The Cracked Pot Fable & Ebb and Flow

This is one of my Morning Glories from last year. They're pitifully thin this year, I guess from the drought.


This cracked pot fable and the ebb and flow prayer have been on my mind all week. I tore my house up to find the Henri Nouwen book from which the ebb and flow prayer came, but I finally found it. I don't know, maybe someone needs to read it. It always lifts my spirits.


I'm hunkered down under the a/c trying to stay cool. The heat index here is 109 and it already feels like it. Even the locusts are singing with a slow southern drawl today in this heat and our family of raccoons who we usually only glimpse at night just now came to the back door to get a drink of fresh water from the gallon container I keep for the wild cats!! Stay cool, peeps........Blessings! ~Marion




The Cracked Pot


An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.


At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.


Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.


After 2 years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."


The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?"


"That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them."


"For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."


Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.


So, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell and enjoy the flowers on your side of the path.


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A Prayer to the God of Ebb and Flow
From: "Seeds of Hope" by Henri Nouwen, page 37


Dear Lord:


Today I thought of the words of Vincent Van Gogh, "It is true that there is an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea."


You are the sea.


Although I experience many ups and downs in my emotions and often feel great shifts and changes in my inner life, you remain the same. Your sameness is not the sameness of a rock, but the sameness of a faithful lover. Out of your love I came to life, by your love I am sustained, and to your love I am always called back. There are days of sadness and days of joy; there are feelings of guilt and feelings of gratitude; there are moments of failure and moments of success; but all of them are embraced by your unwavering love.


My only real temptation is to doubt your love, to think of myself as beyond the reach of your love, to remove myself from the healing radiance of your love. To do these things is to move into the darkness of despair.


O, Lord, sea of love and goodness, let me not fear too much the storms and winds of my daily life, and let me know that there is ebb and flow but that the sea remains the same. ~Amen~


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The Healing Power of Flowers

I got the most wonderful envelope of flower advertising from a plant nursery a few days ago and they just screamed for me to glue them into my art journal. So here they are with a few added words and twirls and ink. Summer fun!!!

***^***^***

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be

mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us." ~Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

A late cloudy afternoon and one of my backyard Moonflowers on the verge of unfurling. They only live one single night, by morning they are dead.


+++++


"A flower's appeal is in its contradictions - so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect." ~Adabella Radici

A set of silky, wrinkly Moonflower twins in my front yard around my dirty ironwork. They're so fragile, freshly opened with their delicate petals and heavenly scent. The scent is like a drug---I can't keep my nose out of them! They remind me of the sand dollars we used to find on the beach. I saw my first pink and black Sphinx Moths the night of the full moon but they were too elusive to be captured in photos. One even bumped my arm as if to push me out of the way on her way to the intoxicating Moonflower nectar.

+++++++

"I know that if odour were visible, as colour is,

I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds." ~Robert Bridges, "Testament of Beauty"

This flower blooms in a little globe (I forget the name!) but it's not an Allium. The last few afternoon rains got her to finally bloom for me this year!

My sassy, pink Pansies have really outdone themselves. I just can't pass one by without snapping a photo.

Sunflowers are nature's enigma. They bloom early with their bright yellow, smiling faces, then bend their heads as if sorrow is weighing them down. I had to change this one to black and white because it just fit better. Doesn't she look forlorn? But the happy part is that she makes seeds and feeds the birds even as she is drying and dying.....

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

"Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock." ~Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers: A Discourse of Flowers

Oh, the Zinnias, like rabbits they multiply! Just when I think they're done blooming, here comes another one in a color I've never seen before. These orange ones are blooming under the Sunflowers.

My backyard Zinna patch by my Tomatoes. They've been loaded with baby bumble bees ever since spring. Every spring I go to Dollar Tree and buy 10 packs of Zinnias for a dollar. So far, I've only planted 4 packs. I'm staggering them now every few weeks so I'll have their company until frost. I recently made a flower bed around my mailbox and mixed Zinnia seeds with Daisies and Purple Coneflowers. They're about 3 inches high. They'll make my mailman happy, bless his old heart. He told me the other day (when I have a package he honks the horn for me because he knows how I love my books and don't want to drive to the P.O. to pick them up) that I didn't look a day over 35. I told him I think he needs glasses. LOL!

"The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life." ~Jean Giraudoux

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Blessings, Peace & Happiness,

~*~Marion~*~

William Stafford, A Poet Who Inspires Me, Always

When I Met My Muse
By William Stafford


I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Just Thinking
By William Stafford


Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.


Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot—peace, you know.


Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.


This is what the whole thing is about.



