Time...in constant flux, a river...

And the days are not full enough
Ezra Pound

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
       Not shaking the grass

New prayer flags...because life goes on---

Mother Nature's Surprise & Robert Frost

Dust of Snow

BY ROBERT FROST

The way a crow 

Shook down on me 

The dust of snow 

From a hemlock tree 

Has given my heart 

A change of mood 

And saved some part 

Of a day I had rued.

~*~

I awoke to a dusting of snow, a rare event here in the deep South, especially so early in Winter, but magical just the same.  I immediately thought of my favorite, old faithful Robert Frost poems.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
By Wallace Stevens

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

From:  "Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens" by Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1954

~*~*~*~

~*~*~*~*~

I have no words.

More Loss, 2017 - Year of LOSS - RIP Sophie-Cat

The Universe/God is tearing me open & emptying me out this year---heart, mind and soul---for some reason.  I do not know why.  

First I lost my husband due to domestic violence & Meth (divorce), then my alpha-cat, Catfish, had to be put down because of an ongoing severe kidney condition a month or so ago.  Today, my precious, kind, gorgeous, green-eyed 20 year old Sophie had a horrible seizure and a stroke and couldn't walk.  I had to have her put down at noon. I couldn't watch her suffer any more or keep her here for my selfish love. I am heartbroken and in shock.  So much loss!!!  My animals have become my family, my friends and my healers...

She was my comforter cat who slept cuddled under my arm and who would come and lick the tears from my face when I cried.  I already miss her supremely.  It won't really hit me until a few days from now when her loss become a presence like Catfish's did.  

Having pets is about love and loss.  I have so many Sophie stories, though.  I'm going to write them down today so I won't forget.  When she was younger, she liked to climb very tall trees and get stuck in them...chasing squirrels.  Twice we had to call tree services to come get her out of a Pine and a Sweet Gum tree.  The first time, the guy took off his shoes and literally shimmied up a Sweet Gum tree barefooted to the TOP, grabbed Sophie and shimmied down.  I wish I'd have had a movie of it, but it was before cell phones.  It was a thing of beauty, the way he climbed that tree.  Then Sophie bit him.  :-)   She was a mean bitch when she wanted to be...the alpha female.

Earlier this morning, I read Tao, Chapter 11, about emptiness.  I guess it was karmic.  RIP, my precious friend, Sophie.  

My beautiful girl, Sophie, who gave me JOY & LAUGHTER for 21 years.  

Sophie, my comforter, is in cat heaven with her many cat-relatives.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tao - 11

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

~*~

Gorgeous Queen Sophie, crossed the Rainbow Bridge today.  

Before Dark by Wendell Berry

Kingfisher in flight, from: Mike Lane Wildlife Photography

Before Dark

by Wendell Berry

From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have been made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away

as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.

The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him

—at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.

“Before Dark” by Wendell Berry from Collected Poems.

Elegy by Linda Pastan

My witch balls, reflecting Autumn...

Elegy

by Linda Pastan

Our final dogwood leans
over the forest floor

offering berries
to the birds, the squirrels.

It’s a relic
of the days when dogwoods

flourished—creamy lace in April,
spilled milk in May—

their beauty delicate
but commonplace.

When I took for granted
that the world would remain

as it was, and I
would remain with it.

“Elegy” by Linda Pastan from Insomnia. 

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

Some beautiful trees on my block, photographed last Autumn.  Trees are masters of letting go...

In Blackwater Woods By Mary Oliver, from "American Primitive" Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Song of the Witches by William Shakespeare

From:  "Amy Brown's Fairies". The time of fairies is upon us...

Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble”

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(from Macbeth)

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn and caldron bubble. 

Fillet of a fenny snake, 

In the caldron boil and bake; 

Eye of newt and toe of frog, 

Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn and caldron bubble. 

Cool it with a baboon's blood, 

Then the charm is firm and good.

Macbeth: IV.i 10-19; 35-38

A little tree frog near my patio last summer.

October page on an old Mary Englebreit calendar. Quote by Abraham Lincoln. :-)

This Moment by Eavan Boland

Window from  Pinterest

THIS MOMENT

By Eavan Boland

A neighborhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.

“This Moment” by Eavan Boland from In a Time of Violence. © Norton, 1994. 

__________

Prayers for the family & friends of those in Las Vegas who lost their lives or were injured.  God help us all... xo

With Mercy for the Greedy by Anne Sexton

With Mercy For The Greedy by Anne Sexton

for my friend Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confession

Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose --

I pray to its shadow,
that gray place
where it lies on your letter ... deep, deep.
I detest my sins and I try to believe
in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face,
its solid neck, its brown sleep.

True. There is
a beautiful Jesus.
He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef.
How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in!
How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes!
But I can't. Need is not quite belief.

All morning long
I have worn
your cross, hung with package string around my throat.
It tapped me lightly as a child's heart might,
tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born.
Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote.

My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue's wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.

--------------------

I am reading about nonduality.  (How could Jesus dying brutally, violently, cruelly by crucifixion have such an impact on bringing love, mercy and forgiveness into the world?  A paradox, no?)  How have I not ever studied duality/nonduality before?  I came across the subject in an amazing, 138 page book that Little Flower gave me, "you are here" by Thich Nhat Hahn.  She bookmarked the chapter, "Healing Our Wounds and Pain".  Indeed. It continually surprises & astounds me, page after page.  Some books we are meant to read exactly when we are supposed to read them.  This is one for me.  xo

I Do Not Write Poetry by Carol Carpenter

Datura Moonflower's birth...

