work is on my mind: Work
I have to do: to be faithful, oh yes,
To be lovin', o yeah - to live
Life with you....
When I wake in the mornin'
You are on my mind, our Dreams
Are on my mind...
They're on my mind...yes,
They're on my mind...
So on my mind....
When I woke from my dreamin'
Things were on my mind, and
You were on my mind...
I was restless...couldn't sleep again -
Had some hopes to find...
When I woke from my dreamin'
Love was on my mind....
Turns out, too much thinkin'
Leaves me feelin' sad, yes,
Leaves me feelin' so bad...
I get upset...can't even eat then -
Have some faith to find...
When I'm thinkin' too much
Hope is on my mind....
An' I get these feelings: Life
Is playin' tricks on me...
Leaving me alone:
No more Love...
Less to live for...
No way Home....
When I wake here without you
Work is on my mind: Work
I have to do: to be faithful, oh yes,
To be lovin', o yeah - to live
Life with you....
When I wake in the mornin'
You are on my mind, our Dreams
Are on my mind...
They're on my mind...yes,
They're on my mind...
So on my mind....
6/19/12
RAININ' ALL THE TIME is about wanting the cooling relief from the Blues...by rains...rain and more rain...just rainin' - all the time....
RAININ' ALL THE TIME
This ain't the time when it rains now
This is the time it's dry...
There are more days when hills are gold -
More sun than clouds in the sky...
Sometimes it's rainin' all the time -
Right now no clouds go by....
This ain't the time when it rains now
These are the days it's dry...
The hills are empty of their streams -
More wings than empty sky...
Sometimes I'm sunny all the time -
Right now I just can't fly....
This ain't the time when it rains now
Even my eyes are dry...
My heart is not much without warmth -
And sunny days go by...
Sometimes it's rainy as the Blues -
But there'll be sun by and by....
This ain't the time when it rains now
There's nothin' left but dry...
The Blues are blue as blue can be -
And if the Days could cry...
They'd cry for Rain, the cool, cool Rain
To fall fast from the sky...
To fall free from the sky.....
This ain't the time when it rains now
This is the time it's dry...
There are more days when hills are gold -
More sun than clouds in the sky...
Sometimes it's rainin' all the time -
Right now no clouds go by....
This ain't the time when it rains now
These are the days it's dry...
The hills are empty of their streams -
More wings than empty sky...
Sometimes I'm sunny all the time -
Right now I just can't fly....
This ain't the time when it rains now
Even my eyes are dry...
My heart is not much without warmth -
And sunny days go by...
Sometimes it's rainy as the Blues -
But there'll be sun by and by....
This ain't the time when it rains now
There's nothin' left but dry...
The Blues are blue as blue can be -
And if the Days could cry...
They'd cry for Rain, the cool, cool Rain
To fall fast from the sky...
To fall free from the sky.....
LEARNIN' THE SHIP is lyrics brought on by Louisa Mae Alcott sayin' something about learning how to Sail her Boat in any Storm as a metaphor about her writing....Thanks, then Ms. Alcott....
LEARNIN' THE SHIP
I'm learnin' the Ship - how to be a good mate -
How to hit the decks fast in the mornin'...
When to climb to the nest and go peerin'
Far off to horizons where dreams
Are just bornin'
I'm tryin' to write the way I learn to sail -
To follow each wind as it moves me...
To let her go north to let her go south -
East or west - with no mind -
Let it all be
To see words as sails that will carry me home -
To want Home like sea - like a sailor...
To read from each beat of my heart
Like a chart that my Captain can see
And will teach me
I'm learnin' the Ship - how to write real well -
To reach for the stars in the evenin'...
How to climb to the nest navigatin'
Far off to some sea where some dreams
Are a'waitin'
Some sea where these dreams'
Are a waitin....
I'm learnin' the Ship - how to be a good mate -
How to hit the decks fast in the mornin'...
When to climb to the nest and go peerin'
Far off to horizons where dreams
Are just bornin'
I'm tryin' to write the way I learn to sail -
To follow each wind as it moves me...
To let her go north to let her go south -
East or west - with no mind -
Let it all be
To see words as sails that will carry me home -
To want Home like sea - like a sailor...
To read from each beat of my heart
Like a chart that my Captain can see
And will teach me
I'm learnin' the Ship - how to write real well -
To reach for the stars in the evenin'...
How to climb to the nest navigatin'
Far off to some sea where some dreams
Are a'waitin'
Some sea where these dreams'
Are a waitin....
QUIET PLACES AIN'T THE BLUES is lyrics about goin' inside to find Quiet - rarely, rarely are the Blues actually in such a Place....
QUIET PLACES AIN'T THE BLUES
I've been Quiet Places - here is one right now, yes...
Quiet Places only Quiet - not the Blues....
You go on here and there and make your own sweet noise
But in such Warm/Cold Places ain't the Blues none either -
An' those Quiet Places don't yet mean the Blues...
They be jus' some place you can rest your tired old shoes -
Jus' some places you can't win and can't lose -
Them Quiet Places rarely is the Blues....
I've been Quiet Places - here's one in this House, yes...
Quiet Places filled with Lovin' - not the Blues....
You and I here makin' sweet times - just together -
Doin' Nothin' can be Blues - but ain't Blues here, then -
An this Quiet Place here ain't the Blues none either -
This Place is that Place you rest your Soul sure -
Jus' a Place where you can win and can't lose -
This Quiet Place rarely is the Blues....
I've found Quiet Places - here inside my Heart, yes...
Quiet Places only Quiet - no, not the Blues....
I go on here and there makin' my own sweet noise
And in such Warm, Good Places ain't the Blues none either -
Quiet deep inside me don't yet mean the Blues...
Quiet be some place where I can rest my heart -
A Place where I jus' win inside and never lose
A Quiet Place insided is jus' rarely the Blues
Them Quiet Places rarely is the Blues, sweet Baby,
Them Quiet Places rarely, rarely is the Blues....
I've been Quiet Places - here is one right now, yes...
Quiet Places only Quiet - not the Blues....
You go on here and there and make your own sweet noise
But in such Warm/Cold Places ain't the Blues none either -
An' those Quiet Places don't yet mean the Blues...
They be jus' some place you can rest your tired old shoes -
Jus' some places you can't win and can't lose -
Them Quiet Places rarely is the Blues....
I've been Quiet Places - here's one in this House, yes...
Quiet Places filled with Lovin' - not the Blues....
You and I here makin' sweet times - just together -
Doin' Nothin' can be Blues - but ain't Blues here, then -
An this Quiet Place here ain't the Blues none either -
This Place is that Place you rest your Soul sure -
Jus' a Place where you can win and can't lose -
This Quiet Place rarely is the Blues....
I've found Quiet Places - here inside my Heart, yes...
Quiet Places only Quiet - no, not the Blues....
I go on here and there makin' my own sweet noise
And in such Warm, Good Places ain't the Blues none either -
Quiet deep inside me don't yet mean the Blues...
Quiet be some place where I can rest my heart -
A Place where I jus' win inside and never lose
A Quiet Place insided is jus' rarely the Blues
Them Quiet Places rarely is the Blues, sweet Baby,
Them Quiet Places rarely, rarely is the Blues....
MANY THINGS - NOT ONLY CABBAGES AND KINGS is lyrics drawn from a comment by my friend, Robert L - thanks for the words, Robert! now, for the song....
MANY THINGS - NOT ONLY CABBAGES AND KINGS
This world is true filled with Things
You gave me Things and they were Good
You gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is You
All I can recall is You
This life is loaded straight with Things
Life gave me Things and they were Good
Live gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is Life
All I can recall is Life
And all the Things go fallin'
Like Fallin' Stars go streakin'
Across my Sky of Memories
Just like Fallin' Stars
Alot like Fallin' Stars
This Love was filled with many Things
Love gave me Things and they were Good
Love gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is Love
All I can recall is Love
And all the Things go fallin'
Like Fallin' Stars go streakin'
Across my Sky of Memories
Just like Fallin' Stars
Alot like Fallin' Stars
This world' sure filled with many Things
You gave me Things and they were Good
You gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is Love
All I can recall is Life
All I can recall is You....
This world is true filled with Things
You gave me Things and they were Good
You gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is You
All I can recall is You
This life is loaded straight with Things
Life gave me Things and they were Good
Live gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is Life
All I can recall is Life
And all the Things go fallin'
Like Fallin' Stars go streakin'
Across my Sky of Memories
Just like Fallin' Stars
Alot like Fallin' Stars
This Love was filled with many Things
Love gave me Things and they were Good
Love gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is Love
All I can recall is Love
And all the Things go fallin'
Like Fallin' Stars go streakin'
Across my Sky of Memories
Just like Fallin' Stars
Alot like Fallin' Stars
This world' sure filled with many Things
You gave me Things and they were Good
You gave me Things and they were Not -
What were They? - can't recall - cannot
Recall at all - not at all...
All I can recall is Love
All I can recall is Life
All I can recall is You....
6/17/12
I'LL MAKE A SPELL is a lyrics or just a poem...about what I wish I could do: as Ghandi said, "I'd prefer not to live on this earth if we are not to be One Humanity on this earth"...or something like that...we've got to find ways and means to Work TOGETHER to solve our Human Problems...or we will fail Alone...each blaming the Other....
I'LL MAKE A SPELL
I'll make a Spell
A Magic Thing
That makes worlds move
That makes us sing
Together
Together
That makes us sing
This Song of Peace
Together
But spells don't work
I know that's true
Cuz I'm just me and
You're just you
Can't make you do
Just anything
Together
Tho Songs of Peace
Sound better sung
Together
I'd build Magic
That makes us One
All Humans kind and
Just Begun like new
To see our lifetimes
Through together
To see how we are just
One Kind
Together
So take this hand
Where Spells reside
I bring you Love
You can decide
If we can do
What we must do
Together
I cannot do this
All alone and Earth
Is just our only Home
Where we can do our
Goodly Works
Together
Together
Where we can live our
Spells of Life
Together
I'll make a Spell
A Magic Thing
That makes worlds move
That makes us sing
Together
Together
That makes us sing
This Song of Peace
Together
But spells don't work
I know that's true
Cuz I'm just me and
You're just you
Can't make you do
Just anything
Together
Tho Songs of Peace
Sound better sung
Together
I'd build Magic
That makes us One
All Humans kind and
Just Begun like new
To see our lifetimes
Through together
To see how we are just
One Kind
Together
So take this hand
Where Spells reside
I bring you Love
You can decide
If we can do
What we must do
Together
I cannot do this
All alone and Earth
Is just our only Home
Where we can do our
Goodly Works
Together
Together
Where we can live our
Spells of Life
Together
6/16/12
WILDY KIND OF LOVE is a simple lyrics about loving a Horse...anyone who loves a horse simply feels This Way....
WILDY KIND OF LOVE
Answers to Buffalo Dancer -
Hey! Hah! he's a great fine horse
I'm in love of course
Cuz I got me a wildy kind of love
Got a saddle not worth beans,
Dirty old jeans, and a stall
That should be cleaned
And even then, he
Answers when he feels like it -
Hey! Woah! He's the best lil' horse
He's worth more than gold
An' I got me a wildy kind of love
Rides like wind and neighs like thunder -
Hey! Hah! he's a cuttin' horse
Who I 'show' of course
An' I give him a wildy kind of love
Got some trophies caked in dust
An' I'm 'bout to jus' go bust
Affordin' all his feed, but then,
I must
Cuz he's still my Buffalo Dancer -
Hah! Woah! he's my best of friends
An' our time won't end
Cuz I got me a wildy kind of love
Cuz I give him a wildy kind of love...
Yep, it's a wildy kind of love....
Answers to Buffalo Dancer -
Hey! Hah! he's a great fine horse
I'm in love of course
Cuz I got me a wildy kind of love
Got a saddle not worth beans,
Dirty old jeans, and a stall
That should be cleaned
And even then, he
Answers when he feels like it -
Hey! Woah! He's the best lil' horse
He's worth more than gold
An' I got me a wildy kind of love
Rides like wind and neighs like thunder -
Hey! Hah! he's a cuttin' horse
Who I 'show' of course
An' I give him a wildy kind of love
Got some trophies caked in dust
An' I'm 'bout to jus' go bust
Affordin' all his feed, but then,
I must
Cuz he's still my Buffalo Dancer -
Hah! Woah! he's my best of friends
An' our time won't end
Cuz I got me a wildy kind of love
Cuz I give him a wildy kind of love...
Yep, it's a wildy kind of love....
BEIN' POORLY is Lyrics laughin' at the many, many ailments that come with gettin' older...and you know, this is only about a third of the ones I personally harbor in this old bod of mine! You're welcome to add more verses if you think the list jus' isn't complete enough!
BEIN' POORLY
I'm jus' doin' poorly -
Jus' don't do well any more...
Don't have money to see doctors -
Nurses shoo me out the door...
Ain't got hardly one thing runnin'
In this agin' bod of mine...
Bein' poorly ain't no fun -
Used to have fun all of the time!
These legs of mine don't dance quite
Like their selves jus' used to do!
An' I used ta sing like angels -
Now all I can croak is "moooo"!
I have wings flappin' on my arms
Where biceps jus' used ta be:
Bein' poorly ain't fun for sure!
I'm'a gettin' ready to bust free!
Gotta pee jus' every minute else
There'll be hell to pay -
An' I'm sneezin' or I'm coughin'
All the time - I gotta say:
If my teeth wern't still attached ta me:
I'd jus' give em away!
This old body's jus' a mess and I
Think it should 'move' some day!
When I was young I played hard
An' I sure did work hard too!
Now this bod is misbehavin'
Like it jus' were some old shoe...
Well I'd throw it out today but then
By golly, what'd I do?
It's the only bod I got! I wish that
God had giv'n me two....
If you think I'm just complainin'
Hear this heart go pitter-pat?
It sounds jus' like a junk truck -
Yep, I wanna take it back
To the damn store where I got it
Put inside me long ago -
But the rest of me's attached to it -
We'd hate to see it blow!
Repeat First Verse
I'm jus' doin' poorly -
Jus' don't do well any more...
Don't have money to see doctors -
Nurses shoo me out the door...
Ain't got hardly one thing runnin'
In this agin' bod of mine...
Bein' poorly ain't no fun -
Used to have fun all of the time!
These legs of mine don't dance quite
Like their selves jus' used to do!
An' I used ta sing like angels -
Now all I can croak is "moooo"!
I have wings flappin' on my arms
Where biceps jus' used ta be:
Bein' poorly ain't fun for sure!
I'm'a gettin' ready to bust free!
Gotta pee jus' every minute else
There'll be hell to pay -
An' I'm sneezin' or I'm coughin'
All the time - I gotta say:
If my teeth wern't still attached ta me:
I'd jus' give em away!
This old body's jus' a mess and I
Think it should 'move' some day!
When I was young I played hard
An' I sure did work hard too!
Now this bod is misbehavin'
Like it jus' were some old shoe...
Well I'd throw it out today but then
By golly, what'd I do?
It's the only bod I got! I wish that
God had giv'n me two....
If you think I'm just complainin'
Hear this heart go pitter-pat?
It sounds jus' like a junk truck -
Yep, I wanna take it back
To the damn store where I got it
Put inside me long ago -
But the rest of me's attached to it -
We'd hate to see it blow!
Repeat First Verse
PETER'S FISH are Lyrics that came as a True Dream, so it's all Good....
PETER'S FISH
I'm cleanin' Fish that Peter caught
An' breadin' - fryin' too!
O all the Fish that ever was
Ain't filled with life all through -
Way all his fishes do...
Right near our cabin made of logs
This River rightly plays
We hear it's voice and sing with it
An' Peter knows its ways -
Been fishin' all his days...
Still fishin' all his days....
________________
CHORUS
Love ain't measured in a song
About some fish for dinner, no...
Love's added up in days when
Simple Times like this are true...
With days of Kindness too...
With nights of Kindness, too....
________________
When Peter's out to fish the Lake
I hear him singin' sweet -
We hear him clear - me and that
Dog Friend restin' at his feet...
An' he is old and I am old -
Yes sir, that dog is old now too -
But what we don't throw back we eat -
So we're doin' fine - it's how we do...
It's surely how we do....
_________________
CHORUS
________________
Folks who visit round-abouts
Say well, we have a Heaven here -
So, yep, we hold our Luck quite clear -
We see we got the best...
An' knowin' our lives go along
Blessed with Enough and days of song
Makes everything good - nothin' wrong -
An' lets our spirits rest...
Yes, gives our spirits rest....
_________________
CHORUS
_________________
I'm cleanin' Fish that Peter caught
An' breadin' - fryin' too!
O all the Fish that ever was
Ain't filled with life all through -
Way all his fishes do...
Right near our cabin made of logs
This River rightly plays
We hear it's voice and sing with it
An' Peter knows its ways -
Been fishin' all his days...
Still fishin' all his days....
________________
CHORUS
Love ain't measured in a song
About some fish for dinner, no...
Love's added up in days when
Simple Times like this are true...
With days of Kindness too...
With nights of Kindness, too....
________________
When Peter's out to fish the Lake
I hear him singin' sweet -
We hear him clear - me and that
Dog Friend restin' at his feet...
