Tag: words

window with 10 words [ 2+ ]

 

WINDOW

 

we are

ancient

primitive

still

afraid

always hungry

gods everywhere

 

moderately desperate dreams cleaning up broken glass not quite belonging lost-not-lost between woods tall grass a narrow uphill logging road between blindness-not-blindness able-not-able come morning a raven chased by raucous crows

 

Insuette

IMG_6155

For hours maybe minutes all night

dreaming I cannot sleep

find the word Insuette written

on wallpaper, wanting to be taken.

At 4:52 I get up. Through the window

bamboo chimes, night shadows and a moonlit chair.

Insuette. Her heart so far adrift I must call back

the swimming dog, search for a boat I will never find.

Soft-minded, hesitant and out of step

I expect nothing from the morning

think the dull silver light all wrong

but am mistaken. A rabbit waits. Insuette.

The thing about words

Earlier today I posted a quote and link to J.H. White’s invitation to join an experiment in exploring the Collective Unconscious.

While listening to her short audio clip I made a note. In the process, uncertain about a word, I scratched out the first attempt, listened again and then wrote, “The need to know and the need to say, obscure truth.”

The thing is, despite listening more than once and focusing on what was being said – I still got it wrong. The statement is actually, “The need to know and the need to save, obscure truth.”

Maybe I should be embarrassed, but instead I’m fascinated. Both interpretations work and are interconnected yet the meanings are very different. What I see is my distrust of words in conveying truth. I value and appreciate words but am also wary of them.

I saw the “need to say” both as creation of concept and as a need for ownership and identification. Impediments to truth. The need to save is an entirely different cautionary note. In this case does save mean, keep from danger? Or does it mean to “hold”? In any case it is treating truth as an object or something fixed.

Truth. The Collective Unconscious. Echoes. And the Poetry of Light. Thanks J.H. White.

(check out my earlier post for links)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things happen

Feathers fallen

 

This isn’t the next poem about “crow’s change”. I may get to that in the coming days. Crow’s change is written around a crow’s mysterious death and my interpretation and attention to it. I discovered crow one morning on the trail, found a place on the edge of the woods, set him in the moss and twigs and gathered him into my thoughts.

Yesterday there was suggestion of greater change and this morning it was done.

Often when walking, I write or voice-record thoughts on my do-everything-phone. The voice records are usually quite accurate but there are times when single or even groups of words are altered that change the meaning entirely. This isn’t a problem because I just need an idea of what I was thinking. I haven’t used the voice recorder for a long time. Today I wrote a number of things… and for some reason switched to record for a last, important fragment and realization.

Every word was correct, except one. The word “eagle” was dropped and replaced by another.

 

This morning

the ego waited for me to come;

lifted off the tree,

dropped the remains

so that I would know.

 

 

Inhale

I have to stop writing long enough to get below this surface scratch. Last night I kept waking up to words forming in the darkness. Isolate words hanging on thin strands. That’s what I kept saying to myself.

This morning I was back to counting breaths on the frozen trail. Minus twenty with windchill. The older gentleman who lives at the trailhead was on the road and asked if I saw many rabbit tracks. No. But a big red fox on the ice.

Just before Christmas I picked up a hitchhiker. He wore black ceremonial pants, carried three bags of laundry and spoke of his people. He was going to the bank to cash his food allowance cheque. For thirty minutes in a clear, casual voice he spoke and I listened. One story after another. He told me more than I could write. Though I tried. And tried. Until I stopped.

 

Love not this world

We buy our eggs from a Mennonite family who live on the Loch Broom Loop. At the end of their driveway by the mailbox there are two signs. One is always the same. Brown Eggs for Sale (No Sunday Sales). The other changes regularly for reasons I don’t know. Sometimes I imagine it may reflect someone’s mood. Fearful and foreboding. Hopeful and inspiring. Stern. Forgiving.

Lately the sign has said, LOVE NOT THIS WORLD.

Arranging these lines I almost step on a small, spotted frog. Glistening gem in the wet grass. The other day I almost did the same to a snake. Writing in my head. Walking blind. Startled awake.

I know and understand the sign. It’s common to many religions and spiritual paths. The problem is, I really like the world. Hell, I’d go so far as to say I love it. There are thousands, maybe millions of minnows in the fishway this morning. My approach scares off a pair of kingfishers.