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Waking at 3 a.m.
By William Stafford


Even in the cave of the night when you
wake and are free and lonely,
neglected by others, discarded, loved only
by what doesn't matter—even in that
big room no one can see,
you push with your eyes till forever
comes in its twisted figure eight
and lies down in your head.


You think water in the river;
you think slower than the tide in
the grain of the wood; you become
a secret storehouse that saves the country,
so open and foolish and empty.


You look over all that the darkness
ripples across. More than has ever
been found comforts you. You open your
eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
and as far as your thought can run.
A great snug wall goes around everything,
has always been there, will always
remain. It is a good world to be
lost in. It comforts you. It is
all right. And you sleep.



_____________________________

Tokin' With The Lord?

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." ~Hebrews 13:2

HEAVENLY HITCHHIKER OR TOKIN’ WITH THE LORD

“Honey, I’m home,” Ray called from the living room, slamming the front door shut. I was in the kitchen cooking a skillet of hamburger helper for supper.

“I picked up a hitchhiker on the way home. Do we have enough for one more?” (This was in the days before cell phones, waaaaay before cell phones.)

”Sure,” I hollered back, used to feeding strangers, since Ray never passed a hitchhiker, this being the 1970’s when it wasn’t as hazardous as it is now to pick up a stranger. I was a little bit perplexed, though, as I knew he had ridden the motorcycle to work that morning because our car was broke down waiting for a payday to get fixed and we did live in the middle of nowhere on Lake Bistineau, 25 miles from any town. Who in the world would hitch a ride on the back of a motorcycle?

I opened a can of English peas and poured them in a pot to heat on the back stove burner and popped some canned biscuits in the oven before going to see who our surprise guest was.

I walked into the living room, wiping my wet hands on a dish towel and there on my ratty, gold fuzzy garage sale couch sat Jesus. Well, he resembled Jesus. He was wearing a dingy white sheet tied at the waist with a cloth belt and had on a pair of plastic flip flops. His hair was long and ratted from blowing in the wind and he had a beard.

I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared, speechless.

“Hello, there,” he said, “I’m Jesus. You can wash my feet if you want to.”

Still temporarily mute, I couldn’t resist the urge to look down at his feet. They were filthy.

I said, “You’re welcome to use the bathroom if you want to take a shower, but I think I’ll pass on the foot washing.” He took me up on the shower and Ray gave him an old robe and boxers to wear while I washed his sheet/robe. I took the biscuits out of the oven, buttered them, and put an extra plate, knife and fork on the table.

While Jesus was showering I laughingly asked Ray where he had picked this one up. He replied, “You’re not going to believe this,” but I urged him on.

“I was passing that little Assembly of God church that’s on the main drag there in town and this guy comes running out of the church’s front door waving wildly. I pulled over to see if there was some problem and he jumped on back of my motorcycle and said, ‘Hit it, dude, hit it!’ so I did. He told me he was Jesus and that he had been in the church blessing the place when a secretary saw him and said she was going to call the cops and that was why he came running out so fast.”

“Ooookay”, I said, giggling.

Ray continued (and this is pure Ray): “I wanted to test him, you know, to see if he might really be Jesus, so I opened up the motorcycle on that straight stretch of highway by the horse farm with the white painted fences. I know I hit 100 mph and Jesus didn’t even blink or hold on! The only words he uttered when I slowed down a bit were, "Cool, dude!”

“Hmmm, maybe he really is Jesus if you couldn’t scare him,” I replied sarcastically.

When Jesus came out of the bathroom, his hair still wet (we didn’t have a hair dryer), he sat down and pulled out a little Bull Durham tobacco cloth bag with a string pull and some Zigzag cigarette rolling papers. “Would you guys care to share a doobie with me?” Ray and I looked at each other and fell out laughing like hyenas. Tokin’ with the Lord, yesssirrreeee. (I swear this is a true story. It is!!)

How could we say no? Who in their right mind would pass up the chance to even utter the sentence, ‘I got high with Jesus?' Not us! I mean, it was the 70’s and it was quite unsociable to refuse a toke, much like refusing a cocktail in the 50’s.

We partook (it was some righteous weed---sorry, I couldn’t help myself) and he urged us to put on some music. I asked if he had any preferences and he said, “Y’all got any Grand Funk Railroad”? I put on the album, Closer to Home and he said he loved “I’m You’re Captain,” so we entertained Jesus with a perfectly appropriate song seeing as who he was and all.

After that, all mellowed out, I suggested one of my favorite groups, Pink Floyd, and he said, “Wow, Groovy!”