An' he is old and I am old -
Yes sir, that dog is old now too -
But what we don't throw back we eat -
So we're doin' fine - it's how we do...
It's surely how we do....
_________________
CHORUS
________________
Folks who visit round-abouts
Say well, we have a Heaven here -
So, yep, we hold our Luck quite clear -
We see we got the best...
An' knowin' our lives go along
Blessed with Enough and days of song
Makes everything good - nothin' wrong -
An' lets our spirits rest...
Yes, gives our spirits rest....
_________________
CHORUS
_________________
6/15/12
WHERE EVER I AM I HAVE YOU AND is another love lyrics for my Song Man and me....
WHERE EVER I AM I HAVE YOU AND
Where ever I am I have Music
Where ever I am I have Song
I have Love and You and have Us then
So I guess I've got everything now
For so long, now
That it's sweet for me all life long
Now, yes it's sweet for me
This life long...
So rock me my baby to sleep and
I'll rock you right back with my blues
I'll knock your socks off with my rock songs
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes
Where ever I go I have Jazz and
Where ever I have you, I'm free -
When I have your Love it's like sweet
Strawberries and I can't be sad, not
With you, dear Baby - yeah, with you's
Where I want to be...
So rock me my baby to sleep and
I'll rock you right back with my blues
I'll knock your socks off with my rock songs
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes
Sweet darlin'
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes....
Where ever I am I have Music
Where ever I am I have Song
I have Love and You and have Us then
So I guess I've got everything now
For so long, now
That it's sweet for me all life long
Now, yes it's sweet for me
This life long...
So rock me my baby to sleep and
I'll rock you right back with my blues
I'll knock your socks off with my rock songs
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes
Where ever I go I have Jazz and
Where ever I have you, I'm free -
When I have your Love it's like sweet
Strawberries and I can't be sad, not
With you, dear Baby - yeah, with you's
Where I want to be...
So rock me my baby to sleep and
I'll rock you right back with my blues
I'll knock your socks off with my rock songs
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes
Sweet darlin'
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes
I'll thrill you right down to your shoes....
TWO SWEET RIPE PLUMS is a bit of a Blues for Mark C...who is a Blues Master...so I hope you enjoy this patter of Blues...the sound of plums falling on the forest floor....
TWO SWEET RIPE PLUMS
Two sweet ripe plums
You held out to me -
All purple blues
You offered free
You said, for me...
Just like some rain
At close of day, then
You made some promises to keep -
I'd have to pay....
You laughed each time
I took your hand
Your plums fell to
The forest floor
And I knew that I
Was lost for good
Just like that
Gift of Plums
So you can say
You love me truly -
Or you can say you don't
I really pay no mind...
The gift you gave
Of plums that sunset
Keep going round my thoughts
Like still sweet loving rhymes....
And time goes by
And time stands still
Your love slips from
Your hands at will
And I cannot see
Where your love goes
Like the plums, tho,
Not to me
Then I will go
Beyond this border
Where you are far away
And yet so close to me...
I see your hands
They're holding plums now
And giving plums
Like Blues away: your Gift
For free...
Like singing Blues
For free...
Like gifting plums
For free....
Two sweet ripe plums
You held out to me -
All purple blues
You offered free
You said, for me...
Just like some rain
At close of day, then
You made some promises to keep -
I'd have to pay....
You laughed each time
I took your hand
Your plums fell to
The forest floor
And I knew that I
Was lost for good
Just like that
Gift of Plums
So you can say
You love me truly -
Or you can say you don't
I really pay no mind...
The gift you gave
Of plums that sunset
Keep going round my thoughts
Like still sweet loving rhymes....
And time goes by
And time stands still
Your love slips from
Your hands at will
And I cannot see
Where your love goes
Like the plums, tho,
Not to me
Then I will go
Beyond this border
Where you are far away
And yet so close to me...
I see your hands
They're holding plums now
And giving plums
Like Blues away: your Gift
For free...
Like singing Blues
For free...
Like gifting plums
For free....
6/14/12
GOOD WILL is a small poem about the risks and gambles of giving and getting Love in Life....
GOOD WILL
every story of
love
always sucha
crap shoot
baby
roll em
take your
chances
leap of faith
hope
our lady of
charity
when you give
hearts
away
what you get back
is
used
you know that
take my hand
we're old now
they can't hurt us
any
more
every story of
love
always sucha
crap shoot
baby
roll em
take your
chances
leap of faith
hope
our lady of
charity
when you give
hearts
away
what you get back
is
used
you know that
take my hand
we're old now
they can't hurt us
any
more
RAIN RAINBOWS AURORAS AND ALL THAT STUFF is a little reflexion on the Beauty all around me, that I apparantly never get over gushing about, in spite of Rain or Birdsong...it could be a Lyrics if it found a song....
RAIN RAINBOWS AURORAS AND ALL THAT STUFF
I'm holdin' on to This Earth
Like a sweet Rhutabaga' an' I'm
Takin' no Sass from the Rain
I'm leavin' everything that's got
No Risk or no Rainbows
An' I'm not ever goin' back
To bein' sane
Cuz I got me Rain an' Rainbows an'
Them Colors of Auroras an' I'm
Shinin' in the Sky with every hue
That's been ever known to Life -
Now ain't that true -
That's been ever known to Life
By me or you....
I'm holdin' on to all the stuff
That flies or brings me Wonder
An' I'm shakin' off mean stuff
That brings me down
An' I'm never gonna go there
Not again in this sweet life tho
I'll not be knowin' 'zackly where I'm bound
Cuz I got me Rain and Rainbows an'
Them Colors of Aroras an' I'm
Shinin' on the Moon with every hue
That's been ever known to Love -
Now that is true -
That's been ever known to Love
By me or you....
I really ain't the sort who'ed
Whine about not havin' - but with Rain
or Rainbows I ain't had enough
Looks like them Auroras are long gone
For this season and I just ain't far-nuff
North for all this stuff
Think I fly back home to the South
Cuz I've had me my Rain and my
Wonderful Rainbows - even photographed
Auroras make me sing for every hue
That's been ever known in my Life -
That is true -
That's been ever known to our Love
That is true....
I'm holdin' on to This Earth
Like a sweet Rhutabaga' an' I'm
Takin' no Sass from the Rain
I'm leavin' everything that's got
No Risk or no Rainbows
An' I'm not ever goin' back
To bein' sane
Cuz I got me Rain an' Rainbows an'
Them Colors of Auroras an' I'm
Shinin' in the Sky with every hue
That's been ever known to Life -
Now ain't that true -
That's been ever known to Life
By me or you....
I'm holdin' on to all the stuff
That flies or brings me Wonder
An' I'm shakin' off mean stuff
That brings me down
An' I'm never gonna go there
Not again in this sweet life tho
I'll not be knowin' 'zackly where I'm bound
Cuz I got me Rain and Rainbows an'
Them Colors of Aroras an' I'm
Shinin' on the Moon with every hue
That's been ever known to Love -
Now that is true -
That's been ever known to Love
By me or you....
I really ain't the sort who'ed
Whine about not havin' - but with Rain
or Rainbows I ain't had enough
Looks like them Auroras are long gone
For this season and I just ain't far-nuff
North for all this stuff
Think I fly back home to the South
Cuz I've had me my Rain and my
Wonderful Rainbows - even photographed
Auroras make me sing for every hue
That's been ever known in my Life -
That is true -
That's been ever known to our Love
That is true....
6/13/12
BEDROOM DOME UNDER THE SEA is a wee poem based on a wonderful photo of a real bedroom under a dome in the sea, with the fish overhead as if stars in the ocean as sky....
BEDROOM DOME UNDER THE SEA
Sleeping in this seaweed nest
In this little fishy sea
Underneath this dome of grasses
Waving green so beautifully
Wondering about the silence
In this garden in the gloom
Of the falling night on ocean
In our waving ocean room
Wave me out onto the sands
Then wave me out into the sea
Back and then forth into a sleep
Refreshing you refreshing me
Our breathing is through gills of hope
Each bubble filled with sky so blue
So full of living air and wonder
We can breathe a lifetime through
Are we stars that fell to hissing
In dark waters of this night
Can you hear the clanging engines
Of the ships that give us flight
Are we going back to shore now
Where the dancer's shadows sway
Will you put away this ocean
For another day of play
Sleep now in your seaweed nest
In your little fishy sea
Underneath this dome protecting
From all misfortune, beautifully
Sleeping in this seaweed nest
In this little fishy sea
Underneath this dome of grasses
Waving green so beautifully
Wondering about the silence
In this garden in the gloom
Of the falling night on ocean
In our waving ocean room
Wave me out onto the sands
Then wave me out into the sea
Back and then forth into a sleep
Refreshing you refreshing me
Our breathing is through gills of hope
Each bubble filled with sky so blue
So full of living air and wonder
We can breathe a lifetime through
Are we stars that fell to hissing
In dark waters of this night
Can you hear the clanging engines
Of the ships that give us flight
Are we going back to shore now
Where the dancer's shadows sway
Will you put away this ocean
For another day of play
Sleep now in your seaweed nest
In your little fishy sea
Underneath this dome protecting
From all misfortune, beautifully
6/12/12
PENNY FLOOR is lyrics about building the Idea of Home, together....
PENNY FLOOR
We can make a floor with pennies
Put them down there two by two -
Clear-resin 'em into flooring -
I can make a floor for you!
I can make a wall with bottles
Set in cement - when I'm through,
You will have a wall of glass-light
Red and clear and green and blue!
___________________
CHORUS
I'll make our Home
We'll build a Home
Fill it with Love
So much Love!
So much Love!
___________________
When we were still much like children
We built places we could be -
Trees and wild grasses and rushes:
River Homes for you - for me...
Someday we would have our own house
To make Home - but this would be
Just a dream until right now, dear:
Where you build this home for me....
___________________
CHORUS
___________________
I can build a fireplace, dear,
River Stone so big and wide -
Where we'll cuddle winter nights
Beside our fire, side by side...
I can build a bed of rushes -
Just the way it used to be:
By a pool of Love and Loving -
Dear as any bed can be -
Sweet as any Love can be -
Home for you and Home for me....
_____________________
CHORUS
_____________________
We can make a floor with pennies
Put them down there two by two -
Clear-resin 'em into flooring -
I can make a floor for you!
I can make a wall with bottles
Set in cement - when I'm through,
You will have a wall of glass-light
Red and clear and green and blue!
___________________
CHORUS
I'll make our Home
We'll build a Home
Fill it with Love
So much Love!
So much Love!
___________________
When we were still much like children
We built places we could be -
Trees and wild grasses and rushes:
River Homes for you - for me...
Someday we would have our own house
To make Home - but this would be
Just a dream until right now, dear:
Where you build this home for me....
___________________
CHORUS
___________________
I can build a fireplace, dear,
River Stone so big and wide -
Where we'll cuddle winter nights
Beside our fire, side by side...
I can build a bed of rushes -
Just the way it used to be:
By a pool of Love and Loving -
Dear as any bed can be -
Sweet as any Love can be -
Home for you and Home for me....
_____________________
CHORUS
_____________________
RADIO WAVES is a simple little lyrics about how even the sound waves between loving people are like real waves in real space and time...I wonder if this is true...it feels true!!!!!
RADIO WAVES
Over the wave-like Sea
Come the sounds of a Love -
They come from me...
Wherever I may go then
Waves greet me and I have know
Where I can meet my other one
With the waves that meet with mine -
Where I can speak to the other one
Whose fine Song can sing with mine....
When can I have these sounds, then,
That will move into place
And let us sing
Our Song bidden, unbidden -
Such a Song with loving wings:
Meet like the waves of the Radio
Meet the Cosmos, by and by
Sing with the waves of the Radio
To the far reaches of the Sky...
Over the wave-like Sea, then,
Come the sounds of a Love -
From you and me...
Wherever we many go there:
Waves from us ebb and then they flow:
Where they will meet the other
With the waves that sing Life's Song -
Where we can love with the other ones
All Life long, yes, all Life long....
Over the wave-like Sea
Come the sounds of a Love -
They come from me...
Wherever I may go then
Waves greet me and I have know
Where I can meet my other one
With the waves that meet with mine -
Where I can speak to the other one
Whose fine Song can sing with mine....
When can I have these sounds, then,
That will move into place
And let us sing
Our Song bidden, unbidden -
Such a Song with loving wings:
Meet like the waves of the Radio
Meet the Cosmos, by and by
Sing with the waves of the Radio
To the far reaches of the Sky...
Over the wave-like Sea, then,
Come the sounds of a Love -
From you and me...
Wherever we many go there:
Waves from us ebb and then they flow:
Where they will meet the other
With the waves that sing Life's Song -
Where we can love with the other ones
All Life long, yes, all Life long....
DIFFERENT WORLDS is a simple lyrics about how far apart we can feel from others, in so many ways...and then we try to make that 'bridge', where something else may happen....
DIFFERENT WORLDS
How we live in different worlds
In different worlds we sing
We grew in very different soils
We fly with different wings
In different skies we watch the stars
And dance a different dance
We laugh and cry with different eyes
We stand a different stance
_____________________
CHORUS
We are Children of the Stars
Tho not the same Stars in this Sky
We breathe a different Life and yet
Will understand Us, by and by
Will understand then, by and by
____________________
How we talk of Love and Hate
How we whisper clarity
When we say we know each other
How we speak with certainty
You are from so far from me
I cannot see who you are
Unless I bridge these different worlds
And start to reach you from afar
_____________________
CHORUS
_____________________
Are we then so different
We can't see how we're the same
Can you feel my knowing of you
Can you learn my own true name
Will we reach with hands so willing
That they can create a sum
Of the two of us together
Better than just One and One
_____________________
CHORUS
_____________________
How we live in different worlds
In different worlds we sing
We grew in very different soils
We fly with different wings
In different skies we watch the stars
And dance a different dance
We laugh and cry with different eyes
We stand a different stance
_____________________
CHORUS
We are Children of the Stars
Tho not the same Stars in this Sky
We breathe a different Life and yet
Will understand Us, by and by
Will understand then, by and by
____________________
How we talk of Love and Hate
How we whisper clarity
When we say we know each other
How we speak with certainty
You are from so far from me
I cannot see who you are
Unless I bridge these different worlds
And start to reach you from afar
_____________________
CHORUS
_____________________
Are we then so different
We can't see how we're the same
Can you feel my knowing of you
Can you learn my own true name
Will we reach with hands so willing
That they can create a sum
Of the two of us together
Better than just One and One
_____________________
CHORUS
_____________________
6/10/12
REMEMBERING THE LOVING TIMES is a Flow-of-Ideas....that's it!
