Breath,breathing,all of us....To begin this Poetry Month

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.

Bach at its best

from what I heard this morning on the radio ,

A poem on how things begin...

On The Origins Of Things
by Troy Jollimore
Everyone knows that the moon started out as a renegade fragment of the sun, a solar flare that fled that hellish furnace and congealed into a flat frozen pond suspended between the planets. But did you know that anger began as music, played too often and too loudly by drunken performers at weddings and garden parties? Or that turtles evolved from knuckles, ice from tears, and darkness from misunderstanding? As for the dominant thesis regarding the origin of love, I abstain from comment, nor will I allow myself to address the idea that dance began as a kiss, that happiness was an accidental import from Spain, that the ancient game of jump-the-fire gave rise to politics. But I will confess that I began as an astronomer—a liking for bright flashes, vast distances, unreachable things, a hand stretched always toward the furthest limit— and that my longing for you has not taken me very far from that original desire to inscribe a comet's orbit around the walls of our city, to gently stroke the surface of the stars. I always thought that darkness evolved from misunderstandings and that a dance began as a kiss a and if you really like a person very much or even love them that it is good "to inscribe a comet's orbit around the walls of a city "

A great talent that is missed

over the weekend, i heard a radio show in memory of Nick Drake,who is greatly missed

A herd of deer,dusk,early Spring

In fondest memory of poet ,Robert Frost,Today his birthday

Oscar Piazzolla's Celebration of Spring

For the ecstatic and graceful spring!

Today,Bach's Birthday

On this first day of Spring ,what a better way to begin,Bach and Yo Yo Ma

Ahhh,The hopefulness of the first Snowdrops and Crocuses of Spring

Does time, as it passes, really destroy?
Part Two, Sonnet XXVII,by Rainer Mara Pilke

Does Time, as it passes, really destroy?
It may rip the fortress from its rock;
but can this heart, that belongs to God,
be torn from Him by circumstance?

Are we as fearfully fragile
as fate would have us believe?
Can we ever be severed
from childhood's deep promise?

Ah, the knowledge of impermanence
that haunts our days
is their very fragrance.

We in our striving think we should last forever,
but could we be used by the Divine
if we were not ephemeral?

In honor of Spring

Spring

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy?   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

The lushness of the language of Dylan Thomas for the Vernal Equinox 2011

REV. ELI JENKINS

Dear Gwalia! I know there are
Towns lovelier than ours,
And fairer hills and loftier far,
And groves more full of flowers,

And boskier woods more blithe with spring
And bright with birds' adorning,
And sweeter bards than I to sing
Their praise this beauteous morning.

By Cader Idris, tempest-torn,
Or Moel yr Wyddfa's glory,
Carnedd Llewelyn beauty born,
Plinlimmon old in story,

By mountains where King Arthur dreams,
By Penmaenmawr defiant,
Llaregyb Hill a molehill seems,
A pygmy to a giant.

By Sawdde, Senny, Dovey, Dee,
Edw, Eden, Aled, all,
Taff and Towy broad and free,
Llyfhant with its waterfall,

Claerwen, Cleddau, Dulais, Daw,
Ely, Gwili, Ogwr, Nedd,
Small is our River Dewi, Lord,
A baby on a rushy bed.

By Carreg Cennen, King of time,
Our Heron Head is only
A bit of stone with seaweed spread
Where gulls come to be lonely.


So lush, these words, for spring as it erupts forth in all its glory..."Boskier woods more blithe wit spring"

Fiddle and Dance

In honor of St. Paddy's Day

A wish for a daughter in the party ....of life

May they never be lonely at parties
Or wait for mail from people they haven't written
Or still in middle age ask God for favors
Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden.

May hatred be like a habit they never developed
And can't see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking.
If they forget themselves, may it be in music
Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking.

May they enter the coming century
Like swans under a bridge into enchantment
And take with them enough of this century
To assure their grandchildren it really happened.

May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
For some place else that they can never go back to.
And may they find themselves, as we have found them,
Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.

May they be themselves, long after we've stopped watching.
May they return from every kind of suffering
(Except the last, which doesn't bear repeating)
And be themselves again, both blessed and blessing.

"Prayer for Our Daughters" by Mark Jarman, from Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems. © Sarabande Books, 2011. Reprinted with permission.
This poem was posted on the Writer's Almanac yesterday.I am a daughter,am the mother of a daughter.One of our great fears in life for our daughters is that they "should not be alone at parties", those real parties that are social events or marathons or the grand yet complex party we call our lives.I especially like the part that says" if our daughters forget themselves ,may it be in music".I would add to that ,may our daughters sometimes forget themselves and the burdens they carry with themselves,so music,gardens and enchantment is plentiful and in their reach.
and the deepest wish of any parent for their child at all times in life,"And
may they find themselves,as we have found them,Complete at each stage of their live".
today and all days,this is my deepest wish for my daughter and all daughters.I thank the poet for expressing these heartfelt wishes.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