I put “Dark Side of the Moon” on and we sat, rapt, falling into the music. To this day I can’t hear Pink Floyd without recalling our visit with Jesus.

When supper was ready, I called April from Mama’s across the street to come home and eat. But Jesus said he didn’t eat meat, so I made him two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He then proceeded to lecture us on the dangers of eating meat and killing cows and other of his helpless creatures. He chided us both for wearing leather belts and shoes. I really felt ashamed for a minute or two.

He slept peacefully on our couch that night. I went to get his robe/sheet out of the dryer the following morning and discovered that the dryer wasn’t working---his robe was still wet. He said, “That’s okay, I don’t mind,” and proceeded to put his wet sheet on, and get on back of our Suzuki in the cold, damp morning air. Ray took him back to town on his way to work and dropped him off at a 7-11 at this request. His robe was dry by the time they got there.

We learned several weeks later by way of a newspaper article that ‘Jesus’ was really the son of a wealthy family and he had run away from a psychiatric halfway home. I often wonder what became of him, if he still thinks he’s Jesus. If Jesus came back today, do you think he’d be locked up and considered crazy? Probably.

The synchronistic, funny thing is that several years later we began attending that same church, the little Assembly of God where Ray picked up hitchhiking Jesus. The pastor and his wife and a group of church members were sitting around talking one day and someone said, “Do y’all remember the time that crazy man dressed in a sheet ran through the church and like to have scared us all to death?”

Ray and I just looked at each other and winked....

Ode to Tomatoes - Pablo Neruda and Erica Jong, My Teachers

I wanted to write an ode to the Tomato, goddess of the garden, today after picking that blue bowl above almost full of them from my little garden, my first harvest. This is my first good crop of tomatoes in over 4 or 5 years, yes years! I don’t know why they did so well this year. It could be the four egg shells I put in the earth below each plant to ward off blossom drop, or it could be the saltwater spray I made and sprayed them with, which, according to my sister-in-law’s grandpa is a magic potion that both fertilizes and keeps bugs away.

Some have told me it’s because I planted Basil with my Tomatoes. I think the new soil and new spot may have helped because the old place I used to plant them had black spot disease in the soil. I like to attribute it to love and lots of water and good soil and me watering them, often, with my own salty tears.

I gave up writing my ode (well, I'll still write it, but later) when I remembered that the mighty poet, Pablo Neruda, had already written one and I could never touch the level of his genius. I also recalled that Erica Jong, whose writing turned me on to Neruda, loved to write about fruits and vegetables. It was her writing that taught me to write about the ‘ordinary’ things in my life.

So, humbly bowing in gratitude to these, my teachers, I post a quote by Ms. Jong, a site where many of her poems are posted which you can read at your leisure, and two beautiful masterpieces by Neruda, "Ode to Tomatoes" followed by his magnificent, untouchable "Poetry".


“If a woman wants to be a poet,
She must dwell in the house of the tomato.” ~Erica Jong, from ‘Fruits & Vegetables’


http://www.ericajong.com/poems/


Happy Summer to you all! Blessings, ~Marion





Ode To Tomatoes
By Pablo Neruda


The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like a tomato,
its juice runs
through the streets.
In December, unabated,
the tomato
invades the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes its ease
on countertops, among glasses,
butter dishes, blue salt cellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it: the knife sinks
into living flesh,
red viscera a cool
sun, profound, inexhaustible,
populates the salads of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we pour oil,
essential child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding of the day,
parsley hoists its flag,
potatoes bubble vigorously,
the aroma of the roast
knocks at the door, it's time!
come on! and, on
the table, at the midpoint of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile star, displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.


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I can't even think of Neruda without this poem coming into my head. I've probably posted it many times before, but I never tire of reading it. Enjoy!



POETRY
By Pablo Neruda


And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.


I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery, felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.


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Ars Poetica, Modern Sorcery and Song of the Builders---Poems I Love

I share with you three of my photographs and three of my favorite poems by Archibald MacLeish, Charles Simic and Mary Oliver. It's a lazy, hot Sunday here in drought-ridden, scorching Louisiana.

Even the exotic, black and yellow grasshopper came out for a drink of hose water this morning as I watered the drooping, brown flora and fauna, and I captured a photo of him! Wishing you cooling summer showers, peace, blessings, health and happiness. ~Marion~

ARS POETICA

By Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown -

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases,

twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

memory by memory the mind -

A poem should be motionless in time

as the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:

not true.

For all the history of grief

an empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love

the leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -

A poem should not mean

but be.

Modern Sorcery

By Charles Simic

You could have been just another maggot

squirming over history's roadkill.