REMEMBERING THE LOVING TIMES
that age of innocence...age of confidence business...the person who is 'the one'...the ache in the chest over the heart area when certain people kiss you that doesn't happen when other people kiss you...remembering all the loving times...looking every night for that one person who will love you for who you are. really. as if you knew who you are even by yourself...living a long long time going up down staircases...adding it all up...how many years you had sex...with how many people...why it was so important once....why it still is when you are old...how the young assume that you don't have that much desire when you are older. that is to say: old. how you can have one year or fifteen more years maybe. to just do what you want. only people will keep on saying what you should do. even when you are so old you'd think they would just let you be. but if they did let you be then you'd be even more lonely. still wanting soul mates. sometimes finding even one or even two. but they're older too and they have done what they meant to do even if they don't think of it that way. so now there is so much to have to undo if they were ever going to change their ways. there was a time you assumed happiness was something attainable instead of something accidental. now you know it is really accidental. many days of the every year are unremarkable and don't have an impact on your life. but then you answer a letter. or get to work late. or run a red light. or stop to buy something you don't need. or get a job you didn't want. or get a raise you did want. and you meet some body. you don't meet people often except by such coincidence. there are no miracles. and maybe nothing is meant to be. except there are bits of fate. they hit. and your life changes. and you want to go away rather than face it. or them. and it seems more real than real. but this is a stranger. yet you feel higher inside than the lower places you sometimes occupy. maybe you knew him in another life. romance isn't that rare. living it out. now that is rare. trusting that something that feels like true love is worth more than the past. worth more than money. security. more than anything. as if security and money and the past are real. and true love isn't. as if the reality that you are going to die with or with out love. so why not have love as much as possible. that's what you ask your very self all of your life. you want to know. is there any one out there who will risk more than you risk. who will risk at least as much as you risk. who will learn how to throw off the armor and will learn how to ride the white horse naked and come to rescue you anyway. that you will save him too. or them even. it may be more than one man. you may have quite a few men in your life and have had more than five years of really good times with each one of them. when you add it all up you realize that it's been actually thirty-five years out of the forty-five that you spent with six major relationships and a whole bunch of smaller ones....twenty in all....and all thirty-plus of those years were happy and full of sex and even devotion. still you spend nights waiting for calls from loved men that do not always happen. with a very unbecoming greediness. more unbecoming as the years go by. and you are all about touch. touch. touch. every thing that you thought was thought in your head is just manipulations to get more touch. you are mainly benign. you still grow on people. you aren't lethal exactly. but you are not always that good for people either. some people feel strongly that you are very bad for them. and for their children as well. they want to avoid you very much. they are sure you are very neurotic. what seems like coincidence is that you change major relationships every ten years. sometimes a little less. even when you try not to change them. the fail anyway. or maybe fail is not the right word. but it can sure look like failure to the outside of your little world. others admire your obviously sex-laden change pattern. they admire it from afar though. they look triumphantly at their long-time partners. as if to say that they weathered that particular storm. over and over. and emerged triumphant. the couple that stayed together. who now look fondly at each other. because the war is over. they won. of course the years were not all good. actually have to admit that many of them were very much not good. and a lot of them were sexless. but by god they stayed together. for the kids. for security. for a nice retirement time. the trip to Europe. the grandparenting together. the American way of coupledom. whereas you have skipped hither and thither being all neurotic and changing all the time and scaring and scarring everybody else in sight. still a very interesting and loving person. but not to be trusted for the long term the long term being very important. having reached it. they know. only sometimes they have to admit that they are a bit jealous. all those intense and happy times you had. all that change and excitement. all the different ways of life and living you tried. and succeeded at even. your life was not boring. that's for sure. but what do you have to show for it. you have no money. well it is true that you always seem to have enough. but you don't have a nest-egg for the future. not that their nest eggs haven't fallen out of the nest quite often and broken on the pavement of life before. or been eaten up by the snakes of misfortune. or simply rotted in the nest and meant nothing. or they got to die within a few years on either side of retirement without ever getting to use that nest egg for anything at all. but then they did leave a lot of money for the kids. that was nice. You just have to ask sometimes why none of that ever ever appealed to you at all. you have to wonder why so many friends and family stick to you even though you have lived life exactly by your own admittedly culturally off way of life with such will and with such brazen honesty. as if that honesty could save you. there are plenty of places on this cruel tho wonderful planet where you would have been stoned. killed outright. shunned. exiled. ostracised. sent off to the laundries for life. for just all the men. for having had so many men. when you were a child. even then. when you announced that you were going to be a lover man when you grew up. and you were a little girl. people laughed. but they were a bit uncomfortable from then on. you were a lot like your father. sat and fished like him. loved the water like him. could stay in swimming way too long. in the cold water. not a natural little girl. later. your sex life. more like a man would do it. too much sex. you are just like your father. that's what they would say. and shake their heads. he died happy though. with a woman who loved him just as he was. made him purr in her very presence. that's what you want. to be loved like that. for you exactly as you are. without all the judgement. all the tisk-tisk-ing. all the rejection. when all you are is a ball of touching. of feeling all of the time. of passion that does not turn off. just smolders. waiting on the front burner. not on the back burner. all heart. not a clear thought in your head about relationship. she's gone with the man in the long dark coat. not hardly one song that doesn't have some bit about love or sex in it. singing all day. humming feeling. one touch. and you are right there. ready to go. never stopping. the other person winds up passing out. or having to say something to stop. you don't stop. you don't even notice that you aren't stopping. you are just like you are when you are diving in the ocean. or in a lake. or paddling on a river. unable to leave the water. people have to remind you that you are almost out of air. that the day is over. the night is coming on. the dawn is coming on. in sex. on the water. in the water. these are all one place to you. you have no way to let them be. no way to leave. you are one thing in sex with another. you are one thing with ocean. the lake. the river. the man. and there is not longer anything that can be done. you must pray to gods who are stern. humans like you are rare. and the rare is exotic. the exotic is sought in nature. and then it is destroyed. humans are not kind to the exotic. you have to be strong. carry your mild but personal poison well hidden. so that all the other animals will know. don't go to that one. you may die trying to sip that nectar. it may be true. it may not. only you know. that you have loved every man you ever left. exactly the same way you had always loved them. which was not enough. for you. for them. they couldn't bear the constant touch. some one knowing them that well. not interrupting their lives at all. not judging them. they wanted a little negative edge. someone not so accepting. it grew unexciting not to be scolded the way they were as boys. you were never their mama. always their lover. always separate from them though. not subservient. not dominant. more like a twin. circling kindly around them. not interfering with their lives at all. downright unwomanly of you. affectionate. passionate. but not normal. that's what they thought. even when you left them. you didn't grieve around them. no drama. not natural in a woman. and too honest. who needs it. a little dishonesty is fun in a woman. the truth hurts badly. quick and even kind sometimes. but a cut. all the same. a clean cut that heals. but you hurt them anyway. that's the bottom line. so what is there to remember then. you say you remember the loving times. these times you remember very very well. the kissing and the hugging and the sex. always the sex. and the meals together and the quiet sweet times. and the loud fun times. the times with family. with friends. holidays. day by day good heart. good talks. looking at old things and new things. looking at the birdies and all that. trying new things to do. to think about. meeting new people. including them in the glow. having the glow. feeling that you belong in the arms of some one else. sharing that wealth of love every time some one else hugs and kisses you. being warm. because you are warm. and he is warm. and you are together. every one knows that. you may have had a ceremony and a big party to celebrate that. you may not have. doesn't matter. every body knows. that's the way it is. the Loving Times...all those years of Loving full-time. making your life a life of Loving. no other thought in mind. no other view. your occupation: Love. that's what you do....that''s what you do....Love. that's what you do.........
that age of innocence...age of confidence business...the person who is 'the one'...the ache in the chest over the heart area when certain people kiss you that doesn't happen when other people kiss you...remembering all the loving times...looking every night for that one person who will love you for who you are. really. as if you knew who you are even by yourself...living a long long time going up down staircases...adding it all up...how many years you had sex...with how many people...why it was so important once....why it still is when you are old...how the young assume that you don't have that much desire when you are older. that is to say: old. how you can have one year or fifteen more years maybe. to just do what you want. only people will keep on saying what you should do. even when you are so old you'd think they would just let you be. but if they did let you be then you'd be even more lonely. still wanting soul mates. sometimes finding even one or even two. but they're older too and they have done what they meant to do even if they don't think of it that way. so now there is so much to have to undo if they were ever going to change their ways. there was a time you assumed happiness was something attainable instead of something accidental. now you know it is really accidental. many days of the every year are unremarkable and don't have an impact on your life. but then you answer a letter. or get to work late. or run a red light. or stop to buy something you don't need. or get a job you didn't want. or get a raise you did want. and you meet some body. you don't meet people often except by such coincidence. there are no miracles. and maybe nothing is meant to be. except there are bits of fate. they hit. and your life changes. and you want to go away rather than face it. or them. and it seems more real than real. but this is a stranger. yet you feel higher inside than the lower places you sometimes occupy. maybe you knew him in another life. romance isn't that rare. living it out. now that is rare. trusting that something that feels like true love is worth more than the past. worth more than money. security. more than anything. as if security and money and the past are real. and true love isn't. as if the reality that you are going to die with or with out love. so why not have love as much as possible. that's what you ask your very self all of your life. you want to know. is there any one out there who will risk more than you risk. who will risk at least as much as you risk. who will learn how to throw off the armor and will learn how to ride the white horse naked and come to rescue you anyway. that you will save him too. or them even. it may be more than one man. you may have quite a few men in your life and have had more than five years of really good times with each one of them. when you add it all up you realize that it's been actually thirty-five years out of the forty-five that you spent with six major relationships and a whole bunch of smaller ones....twenty in all....and all thirty-plus of those years were happy and full of sex and even devotion. still you spend nights waiting for calls from loved men that do not always happen. with a very unbecoming greediness. more unbecoming as the years go by. and you are all about touch. touch. touch. every thing that you thought was thought in your head is just manipulations to get more touch. you are mainly benign. you still grow on people. you aren't lethal exactly. but you are not always that good for people either. some people feel strongly that you are very bad for them. and for their children as well. they want to avoid you very much. they are sure you are very neurotic. what seems like coincidence is that you change major relationships every ten years. sometimes a little less. even when you try not to change them. the fail anyway. or maybe fail is not the right word. but it can sure look like failure to the outside of your little world. others admire your obviously sex-laden change pattern. they admire it from afar though. they look triumphantly at their long-time partners. as if to say that they weathered that particular storm. over and over. and emerged triumphant. the couple that stayed together. who now look fondly at each other. because the war is over. they won. of course the years were not all good. actually have to admit that many of them were very much not good. and a lot of them were sexless. but by god they stayed together. for the kids. for security. for a nice retirement time. the trip to Europe. the grandparenting together. the American way of coupledom. whereas you have skipped hither and thither being all neurotic and changing all the time and scaring and scarring everybody else in sight. still a very interesting and loving person. but not to be trusted for the long term the long term being very important. having reached it. they know. only sometimes they have to admit that they are a bit jealous. all those intense and happy times you had. all that change and excitement. all the different ways of life and living you tried. and succeeded at even. your life was not boring. that's for sure. but what do you have to show for it. you have no money. well it is true that you always seem to have enough. but you don't have a nest-egg for the future. not that their nest eggs haven't fallen out of the nest quite often and broken on the pavement of life before. or been eaten up by the snakes of misfortune. or simply rotted in the nest and meant nothing. or they got to die within a few years on either side of retirement without ever getting to use that nest egg for anything at all. but then they did leave a lot of money for the kids. that was nice. You just have to ask sometimes why none of that ever ever appealed to you at all. you have to wonder why so many friends and family stick to you even though you have lived life exactly by your own admittedly culturally off way of life with such will and with such brazen honesty. as if that honesty could save you. there are plenty of places on this cruel tho wonderful planet where you would have been stoned. killed outright. shunned. exiled. ostracised. sent off to the laundries for life. for just all the men. for having had so many men. when you were a child. even then. when you announced that you were going to be a lover man when you grew up. and you were a little girl. people laughed. but they were a bit uncomfortable from then on. you were a lot like your father. sat and fished like him. loved the water like him. could stay in swimming way too long. in the cold water. not a natural little girl. later. your sex life. more like a man would do it. too much sex. you are just like your father. that's what they would say. and shake their heads. he died happy though. with a woman who loved him just as he was. made him purr in her very presence. that's what you want. to be loved like that. for you exactly as you are. without all the judgement. all the tisk-tisk-ing. all the rejection. when all you are is a ball of touching. of feeling all of the time. of passion that does not turn off. just smolders. waiting on the front burner. not on the back burner. all heart. not a clear thought in your head about relationship. she's gone with the man in the long dark coat. not hardly one song that doesn't have some bit about love or sex in it. singing all day. humming feeling. one touch. and you are right there. ready to go. never stopping. the other person winds up passing out. or having to say something to stop. you don't stop. you don't even notice that you aren't stopping. you are just like you are when you are diving in the ocean. or in a lake. or paddling on a river. unable to leave the water. people have to remind you that you are almost out of air. that the day is over. the night is coming on. the dawn is coming on. in sex. on the water. in the water. these are all one place to you. you have no way to let them be. no way to leave. you are one thing in sex with another. you are one thing with ocean. the lake. the river. the man. and there is not longer anything that can be done. you must pray to gods who are stern. humans like you are rare. and the rare is exotic. the exotic is sought in nature. and then it is destroyed. humans are not kind to the exotic. you have to be strong. carry your mild but personal poison well hidden. so that all the other animals will know. don't go to that one. you may die trying to sip that nectar. it may be true. it may not. only you know. that you have loved every man you ever left. exactly the same way you had always loved them. which was not enough. for you. for them. they couldn't bear the constant touch. some one knowing them that well. not interrupting their lives at all. not judging them. they wanted a little negative edge. someone not so accepting. it grew unexciting not to be scolded the way they were as boys. you were never their mama. always their lover. always separate from them though. not subservient. not dominant. more like a twin. circling kindly around them. not interfering with their lives at all. downright unwomanly of you. affectionate. passionate. but not normal. that's what they thought. even when you left them. you didn't grieve around them. no drama. not natural in a woman. and too honest. who needs it. a little dishonesty is fun in a woman. the truth hurts badly. quick and even kind sometimes. but a cut. all the same. a clean cut that heals. but you hurt them anyway. that's the bottom line. so what is there to remember then. you say you remember the loving times. these times you remember very very well. the kissing and the hugging and the sex. always the sex. and the meals together and the quiet sweet times. and the loud fun times. the times with family. with friends. holidays. day by day good heart. good talks. looking at old things and new things. looking at the birdies and all that. trying new things to do. to think about. meeting new people. including them in the glow. having the glow. feeling that you belong in the arms of some one else. sharing that wealth of love every time some one else hugs and kisses you. being warm. because you are warm. and he is warm. and you are together. every one knows that. you may have had a ceremony and a big party to celebrate that. you may not have. doesn't matter. every body knows. that's the way it is. the Loving Times...all those years of Loving full-time. making your life a life of Loving. no other thought in mind. no other view. your occupation: Love. that's what you do....that''s what you do....Love. that's what you do.........
THIS NIGHT THIS DAY is a Love Poem for my Guy...it's also about the way Love comes up out of time and space around you and envelops you...or us, in this happenstance....
THIS NIGHT THIS DAY
between this night
and this day
was a bed
empty of you.
I stretch over
to where your
tree of a body
will be
tonight
I think of how
natural an
animal
you are
how you move in
for the warmth
the kiss
how you wrap
your night
your day
around us
giving everything
for love
taking in my arms
around you
a man lost in
desire in deep
hunger
for this love.
tonight
I throw my body
into the vortex
where you will be
take in
the emptyness
that will be full
this night
this day
when I twine
my branches
into yours
and we breathe
the same air
and we sing
the same song
and we canoe
the same waters
and we love
the same love.
for this day
this night to begin
this day to follow
this night to come
for all our time
each day
each night
for all our time
between this night
and this day
was a bed
empty of you.
I stretch over
to where your
tree of a body
will be
tonight
I think of how
natural an
animal
you are
how you move in
for the warmth
the kiss
how you wrap
your night
your day
around us
giving everything
for love
taking in my arms
around you
a man lost in
desire in deep
hunger
for this love.
tonight
I throw my body
into the vortex
where you will be
take in
the emptyness
that will be full
this night
this day
when I twine
my branches
into yours
and we breathe
the same air
and we sing
the same song
and we canoe
the same waters
and we love
the same love.
for this day
this night to begin
this day to follow
this night to come
for all our time
each day
each night
for all our time
RACING STARS is a song to honor Liza Marie Sparks...a wonderful Friend, Song-Writer, and Performer...for many of us who love her....
RACING STARS
CHORUS
I'm racin' Stars across the Night!
Goin' to win this one this time:
Goin' to climb to some Great Hights, for
No rhyme and no reason, baby -
No reason and yes, no rhyme...
____________________
Goin' to beat some odds for sure now -
Goin' to streak through time so fast!
Nothin' can stop this Star Child, baby!
Tho none of us are meant to last...
Still, I got a Light so bright now:
You can see me fill the Sky
With my Streaks of Courage flyin' -
Streamin' Bright while racin' by!
CHORUS
O, I've got so many Songs
To fill this Darkness with some Light...
You can sing em with me, baby,
We can give them Grace and Flight....
Yeah, I'm just One Little Star Child
Racin' Stars into the Sun:
But all our Light can fill this Night
An make it Good for everyone...
An' make it Right for everyone:
Racin Stars across the Night...
Just real Good for everyone....
CHORUS
CHORUS
I'm racin' Stars across the Night!
Goin' to win this one this time:
Goin' to climb to some Great Hights, for
No rhyme and no reason, baby -
No reason and yes, no rhyme...
____________________
Goin' to beat some odds for sure now -
Goin' to streak through time so fast!
Nothin' can stop this Star Child, baby!
Tho none of us are meant to last...
Still, I got a Light so bright now:
You can see me fill the Sky
With my Streaks of Courage flyin' -
Streamin' Bright while racin' by!
CHORUS
O, I've got so many Songs
To fill this Darkness with some Light...
You can sing em with me, baby,
We can give them Grace and Flight....
Yeah, I'm just One Little Star Child
Racin' Stars into the Sun:
But all our Light can fill this Night
An make it Good for everyone...
An' make it Right for everyone:
Racin Stars across the Night...
Just real Good for everyone....
CHORUS
6/8/12
SONG FOR DAYS ALONE is lyrics about being alone when you want to be with your love who is far away...at least, it's how I feel right now!....
SONG FOR DAYS ALONE
Life full of song and joy now
Take me home and then take me far away
I should be where my love is sleeping now
I should be - I want to be -
Close to his heart where it beats now
All for us and all for me
Close where our hearts beat like one heart
All for us - for him and me
Now when the light is streamin'
Through the door that has opened in our souls
I cry for any days alone - those times'
He can't be home - then
All the years press upon me like a stone
Yes like a stone - then
All the years weigh upon me in this house
That's now our home
I cannot see in wonder
All I see that we have - this man and me
Without great joy and tears so free
That all the birds in the air must
Sing with me - yes, with him and me
For a love so kind and free
For our love so strong and free
Such a gift for him - for me
Life full of song and joy now
Take me home and then take me far away
I should be where my love is sleeping now
I should be - I want to be -
Close to his heart where it beats now
All for us and all for me
Close where our hearts beat like one heart
All for us - for him and me
Now when the light is streamin'
Through the door that has opened in our souls
I cry for any days alone - those times'
He can't be home - then
All the years press upon me like a stone
Yes like a stone - then
All the years weigh upon me in this house
That's now our home
I cannot see in wonder
All I see that we have - this man and me
Without great joy and tears so free
That all the birds in the air must
Sing with me - yes, with him and me
For a love so kind and free
For our love so strong and free
Such a gift for him - for me
6/7/12
STORIES TO TELL is about the times we visited before we joined together for the rest of our lives...and the stories we will tell about those times....
