a brag, a middle finger at those ghost moments that, when she was dying burned again through her mind so many years, her birthday a crucible enduring, unpopular outcast youth; beauty seeking wings, and made cruel she sang at Carnegie Hall with grit built in backwoods honed in bully-yards defiant in second hand clothes we…
Tag: tribute
Morning
Originally posted on Prairiepomes:
Joy comes in the morning. – Psalm 30:5 Morning was always Mom’s time. In the winter on the farm, morning would begin with the sound of her rattling the kitchen stove, stoking up the fire. We heated the house via a mixed-fuel furnace in the basement, whom, for reasons that live…
Boulevard Elm, after Robert Okaji’s Cedar Grove (after Wang Wei)
Originally posted on O at the Edges:
? Cedar Grove (after Wang Wei) I sit alone among the cedars, play my guitar and hum. In this dark forest no eye spies me but the moon’s. ? My take on Wang Wei’s “Bamboo Grove,” from this transliteration copied somewhere along the way: ? alone sit dark bamboo…
Night Journey (after Tu Fu)
Originally posted on O at the Edges:
Night Journey (after Tu Fu) Wind bends the grass along the road. A lonely truck passes by. Stars reach down to touch these hills and the moon drifts behind. No one will ever know my poems. I am too old and ill to work. Circling, floating, who am…
Spirit Mothering
I was 23 when I met my spirit mother. I’d buried my father and my older brother, gone to university, gotten put on probation, answered an ad that seemed the answer to my prayer for something meaningful to do with that year, some path that mattered. The path led to Mexico, to a teaching…
Gone to Starlight
She is gone from this place, another great woman. We loved her, as one loves a whirlwind. Lifted now into the sky realms, her path remains in our hearts, leads on into wilderness. There is so much more to say, but for now, farewell and love to the incomparable Elke Blodgett
Ten Things
You have filled my heart with greater joy. – Psalms 4:7 This simple statement has squirrelled round in my head all day, while I wondered what to write. Finally, I saw a photo of David Letterman, now old and bearded, like some unexpected hermit, and I’ve taken that as my way in. Dave, if you…
Reflection
A joy that’s shared is a joy made double. – John Ray What does it take for life to beat you to the point where you refuse to exhibit joy? What does it say about a society that it develops standards of maturity that include hiding your joy, tempering your interest, curbing your enthusiasm. Why…
Song of the Tiny Nun
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. – Mother Teresa Okay, Tiny Nun. What were you up to? Were you working, the whole time, not to make life better in Kolkata for the most pitiful ones, but rather, combing through them with your rakes of joy to glean enough souls…
Hallows: At the Thinning of the Veil
Read this while listening to Sting’s “Love is the 7th Wave” from 1985’s Dream of the Blue Turtles, which runs in my head as I write. (Megwetch, Mr. Sumner, for that&many more songs). at the edge of darkest season as the bright and ripe subside in rolling sober robes, november high above the city thermals…
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