On the subject of inconsistency....me and my yoga practice

Of late, my world ,the world we live in feels so ungrounded. I seem to feel this way every spring as the churning and rebirth of living things abound in spring.This year, with even more reason, I am fretful,with forceful tsunamis,earthquakes, extreme bravery of fellow human beings,sometimes at the cost of human life  for  the sake of human rights,freedom from tyranny etc.On the bottom of this heap of turmoil ,my inconsequential world of yoga. I say inconsequential,but yoga gives me grounding,supports me through all sorts of turbulence in my daily trivial strivings. For months now, the usual place that I practice yoga with a good group of people,seems to be coming apart at the seams literally ,with fellow students moving on in different directions,leaving me sometimes practicing solo with a dedicated teacher.I recently was on a mini retreat of ashtanga yoga, mysore style with two wise,thoughtful,compassionate and seasoned teachers. The community of individuals I practiced with seemed  grounded and present in their practice. After a week of immersion of this feeling calm,groundedness,I come home and feel that nothing is stable,that all is in a constant state of flux.After a long period of feeling semi complacent in my practice,all feels like I am riding a stormy sea with crashing waves. I think,I have deluded myself in believing that somehow my practice of yoga would shield me from the natural phenomena of life's inevitable unpredictability, that somehow yoga would teach me greater secrets about being resilient,perhaps unflappable even..If anything of late, I am humbled, that my practice is only a mirror image of my human state of being and is only as stable and sustaining as I am. It is as impermanent,fleeting,and at times as undependable as I am....more lessons in humility.

A dying star lives on in his poetry

LITTLE COSMIC DUST POEM (1983)

 John Haines


   Out of the debris of dying stars,
   this rain of particles
   that waters the waste with brightness...

   The sea-wave of atoms hurrying home,
   collapse of the giant,
   unstable guest who cannot stay...

   The sun's heart reddens and expands,
   his mighty aspiration is lasting,
   as the shell of his substanace
   one day will be white with frost.

   In the radiant field of Orion
   great hordes of stars are forming,
   just as we see every night,
   fiery and faithful to the end.

   Out of the cold and fleeing dust
   that is never and always,
   the silence and waste to come...

   This arm, this hand,
   my voice, your face, this love.

In memory of the poet and homesteader of the Alaskan wilderness who passed on this week.

Apricots ...and Survival

The Very Nervous Family
by Sabrina Orah Mark


Mr. Horowitz clutches a bag of dried apricots to his chest. Although the sun is shining, there will probably be a storm. Electricity will be lost. Possibly forever. When this happens the very nervous family will be the last to starve. Because of the apricots. "Unless," says Mrs. Horowitz, "the authorities confiscate the apricots." Mr. Horowitz clutches the bag of dried apricots tighter. He should've bought two bags. One for the authorities and one for his very nervous family. Mrs. Horowitz would dead bolt the front door to keep the authorities out, but it is already bolted. Already dead. She doesn't like that phrase. Dead bolt. It reminds her of getting shot before you even have a chance to run. "Everyone should have at least a chance to run," says Mrs. Horowitz. "Don't you agree, Mr. Horowitz?" Mrs. Horowitz always refers to her husband as Mr. Horowitz should they ever one day become strangers to each other. Mr. Horowitz agrees. When the authorities come they should give the Horowitzs a chance to run before they shoot them for the apricots. Eli Horowitz, their very nervous son, rushes in with his knitting. "Do not rush," says Mr. Horowitz, "you will fall and you will die." Eli wanted ice skates for his birthday. "We are not a family who ice skates!" shouts Mrs. Horowitz. She is not angry. She is a mother who simply does not wish to outlive her only son. Mrs. Horowitz gathers her very nervous son up in her arms, and gently explains that families who ice skate become the ice they slip on. The cracks they fall through. The frost that bites them. "We have survived this long to become our own demise?" asks Mrs. Horowitz. "No," whispers Eli, "we have not." Mr. Horowitz removes one dried apricot from the bag and nervously begins to pet it when Mrs. Horowitz suddenly gasps. She thinks she may have forgotten to buy milk. Without milk they will choke on the apricots. Eli rushes to the freezer with his knitting. There is milk. The whole freezer is stuffed with milk. Eli removes a frozen half pint and glides it across the kitchen table. It is like the milk is skating. He wishes he were milk. Brave milk. He throws the half pint on the floor and stomps on it. Now the milk is crushed. Now the milk is dead. Now the Horowitzs are that much closer to choking. Mr. and Mrs. Horowitz are dumbfounded. Their very nervous son might be a maniac. He is eight. God is punishing them for being survivors. God has given them a maniac for a son. All they ask is that they not starve, and now their only son is killing milk. Who will marry their maniac? No one. Who will mother their grandchildren? There will be no grandchildren. All they ask is that there is something left of them when they are shot for the apricots, but now their only son is a maniac who will give them no grandchildren. Mr. Horowitz considers leaving Eli behind when he and Mrs. Horowitz run for their lives.