In Defense of Marriage by Olena Kalytiak Davis

My favorite book of Ms. Davis's poetry...

IN DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE
By Olena Kalytiak Davis

Marry the black horse stuck
Dumb in her humble corral. 

Marry the white fences; marry the fenceless 
Moon and the defenseless sky. 

Marry the feedlot and the threshing
floor. Like the northern heaven to the southern

stars, marry the kitchen table, its three strong
legs. Marry the gate and the small intricate

cuts on the key and the view spreading 
out back. The street lamp

weds the morning light, like that, take the 
Nomad. Promise to forsake. Give in

to the cistern full of asters. 
To the way the beloved

story goes: her body from a bone.
And her soul out of nothing.

In a slowly spoiling month find out 
you have married the house worn 

blue on the yellowing hill: each of its
slow budding bedrooms. Marry one or two

or three varieties of light, in three or four
different lifetimes. I meant, windows. 

Mate, be forsaken. 

I married the way moths marry. 
I married hard.

Tobacco Moth, drinking Moonflowers nectar.

This is a mystery:

Mark 10:6-8

"But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. "

In the Fields of Time by Mahvash Mossaed

I am moon; you are sun.  Colored by Marion.

IN THE FIELDS OF TIME
By Mahvash Mossaed

Walking on an eggshell,
With a piece of cloud on a string as my kite.
I am going nowhere, lost in the fields of time.
Running around, looking for a good wind.

I have a body which will not last me long.
I have a soul which wants to come out and fly.
And I know when I go back where I came from,
when I go back home, God will be there waiting for me.

But for now I will fly my soul like a piece of a cloud,
or like a kite, while I am running around in the fields of time.

~π~π~π~π~

I succeeded in getting up this morning.  Now, to make it through another lonely day.  The flowers need watering and the cats need to be fed.  There's that... 

~π~π~π~π~

"As we do at such times
I turned on my automatic pilot
and went through the motions of normalcy on the outside,
so that I could concentrate all my powers
on surviving the near-mortal wound inside." 
                       ~ Sonia Johnson

~π~π~π~π~

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain." 
                       ~Carl Jung 

~π~π~π~π~

Life is suffering. ~Buddha

~π~π~π~π~

Psalm 126:5, 6 - "5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

Summer Solstice - 2018 - Mary Oliver

Indeed, indeed...

Zinnia, pure magic...

The Summer Day

By Mary Oliver

 

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~×~×~×~×~

What, indeed???  

Aren't we all?????

Hope - Emily Dickinson

My new hanging baskets

.

My favorite pair of shoes...I'm dying to write on the lined one.

 "Weirdness is only weird if you fight it." ~ Tomlinson, Doc Ford book series by Randy Wayne White.  My favorite quote.

Candy Rose (custom Blythe doll) in her hippie outfit made by Florance Simpson (in Canada) Mizzfitzdolls at Etsy.  Miniature book by Lady Delaney (LDelaney at Etsy) in New Orleans, an amazing, beautiful miniaturist artist.

~×~×~×~×~×~

Hope is the thing with feathers - (314)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

~×~×~×~

Please say a prayer for me...I am so depressed, sad, broken & confused. xo

Got Them Transcendental Blues

Luna, a painting by my husband, Ray...  Original by Oleg Zhivetin

Transcendental Blues 
(Steve Earle)

In the darkest hour of the longest night
If it was in my power I'd step into the light
Candles on the alter, penny in your shoe
Walk upon the water — transcendental blues

Happy ever after 'til the day you die
Careful what you ask for, you don't know 'til you try
Hands are in your pockets, starin' at your shoes
Wishin' you could stop it — transcendental blues

If I had it my way, everything would change
Out here on this highway the rules are still the same
Back roads never carry you where you want 'em to
They leave you standin' there with them ol' transcendental blues

~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Steve Earle singing this song:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=icaBLF2U9FI

Shade by Yada Chimako

Moonlady, tangled in trees...

Nashville Buddha

Tada Chimako (1930 - 2003) was one of the most important female poets of contemporary Japan.  During her life, she published eight volumes of essays and thirteen volumes of poetry.  She is also the author of one volume of poetry in English translation, "Moonstone Woman", compiled while she was poet-in-residence at Oakland University in 1986.  She died of cancer in early 2003.  Jeffrey Angles, (translator) recently completed his Ph.D. in modern Japanese literature and is currently working on a book of translations of Ms. Tada's poetry.



Shade
By Tada Chimako

A dark elephant
living in a dark forest
came to sip from a pond
as the Buddha watched

A dark elephant
from a dark forest
has come to the pond
and sipped
the trembling vision
of the Moon.

A dark deer
from a dark forest
also came to sip from the pond.

The deer has also sipped
the vision of the moon.

The Buddha leaned over
and scooped up the moon in his palm.

I too will sip
if it will illuminate my heart
just a little.

More than two thousand years
after the Buddha's death
His remains have been divided endlessly
only imaginary numbers can count
the tiles atop the reliquary pagodas
that stretch into the sky
three stories, five stories, seven stories...

As a person of brightness
living now in a town of light,
to which pond will you go
to sip when overcome by night?
When you scoop up the water
what vision of the moon
will you find in your palm?

I too will sip
if it will shade my heart
just a little.

**********************************

Dried Roses from my Rose garden...

Longing & Grief, A Paradox

Your heart was my home & you left, stealing my home---I grieve

~×~×~×~×~

Though I am in Kyoto

I long for Kyoto---

Song of the nightbird.

                                        ~Basho

~×~×~×~×~

Leaving is Not Enough - Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

Leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. Train your heart
like a dog. Change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. You lucky, lucky girl.
You have an apartment
just your size. A bathtub
full of tea. A heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. Don’t wish away
your cracked past, your crooked
toes; your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought
because the vendor was so
compelling you just
had to have them. You had
to have him. And you did.
And now you pull down
the bridge between your houses.
You make him call before
he visits. You take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. Make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. Place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
Don’t lose too much weight.
Stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. And you
are not stupid. You loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. Heart
like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas.
Heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.

By Marty McConnell

~×~×~×~

Wow... 

Inessential Things by Brian Patten

My lap kitty, Garfield.

My only male cat left.  He's very protective of me.

Inessential Things

What do cats remember of days?
They remember the ways in from the cold,
The warmest spot, the place of food.
They remember the places of pain, their enemies,
the irritation of birds, the warm fumes of the soil,
the usefulness of dust.
They remember the creak of a bed, the sound
of their owner´s footsteps,
the taste of fish, the loveliness of cream.
Cats remember what is essential of days.
Letting all other memories go as of no worth
they sleep sounder than we,
whose hearts break remembering so many
inessential things. 

© Brian Patten

My beautiful Little Debbie, Garfield's sister.

Sweet Darkness By David Whyte

How can a year go by so swiftly? An ocean of tears, total aloneness, naked fear, unbearable loss, stress and constant pain.  Healing?  Not yet, maybe never.  Sweet darkness, indeed. 

An old collage I made in another lifetime ---

~×~×~×~×~

Sweet Darkness
By David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:

the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

From: "The House of Belonging" - page 23

Moonflower, my fragrant friend, fellow lover of darkness---