Instead a witch took pity on you, lucky fellow,

made you say abracadabra, and much else

you didn't understand

while you held on to the hem of her skirt.

You know neither the place nor the hour

of your transfiguration.

A kitten lapping a drop of milk

fallen from the Blessed Virgin's breast

in a church at dawn. That's how it felt:

the two of you kneeling there.

Outside, there was a flash of lightning

like a tongue passed over a bloody knife,

but you were safe.

Hexed once and for all in her open arms,

giddy and tickled pink with her sorcery.

From: "Staying Alive, Real Poems for Unreal Times" edited by Neil Astley

Song of the Builders

By Mary Oliver

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope
it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

from: "Why I Wake Early" (2004)

Lucille Clifton, a Woman Who Knows

It's been a while since I posted some poems by my favorite poets, so I'll try to remedy that today. I picked up "Blessing the Boats" by the mighty Lucille Clifton early this morning and fell head over heels back in love with Ms. Clifton's amazing writing. She has no equal, in my humble opinion, and her sense of womanly knowing is phenomenally perfect. She's a survivor.

Here are a few of my favorite poems from this book, which is a delicious poetic feast. Buy it for yourself because you'll need to go back to it over and over again! It's heart-healing, soul-stirring and life-affirming. You'll see---

Blessings, Love & Peace, ~Marion

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PRAISE SONG
By Lucille Clifton

to my aunt blanche
who rolled from grass to driveway
into the street one sunday morning.
i was ten. i had never seen
a human woman hurl her basketball
of a body into the traffic of the world.
Praise to the drivers who stopped in time.
Praise to the faith with which she rose
after some moments then slowly walked
sighing back to her family.
Praise to the arms which understood
little or nothing of what it meant
but welcomed her in without judgment,
accepting it all like children might,
like God.

*******

1994
by Lucille Clifton

i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when a thumb of ice
stamped itself hard near my heart

you have your own story
you know about the fears the tears
the scar of disbelief

you know that the saddest lies
are the ones we tell ourselves
you know how dangerous it is

to be born with breasts
you know how dangerous it is
to wear dark skin

i was leaving my fifty-eighth year
when i woke into the winter
of a cold and mortal body

thin icicles hanging off
the one mad nipple weeping

have we not been good children
did we not inherit the earth

but you must know all about this
from your own shivering life

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

hag riding
By Lucille Clifton

why
is what i ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in me
still trying to get home
after all these years
but when i wake to the heat of morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A Little Federico Lorca, A Little Naomi Nye

Dragonflies swarm me every time I go outside lately, fighting each other to have their picture taken. This green one posed the longest, so he won. I share a couple of poems I love below.

Peace, Blessings, Love and Poetry to You All----Marion, fighting the blues.....

Excerpt From: "Morning"
by Federico Garcia Lorca



"...The morning is bright
Smoke rises from hearths
and lifts the fog in its arms.

Listen to the ballads
water sings under the poplars:
they are wingless birds
lost in the grass!


Trees that sing
dry out and fall;
tranquil mountains
age into plains.
But the song of water
is a thing eternal.

It is light made song
of romantic illusions
It is soft yet firm,
full of sky and gentle.

It is mist and rose
of eternal morning.
Moon-honey that flows
from buried stars....."



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You Know Who You Are
By Naomi Shihab Nye

Why do your poems comfort me, I ask myself.
Because they are upright, like straight-backed chairs.
I can sit in them and study the world as if it too
were simple and upright.


Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words
and not one of them can save me.
Your poems come in like a raft, logs tied together,
they float.
I want to tell you about the afternoon
I floated on your poems
all the way from Durango Street to Broadway.


Fathers were paddling on the river with their small sons.
Three Mexican boys chased each other outside the library.
Everyone seemed to have some task, some occupation,
while I wandered uselessly in the streets I claim to love.

Suddenly I felt the precise body of your poems beneath me,
like a raft, I felt words as something portable again,
a cup, a newspaper, a pin.
Everything happening had a light around it,
not the light of Catholic miracles,
the blunt light of a Saturday afternoon.
Light in a world that rushes forward with us or without us.
I wanted to stop and gather up the blocks behind me
in this light, but it doesn't work.
You keep walking, lifting one foot, then the other,
saying, "This is what I need to remember"
and then hoping you can.

What I Been Up To The Past Few Weeks

I'm so happy, happy, happy to have my computer back up and running as of today! Hooray! My hanging baskets are overflowering with the Pansies and Begonias I planted in them in early Spring. My yard is exploding with bright, vivid, vibrant colors. Along the fence, my yellow Daylilies are blooming like there's no tomorrow. Tee-Hee. Which there isn't if you're a Daylily.

