gifts

saturday ends with a sunset just a tad earlier than previous weeks. transition. violet in the sky comes earlier. the coolness evening does not wait for moonrise. all these things i gladly welcome. the downslope of autumn, the inevitability of the test of cold, dark and barrenness lie ahead and i feel quite at home.

such feelings and sensory experience remind me of how precious the few abilities i have are worth – all things that i take for granted. the ability to visualize what others can't. i visualize too much, too often and at the wrong times so sometimes i try to stash them away. once in a while i am gifted with a good friend who reminds me of the worth of my gifts.

so again i will go to sleep and keep my wish to wake when the orange orb breaks the horizon...

before i woke

before i woke this morning, i had a dream of a good friend that i had not seen in a long time. it was a pleasant surprise. it was good to see her so i went looking for a way to express what i felt...

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

– George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

fluidity

i flow like liquid from places i've been
sometimes as nectar
sometimes as sewage

i float briefly like a lump of coal
surfing the surface of running magma
light as a moth and just as flammable

i fly like particles from places i've been
sometimes as ash
sometimes as smoke

i swirl and ascend like fleeing angels
tumbling upward in raging emotion
light as thought and just as fragile

i try to hold this fabric together
my time, my space, my breath
and will to wake when morning comes

(2006)

between fair and midland

thursday came and went with a soft grey backdrop. relatively uneventful. which is not bad nor good. there are moments when it seemed like one would want to push a moment one way or the other. being in the center can sometimes be an awkward thing especially when one is used to being left of center, i tend to be there.

it can be like having peace and then getting bored. the lust to do something to turn the situation is strong like the scent of carbon dioxide to a female mosquito. but today, i refrained...

one step closer

the sky reveals its grey lining for the first time this season. morning came cloaked in a dull 20% grey, accompanied by seagulls far from water with matching patches of pigment on their wings. they hover in the distance outside my bedroom window like monitors of a school hallway, ready to ask for passes.

the air is noticeable cooler, cool enough for me to partially close the window that has remained untouched and open for at least three months. soon there will be more moisture in the air, the dry smell of dust and exhaust will be replaced by the damp of trees bedding the ground beneath them with fallen leaves and broken twigs.

i look forward to the brilliance of organic decay made more luminous by the dull light and desaturated sky...

on the edge of something

laisse moi (2004)

leave me
leave me to these thoughts where one shouldn’t follow

this is not a medium for sentiment
not a place for a flat tire of the heart
no one will come to fix you

it is a moment of extreme
not a place to dredge up the once long ago
not a moment to feel the places where you have been

don’t say what you’d like
don’t do what might be normal, for you
this is the place where you find the green sign

don’t think of exit as a matter of leaving
it is just another opening
but this time it is on your own accord

make the best of what you can’t see
your history only haunts you when you are enemies
so lay your knife and open your heart
you only get to be this vulnerable once

fault line

late afternoon/early evening.

there is a fault line that threatens to shift. it runs vertical in between my shoulder blades and on the left of my spine. tension built up there during the night, probably from whatever dreams in the darkness that have found their way into the afternoon sunlight now growing gold and giving way to the eastern blue to lavender sky.

recalls from last night's dreams are only in fragments today. they are more unclear than previous days. their blurry imagery is accompanied by the dull pain in my sinus, like a left on water hose behind my right eye. perhaps being on the left side of my brain, this is a signal that i am thinking too much.

perhaps i should let go of the thinking, pull out my tarot cards and play with the universe.

monday's journal

"It is a little like an emotion that changes from despair into [accepting] inevitability and in doing so it tries to extract the most beauty out of what life there is..."

lundi matin

woke refreshed yet still wanting more sleep but did not give in because the feeling of wanting to do a lot today was stronger.

last night's dream was strange. i played the part of a protector of some woman i didn't even know. she was living in a trailer of some sort, like an airstream and the person who rented it to her had a trapdoor or peep hole in the floor of the thing. so i sat in the trailer waiting for the perp to try to poke through and whamm-OOO!!! i let him live. it was not a violent dream or anything but the emotions were intense. i woke up in a cold sweat. whoaa!!!

all fixed with a nice cup of green tea!!! (Camelia sinensis).

so it's hammer, duct tape and green tea that is in my survival kit for any situation...

air of autumn

the light streaming through the window in the morning is cooler today, a shade more of violet than the cerulean blue of summer.

if my nose wasn't plugged up from having a cold, i might guess that the air might smell differently. i know it would if i were out on the calm surface of lake sonoma on a canoe. i might go back there every week and watch the foliage slowly change. by late next month, i could find sienna, umber, ochre, scarlet and gold reflected on the dark still water on the warm springs creek arm. it would smell of dry bark, moss and lichen untouched by rain through the hot summer.

the coves would sound out the rustling of rodents collecting acorns, diving through inches of fallen leaves. the occasional caw of a crow. deep into the brush where the creek trickles into the lake there might be a great blue heron patiently waiting for the stray minnow. early in the morning and late in the day there will be sights of migratory birds stopping by.

lake sonoma is a waystation like crystal reservoir on the other side of the golden gate as thousands of winged travellers move south.

these things i miss, being stuck with drywall around me and asphalt beyond. there is no dirt beneath my toes...