Life Gets in the Way

My sister sent me this.  So, so me.  :-)

 

 

Our cat, Tigger, had to be put to sleep about a month ago.  She was almost 20 years old and developed kidney failure, but we were ready for her to go, knowing her age and not wanting her to suffer.  I miss her little tippy-toeing around the house.  She was a real lady, always polite and sweet.

 

The same week, my special/favorite black cat, Gir, vanished into thin air.  He's been missing for 3 weeks now.  He's 8 years old and totally crazy/insane.  That's why we named him after an alien from the kids cartoon, "Invader Zim".  The character, Gir, is an alien in a dog suit.  I told my husband that Gir (who loved to fly...clamber onto the roof and LEAP onto fence posts) just went back to his home planet with Zim.  It's the strangest thing.  We put out hundreds of flyers, offered a reward, talked to every neighbor in our small neighborhood, walked miles through the local woods and put notices on the animal shelter sites and local stores.  Nothing.  No body, no cat, no Gir.  Like I said, it's like he vanished into thin air. 

 

I tell myself that he went to cat heaven to be with Tigger.  Only Gir didn't like Tigger and they often bitch-slapped each other.  Tee-hee.  I guess we'll never know what happened to him.  It hurts my heart to even think of him suffering and dying.  I hope he sprouted wings and just flew on to cat heaven.

 

Pets give us so much joy, but they also break our hearts into tiny little pieces.  My other cats keep looking for him and Tigger.  I only hope there are butterflies and dragonflies where Gir is because he loved to leap into the air and chase them.  The poor baby never caught one, but he sure had fun trying.

 

xo,

Marion

 

Gir, whose ears were too big, teeth too long, tail too long and claws like Velcro that stuck into everything he touched.  I miss you, crazy kitty.

 

 

Jubilate Agno, Fragment B,

[For I will consider my Cat Gir]

(Apologies to Christopher Smart for changing Jeoffry's name throughout to Gir....  ~Marion)

 

For I will consider my Cat Gir.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily 

serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he

worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round

with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God

upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to

consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be 

interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having considered God and himself he will

consider his neighbor.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary. 
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin

and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in

goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will

he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in

the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the

Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the Louisiana Cats are the best in America.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defense is an instance of the love of God

to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest. 
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion. 
For he is of the Lord’s poor, and so indeed is he called by 

benevolence perpetually--Poor Gir!  the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Gir is better. 
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain

it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what

it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can sit up with gravity, which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick, which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection. 
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Icneumon rat, very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the electrical fire is the spiritual substance which 

God sends from heaven to sustain the 
            bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, though he can fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more

than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

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Rest in peace, my beloved, sweet, one-of-a-kind friend.  I miss you.  :-(

Birds and Bees by Faith Shearin

 

BIRDS AND BEES
By Faith Shearin

When my daughter starts asking I realize
I don't know which, if any, birds
have penises. I can't picture how swans

do it. I'm even confused about bees:
that fat queen and her neurotic workers,
her children grown in cells. I'm worried

by turtles and snakes: their parts hidden
in places I have never seen. How do they
undress? Long ago, awash in college

boyfriends, I knew a little about sex.
I understood the dances and calls,
the pretty plumage. Now, I am as ignorant

as a child. We have gone to the library
to find books though I know sex
is too wild for words. The desire to be

kissed is the desire to live forever
in the mouth of pleasure. My God
I can never tell my daughter the truth.

It is a secret the way spring is a secret,
buried in February's fields. It is a secret
the way babies are a secret: hidden

by skin or egg, their bodies made of darkness.

"Birds and Bees" by Faith Shearin from "Moving the Piano".

Some Peep Humor

 

When in doubt, laugh.

 

 

The cops picked up some other chicks, but they weren't her peeps.

An Embarrassment by Wendell Berry & The Hinge of Spring by Kay Ryan

 

A few Spring-ly girls from my Willow Tree angel collection.   Not that we have many actual flowers yet.  Our Winter has been so 'real' this year(!) that not even my Azaleas are blooming.  We had four or five snows and a few ice storms (totally unheard of in the 25 years I've lived here).  The best part of that weather is we also have no mosquitoes yet...or snakes.  Yea! They're usually swarming/slitering by this late in March. 

