midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core

-Yeats "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

We are leaving for Vancouver Island, Canada for a last bit of summer.

When we get back it will be time rid the house of all of the sand that seems to keep appearing in our beds, put on scratchy school uniforms, rent instruments, and get serious about a few projects.


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Calling all you hungry hearts

Last night we went looking for ghosts. We walked through the forest with softly glowing lanterns, singing this poem.

Calling out to hungry hearts.
Everywhere through endless time.
You who wander you who thirst.
I offer you this heart of mine.
Calling all you hungry spirits.
Everywhere through endless time.
Calling all you hungry hearts
All the lost and left behind
Gather round and share this meal
Your joy and sorrow
I make it mine.

We passed by trees and watched as closely as air. We were there as part of a local Jizo-bon festiival. Jizo is the guardian of children and the patron of all beings caught in the uncertainties of life's transitions. The festival is traditionally held in the third week of August, shortly after Obon. It is a festival for children. The ghost-seeking came after dinner, cookies, and a puppet show.

We found a few ghosts, hiding there in that spooky forest. Tadzio even took one by the hand and led it away. I was terribly proud of him. He is still only a four-year-old, and the ghost he found looked a bit like it was out of a Butoh performance. It was hiding in the brush with tangled hair and ghost-white face, shrieking and huffing. Przemek and I both found ourselves thinking of the experimental theater of Jerzy Grotowski.

I counted six ghosts total. Part of the festival is to give the poor creatures some relief from their suffering. You find them and feed them and try to bring them back to the temple. If you think of them as a psychological rather than a physical state, hungry ghosts might be thought of as people with addictions, compulsions and obsessions. Greed and jealousy lead to a life as a hungry ghost.

We finished the night with fireworks. This morning we had breakfast together and studied last night's lantern, musing over our interesting and magical night. I can't say I was entirely comfortable with it, but I liked the poetry and I would do it again.

Calling all you hungry hearts
All the lost and left behind
Gather round and share this meal
Your joy and sorrow
I make it mine.

Images by Spring Night plus here and here.

into the grass

In my family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

Go back two generations and the names and lives of our forebears vanish into the grass. All we could get out of mother was that her grandmother had met her grandfather at a lumber mill; and sometimes in my father's expansive histories his father died an early death shortly after abandoning the family.

Sometimes I'm not sure if they actually said these things, or if these are stories that I have told myself. The only certainty is that I come from a set of storytellers.

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make my heart sing sing

 
Oh, sheer blue oxygen, in perfect calmness, you create
These forms, and make
My heart sing, sing
Of the thin moon, sing of the summer fragrance.

-Excerpt from Fragrant Summer by Zheng Danyi.

I hope you are enjoying these last few weeks of summer. Keep dreaming, I'll be reading your poetry.

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Nikolai Kuzmitch

 
"Nikolai Kuzmitch," he said benevolently, and imagined himself sitting without the fur coat, thin and shabby on the horsehair sofa; "I do hope, Nikolai Kuzmitch," he said, "that you won't get a swelled head from your new fortune..."

In fact, he didn't make any changes in his modest, regular way of life, and he now spent his Sundays putting his accounts in order. But after a few weeks it became obvious that he was spending an incredible amount. I will have to economize, he thought. He got up earlier, he washed his face less thoroughly, he drank his tea standing up, he ran to the office and arrived much too early. He saved a little time everywhere. But when Sunday came around, there was nothing left of all this saving. The he realized that he had been duped.


And one ugly afternoon, he sat down in the corner of the sofa, waiting for the gentleman in the fur coat, from whom he meant to demand his time back. He would bolt the door and not let him out until he had forked over the whole amount. "In bills," he would say, "of ten years, if you don't mind." Four bills of ten and one of five, and the rest he could keep and go to hell with.


Ranier Maria Rilke The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

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child in red

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

Excerpt from "Child in Red" by Rilke

Photo by Nikaa

I've seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence

And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that
They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense
In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear
She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without
It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when
You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of
A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets
So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds
With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter
About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on
The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp
I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry
If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire
So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them
To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you

Excerpt from "In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden" by Matthea Harvey

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It is a simple garment, this slipped on world

We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair -
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast;
from dusk to dawn.

from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.

Jane Hirshfield "The Task" from the October Palace
Image via Sabino