true before you

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone
Rainer Maria Rilke

Image via We Heart It

deaf to the city

I  was going to write to you about my problems in the city. About the graffiti, the burglary, the pollution, the schools, and the fear of a cascadia subduction zone earthquake. I titled the post after Marie Claire Blais' novel Le Sourd dans la ville, a passionate narrative about the despair and innocence present in modern urban surroundings. I wrote a whole post about it all, read it over, and decided that it was too much complaining. People deal with so much in their lives, my complaints are minor and compared to others, sound like they come from a position of privilege.

So instead I can tell you about my dreams. I have a map out, and have circled a small town in Ontario, Canada. We are planning on traveling there in June. If we like it, and I think we will, our intention is to start planning to move. Tadzio is excited about the prospect of finally being able to spend his Canadian dollar. I would like to find something quieter with a better social safety net. I'll keep you posted as things develop.


Image via Olivert

often I am permitted to return to a meadow

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun's going down

whose secret we see in a children's game
of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.

-Robert Duncan

Photo via Shutter Sisters

when I see your quick face

The light foot hears you and the brightness begins
god-step at the margins of thought,
quick adulterous tread at the heart.
Who is it that goes there?
When I see your quick face
notes of an old music pace the air,
torso-reverberations of a Grecian lyre.

Opening of "A Poem Beginning with A Line By Pindar"
Robert Duncan

Image by Melody~s

It's good to be back. Keep swinging, I follow.

a perfect mess

 

Do you ever notice that after you go through a painful experience, something in you softens and slows down? This evening I find myself reflecting on the incidents of the past week and thinking that perhaps, in some ways, everything is perfect as it is.

photo found on Sula