Basho and Kyoto

Prayer flags, 2015

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hearing the cuckoo,

even in Kyoto

I long for Kyoto.

                                      ~Basho

~*~*~*~*~*~

These ten words flay me down to my very bones every single time I've ever read them.  I sit...a shell, broken open, bleeding, sad, weeping, aching, burning, longing...for...?????  If you've ever thought that you needed an abundance of words to say something, then come back and consider these ten words.  

They mortally wound, then heal, equally.  How is that possible?  

xo,

Marion, shattered---yet

If you've never seen photos of Kyoto, then search online.  It's a wonder...a feast for the eyes and spirit---

 

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