STORIES TO TELL
this week of wonder
spent on dunes and lakes
and rivers in old wood canoe
and fletching bows with feathered arrows
letting them fly sassafras and gold red
colors of new fall in the center of
America gone poor except in
blue herons and swimming gray
squirrels and gentle eyes of the
innocent waitress who's life is
so so sad she talks to strangers
shields the coffee pot so as not
to burn you while the burning color
of fall sinks into the west with a full
glorious sun over water that has
seen it all before has heard
these stories to tell sighs onto
the shore soft with the desire to
bring
all
these
stories
home
to a soft and forgiving
dark
full to the brim
with
stories
stars
this week of wonder
spent on dunes and lakes
and rivers in old wood canoe
and fletching bows with feathered arrows
letting them fly sassafras and gold red
colors of new fall in the center of
America gone poor except in
blue herons and swimming gray
squirrels and gentle eyes of the
innocent waitress who's life is
so so sad she talks to strangers
shields the coffee pot so as not
to burn you while the burning color
of fall sinks into the west with a full
glorious sun over water that has
seen it all before has heard
these stories to tell sighs onto
the shore soft with the desire to
bring
all
these
stories
home
to a soft and forgiving
dark
full to the brim
with
stories
stars
MONICA'S ISLAND is a vignette about my friend who lives in Sweden, very far away from here....
MONICA'S ISLAND
A lucky piece of life for me has been my friendships with kind, big-hearted, tough, smart, and gutsy women. These friendships have been lucky for me, because I needed these women to keep me being like them...honest to myself and life, less selfish, less dramatic...
I had been raised by a woman who was hysterical much of the time, and very self-centered. She could be really generous and kind, but she was twisted by her own serious problems in life, that left her unable to deal well with adulthood. It was hard for her to teach her four daughters well about how to be adult women...so we had to figure out a lot on our own....
my way, was to make friends with women who were not like my mother. to learn from them and think about my life with their feedback. to modify my 'veneers' as one wise man has called the thin armor I wore, so that life and love could flow in both directions from and into me....
One such friend has been Monica. my friend who now lives again in Sweden, the country she was born in and lived in until her early twenties...
Monica once showed me a picture of herself when she first came to the United States...She was a splendidly perky white-blond little imp, with a big, generous smile, big blue eyes, and dimples galore. a little darling!
Years later, she still had the white-blond hair, the dimples, the eyes, the smiles...and a lot of tough miles traveled....
Monica had lots of sad times with her former husband...had divorced. finished raising her son and daughter by herself....working as a language teacher...she was one of the founders of our school at the time, where we both worked...
Monica taught Spanish and French, and German, if anyone wanted German...I taught various social studies classes and English classes and Health....we were friends quite soon, and apparently, forever! We could talk about...well, everything!
While we were working there, she remarried to a great fellow....who died just a year later from cancer....Monica's grief was catapulting.... in a few months, she decided it was time for her to return to the land of her birth, and to start over again....
which brings me and my husband at the time, to Stockholm....
Monica had first moved to the lake district near Stockholm...soon came to live with a man she cared for very much...who then became her "best friend", instead, over time....and she was spending more time in Stockholm, teaching Swedish and English to foreign business people...then, her daughter bought her a wonderful apartment, in the heart of the older part of the city!
So, there is where we got to stay! With the high white plastered ceilings. the wonderful corner stove. the heated towel pipes in the bathroom. the courtyard view from the kitchen nook....lovely and inviting and warm, just as Monica is!
She took us everywhere she loved in her clean and fantastic city! To the old Viking and War ships...to the Folk Village. to the Old City. To the parks. to the museums....and then, to her island....
Monika's favorite island is out in the sea harbor...a beautiful, rocky place to walk about and swim off the rocks in the sea....
there are old boats and boat houses there....pines and paths...sweet, small houses and a couple of restaurants....we ate at a really good one! seafood of course....
watched the sunset...took the ferry back....
thought about how friends can mean so much in a lifetime. thought about how distance and time apart mean nothing between friends. about how friends are such a renewable feast....
when ever I think about Monica, somehow, I recall that island out in that impossibly blue Scandinavian sea waters....the stones...the smell of the fall pines...the wind blowing our hair about on the ferry...the Swedish flag fluttering at the stern....
Monica is all that natural fun and friendly will and good listening...
her island is meant for friends.
she is my open and kind friend.
we will meet again. bridging these seas between our islands....
A lucky piece of life for me has been my friendships with kind, big-hearted, tough, smart, and gutsy women. These friendships have been lucky for me, because I needed these women to keep me being like them...honest to myself and life, less selfish, less dramatic...
I had been raised by a woman who was hysterical much of the time, and very self-centered. She could be really generous and kind, but she was twisted by her own serious problems in life, that left her unable to deal well with adulthood. It was hard for her to teach her four daughters well about how to be adult women...so we had to figure out a lot on our own....
my way, was to make friends with women who were not like my mother. to learn from them and think about my life with their feedback. to modify my 'veneers' as one wise man has called the thin armor I wore, so that life and love could flow in both directions from and into me....
One such friend has been Monica. my friend who now lives again in Sweden, the country she was born in and lived in until her early twenties...
Monica once showed me a picture of herself when she first came to the United States...She was a splendidly perky white-blond little imp, with a big, generous smile, big blue eyes, and dimples galore. a little darling!
Years later, she still had the white-blond hair, the dimples, the eyes, the smiles...and a lot of tough miles traveled....
Monica had lots of sad times with her former husband...had divorced. finished raising her son and daughter by herself....working as a language teacher...she was one of the founders of our school at the time, where we both worked...
Monica taught Spanish and French, and German, if anyone wanted German...I taught various social studies classes and English classes and Health....we were friends quite soon, and apparently, forever! We could talk about...well, everything!
While we were working there, she remarried to a great fellow....who died just a year later from cancer....Monica's grief was catapulting.... in a few months, she decided it was time for her to return to the land of her birth, and to start over again....
which brings me and my husband at the time, to Stockholm....
Monica had first moved to the lake district near Stockholm...soon came to live with a man she cared for very much...who then became her "best friend", instead, over time....and she was spending more time in Stockholm, teaching Swedish and English to foreign business people...then, her daughter bought her a wonderful apartment, in the heart of the older part of the city!
So, there is where we got to stay! With the high white plastered ceilings. the wonderful corner stove. the heated towel pipes in the bathroom. the courtyard view from the kitchen nook....lovely and inviting and warm, just as Monica is!
She took us everywhere she loved in her clean and fantastic city! To the old Viking and War ships...to the Folk Village. to the Old City. To the parks. to the museums....and then, to her island....
Monika's favorite island is out in the sea harbor...a beautiful, rocky place to walk about and swim off the rocks in the sea....
there are old boats and boat houses there....pines and paths...sweet, small houses and a couple of restaurants....we ate at a really good one! seafood of course....
watched the sunset...took the ferry back....
thought about how friends can mean so much in a lifetime. thought about how distance and time apart mean nothing between friends. about how friends are such a renewable feast....
when ever I think about Monica, somehow, I recall that island out in that impossibly blue Scandinavian sea waters....the stones...the smell of the fall pines...the wind blowing our hair about on the ferry...the Swedish flag fluttering at the stern....
Monica is all that natural fun and friendly will and good listening...
her island is meant for friends.
she is my open and kind friend.
we will meet again. bridging these seas between our islands....
LOVE WEBS is a poem about the insecurity that is so fortunately a part of all love as the poet e.e. cummings pointed out, once, long ago.....
LOVE WEBS
when I sit in the middle of this web
I may think me the spider
but I am the prey
these small threads that bind me
bind you too still you don't
seem to feel them as confining
you think you are free and tho
there are only a few of them
these coils of web are made of
iron and rust studded with
diamonds that should refresh
like dew but are not water of
life at all who would guess
that love could be so far away
and still be there weaving this
web without spider or spider
food at all just bits of life that
should be dancing in the air on
wings not entangled this way
sticky and none too subtle
wrapping here and wrapping there
threads of hope and of despair
both at once telling stories of
faith and of disaster both
at the same time now just what
is the use of all this love when
no one is being nourished except
in bits and pieces when the whole
web is going to come down anyway
the minute this rain starts to fall we
can feel the wind blowing now
sawing doom through this web
without mercy not one shred
of courage and not one single
kiss in sight if only if only
you were here then the web
would be your arms and hands
could hold me tight being that
we are on a tightrope right this
moment and the web is truly
no safety net at all and so
I think
I'm going
to
fall
when I sit in the middle of this web
I may think me the spider
but I am the prey
these small threads that bind me
bind you too still you don't
seem to feel them as confining
you think you are free and tho
there are only a few of them
these coils of web are made of
iron and rust studded with
diamonds that should refresh
like dew but are not water of
life at all who would guess
that love could be so far away
and still be there weaving this
web without spider or spider
food at all just bits of life that
should be dancing in the air on
wings not entangled this way
sticky and none too subtle
wrapping here and wrapping there
threads of hope and of despair
both at once telling stories of
faith and of disaster both
at the same time now just what
is the use of all this love when
no one is being nourished except
in bits and pieces when the whole
web is going to come down anyway
the minute this rain starts to fall we
can feel the wind blowing now
sawing doom through this web
without mercy not one shred
of courage and not one single
kiss in sight if only if only
you were here then the web
would be your arms and hands
could hold me tight being that
we are on a tightrope right this
moment and the web is truly
no safety net at all and so
I think
I'm going
to
fall
ALL HALLOWS EVE is a piece that is a memory. a good memory...it led to the future and to Love...so it is a very good memory indeed....
ALL HALLOWS EVE
the spirits do come back again. especially at this time of the year. All Hallows Eve time. every one knows that...
every one has some ghost story or another. knows some one who saw. who heard. who felt. who was touched. who was harmed. or helped. or spoken to. or whispered to. sung to. hurt. or helped: A Spirit. An Apparition. A Ghost. I had one encounter myself. in the past... I think I told you about it before. the April Fools Day doctor who killed himself? how several of us saw him a year later to the day? only in California - not where he did it, which was Chicago? how we all called his friend here in the Bay Area and told her we had seen him for a couple of seconds? and then she got mad at us, since she hadn't seen him at all? and he didn't talk - and he never came back ever again? no? I hadn't told you? well...that was about it. happened in '75, I think...long ago....
anyways...these 'visitations' are different...they have to do with my Dad and his Mom. I could swear I'm getting visitations...not that I see. but that happen, all the same...they have been kind, actually kind. not harmful. helpful...in very odd ways....
the first one was a year ago...November and rainy and chilly and bleak. after work. I was literally dragging myself up the stairs - all twenty-two of them - to go into our house. my back had been 'out' for weeks and weeks and weeks. I was taking care of me best I could. working full-time. taking care of my husband full-time. because his inguinal area was strained badly from a wrenching fall...mine had been bad since we had moved. on account of too much lifting and packing...miserable time....
suddenly - truly suddenly - I felt that I should wear the turquoise and silver ring that I had inherited from my father...several years ago....I looked for it. found it. put it on. felt very peaceful. suddenly: peaceful. I started thinking more, as the days went by, that I should start to really change my eating habits...should lose a lot of weight. should become healthier. I thought about: if I become healthier, I can take better care of my medical problems, and my husband's too, as we get older....
then, I thought about how many of our friends had died during the past year...there had been nine of these people...the mourning had been intense...what I wanted to do was: to make new friends - especially among the young people I had taught for years as a high school teacher, who are now in their late twenties and early thirties - but, also, to find old classmates and see if friendships could happen...it had been years since I had made any new friends among my 'contemporaries' - my friends had all either been much older, or much younger...
about this time, I started feeling that my Father was 'present', somehow, in my life...I started having dreams about him. we'd be fishing again in the boats on the lakes of my childhood...watching football games or golf tournaments on TV together...reading the Sunday 'Funnies' on the screened in front porch together...singing the standards on car trips....
Inexplicably, one day, I emailed my 'first love' - the fellow I went with in my senior year in high school. who I'd loved with all my young heart. but, had felt I should 'move on' from, as we were so young. I still had college to 'do'...so on and so forth...it had been a mistake. a big one. I had never found such a love of intensity and devotion ever again. even my father had liked him...Denny McCue....
one morning, while hobbling up my stairs again to the apartment, I heard a voice. I was very startled. I knew the voice was in me - not outside of me...the voice was my father's. he was saying - as he had distinctly said at least once before..many years ago: "Why didn't you marry that Denny McCue?" I really heard him. loud and clear...that very day, Denny answered my email...he was completely enthusiastic about being back in contact again...we began emailing and then chatting and then skyping...back and forth...we were right back in love..and the love simply grew and grew...grows...and grows....
we talked a lot about my Dad...the whole time - on and off....my Dad kept coming through in dreams...I had never dreamed about my dad before...this was really something...to this day, he never has left my presence...I feel he is truly always here...watching over Denny and me...we're even going to name our traveling canoe "Sweet William" after his own nick-name for himself...and Den wears the turquoise and silver ring now....
now...there is another presence in our lives...Den's Mother...he was so close to his Mom...still is...visits her grave site to talk with her in times of need...he has felt her presence strongly in our lives - his and mine together....
Lately, I've had dreams where she is speaking with me...we are sitting over coffee, or tea, at the table near a window in her little house near down-town St. Charles, where I first met her...in every dream, she is talking with me about Denny. how she is happy that we are together...how she wants our life together to be...I don't recall the exact contents...but the dreams are very loving....
only once, the conversation was very specific...she told me she had emeralds. that she had an emerald ring. she wanted me to have this ring. I showed her the ring of hers that Den had given me. it was an opal-dust, gold plate ring of no great monetary value. but, it is very, very meaningful. very precious...because it has four little diamond-like stones and four opal stones: and Den and I had been separated for forty-four years...Den had given her the ring...and she had liked me very much, all those years ago...
she told me no, this was a special ring. an emerald. she loved it. or I would love it (I can't quite remember...)...then, in the dream, she showered me with emeralds...the bright, deep greens shone all around me...I felt they were like blessings. felt this very strongly....
then, today...something very unusual happened...this weekend, Denny would be letting all his loved ones know that he is planning to move out 'here' to be with me for life. I had filled the weekend with things to do and people to be with...to keep my psyche occupied...so that I wouldn't be too anxious...would be useful for him if he needed me....
before I went into my friends' home just up the street from me, Den had called. he told me he was by his mother's grave...he was crying. because he was feeling, and rightfully so, so unhappy about hurting his wife. by telling her that he was going to leave her. for us. for us to be together... once again, I gently told him to do what he "thinks best" for himself. he was very upset. very sad...I reminded him that we both had felt the strong influence of his Mom and my Dad in our reuniting...that they seemed to want this...on some level not understood by us....
I visited with my friends for about half an hour or so...then began to drive home. as I was beginning to move out into the intersection before my apartment building, an older woman stepped off the curb right out in front of me! I swerved to avoid her...not too quickly...but enough that I almost hit a car turning on to the street from my left...we both stopped in time with no impact at all...but she stumbled! and fell into the street. not hard...but it was scary...
both the other driver, a man...his passenger, a woman, and I, got out of our cars and went quickly to help her. she was already standing up. looking shaken, but quiet. as I approached her, she looked up completely into my face. looking into my eyes, she said, "Take good care of him... for his Mom." she said this in a very normal tone of voice...
"Take good care of him...for his Mom."....
I was visibly taken aback..."Do I know you?" was all I could sputter out...
she answered, "No...I don't know why I said that."
she began to move towards her car, which was parked on the side of the street my car was still facing, pointing to going to my house.
she seemed fine.
I had not said anything else.
the man got into his car with his passenger.
I got into mine.
we all pulled out and went our ways....
I was very shaken. I got on the computer and wrote out what had happened, to Den, right away. then I called him and left a message about what had happened...then I went on with my day...I couldn't get the incident out of my mind...
"Take good care of him...for his Mom."
late at night he called me...I babbled for awhile about the scene as it had happened...until he told me to shut up...I was really a bit hysterical...he told me then:
after he called me, he cried and cried. he asked his Mom...at her grave site...to give him a message or a sign. he wanted her to forgive him for what he was going to do...to give her blessing, as I understood him, for going to be with me...to be ourselves as we are...he wanted a sign of her approval...
and yes, it was within the hour after this, that the incident happened in the intersection. that the woman said her words to me..."Take good care of him... for his Mom."...
then I told Den more about the dreams...the emeralds and the ring...for the first time, Den told me that green had been her favorite color...
I told him that in the dreams I'm sitting by a window at a table with her...he kept trying to get me to describe the table...I told him it was either metal or had a metallic cloth of some kind...he told me that the table was metal....
his Mom had answered him...with the mouth of a real person...saying what she needed to say...saying it to me. saying it as directly as she could. through the mouth of a woman who would capture my attention directly...this is what happened...I am very, very sure of this....
Denny feels that his question for his Mom was answered directly...to be us...to be with me...
