Slow Dance by Matthew Dickman

This is one of the most popular poems on my blog.  I posted it in 2010, so this is a worthy repost.  It's a magical poem.

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SLOW DANCE
By Matthew Dickman

More than putting another man on the moon, 
more than a New Year’s resolution of yogurt and yoga, 
we need the opportunity to dance 
with really exquisite strangers. A slow dance 
between the couch and dinning room table, at the end 
of the party, while the person we love has gone 
to bring the car around 
because it’s begun to rain and would break their heart 
if any part of us got wet. A slow dance 
to bring the evening home, to knock it out of the park. Two people 
rocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant. 
A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey. 
It’s a little like cheating. Your head resting 
on his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck. 
Your hands along her spine. Her hips 
unfolding like a cotton napkin 
and you begin to think about how all the stars in the sky 
are dead. The my body 
is talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody, 
Stairway to Heaven, power-chord slow dance. All my life 
I’ve made mistakes. Small 
and cruel. I made my plans. 
I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine. 
The slow dance doesn’t care. It’s all kindness like children 
before they turn four. Like being held in the arms 
of my brother. The slow dance of siblings. 
Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him, 
one of my great loves, he is absolutely human, 
and when he turns to dip me 
or I step on his foot because we are both leading, 
I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer. 
The slow dance of what’s to come 
and the slow dance of insomnia 
pouring across the floor like bath water. 
When the woman I’m sleeping with 
stands naked in the bathroom, 
brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit 
into the sink. There is no one to save us 
because there is no need to be saved. 
I’ve hurt you. I’ve loved you. I’ve mowed 
the front yard. When the stranger wearing a shear white dress 
covered in a million beads 
comes toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life, 
I take her hand in mine. I spin her out 
and bring her in. This is the almond grove 
in the dark slow dance. 
It is what we should be doing right now. Scraping 
for joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutan slow dance.

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I love this guy's poetry.  I own his book and each and every poem is amazing.  And guess what?  His twin brother, Michael, is a poet also!  I have his book, "The End of the West" and it's also a fabulous book of poems. Imagine being able to share poetry-love with your brother?  It must be amazing...

How to Kill a Living Thing

How to Kill a Living Thing

Neglect it
Criticize it to its face
Say how it kills the light
Traps all the rubbish
Bores you with its green

Continually
Harden your heart
Then
Cut it down close
To the root as possible

Forget it
For a week or a month
Return with an axe
Split it with one blow
Insert a stone

To keep the wound wide open.

—Eibhlín Nic Eochaidh

Quietness By Rumi

Full winter moon...

Quietness

By Rumi

Inside this new love, die.

Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky.

Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

You are covered with thick cloud.

Slide out the side. Die,

and be quiet. 

Quietness is the surest sign

that you have died.

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

 

The speechless full moon

comes out now. 

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Conch by Olav H. Hauge

Conch shell on a beach...

CONCH
By Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robert Bly

You build a house for your soul,
and wander proudly
in starlight
with the house on your back,
like a snail.
When danger is near,
you crawl inside
and are safe
behind your hard
shell.

And when you are no more,
the house will
live on,
a testament
to your soul's beauty.
And the sea of your loneliness
will sing deep
inside.

From:  "The Dream We Carry" by Olav H. Hauge

I'm growing my wings, slowly.

I found this poem just in time.  It gave me what I needed to stay alive today.  And that's enough...

xo,

Marion

Basho and Kyoto

Prayer flags, 2015

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Hearing the cuckoo,

even in Kyoto

I long for Kyoto.

                                      ~Basho

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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

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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.

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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.