'The whole of life lies in the verb seeing." ~Teilhard De Chardin

This past weekend we went to the annual Melrose Plantation Arts & Crafts Festival near Natchitoches.

http://www.caneriverheritage.org/main_file.php/melrose.php/

(Kelly, Pammy & Quid, it's close to where we stayed along Cane River last year.) This beautiful lady is Ms. Alma, a retired school teacher from Minden, Louisiana who is a fabulous primitive artist. We bought one of her paintings of an angel with a dove on her shoulder. She was kind enough to pose for me and tell me how her friend made that amazing dress for her although she did the intricate handwork herself. We lived a few years in Minden and she may have taught one of my daughters. She had a joie de vivre like no one I've met in a long time. I really admired her for wearing that period costume because it got into the mid-90's by noon!



One of my favorite parts of the festival is re-visiting the magnificent old trees which provide much appreciated shade. If this one could talk, I'm sure it would sprout stories as numerous as its leaves!


This is a partial shot of the front of the plantation. That's Taylor, April and Ray posing for me. I always forget to get a pic of myself. Ha-Ha!


I acquired a new kitten last week. This is Romeo (see the cool little soul-patch on this chin) hanging with Cody. The very day April gave him to me, he immediately took to Cody. God bless that dog. Surely, he was a cat in a past life. He just loves kittens and they worship him right back. Romeo has no tail---well, it's a nub of a tail. He's a bobtailed cat. I named him Romeo because the minute I picked him up at April's house, he began purring very loudly and shamelessly flirting with me. She wouldn't let me have him, but later changed her mind and brought him to my house. Just what I need, another cat!

One of my showy Sunflowers. They're almost bloomed out now, but I'm planting more seeds today. We planted an Orange tree a few weeks ago and it already has tiny oranges on it. I hope it survives. I've been babying it and giving it lots of water, compost and love.

The snowy, tiny, white Yarrow flower with it's feathery green leaves. One of my favorite herbs to grow. I made my own Yarrow sticks for practicing the I Ching one year. Yarrow flowers have long, sturdy stems.

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware---joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware." ~Henry Miller

And I leave you with a photo of April's latest work of art. It's a large painting of her sitting with pages from her favorite books and comic art (Emily the Strange) decoupaged onto the canvas. She's so talented! See you all again soon. I've got to go read blogs now and get caught up!!!

Hugs, Blessings and Love,

~Marion

"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair." ~Walker Percy

***

"Why tell animals living in the water to drink?"

--West African Proverb

A Poem to Revive Your Heart, by Lisel Mueller, an Amazing Poet

Oh, my dear, sweet friends, how I miss you all! I'm still not up and running at home. Due to my lack of patience and horrible menopausal temper, I've hung up three times after being on hold with AT&T for hours trying to get to someone in tech support with half a brain. Sigh. Frustration----If I can't get it running this week, I'm going to call a computer friend and pay him to help me get it fixed. Sigh. It's always something. Last week the refrigerator went out, wouldn't cool at all.....Not the freezer part, but the refrigerator. We called our trusty appliance repairman who fixed it for $130, much less that a new frig would have cost. But now it's freezing our milk! Oy!

But, once again, poetry came to my rescue. I found a set of four discs of poetry at the library last week read by the poets and came across this poem which I'd read years ago and, in fact, own the book it's from, "Alive Together" by Lisel Mueller which I highly recommend. Every poem in it is heart-rending and soul-stirring. As soon as I heard it I wanted to run and share it with y'all! I cry every time I re-read it!!!

I had an epiphany that my poet/blogger friends are a rare and treasured lifeline. All my life I've only known a handful of people who even tolerated poetry, much less lived, breathed, read and wrote it! But being away for a while has made me realize how precious you have all become to me and how your own poetry has awakened me, soothed me, enlightened me, slapped me in the face, inspired me, and just plain kept me going many days! Thank you all for sharing your hearts and souls with me.

I read all the comments and appreciate them all and thank you for them. Greetings to those of you who are new and please come back. I'm usually around much more often and will be back again soon!

I didn't know before reading this poem that the artist, Monet, did have eye problems and how it affected his art. This poem is a true blending of art and poetry. Read it slowly and enjoy! Hugs, Blessings and Love to you all!! ~Marion



Monet Refuses The Operation
by Lisel Mueller


Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris and
what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life to
arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon does
not exist and sky and water,
long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom, the
illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolves
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world is
flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water, above
and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms and
how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

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