.
for me, it simply meant that this, for me...is the least selfish relationship I've ever had...if Den stays with his wife...that will be fine with me: because I want what is best for him...if that's what is best for him...then that is what I want for him too...if he wants to stay with Dixie...or Lori...if he wants to never live here... I will still love him. I love him unselfishly. really unselfishly. it's a wonderful thing. it's the best love that I have ever had with a man. it's really kind. really good. really full as can be....
these 'visitations' from the parents who loved us most unselfishly...his Mom...and my Dad...have been very real for us. very alive for us...
we both believe that they have really spoken to us. for us. that their Spirits have been alive to us. best they could be...trying to give us what we had always wanted our whole lives:
the other. the only person completely 'right' for us. completely 'for' each of us...each other....
I believe very strange things happen in this world of humanity. all of the time...many of us tell these sorts of stories to each other. they are real for us. we have to tell the stories. they speak to some thing deeper and more wonderful in each of us then the so-called reality of each day can ever, ever be...something even more real than reality...because these experiences are closer to the truths in us than the reality of the day can reflect...
and, these sort of truths always really - real-ly - set us free inside...
All this happened in the days of the souls returning to the earth: All Hallows Eve...many cultures believe firmly that the spirits of the ancestors truly come to commune with us at this time of the year...
I am sure that is why Den's Mom picked this day to speak to us...
her Spirit was truly here...she was with us today...will always be with us...
teaching us how to be happy and full of love for each other...
giving her son what she wanted him to have:
this love
blessed today...
blessed be... All Hallows Eve....
the spirits do come back again. especially at this time of the year. All Hallows Eve time. every one knows that...
every one has some ghost story or another. knows some one who saw. who heard. who felt. who was touched. who was harmed. or helped. or spoken to. or whispered to. sung to. hurt. or helped: A Spirit. An Apparition. A Ghost. I had one encounter myself. in the past... I think I told you about it before. the April Fools Day doctor who killed himself? how several of us saw him a year later to the day? only in California - not where he did it, which was Chicago? how we all called his friend here in the Bay Area and told her we had seen him for a couple of seconds? and then she got mad at us, since she hadn't seen him at all? and he didn't talk - and he never came back ever again? no? I hadn't told you? well...that was about it. happened in '75, I think...long ago....
anyways...these 'visitations' are different...they have to do with my Dad and his Mom. I could swear I'm getting visitations...not that I see. but that happen, all the same...they have been kind, actually kind. not harmful. helpful...in very odd ways....
the first one was a year ago...November and rainy and chilly and bleak. after work. I was literally dragging myself up the stairs - all twenty-two of them - to go into our house. my back had been 'out' for weeks and weeks and weeks. I was taking care of me best I could. working full-time. taking care of my husband full-time. because his inguinal area was strained badly from a wrenching fall...mine had been bad since we had moved. on account of too much lifting and packing...miserable time....
suddenly - truly suddenly - I felt that I should wear the turquoise and silver ring that I had inherited from my father...several years ago....I looked for it. found it. put it on. felt very peaceful. suddenly: peaceful. I started thinking more, as the days went by, that I should start to really change my eating habits...should lose a lot of weight. should become healthier. I thought about: if I become healthier, I can take better care of my medical problems, and my husband's too, as we get older....
then, I thought about how many of our friends had died during the past year...there had been nine of these people...the mourning had been intense...what I wanted to do was: to make new friends - especially among the young people I had taught for years as a high school teacher, who are now in their late twenties and early thirties - but, also, to find old classmates and see if friendships could happen...it had been years since I had made any new friends among my 'contemporaries' - my friends had all either been much older, or much younger...
about this time, I started feeling that my Father was 'present', somehow, in my life...I started having dreams about him. we'd be fishing again in the boats on the lakes of my childhood...watching football games or golf tournaments on TV together...reading the Sunday 'Funnies' on the screened in front porch together...singing the standards on car trips....
Inexplicably, one day, I emailed my 'first love' - the fellow I went with in my senior year in high school. who I'd loved with all my young heart. but, had felt I should 'move on' from, as we were so young. I still had college to 'do'...so on and so forth...it had been a mistake. a big one. I had never found such a love of intensity and devotion ever again. even my father had liked him...Denny McCue....
one morning, while hobbling up my stairs again to the apartment, I heard a voice. I was very startled. I knew the voice was in me - not outside of me...the voice was my father's. he was saying - as he had distinctly said at least once before..many years ago: "Why didn't you marry that Denny McCue?" I really heard him. loud and clear...that very day, Denny answered my email...he was completely enthusiastic about being back in contact again...we began emailing and then chatting and then skyping...back and forth...we were right back in love..and the love simply grew and grew...grows...and grows....
we talked a lot about my Dad...the whole time - on and off....my Dad kept coming through in dreams...I had never dreamed about my dad before...this was really something...to this day, he never has left my presence...I feel he is truly always here...watching over Denny and me...we're even going to name our traveling canoe "Sweet William" after his own nick-name for himself...and Den wears the turquoise and silver ring now....
now...there is another presence in our lives...Den's Mother...he was so close to his Mom...still is...visits her grave site to talk with her in times of need...he has felt her presence strongly in our lives - his and mine together....
Lately, I've had dreams where she is speaking with me...we are sitting over coffee, or tea, at the table near a window in her little house near down-town St. Charles, where I first met her...in every dream, she is talking with me about Denny. how she is happy that we are together...how she wants our life together to be...I don't recall the exact contents...but the dreams are very loving....
only once, the conversation was very specific...she told me she had emeralds. that she had an emerald ring. she wanted me to have this ring. I showed her the ring of hers that Den had given me. it was an opal-dust, gold plate ring of no great monetary value. but, it is very, very meaningful. very precious...because it has four little diamond-like stones and four opal stones: and Den and I had been separated for forty-four years...Den had given her the ring...and she had liked me very much, all those years ago...
she told me no, this was a special ring. an emerald. she loved it. or I would love it (I can't quite remember...)...then, in the dream, she showered me with emeralds...the bright, deep greens shone all around me...I felt they were like blessings. felt this very strongly....
then, today...something very unusual happened...this weekend, Denny would be letting all his loved ones know that he is planning to move out 'here' to be with me for life. I had filled the weekend with things to do and people to be with...to keep my psyche occupied...so that I wouldn't be too anxious...would be useful for him if he needed me....
before I went into my friends' home just up the street from me, Den had called. he told me he was by his mother's grave...he was crying. because he was feeling, and rightfully so, so unhappy about hurting his wife. by telling her that he was going to leave her. for us. for us to be together... once again, I gently told him to do what he "thinks best" for himself. he was very upset. very sad...I reminded him that we both had felt the strong influence of his Mom and my Dad in our reuniting...that they seemed to want this...on some level not understood by us....
I visited with my friends for about half an hour or so...then began to drive home. as I was beginning to move out into the intersection before my apartment building, an older woman stepped off the curb right out in front of me! I swerved to avoid her...not too quickly...but enough that I almost hit a car turning on to the street from my left...we both stopped in time with no impact at all...but she stumbled! and fell into the street. not hard...but it was scary...
both the other driver, a man...his passenger, a woman, and I, got out of our cars and went quickly to help her. she was already standing up. looking shaken, but quiet. as I approached her, she looked up completely into my face. looking into my eyes, she said, "Take good care of him... for his Mom." she said this in a very normal tone of voice...
"Take good care of him...for his Mom."....
I was visibly taken aback..."Do I know you?" was all I could sputter out...
she answered, "No...I don't know why I said that."
she began to move towards her car, which was parked on the side of the street my car was still facing, pointing to going to my house.
she seemed fine.
I had not said anything else.
the man got into his car with his passenger.
I got into mine.
we all pulled out and went our ways....
I was very shaken. I got on the computer and wrote out what had happened, to Den, right away. then I called him and left a message about what had happened...then I went on with my day...I couldn't get the incident out of my mind...
"Take good care of him...for his Mom."
late at night he called me...I babbled for awhile about the scene as it had happened...until he told me to shut up...I was really a bit hysterical...he told me then:
after he called me, he cried and cried. he asked his Mom...at her grave site...to give him a message or a sign. he wanted her to forgive him for what he was going to do...to give her blessing, as I understood him, for going to be with me...to be ourselves as we are...he wanted a sign of her approval...
and yes, it was within the hour after this, that the incident happened in the intersection. that the woman said her words to me..."Take good care of him... for his Mom."...
then I told Den more about the dreams...the emeralds and the ring...for the first time, Den told me that green had been her favorite color...
I told him that in the dreams I'm sitting by a window at a table with her...he kept trying to get me to describe the table...I told him it was either metal or had a metallic cloth of some kind...he told me that the table was metal....
his Mom had answered him...with the mouth of a real person...saying what she needed to say...saying it to me. saying it as directly as she could. through the mouth of a woman who would capture my attention directly...this is what happened...I am very, very sure of this....
Denny feels that his question for his Mom was answered directly...to be us...to be with me...
.
for me, it simply meant that this, for me...is the least selfish relationship I've ever had...if Den stays with his wife...that will be fine with me: because I want what is best for him...if that's what is best for him...then that is what I want for him too...if he wants to stay with Dixie...or Lori...if he wants to never live here... I will still love him. I love him unselfishly. really unselfishly. it's a wonderful thing. it's the best love that I have ever had with a man. it's really kind. really good. really full as can be....
these 'visitations' from the parents who loved us most unselfishly...his Mom...and my Dad...have been very real for us. very alive for us...
we both believe that they have really spoken to us. for us. that their Spirits have been alive to us. best they could be...trying to give us what we had always wanted our whole lives:
the other. the only person completely 'right' for us. completely 'for' each of us...each other....
I believe very strange things happen in this world of humanity. all of the time...many of us tell these sorts of stories to each other. they are real for us. we have to tell the stories. they speak to some thing deeper and more wonderful in each of us then the so-called reality of each day can ever, ever be...something even more real than reality...because these experiences are closer to the truths in us than the reality of the day can reflect...
and, these sort of truths always really - real-ly - set us free inside...
All this happened in the days of the souls returning to the earth: All Hallows Eve...many cultures believe firmly that the spirits of the ancestors truly come to commune with us at this time of the year...
I am sure that is why Den's Mom picked this day to speak to us...
her Spirit was truly here...she was with us today...will always be with us...
teaching us how to be happy and full of love for each other...
giving her son what she wanted him to have:
this love
blessed today...
blessed be... All Hallows Eve....
ROSES AND THORNS is yet-still another love poem - memories of times of love lost....
ROSES AND THORNS
Everything
is roses and thorns
can you smell the beauty?
I am bleeding here and there
no place to grow
except in this
fine soil
I'm deep red
green stem
hope
hope is green
War is red too
when I last was in a
War
I lost
can you smell the petals
falling?
potpourri
smells of beauty
that died
a heap of petals
means
whatever was picked
had been living
as if a love is spent
like the beauty
of a rose
long past
its prime
Everything
is roses and thorns
can you smell the beauty?
I am bleeding here and there
no place to grow
except in this
fine soil
I'm deep red
green stem
hope
hope is green
War is red too
when I last was in a
War
I lost
can you smell the petals
falling?
potpourri
smells of beauty
that died
a heap of petals
means
whatever was picked
had been living
as if a love is spent
like the beauty
of a rose
long past
its prime
ALONE AT LAST is the last poem I'm going to write about this Life and Death subject for awhile, I do believe...hope is a thing with feathers...right?!....
ALONE AT LAST
lastly, lately
cradle to the grave
has been busy
in my mind again
reminding me
that all these bags
can be put down
gently and firmly
in any railway
station
and
if not arrested
by homeland security
they can be left there
to be sniffed by dogs
x-rayed by x-rays
fingered by strangers
and finally
filed in a lost-and-found
to which no one
will ever come
marked
owner unknown
contents
unmistakedly
personal
to be held
gently and firmly
by
no one
at all
lastly, lately
cradle to the grave
has been busy
in my mind again
reminding me
that all these bags
can be put down
gently and firmly
in any railway
station
and
if not arrested
by homeland security
they can be left there
to be sniffed by dogs
x-rayed by x-rays
fingered by strangers
and finally
filed in a lost-and-found
to which no one
will ever come
marked
owner unknown
contents
unmistakedly
personal
to be held
gently and firmly
by
no one
at all
COSTS OF MAGIC is lyrics about what you have to believe...when you cannot pay....
COSTS OF MAGIC
CHORUS:
Rings of Silver
Rings of Gold
Just Gypsy trinkets
Can't be sold
Magic, Baby,
Can't be sold
Magic, Baby,
Can't be sold
__________________
Just like Magic
Made in Spain
Or maybe by your
Self again
Not for a price
Just marked 'For Free'
For Madmen then
Like you Like me
CHORUS
Winds like paper
Blow through Grass
Wings won't fly and
Wings won't last
Paper Lanterns
Catch the Flame
They know my name
I know my name
Long before I was
Such Magic
I had hands and heart
A Mind still now
The Ordinary Life
My dear one
I'll be kind
Try to be kind
CHORUS
Talk of Love then
Talk of Sorrow
Travelin' People
Do not care
There is no Magic
That can find Love
In this house
Not anywhere
This Magic is
Not anywhere
CHORUS
CHORUS:
Rings of Silver
Rings of Gold
Just Gypsy trinkets
Can't be sold
Magic, Baby,
Can't be sold
Magic, Baby,
Can't be sold
__________________
Just like Magic
Made in Spain
Or maybe by your
Self again
Not for a price
Just marked 'For Free'
For Madmen then
Like you Like me
CHORUS
Winds like paper
Blow through Grass
Wings won't fly and
Wings won't last
Paper Lanterns
Catch the Flame
They know my name
I know my name
Long before I was
Such Magic
I had hands and heart
A Mind still now
The Ordinary Life
My dear one
I'll be kind
Try to be kind
CHORUS
Talk of Love then
Talk of Sorrow
Travelin' People
Do not care
There is no Magic
That can find Love
In this house
Not anywhere
This Magic is
Not anywhere
CHORUS
EVERY TIME is poem about the deathlessness of love that is very real and surprisingly true...through all the variations of life....
EVERY TIME
every single thing
a matter of time
of timing
this lurch
behind this car
this turn of head
wink of eye
this gentle kiss
this not so gentle
this laugh of joy
this of deriding
this turning around
nothing behind you
this love spent
the other spilled
this flash of silver
meaning fish
this flash of rock
meaning danger
and all the ways
you took my hand
and all the ways
you took my heart
the timing was
just so
the time was
then
the time was
now
every time
every single thing
a matter of time
of timing
this lurch
behind this car
this turn of head
wink of eye
this gentle kiss
this not so gentle
this laugh of joy
this of deriding
this turning around
nothing behind you
this love spent
the other spilled
this flash of silver
meaning fish
this flash of rock
meaning danger
and all the ways
you took my hand
and all the ways
you took my heart
the timing was
just so
the time was
then
the time was
now
every time
RIM OF FIRE ON THE SEA is a beginning to some piece that will be magic...or may be merely human...which would be enough, I'm hoping....
RIM OF FIRE ON THE SEA
Rim of Fire on the Sea
Water overflowing in
Without Source and
Without Mercy into a
Hole no Light shines in
In the green there is
Such Deepness Dark the
Moon and Dark the Night
No one near or even far then
No one hears your feet in flight
Give me Water like a Blessing
Not a Curse with Fire's Pain
I can will myself to leave
I can cause the Skies to Rain
You can hear my Spell again
I am Magic I am always
Everthing I want to be
Right or Wrong I Act in Fury
Do not turn your back on Me
Nothing that I give is free
Water flowing in forever
No One Place to call its own
I won't lose come Fire or
Come Sea for always
I will call this Planet Home
Rim of Fire on the Sea
Water overflowing in
Without Source and
Without Mercy into a
Hole no Light shines in
In the green there is
Such Deepness Dark the
Moon and Dark the Night
No one near or even far then
No one hears your feet in flight
Give me Water like a Blessing
Not a Curse with Fire's Pain
I can will myself to leave
I can cause the Skies to Rain
You can hear my Spell again
I am Magic I am always
Everthing I want to be
Right or Wrong I Act in Fury
Do not turn your back on Me
Nothing that I give is free
Water flowing in forever
No One Place to call its own
I won't lose come Fire or
Come Sea for always
I will call this Planet Home
EMPTY PLACES is about being connected beyond any other realities...I live like this with one other person only, at present....
EMPTY PLACES
the empty places
in me
are filled with you
only when I can
hear you
see you
especially when
I can touch
you
which seems
impossible
not to be
somehow
I can't imagine
when this longing
which has been
all my life
will be filled up
as it is
when I am with you
cannot believe
that it will be
again
until
again
happens
until then
there are
such empty places
in me
that no light
can be seen there
no past defined
no present seen
as is
no future
possible
these empty places
I'm used to these
cannot see
you on the road
and so assume
you are not there
taking one step
one step
at a time
home
home
home
the empty places
in me
are filled with you
only when I can
hear you
see you
especially when
I can touch
you
which seems
impossible
not to be
somehow
I can't imagine
when this longing
which has been
all my life
will be filled up
as it is
when I am with you
cannot believe
that it will be
again
until
again
happens
until then
there are
such empty places
in me
that no light
can be seen there
no past defined
no present seen
as is
no future
possible
these empty places
I'm used to these
cannot see
you on the road
and so assume
you are not there
taking one step
one step
at a time
home
home
home
6/6/12
WINGS IN STONE is a Passage I had to go through...and then I was flying again...and I still am....