I Do Not Write Poetry

By Carol Carpenter

it writes me
into the blue-black center
of my birth back then
when I slid head first
into sterile white with no words
for my life pushed into that mid-afternoon
glare of Detroit time clocked in and out
at the Ford Body and Assembly Plant
and ticked off by the White Castle
belly-buster burgers slammed one after the other
onto the greasy grill and patted flat by the slender cook
who knew her blank-verse days ended Sundays
in the Temple Baptist church on Woodward,
the main drag for the ‘43 Ford V8 DeLuxe coupes
revving up and running lights too red
after the world war I read about in poems
without rhyme
and later, words
slapped me flat as a White Castle
when poetry sizzled blue in my mouth
dribbled onto pages of my life
and wrote me into a simile
as if I could puzzle out
my birth and death rites
and scrawl poems in between.

----------------------

Happy first day of Autumn!  You'd never know it here in the sweltering, humid swamp, but I have spotted a few red leaves fallen from the trash trees.  The hummingbirds are fewer as are the dragonflies, but butterflies are everywhere, covering my Zinnias and Gerbera Daisies.

May Autumn bring us all peace of mind and an absence of pain...

xo,
Marion

When Someone Deeply Listens to You by John Fox

Summer, you started out beautifully...pink!

When Someone Deeply Listens To You
by John Fox

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.

When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered.

When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ~Henri Nouwen

____________________

This poem is for my new friend, Little Flower, who has one of the purest, kindest, most compassionate souls of anyone I've ever met.  In my time of deepest need, she was not only present with me, but also spoke beautiful, healing words to me and listens to me weekly, never judging me.  She is a survivor, a wounded healer and an angel.  

Do someone/anyone a favor this week and deeply listen to them.  It's life-changing to have someone listen to you with empathy and compassion, not interrupting or judging.  

Blessings and Peace, 
Marion

Moths by Eavan Boland

Pink Sphinx Moth, 2007.  My once in a lifetime shot.

MOTHS

By Eavan Boland

Tonight the air smells of cut grass.

Apples rust on the branches.  Already summer is

a place mislaid between expectation and memory.

This has been a summer for moths.

Their moment of truth comes well after dark.

Then they reveal themselves at our window-

ledges and sills as a pinpoint.  A glimmer.

The books I look up about them are full of legends:

ghost-swift moths with their dancing assemblies at dusk.

Their courtship swarms.  How some kinds may steer by the moon.

The moon is up.  The back windows are wide open.

Mid-July fills the neighborhood.  I stand by the hedge.

Once again they are near the windowsill---

fluttering past the fuscia and the lavender,

which is knee-high, and too blue to warn them

they will fall down without knowing how

or why what they steered by became, suddenly,

what they crackled and burned around.  They will perish---

I am perishing---on the edge and at the threshold of

the moment all nature fears and tends towards:

the stealing of the light.  Ingenious facsimile.

And the kitchen bulb which beckons them makes

my child’s shadow longer than my own.

From:  “New Collected Poems” by Eavan Boland, pages 220, 221

___________________

My life is discombobulated and not by a hurricane, but by divorce & domestic violence.  My heart goes out to the people in Texas and Florida who have experienced Mother Nature's wild forces.  I pray for you all to come through this as better people, realizing that life is not about stuff, but about, well, life.  It's what I pray for myself, also.  xo, Marion

On Joy and Sorrow by Khalil Gibran

On Joy and Sorrow

Kahlil Gibran, from "The Prophet"


Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

___________________

all that by Charles Bukowski

all that

by Charles Bukowski

the only things I remember about
New York City
in the summer
are the fire escapes
and how the people go
out on the fire escapes
in the evening
when the sun is setting
on the other side
of the buildings
and some stretch out
and sleep there
while others sit quietly
where it’s cool.

and on many
of the window sills
sit pots of geraniums or
planters filled with red
geraniums
and the half-dressed people
rest there
on the fire escapes
and there are
red geraniums
everywhere.

this is really
something to see rather
than to talk about.

it’s like a great colorful
and surprising painting
not hanging anywhere
else.

“all that” by Charles Bukowski from Open All Night. 

Life Slips By...

And The Days Are Not Full Enough by Ezra Pound

And the days are not full enough

And the nights are not full enough

And life slips by like a field mouse

Not shaking the grass

The Scaffolding Inside You

The Scaffolding Inside You
By Olena Kalytiak Davis

Your thoughts have hung themselves from nails
like workshirts.

The sky has stopped
offering you reasons to live and your heart is the rock
you threw through each window
of what's deserted you, so you turn
to the burnt out building inside you: the scaffolding
overhead, the fallen beams,
the unsound framework;

according to the blue that's printed on the inside of your arms
you have no plans, no plans
uncovered, or uncovering: the offing is emptying,

the horizon empty

now that your sanity is
a tarp or a bedsheet
in the rough hands of the wind,

now that everything is hooded
in drop cloth.

It didn't happen
overnight. Or maybe it did:

your heart, the rock;
your soul, the Gothic barn.

You've even started envying the flowers their stems.

Will the Norther let up?

Will the moon ever again be so full of itself
that that ragged barn will fill with light, through its tin-covered roof?

You should bury more than the dead.
You should try harder.

You should give up.

From:  "And Her Soul Out of Nothing"

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Never think tomorrow will ever remotely resemble today...

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