WINGS IN STONE
I saw the wings fixed in the stone...well: the impression of wings. a fossil - to be exact. but I was profoundly fixed in my tracks because of the sight. which I can still see even with my eyes open: the fragility of the wings. of a bird from so long ago. so long ago. it made me cry. made me. really did. I can still see those wings. for me it was so about how I couldn't move. how my life was so stuck. my wings. like a freedom for me. fixed in stone. horribly fixed. so fragile. so held forever. beautiful. but terrible. stasis. without hope. can't you see what I mean?...
he was much older than I was. fourteen years older. I had made a big deal about how much older he was than I was. when we first started going out together - until he got irritated and said that if it was a big deal, then maybe we shouldn't go out. so then I said that it wasn't a big deal. but I guess it always was... because I figured that I'd have to take care of him some day. but maybe not for a long time. since he was just turning seventy. and: he was still very strong. and pretty frisky. except he had some bad health habits. mainly pot. yep. pot. he became delightfully honest and creative on pot though. like a cheerful social drinker. so it didn't seem too bad. he was also a social drinker. otherwise: a healthy guy. sexy and kind too. and loyal to his friends. but not to his women. not in the past anyway. not a lot of guys are tho. in my experience. a lot of them say they are tho. he said he loved me quite soon. before I ever did. I was surprised. but still. I liked him a lot. and I wanted out of where I was. so I moved out and into his place. which was being torn down around his ears. which is another story. anyway...we got married within a year. we had been pretty happy. poor. content. it was fun. an adventure.
then he got his huge cardiac event, as they say. his valve blew in his heart. and his heart rate got really bad. he had open-heart work done. I took care of him. it's been my fate to be around guys at the exact time that they have respiratory or cardiac problems that are huge. I get to save their lives in a way. which is kind-of cool but a bit scary...so we had to quiet down a bit. but we kept having to move a lot. and he always pulled his own weight best he could - but he did have these heart problems. so I was sort-of supporting the whole show. he would add the extras. I never was good at getting the rich ones. money and I never stuck somehow. no Velcro for the rich guys. my karma maybe... and then my back started going.
we made some good plans anyway. we had gone to Hawaii. we had a lot. a lot. of fun. I'm a great traveler. I've got to say, he was pretty good too. so we decided to go to Europe! I had heart problems by that time too. he was just over his. so it was like: if we don't go now, maybe we never will. my mom had died and left some money too... so we went for ten weeks. seven countries. sixteen towns and cities. tons of paintings. museums. the grand tour of the continent. it was great! we were both wasted though. the exertion was enormous. we both lost weight. I had to go back to work right away. since we had spent thousands with no income coming in. it had all been worth it though. things were going slightly down all the time, sorry to say. it was all getting slowed. like minerals pressing under all that pressure of living. pressing into wings and feathers and skin and bone... we were fossilizing really - but didn't even see it. I don't believe most folks do. it all seems OK. but isn't. you don't see how you're not really living so well. you know the old saying: it's more than just a long river running through Egypt...hah. hah....
so we had to make another move. I think it was because of friction between our landlord and him, that he refused to look at. the move cost me my back for sure. I was overweight by a long shot, as well - had to move again. blew my back muscles all to hell. I had to work with pain morning and noon and night. that's just the way it was. we were making do in a nice new apartment... I hate apartments. they make me feel very poor. I've always been genteel poor. this was the bottom of that rung tho. by my standards. and our sex wasn't good. because my pain was so severe. I had a feeling he was getting some somewheres else. just a feeling. didn't even look at it. we kept seeing all our friends and getting along as usual. on the outside. the 'wings' that used to make me feel free in this world were fossilizing for sure. I could feel it. but I am peacemaker. I am head of household. I see that all goes well. I was dragging my way up the twenty-two stairs to our apartment every day and back down again and up again. going to work. coming home. doing the laundry. bringing it back up. he'd help... but he didn't have work. kept blaming me for that: because twice I had told people that he was retired. so not getting work was all my fault. weird arguments like that. he was getting pretty testy. then he fell.
he fell over my son's dog. who he wasn't supposed to be fooling around with anyway. I wound up having to take care of him some more, at a time when my back was barely better at all. it took me down - went on for months. he was very passive. depressed even. would watch my pain and just sit there. wouldn't say anything. we were at a low point for sure. I decided that I had to make some changes. and fast. otherwise I was going to die. no joke. I was huge. in pain for months. all the time. without relief. I had to drop some weight. plus: we had lost nine people to death within one year. most of them older people. one was my best friend for thirty five years. another a really good friend for twenty years. I had to get some new friends. and younger ones. I had been being an old lady for about four years. and I wasn't that old yet. it was too soon to be laying down all old. really was. if I was ever going to get my wings out of the stone. ever going to fly again: then I had to get help. and I had to get light. had to shake those wings like lightening. had to start moving them flying into something new. I decided it would be writing. I'd start writing.
up until that time I had put off writing some more until I'd retire. fat chance that was ever going to happen now...I had to start writing again now. I had stopped because all the non-fiction I'd done had gone no place. had been all adventures that just spun off into nowhere at all - for lots of reasons. so I'd start with short stories. sort-of like memories or memoirs. most of them: exercises in my craft. learning about writing again. learning to make my own way. my own style. my own voice. in my own wilderness: make ready the way of my own song. singing my own song... I was losing weight fast. making friends with younger people. got in touch with my old boyfriend from high school - really by accident. he started being my muse. I don't know how... time and life were pressing me into movement. freeing me from stone. it was a force I could not change. even if I had been asked to. which I wasn't.
my wings began to move. stiff. filled with dry blood. that had to learn to move again. to fill my cells with life. to move the wings again. to reassemble flight. flight where? that was quite a question...he decided to leave. that was a huge surprise: I had thought I would take care of him until one of us died. even me. it could have been me. pretty grim plan. no joy there. that was for sure... he left. he had been seeing his old girlfriend anyway. she was old and sick. but she loved him. would let him in to have the sex he wanted. sex without waiting for some one to stop being sick and in pain all the time. I had no bitterness about that. it was just the way it was... he said I had wrecked our marriage. destroyed our marriage. that wasn't it. not true at all. the marriage had become a fossil. wings in stone. hearts in stone. love in stone. still a sense of beauty. but no life there... so many marriages are in stone like that. every one is used to seeing it. it's almost normal now. all that stone where flesh and blood used to be warm and welcoming. it happens. I didn't cause anything. neither did he. it just happens....
I was relieved after I went through sad. I didn't have to worry about him dying in traffic. or losing his mind to the years of drugs. or him getting more demented just by time. or more cardiac events and so on. not yet. mine could be coming on any year now after all. I'm no spring chicken. still: my old boyfriend and I were now falling in love. just the way he predicted when he walked out the door. my husband had seen it coming before I did. just a bit before tho. came on like a freight train. crashed through all the stone. the old bird had to break out of all that and start to fly for sure. so I did.
now I'm light like a bird. in love and alive. writing up a storm. looking at a future again. it's the oddest thing. you look at this tip of feather: impression in stone. you think about how delicate it is. but it really isn't. it's stone. it's real. strong. still: only an impression: a press in stone. of where life was. or shouldn't have been. or should have been. who knows alive what was there. alive once. how long ago. and why...
I saw every feather. yet no feathers at all. all the flight is in my fancy. in my creative blood. streaming in every beat of my heart. the place where it all became stone is over. it's all out in the world now. flying...
that's where my wings are...
no more wings in stone...
don't need to know where I'm going now...
I'm just
flying
flying
flying
I saw the wings fixed in the stone...well: the impression of wings. a fossil - to be exact. but I was profoundly fixed in my tracks because of the sight. which I can still see even with my eyes open: the fragility of the wings. of a bird from so long ago. so long ago. it made me cry. made me. really did. I can still see those wings. for me it was so about how I couldn't move. how my life was so stuck. my wings. like a freedom for me. fixed in stone. horribly fixed. so fragile. so held forever. beautiful. but terrible. stasis. without hope. can't you see what I mean?...
he was much older than I was. fourteen years older. I had made a big deal about how much older he was than I was. when we first started going out together - until he got irritated and said that if it was a big deal, then maybe we shouldn't go out. so then I said that it wasn't a big deal. but I guess it always was... because I figured that I'd have to take care of him some day. but maybe not for a long time. since he was just turning seventy. and: he was still very strong. and pretty frisky. except he had some bad health habits. mainly pot. yep. pot. he became delightfully honest and creative on pot though. like a cheerful social drinker. so it didn't seem too bad. he was also a social drinker. otherwise: a healthy guy. sexy and kind too. and loyal to his friends. but not to his women. not in the past anyway. not a lot of guys are tho. in my experience. a lot of them say they are tho. he said he loved me quite soon. before I ever did. I was surprised. but still. I liked him a lot. and I wanted out of where I was. so I moved out and into his place. which was being torn down around his ears. which is another story. anyway...we got married within a year. we had been pretty happy. poor. content. it was fun. an adventure.
then he got his huge cardiac event, as they say. his valve blew in his heart. and his heart rate got really bad. he had open-heart work done. I took care of him. it's been my fate to be around guys at the exact time that they have respiratory or cardiac problems that are huge. I get to save their lives in a way. which is kind-of cool but a bit scary...so we had to quiet down a bit. but we kept having to move a lot. and he always pulled his own weight best he could - but he did have these heart problems. so I was sort-of supporting the whole show. he would add the extras. I never was good at getting the rich ones. money and I never stuck somehow. no Velcro for the rich guys. my karma maybe... and then my back started going.
we made some good plans anyway. we had gone to Hawaii. we had a lot. a lot. of fun. I'm a great traveler. I've got to say, he was pretty good too. so we decided to go to Europe! I had heart problems by that time too. he was just over his. so it was like: if we don't go now, maybe we never will. my mom had died and left some money too... so we went for ten weeks. seven countries. sixteen towns and cities. tons of paintings. museums. the grand tour of the continent. it was great! we were both wasted though. the exertion was enormous. we both lost weight. I had to go back to work right away. since we had spent thousands with no income coming in. it had all been worth it though. things were going slightly down all the time, sorry to say. it was all getting slowed. like minerals pressing under all that pressure of living. pressing into wings and feathers and skin and bone... we were fossilizing really - but didn't even see it. I don't believe most folks do. it all seems OK. but isn't. you don't see how you're not really living so well. you know the old saying: it's more than just a long river running through Egypt...hah. hah....
so we had to make another move. I think it was because of friction between our landlord and him, that he refused to look at. the move cost me my back for sure. I was overweight by a long shot, as well - had to move again. blew my back muscles all to hell. I had to work with pain morning and noon and night. that's just the way it was. we were making do in a nice new apartment... I hate apartments. they make me feel very poor. I've always been genteel poor. this was the bottom of that rung tho. by my standards. and our sex wasn't good. because my pain was so severe. I had a feeling he was getting some somewheres else. just a feeling. didn't even look at it. we kept seeing all our friends and getting along as usual. on the outside. the 'wings' that used to make me feel free in this world were fossilizing for sure. I could feel it. but I am peacemaker. I am head of household. I see that all goes well. I was dragging my way up the twenty-two stairs to our apartment every day and back down again and up again. going to work. coming home. doing the laundry. bringing it back up. he'd help... but he didn't have work. kept blaming me for that: because twice I had told people that he was retired. so not getting work was all my fault. weird arguments like that. he was getting pretty testy. then he fell.
he fell over my son's dog. who he wasn't supposed to be fooling around with anyway. I wound up having to take care of him some more, at a time when my back was barely better at all. it took me down - went on for months. he was very passive. depressed even. would watch my pain and just sit there. wouldn't say anything. we were at a low point for sure. I decided that I had to make some changes. and fast. otherwise I was going to die. no joke. I was huge. in pain for months. all the time. without relief. I had to drop some weight. plus: we had lost nine people to death within one year. most of them older people. one was my best friend for thirty five years. another a really good friend for twenty years. I had to get some new friends. and younger ones. I had been being an old lady for about four years. and I wasn't that old yet. it was too soon to be laying down all old. really was. if I was ever going to get my wings out of the stone. ever going to fly again: then I had to get help. and I had to get light. had to shake those wings like lightening. had to start moving them flying into something new. I decided it would be writing. I'd start writing.
up until that time I had put off writing some more until I'd retire. fat chance that was ever going to happen now...I had to start writing again now. I had stopped because all the non-fiction I'd done had gone no place. had been all adventures that just spun off into nowhere at all - for lots of reasons. so I'd start with short stories. sort-of like memories or memoirs. most of them: exercises in my craft. learning about writing again. learning to make my own way. my own style. my own voice. in my own wilderness: make ready the way of my own song. singing my own song... I was losing weight fast. making friends with younger people. got in touch with my old boyfriend from high school - really by accident. he started being my muse. I don't know how... time and life were pressing me into movement. freeing me from stone. it was a force I could not change. even if I had been asked to. which I wasn't.
my wings began to move. stiff. filled with dry blood. that had to learn to move again. to fill my cells with life. to move the wings again. to reassemble flight. flight where? that was quite a question...he decided to leave. that was a huge surprise: I had thought I would take care of him until one of us died. even me. it could have been me. pretty grim plan. no joy there. that was for sure... he left. he had been seeing his old girlfriend anyway. she was old and sick. but she loved him. would let him in to have the sex he wanted. sex without waiting for some one to stop being sick and in pain all the time. I had no bitterness about that. it was just the way it was... he said I had wrecked our marriage. destroyed our marriage. that wasn't it. not true at all. the marriage had become a fossil. wings in stone. hearts in stone. love in stone. still a sense of beauty. but no life there... so many marriages are in stone like that. every one is used to seeing it. it's almost normal now. all that stone where flesh and blood used to be warm and welcoming. it happens. I didn't cause anything. neither did he. it just happens....
I was relieved after I went through sad. I didn't have to worry about him dying in traffic. or losing his mind to the years of drugs. or him getting more demented just by time. or more cardiac events and so on. not yet. mine could be coming on any year now after all. I'm no spring chicken. still: my old boyfriend and I were now falling in love. just the way he predicted when he walked out the door. my husband had seen it coming before I did. just a bit before tho. came on like a freight train. crashed through all the stone. the old bird had to break out of all that and start to fly for sure. so I did.
now I'm light like a bird. in love and alive. writing up a storm. looking at a future again. it's the oddest thing. you look at this tip of feather: impression in stone. you think about how delicate it is. but it really isn't. it's stone. it's real. strong. still: only an impression: a press in stone. of where life was. or shouldn't have been. or should have been. who knows alive what was there. alive once. how long ago. and why...
I saw every feather. yet no feathers at all. all the flight is in my fancy. in my creative blood. streaming in every beat of my heart. the place where it all became stone is over. it's all out in the world now. flying...
that's where my wings are...
no more wings in stone...
don't need to know where I'm going now...
I'm just
flying
flying
flying
NO LOVE LOST is simply another love song...sigh....
NO LOVE LOST
CHORUS:
When I thought as I got old
That all those Loves were lost to me
Along you came like some old-time wind
Sweepin' all them cobwebs free
Makin' Love come sweet and free
______________
Eyes are sparklin' just like old times
Heels are kickin' up in dance -
It's all laughs and cryin' nowadays:
We're all caught up in Romance!
We're just singin' songs 'bout lovin'
Like we're young and made for song!
Like the Moon and June and Spoon stuff
Has been all ours all along!
______________
CHORUS
______________
I wish we had been Us Younger -
Wish we had had Young Spark and Grace...
What I wouldn't give to kiss you
With your younger, handsome face...
All our hairs are gone or thin now -
All our smiles are wrinkle-lined:
O but Babe, you are still perfect:
And you're livin' and your mine!....
______________
CHORUS
______________
Well then, would I change one year, Babe?
Would I make the time go back?
Is there anything we're missin'?
Is there one thing that we lack?
It's all brave and hopes inside now -
Not to mention aches and pain -
But this Love is all we need, Babe:
Every day: no loss: just gain....
______________
CHORUS
AGAIN AND AGAIN THE SAME SITUATION is no better or worse than Joni Mitchell, who sang all about this stuff, so there...o, it's a poem, as well....
AGAIN AND AGAIN THE SAME SITUATION
there is this song about a lady
waiting for a ringing telephone
in a room full of tears
or something like that
how can I be so older
and still no wiser
gotta ask the question
who is this creature
tethered to the magnets
that make a man
though the iron in me
rusts away more
every damn year
who is calling
that I wait and want
this way
without guile
but also
with the same
hopes and fears
how silly
even dumb
how human
how greedy
how warm even
kind this joining
that calls me
across the lines
that are phones
a human bonding
flesh and blood
nothing doing
much different
always the same songs
with the same harmonies
the same thrills
thrilling again
across bodies
across years
and years
still
the best
damn
deal
around
there is this song about a lady
waiting for a ringing telephone
in a room full of tears
or something like that
how can I be so older
and still no wiser
gotta ask the question
who is this creature
tethered to the magnets
that make a man
though the iron in me
rusts away more
every damn year
who is calling
that I wait and want
this way
without guile
but also
with the same
hopes and fears
how silly
even dumb
how human
how greedy
how warm even
kind this joining
that calls me
across the lines
that are phones
a human bonding
flesh and blood
nothing doing
much different
always the same songs
with the same harmonies
the same thrills
thrilling again
across bodies
across years
and years
still
the best
damn
deal
around
MARIA'S SKY is a vignette about my good friend, Maria - she is a true one-of-a-kind in my life of Friendhips....
MARIA'S SKY
More than any memory of Europe I still hold, is the memory of Maria.
We met Maria in Sarlot, France, in a light and pleasant rain. A tiny, slim light-olive complexioned, brown-haired woman with glasses. she had a small suitcase on wheels. an umbrella. simply dressed - composed, in black....
she came up to us in a friendly and forthright manner and asked if we were interested in seeing 'the caves'. she smiled her big smile and announced that she was Maria. She was going to 'the caves' early in the morning, she wanted to go with people who would share the cab fare. and the experience, of course. there were cave paintings that were original there! only a few people could go in daily....
we were intrigued and, suddenly, quite happy.
Maria had that way about her. she could make you feel happy, in a comfortable and good-hearted way. It was her bright, sincere eyes. but, as well, it was an intelligence about every move she made. every word she said.
How to explain an unusual woman. a one-of-a-kind person, in this difficult and complex world. Maria is such a human..
Early the next morning, very early, we were outside of our small hotel, waiting. up pulled the little cab, with a smiling Maria on board....the whole lovely, winding trip into the hills she taught us about the cave we were going to see. it history. its anthropology. all alive to her. not facts, but wonderful stories of life thousands of years ago. she was animated with excitement! clear and so articulate. we were mesmerized by the knowledge she had. and, by how wonderfully she told the story of this little Dordogne cave and the lives and art it held.
Winding up the trail to the cave, Maria managed to make immediate friends with two men from Peru. They chatted about all the trips she and they had taken in Peru. They were like old friends by the time we reached the caves. They included us in her warmth and friendship....
and, of course, the cave paintings and the cave were all as exciting and beautiful as she had described....
We walked, after, over to the little village nearby - Maria is a Walker without parallel! - to have a coffee and wait for a bus to take us back to Sarlot...or...would we like to go to see the Anthropology Museum with her....she was an anthropologist! of course, we would be delighted to! we were falling in love with this fantastic teacher and new friend!
The museum was wonderful through Maria's eyes.... every beautiful artifact and art piece were so real and special to her, that she made them all like jewels to me...I can still see some of the sweet little sculptures of horses that she admired there....we spent a long time following the line of each back...each mane, the tiny hoofs....her delight in these objects from the time of early mankind, early artists, was touching and delightful!
We parted, exchanging addresses and phone numbers and all....Maria found that we were going to go to Spain....while she could not put us up in her small apartment, as her mother was going to come to stay for awhile, she would be happy to meet us and show us her Madrid...she lived close to the Prado, where we were going to see the famous art of Madrid...
We traveled more...remembering Maria: how tiny and spunky and capable and kind she looked when we last saw her, walking briskly on the path along the river, to her next destination....
Then, Madrid!
Madrid was a very strange and exciting place...right when we arrived, there was a huge demonstration of Spanish citizens on our very street off Prado Blvd., with flags and slogan banners and posters...against pay freezes by the government....the sunset, harsh and gold. the buildings all the colors of earth. the sky an impossible blue. flowers of deep, sunset hue everywhere...the colors of Spain.....
The very next day, we would go to the Prado and then to see the Guernica...the real one! at the Regina! And, we would see Maria! even the bookstores on the Blvd were wonderful...I bought prints of Don Quixote, one of my favorite novels, and musicals!
We met Maria at the Botanical Gardens...wandered through a wonderland of early fall trees, vegetables, flowers, colors, textures, under, this day, an indigo sky...still, with few clouds....even the bonsai were perfect!
Maria was our gracious hostess in every single way...these were her gardens, her world....
She told us about her companion for life, a man she had loved very, very much...who died....now she told us that they had not been married...but that she was closer to him than any other human being...."With him," she said, "it was heaven on earth...." We sipped our coffee at a cafe with the contented silence of old friends....
So, there it is...this friendship is based on two days of actually being together...sometimes there are lifelong relationships that begin with less contact, tho.
Maria and I are Friends. We email each other about where we are in our lives all of the time. she shares stories of all of her wonderful travels with me all of the time. I help her to correctly translate her web site on her travels into personable English...because she is my friend.
I wish she lived here in California. I would talk with her a bit every day...unless she was traveling...then, I would travel with her vicariously, to all the places I'll never go....
There are especially unusual friendships in this world. This one between Maria and me, opens the whole world to me more....
this friendship makes me happy every time...
It brings me Maria's Spain.
the colors of Spain.
Her kind smiles...brighter than
the skies
of Spain....
More than any memory of Europe I still hold, is the memory of Maria.
We met Maria in Sarlot, France, in a light and pleasant rain. A tiny, slim light-olive complexioned, brown-haired woman with glasses. she had a small suitcase on wheels. an umbrella. simply dressed - composed, in black....
she came up to us in a friendly and forthright manner and asked if we were interested in seeing 'the caves'. she smiled her big smile and announced that she was Maria. She was going to 'the caves' early in the morning, she wanted to go with people who would share the cab fare. and the experience, of course. there were cave paintings that were original there! only a few people could go in daily....
we were intrigued and, suddenly, quite happy.
Maria had that way about her. she could make you feel happy, in a comfortable and good-hearted way. It was her bright, sincere eyes. but, as well, it was an intelligence about every move she made. every word she said.
How to explain an unusual woman. a one-of-a-kind person, in this difficult and complex world. Maria is such a human..
Early the next morning, very early, we were outside of our small hotel, waiting. up pulled the little cab, with a smiling Maria on board....the whole lovely, winding trip into the hills she taught us about the cave we were going to see. it history. its anthropology. all alive to her. not facts, but wonderful stories of life thousands of years ago. she was animated with excitement! clear and so articulate. we were mesmerized by the knowledge she had. and, by how wonderfully she told the story of this little Dordogne cave and the lives and art it held.
Winding up the trail to the cave, Maria managed to make immediate friends with two men from Peru. They chatted about all the trips she and they had taken in Peru. They were like old friends by the time we reached the caves. They included us in her warmth and friendship....
and, of course, the cave paintings and the cave were all as exciting and beautiful as she had described....
We walked, after, over to the little village nearby - Maria is a Walker without parallel! - to have a coffee and wait for a bus to take us back to Sarlot...or...would we like to go to see the Anthropology Museum with her....she was an anthropologist! of course, we would be delighted to! we were falling in love with this fantastic teacher and new friend!
The museum was wonderful through Maria's eyes.... every beautiful artifact and art piece were so real and special to her, that she made them all like jewels to me...I can still see some of the sweet little sculptures of horses that she admired there....we spent a long time following the line of each back...each mane, the tiny hoofs....her delight in these objects from the time of early mankind, early artists, was touching and delightful!
We parted, exchanging addresses and phone numbers and all....Maria found that we were going to go to Spain....while she could not put us up in her small apartment, as her mother was going to come to stay for awhile, she would be happy to meet us and show us her Madrid...she lived close to the Prado, where we were going to see the famous art of Madrid...
We traveled more...remembering Maria: how tiny and spunky and capable and kind she looked when we last saw her, walking briskly on the path along the river, to her next destination....
Then, Madrid!
Madrid was a very strange and exciting place...right when we arrived, there was a huge demonstration of Spanish citizens on our very street off Prado Blvd., with flags and slogan banners and posters...against pay freezes by the government....the sunset, harsh and gold. the buildings all the colors of earth. the sky an impossible blue. flowers of deep, sunset hue everywhere...the colors of Spain.....
The very next day, we would go to the Prado and then to see the Guernica...the real one! at the Regina! And, we would see Maria! even the bookstores on the Blvd were wonderful...I bought prints of Don Quixote, one of my favorite novels, and musicals!
We met Maria at the Botanical Gardens...wandered through a wonderland of early fall trees, vegetables, flowers, colors, textures, under, this day, an indigo sky...still, with few clouds....even the bonsai were perfect!
Maria was our gracious hostess in every single way...these were her gardens, her world....
She told us about her companion for life, a man she had loved very, very much...who died....now she told us that they had not been married...but that she was closer to him than any other human being...."With him," she said, "it was heaven on earth...." We sipped our coffee at a cafe with the contented silence of old friends....
So, there it is...this friendship is based on two days of actually being together...sometimes there are lifelong relationships that begin with less contact, tho.
Maria and I are Friends. We email each other about where we are in our lives all of the time. she shares stories of all of her wonderful travels with me all of the time. I help her to correctly translate her web site on her travels into personable English...because she is my friend.
I wish she lived here in California. I would talk with her a bit every day...unless she was traveling...then, I would travel with her vicariously, to all the places I'll never go....
There are especially unusual friendships in this world. This one between Maria and me, opens the whole world to me more....
this friendship makes me happy every time...
It brings me Maria's Spain.
the colors of Spain.
Her kind smiles...brighter than
the skies
of Spain....
THE REST OF THE WORLD: AN OCEAN TAIL is about my Life swimming and, especially, Scuba Diving: I have not been in the water as much for many years now...it's wrong: I need to be in the water: it is my True Home....
THE REST OF THE WORLD: AN OCEAN TAIL
When I was young and swam all summer in any pool, lake, stream, or mud puddle that I could throw myself into, I used to do a stroke I called the Mermaid Stroke! This stroke involved the arm action of the Breast Stroke, with quite a twist, literally, in the legs. I would match my legs close together to resemble the lower body of a mermaid, with my feet touching at the ankles, and flared out from the ankles like tail fins! Then I would undulate my legs somewhat like the Butterfly stroke, but not so vigorously...Usually I would dive up and down in the water, imagining that I was a mermaid in the ocean, with a, of course, completely different life than my more prosaic life on land. Surprisingly, I could keep this stroke going for quite a long way and for quite a long time! I loved this movement! It was sensual and sweet and welcoming, and I can still swim this way today if the spirit moves me, only not for as long...
The Stroke that was my basic stroke was the Breast Stroke, which was not my most effective stroke by any means. Due to a systemic Polio as a young child, my left leg had an inefficient flutter instead of a sharp snap, when I closed my legs in the frog kick sequence. I've always looked a bit like a frog who's been shot in the left hip...pretty sad follow-through! My arms are very strong, though, probably in compensation. I can do a leisurely Breast Stroke for up to an hour-and-a-half, even in very cold water. I could probably save my life using that and a just as lackadaisical Side Stroke, for hours on end.
My Dad taught me to relax in water. He was totally relaxed in water! He made water seem like a fluffy down bed that could just hold you up and hold you up indefinitely. I never have been afraid in the water. That was his doing.
He taught me and my sister how to swim. He taught us what he called "The Aussie Crawl", which was really a Free-style Stroke, that we both flailed around with forever. I have to alternate it with the Breast Stroke even today, as my leg kicks are, as I noted, not symmetrical no matter what I do...I also wear my dive goggles and snorkel all the time, to keep chlorine and other chemicals from the pool off my face, and the water out of my contact lenses. since I insist on wearing the lenses, because I want to see Everything! So the turn of the head in the stroke is too modified to be efficient...my arms do well, though, as usual....
I have worked my self up to ninety laps many a time over the years, which is well over a mile, three times or so a week. Right now I'm only at about twenty, and they're pretty slow laps...well, all of this is the Prelude to the Grand Symphony, which is about The Ocean. The Mer. The Sea. and what it is to be in the Sea on the coast of California. which is where, between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-two, I was a Scuba Diver on twenty Dive Trips....
Any one who has ever scuba-dived will tell you that the experience under the waves is "beautiful". it can be many, many other things to each diver and on each and different dive, but, always, Beauty is one of the words that come to a diver's lips...The Sea is quite wonderful. When you are in it, under its surface, you are very aware that you are in the Rest of the World...the whole, immense part that is not land...it literally Weighs on you. You can feel its enormity all around you. It is not a local affair....
It truly helps to have a few of the skills I already had in place, to even learn to be a diver...I had better-than-fine endurance in the water. could swim in a relaxed manner for hours. had a natural rhythm of strokes to propel my tall self about in a wet-suit with equipment all over my body. wasn't uncomfortable about losing said-equipment under water and finding it again. was OK about being far from shore if I came up in the 'wrong' place away from the shore or the dive boat. was able to watch air supply, compass, and tubes and so on without fuss. didn't suck air...
I was certified twice by a NAUI/PADI stamp of approval on testing for all the skills that keep you underwater safe and happy...fortunately, the testing for navigation was pretty basic. I never did get the hang of elaborate maneuvers under the sea...just basic go-out/dive/get-back-to-boat-or-shore. I was pleased enough to be able to do that!
Each dive was completely, completely different. The moods of the sea and the ambient weather were never the same. animals you had never seen before would be in sites you thought were habitat for others you had seen, on the very last dive! Surprises abounded...I never went lower than eighty feet...the pressure on my ears was intense...but the world I really wanted to be among was not that deep...twenty...thirty...forty...fifty feet....
a world of pleasure to the sight, to the touch....
Once, a gigantic jelly fish danced her amazing and fluid ballet with me and my two male dive partners. We undulated with her for the entire dive...
Another time, the sea around me cleared like an evacuation from a fire-zone! Into my view came a large and beautiful Tiger Shark. It followed me with leisurely and minimal movement all the way back to the boat. I scrambled into the boat quite excited and not a little alarmed!...
Resting my hand on a rock at the bottom, around twenty feet under, the rock moved! A furry, bewhiskered harbor seal looked me in the face, quite startled itself! Then it popped towards the surface! Indicating to my dive buddy to go up, I reached the surface. I popped up. my buddy popped up. the seal popped up! We all looked at each other and laughed! I am sure the seal laughed along with us!
I saw the largest, most beautiful lobster I have ever seen, on a night dive off the Catalina Islands...of course it was large...it was a protected area! It made its way without fear among the rocks thirty feet under, unperturbed and in no fear of being eaten for supper!
The jeweled walls of the under-water cliffs of the Catalina Islands: what beauty in encrusted, small animals, competing for every space on the ledges and rock faces...a jewel box of gems everywhere in sight!...
And then, suddenly, a burst of small bright yellow fish by the hundreds across a purple and green rock face!...
Swimming under water back into shore with California sea lions...twenty or so of them...all heading into shore together...
Holding onto the holdfast of a large Kelp, waving violently in the surge, while two sea lions wove a web of water around me...
'Beauty' does not begin to describe the Ocean. the Mer. the Sea....
Here is how the Sea feels on my body: No walls. no rooms. no buildings. no rules of land. no cement. everywhere. just endless, endless sea, pressing on me from all sides and above me...
Not a womb, not at all...
simply, the Rest of the World....
my long silver-scaled tail waves and undulates through the kelp bed...
a stream of golden fish and all the ocean breath of their gills follow in my wake...
I pull up and away with my strong arms in great pleasure...
Breaching the surface in a burst of spray -
my mermaid tail slaps the waves
and they all, every and each wave...
SING!....
When I was young and swam all summer in any pool, lake, stream, or mud puddle that I could throw myself into, I used to do a stroke I called the Mermaid Stroke! This stroke involved the arm action of the Breast Stroke, with quite a twist, literally, in the legs. I would match my legs close together to resemble the lower body of a mermaid, with my feet touching at the ankles, and flared out from the ankles like tail fins! Then I would undulate my legs somewhat like the Butterfly stroke, but not so vigorously...Usually I would dive up and down in the water, imagining that I was a mermaid in the ocean, with a, of course, completely different life than my more prosaic life on land. Surprisingly, I could keep this stroke going for quite a long way and for quite a long time! I loved this movement! It was sensual and sweet and welcoming, and I can still swim this way today if the spirit moves me, only not for as long...
The Stroke that was my basic stroke was the Breast Stroke, which was not my most effective stroke by any means. Due to a systemic Polio as a young child, my left leg had an inefficient flutter instead of a sharp snap, when I closed my legs in the frog kick sequence. I've always looked a bit like a frog who's been shot in the left hip...pretty sad follow-through! My arms are very strong, though, probably in compensation. I can do a leisurely Breast Stroke for up to an hour-and-a-half, even in very cold water. I could probably save my life using that and a just as lackadaisical Side Stroke, for hours on end.
My Dad taught me to relax in water. He was totally relaxed in water! He made water seem like a fluffy down bed that could just hold you up and hold you up indefinitely. I never have been afraid in the water. That was his doing.
He taught me and my sister how to swim. He taught us what he called "The Aussie Crawl", which was really a Free-style Stroke, that we both flailed around with forever. I have to alternate it with the Breast Stroke even today, as my leg kicks are, as I noted, not symmetrical no matter what I do...I also wear my dive goggles and snorkel all the time, to keep chlorine and other chemicals from the pool off my face, and the water out of my contact lenses. since I insist on wearing the lenses, because I want to see Everything! So the turn of the head in the stroke is too modified to be efficient...my arms do well, though, as usual....
I have worked my self up to ninety laps many a time over the years, which is well over a mile, three times or so a week. Right now I'm only at about twenty, and they're pretty slow laps...well, all of this is the Prelude to the Grand Symphony, which is about The Ocean. The Mer. The Sea. and what it is to be in the Sea on the coast of California. which is where, between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-two, I was a Scuba Diver on twenty Dive Trips....
Any one who has ever scuba-dived will tell you that the experience under the waves is "beautiful". it can be many, many other things to each diver and on each and different dive, but, always, Beauty is one of the words that come to a diver's lips...The Sea is quite wonderful. When you are in it, under its surface, you are very aware that you are in the Rest of the World...the whole, immense part that is not land...it literally Weighs on you. You can feel its enormity all around you. It is not a local affair....
It truly helps to have a few of the skills I already had in place, to even learn to be a diver...I had better-than-fine endurance in the water. could swim in a relaxed manner for hours. had a natural rhythm of strokes to propel my tall self about in a wet-suit with equipment all over my body. wasn't uncomfortable about losing said-equipment under water and finding it again. was OK about being far from shore if I came up in the 'wrong' place away from the shore or the dive boat. was able to watch air supply, compass, and tubes and so on without fuss. didn't suck air...
I was certified twice by a NAUI/PADI stamp of approval on testing for all the skills that keep you underwater safe and happy...fortunately, the testing for navigation was pretty basic. I never did get the hang of elaborate maneuvers under the sea...just basic go-out/dive/get-back-to-boat-or-shore. I was pleased enough to be able to do that!
Each dive was completely, completely different. The moods of the sea and the ambient weather were never the same. animals you had never seen before would be in sites you thought were habitat for others you had seen, on the very last dive! Surprises abounded...I never went lower than eighty feet...the pressure on my ears was intense...but the world I really wanted to be among was not that deep...twenty...thirty...forty...fifty feet....
a world of pleasure to the sight, to the touch....
Once, a gigantic jelly fish danced her amazing and fluid ballet with me and my two male dive partners. We undulated with her for the entire dive...
Another time, the sea around me cleared like an evacuation from a fire-zone! Into my view came a large and beautiful Tiger Shark. It followed me with leisurely and minimal movement all the way back to the boat. I scrambled into the boat quite excited and not a little alarmed!...
Resting my hand on a rock at the bottom, around twenty feet under, the rock moved! A furry, bewhiskered harbor seal looked me in the face, quite startled itself! Then it popped towards the surface! Indicating to my dive buddy to go up, I reached the surface. I popped up. my buddy popped up. the seal popped up! We all looked at each other and laughed! I am sure the seal laughed along with us!
I saw the largest, most beautiful lobster I have ever seen, on a night dive off the Catalina Islands...of course it was large...it was a protected area! It made its way without fear among the rocks thirty feet under, unperturbed and in no fear of being eaten for supper!
The jeweled walls of the under-water cliffs of the Catalina Islands: what beauty in encrusted, small animals, competing for every space on the ledges and rock faces...a jewel box of gems everywhere in sight!...
And then, suddenly, a burst of small bright yellow fish by the hundreds across a purple and green rock face!...
Swimming under water back into shore with California sea lions...twenty or so of them...all heading into shore together...
Holding onto the holdfast of a large Kelp, waving violently in the surge, while two sea lions wove a web of water around me...
'Beauty' does not begin to describe the Ocean. the Mer. the Sea....
Here is how the Sea feels on my body: No walls. no rooms. no buildings. no rules of land. no cement. everywhere. just endless, endless sea, pressing on me from all sides and above me...
Not a womb, not at all...
simply, the Rest of the World....
my long silver-scaled tail waves and undulates through the kelp bed...
a stream of golden fish and all the ocean breath of their gills follow in my wake...
I pull up and away with my strong arms in great pleasure...
Breaching the surface in a burst of spray -
my mermaid tail slaps the waves
and they all, every and each wave...
SING!....
6/5/12
BIRTH SONGS is a poem about transits across the sun by Venus....
BIRTH SONGS
We were born into all the years
still to come that
someday
will also go
on an August morning early
the first decade mark
of the new century
whose end
we will not see
I was witness to
the deep sorrow the
anger the
distain
the truth being one
different thing for
each of you
without great understanding
different though
I could hear the difference
she being strong one way
you being strong another
man and woman
who had walked
side by side
sometimes
hand in hand
but not heart in heart
mind in mind
body in body
soul in soul
singing different songs
in serious winds
going though hells and
high waters together
yet still
alone.
living things die.
living things birth
are born
the sky passes day to night
without a sigh
silently the planet
turns in its given
space
sometimes we bind together
blindly
sometimes
by fate
sometimes
the Song is so strong
Its Fate so definite
that nothing can stop Its
coming
Its birth is more than
even Spring
can manage
It carries the two
into one
to a very real love
that cannot ever
really die
and no words
in angry hurt
or hate
at the death of a
love gone wrong
can change
one
single
note
We were born into all the years
still to come that
someday
will also go
on an August morning early
the first decade mark
of the new century
whose end
we will not see
I was witness to
the deep sorrow the
anger the
distain
the truth being one
different thing for
each of you
without great understanding
different though
I could hear the difference
she being strong one way
you being strong another
man and woman
who had walked
side by side
sometimes
hand in hand
but not heart in heart
mind in mind
body in body
soul in soul
singing different songs
in serious winds
going though hells and
high waters together
yet still
alone.
living things die.
living things birth
are born
the sky passes day to night
without a sigh
silently the planet
turns in its given
space
sometimes we bind together
blindly
sometimes
by fate
sometimes
the Song is so strong
Its Fate so definite
that nothing can stop Its
coming
Its birth is more than
even Spring
can manage
It carries the two
into one
to a very real love
that cannot ever
really die
and no words
in angry hurt
or hate
at the death of a
love gone wrong
can change
one
single
note
BRASS RING SHINING is a poem about making leaps of faith all of the time...simply, all of the time....
BRASS RING SHINING
Where Alex lays
his young blond hair
on the satin pillow
and never sings again
never lifts the guitar
writes the notes
tells the funny joke
laughs his gentle laugh
Where Dixie lays
her quiet love
wondering, at times, where
she lost the chances
for happiness
not knowing happiness
well enough
to understand
quite how
to grasp the brass ring
let us
you and I
place flowers on the
grass of their young desires
that rarely had
and rarely gave
leaps of hope
of faith
of love
one single chance...
let us rest together
on the stairs
and not be afraid
to go on
without their lost
hands and eyes
let us forgive them
for being less
than the bringers-to-be
of love for us
for themselves....
we had so much to give them
had they had simple needing
so much love to surround them
had they had need for arms
around them
they could give
a bit, another bit...
but could not grasp
in sweet abandon
at all the flowers
all the brass rings
we held out to them
on the merry-go-round
we call life....
we must forgive them
for not being enough
even for themselves
must hold each other
in wonder
that finally
when childhood is far away
we can ourselves
grasp brass rings together
our hands reaching together
catching the prize
in each other's love...
a gleam of true gold
and kept promises
every
single
time.....
Where Alex lays
his young blond hair
on the satin pillow
and never sings again
never lifts the guitar
writes the notes
tells the funny joke
laughs his gentle laugh
Where Dixie lays
her quiet love
wondering, at times, where
she lost the chances
for happiness
not knowing happiness
well enough
to understand
quite how
to grasp the brass ring
let us
you and I
place flowers on the
grass of their young desires
that rarely had
and rarely gave
leaps of hope
of faith
of love
one single chance...
let us rest together
on the stairs
and not be afraid
to go on
without their lost
hands and eyes
let us forgive them
for being less
than the bringers-to-be
of love for us
for themselves....
we had so much to give them
had they had simple needing
so much love to surround them
had they had need for arms
around them
they could give
a bit, another bit...
but could not grasp
in sweet abandon
at all the flowers
all the brass rings
we held out to them
on the merry-go-round
we call life....
we must forgive them
for not being enough
even for themselves
must hold each other
in wonder
that finally
when childhood is far away
we can ourselves
grasp brass rings together
our hands reaching together
catching the prize
in each other's love...
a gleam of true gold
and kept promises
every
single
time.....
WHITH THOSE BITTER WEEDS is about important events that did not happen...the fate of the Bitter Weeds of Life...this was once sent as a letter. now it is just a memory....
WITH THOSE BITTER WEEDS
One Day, I did something different: I didn't respond right away to a message to someone - you. young man: who I had bothered for many years: trying to get you to pick up your mother's things. which you hadn't picked up since her death. ten-years-or-so ago. I had asked you over and over on email, in the first couple of beginning years, to please come to get them. because she had left them in her will for you: her tapes. her papers. her photos. all about the times she spent working with Navajo women. trying to help them to sell their wonderful wool rugs more directly. for much more money then they would get from the Indian agents. so that they could try to keep their lands and homes. so that they wouldn't be relocated from their ancestral lands. well...that was long ago....
anyways, I tried for a few years to have you come to get the basket that held all of her "intellectual materials". all the materials that had been used to write the 'book' that I had written for her. I had been paid a small good Dazzler rug, a Lacota quilt, about $1000 over four years, and one Hopi silver ring...all for truly hundreds of hours of meeting with her. writing her book and her publishers proposal...she had died just before we were going to be hooked-up to an agent - through an important Media Source...but your mom died in that car accident on the Hopi/Navajo Joint Use Lands, which were being handed over to the Hopi and then...ah well....
Over the years I had lost track of you. I had tried to send her 'book' over a half dozen years to folks in media of all sorts. people I thought could use the 'book' in some way. here and there I still have the records of the times I tried to interest others in her work. I thought maybe they could find you: that you'd be interested in getting your mom's stuff back. if you knew that some important person was interested in her 'book'....
then I found you again. and got into contact with you again. you and I tried to connect. or sometimes you sent someone to connect with me. you never came through. they never came through. I would leave time open. you and they never even called to say that you all weren't coming. some of the time. other times the times and days to connect changed and changed. then did not happen at all...the young are busy. Still again: I am older: but very busy as well... I had to wonder: why is this happening in my life? why am I unable to keep this promise I made with this young man's mother. so many years ago: that I would hand over the materials directly to you. that I would show you the 'book' and give you a copy? what is - what was- the reason you never came over in all of these years? never tried to find me to receive her last words. her last tapes. her perceptions of the worth of her short life? why was I holding on to this promise for her? what did...does...this say about you? about me? about what she hoped for? or expected of her son? of me....
there is a real sadness and a bitter taste to all of this: over and over and over: her work and hopes have been rejected. what did she do to achieve such a fate? such a 'karma'...as is said....
so, that day, I did not answer the "are you free tomorrow? " right away...I'm actually not. I have plans for the whole day. and then it will be a time, I suppose...a time before you'll try again. or I will try to accommodate again....silly really...I guess I'll just answer. but I think I'll send you this as well. this small story among all the short stories I have been writing for years now. a short and strange little story. one I do not understand. that has become more important than it needed to be...
this has become another story not-so-glorious about your mother. one I don't feel part of. in some odd way. she kept me away from the rest of her world so long ago: to protect her 'book'. she was so afraid that no one would want it. or read it. or believe her. so ironic: her fears came true. no one has wanted her perceptions of her work. no one has read it. no one has even come for her things. few even talk about her in connection with her beloved Big Mountain...her 'Survival Camp'...her 'SunDance' times...her times facing the Coal Barons...the Geneva Human Rights times...the 'Relocation' times...the 'Big Mountain Support Group' years. the almost two decades loving and praying and selling rugs and living as close to the Weaving Women and their families as she could: it's all as if it never happened....
I think I'll use my parts in the 'book' as material for other short stories. I am so enjoying writing again...the other words in this 'book' of hers are direct quotes, and will need to find their own lives. I cannot protect them any more. there is nothing to protect them for. not that I can see anyway....
I was never the villain here...not once....but I have failed my old friend in ways I cannot know. because no one has wanted our work...and silence has been the only response ever engendered... this 'book' lies among those bitter weeds that are the fate of most of the written word- so little reaches the readers desired. so few words are really read. fewer yet are read by many...even less are spoken-of well..and even less are remembered....
for some reason deep in me: I know I did my best and did well by this 'book' and by the promise I made to a woman long dead. so then: young man: try again. I will be here for awhile more. I will discharge this ancient promise when I must. when you can...do not forget tho: I kept a promise for over ten years. to your mother. she is reaching you through me. for whatever small reason. there must be something to this all. although: maybe: nothing at all. there is so little we can do to fulfill being human. kind. honest. trust-worthy. through your mother: I walk through the bitter weeds. pick up these simple and poor things. hand them over. over and over... and go on my way....
Post-script: The intellectual materials were finally given, in a box. to the 'son' in this piece...we had a 'good talk'...then nothing happened. nothing at all...really Nothing....bitter weeds: laugh with those eating bitter weeds....
One Day, I did something different: I didn't respond right away to a message to someone - you. young man: who I had bothered for many years: trying to get you to pick up your mother's things. which you hadn't picked up since her death. ten-years-or-so ago. I had asked you over and over on email, in the first couple of beginning years, to please come to get them. because she had left them in her will for you: her tapes. her papers. her photos. all about the times she spent working with Navajo women. trying to help them to sell their wonderful wool rugs more directly. for much more money then they would get from the Indian agents. so that they could try to keep their lands and homes. so that they wouldn't be relocated from their ancestral lands. well...that was long ago....
anyways, I tried for a few years to have you come to get the basket that held all of her "intellectual materials". all the materials that had been used to write the 'book' that I had written for her. I had been paid a small good Dazzler rug, a Lacota quilt, about $1000 over four years, and one Hopi silver ring...all for truly hundreds of hours of meeting with her. writing her book and her publishers proposal...she had died just before we were going to be hooked-up to an agent - through an important Media Source...but your mom died in that car accident on the Hopi/Navajo Joint Use Lands, which were being handed over to the Hopi and then...ah well....
Over the years I had lost track of you. I had tried to send her 'book' over a half dozen years to folks in media of all sorts. people I thought could use the 'book' in some way. here and there I still have the records of the times I tried to interest others in her work. I thought maybe they could find you: that you'd be interested in getting your mom's stuff back. if you knew that some important person was interested in her 'book'....
then I found you again. and got into contact with you again. you and I tried to connect. or sometimes you sent someone to connect with me. you never came through. they never came through. I would leave time open. you and they never even called to say that you all weren't coming. some of the time. other times the times and days to connect changed and changed. then did not happen at all...the young are busy. Still again: I am older: but very busy as well... I had to wonder: why is this happening in my life? why am I unable to keep this promise I made with this young man's mother. so many years ago: that I would hand over the materials directly to you. that I would show you the 'book' and give you a copy? what is - what was- the reason you never came over in all of these years? never tried to find me to receive her last words. her last tapes. her perceptions of the worth of her short life? why was I holding on to this promise for her? what did...does...this say about you? about me? about what she hoped for? or expected of her son? of me....
there is a real sadness and a bitter taste to all of this: over and over and over: her work and hopes have been rejected. what did she do to achieve such a fate? such a 'karma'...as is said....
so, that day, I did not answer the "are you free tomorrow? " right away...I'm actually not. I have plans for the whole day. and then it will be a time, I suppose...a time before you'll try again. or I will try to accommodate again....silly really...I guess I'll just answer. but I think I'll send you this as well. this small story among all the short stories I have been writing for years now. a short and strange little story. one I do not understand. that has become more important than it needed to be...
this has become another story not-so-glorious about your mother. one I don't feel part of. in some odd way. she kept me away from the rest of her world so long ago: to protect her 'book'. she was so afraid that no one would want it. or read it. or believe her. so ironic: her fears came true. no one has wanted her perceptions of her work. no one has read it. no one has even come for her things. few even talk about her in connection with her beloved Big Mountain...her 'Survival Camp'...her 'SunDance' times...her times facing the Coal Barons...the Geneva Human Rights times...the 'Relocation' times...the 'Big Mountain Support Group' years. the almost two decades loving and praying and selling rugs and living as close to the Weaving Women and their families as she could: it's all as if it never happened....
I think I'll use my parts in the 'book' as material for other short stories. I am so enjoying writing again...the other words in this 'book' of hers are direct quotes, and will need to find their own lives. I cannot protect them any more. there is nothing to protect them for. not that I can see anyway....
I was never the villain here...not once....but I have failed my old friend in ways I cannot know. because no one has wanted our work...and silence has been the only response ever engendered... this 'book' lies among those bitter weeds that are the fate of most of the written word- so little reaches the readers desired. so few words are really read. fewer yet are read by many...even less are spoken-of well..and even less are remembered....
for some reason deep in me: I know I did my best and did well by this 'book' and by the promise I made to a woman long dead. so then: young man: try again. I will be here for awhile more. I will discharge this ancient promise when I must. when you can...do not forget tho: I kept a promise for over ten years. to your mother. she is reaching you through me. for whatever small reason. there must be something to this all. although: maybe: nothing at all. there is so little we can do to fulfill being human. kind. honest. trust-worthy. through your mother: I walk through the bitter weeds. pick up these simple and poor things. hand them over. over and over... and go on my way....
Post-script: The intellectual materials were finally given, in a box. to the 'son' in this piece...we had a 'good talk'...then nothing happened. nothing at all...really Nothing....bitter weeds: laugh with those eating bitter weeds....
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