 

But I did see my first Hummingbirds yesterday.  My cat, Garfield, was in the window and his ears starting twitching wildly.  I looked outside and saw two Hummingbirds buzzing the empty feeder.  I had to fill it for them.  They're early by a few weeks, usually arriving the first week of April.  I hope Spring has sprung where you are.

 

I heard these poems on NPR's Writer's Almanac last week and they both just resonated in my heart, like a bell rung with a crystal clear, cleansing tone, washing my soul and lifting my spirit.  I hope you enjoy them.  The second one, "The Hinge" by Kay Ryan, is no less important than the first, IMO.  xo

 

_______________________

 

 

An Embarrassment

by Wendell Berry

"Do you want to ask
the blessing?"

"No. If you do,
go ahead."

He went ahead:
his prayer dressed up

in Sunday clothes
rose a few feet

and dropped with a soft
thump.

If a lonely soul
did ever cry out

in company its true
outcry to God,

it would be as though
at a sedate party
a man suddenly
removed his clothes

and took his wife
passionately into his arms.

"An Embarrassment" by Wendell Berry from Leavings

 

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

 

Hey, again,

 

Long time, no see! as my sweet Aunt Mace used to say.  I've been in full Winter mode the past month, reading the "Game of Thrones" books and I fell off the face of the earth into Winterfeld and surrounding regions.  I've seen a few seasons of the HBO series, but, of course, the books are always better.  (I need a tee-shirt with that on it.)  My oldest daughter gave me a boxed set of five of the books in the series...over 4,000 pages of adventure, intrigue, romance, life, love, death, mystery, ghosts, and all points in between.  There's nothing better than an intriguing, well-written series.  You know when you finish one book that there are more waiting.  A book-slut such as myself's dream.

 

Since Spring is virtually here I thought I should crawl out of my cave, shower (ha! ha!) and post a few poems.  I've also been reading lots of the poets Charles Wright and Wendell Berry.  I have several of their books and dove into them feet first.  They're equally amazing poets, in different ways, of course.

 

I've only read Kay Ryan in anthologies, but I love her writing.  I plan to look up some of her books at the library.

 

My pain levels have been off the charts with this schizo weather...freezing one day, humid rain the next, so I've been walking trying to reduce the pain and bitching, bitching, bitching...which really does help...a lot!!  I freaking hate taking medications for it because all it does is mask the pain, but c'est la vie, right?

 

Happy Reading,

Marion

 

 

THE HINGE OF SPRING

by Kay Ryan
 

The jackrabbit is a mild herbivore
grazing the desert floor,
quietly abridging spring,
eating the color off everything
rampant-height or lower.

Rabbits are one of the things
coyotes are for. One quick scream,
a few quick thumps,
and a whole little area
shoots up blue and orange clumps.

"The Hinge of Spring" by Kay Ryan from The Best of It: New and Selected Poems.

 

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

 

 

 

"The Best of It" by Kay Ryan

 

 

Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot

BURNT NORTON by T. S. Eliot (No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')

I  Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                              But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
                        Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

II  Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

   At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
                                          Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

III  Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.   

   Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.

IV  Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?   

   Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

V  Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.   

   The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

=============================

Read the entire "Four Quartets".  It's worth every single minute.  I hide with my nose in piles of books of poetry waiting for spring to come.  She's late this year and I miss her early arrival, all dressed up in lace, flowers, pink and raindrops.

xo,
Marion

Charles Wright, Extraordinary Poet

Got a used first edition in perfect shape.  Thank God for used books.

 

As often happens with magnificent poetry, I wanted to burn everything I'd written after reading this book, especially the title poem, "Buffalo Yoga".  Holy, holy, holy.  Thank you, Erin (you were so right about this poem...should be read aloud), for introducing me to this poet.  There is no joy better than discovering a new poet, especially through a friend.  I owe you one.  :-)

 

 

 

My good book karma continues with this book which I got in the mail today.  I ordered a used copy from Amazon and ended up with a pristeen, AUTOGRAPHED copy of this book.  I laugh because this happens all the time...it's part of the mystique of buying used books.  You never know what you'll get: love notes, autographs, photographs, bookmarks, more notes...I love them all.

 

I can only say this today:  READ CHARLES WRIGHT's POETRY!

 

I tried and tried to pick out a poem to share, but I couldn't make up my mind.  "Buffalo Yoga" is a long, delicious poem and I couldn't break out a piece no more than I can cut a piece of the sky.  So I looked around and found this slice of a poem from his poem titled, "Polaroids".  Of course, I was immediately drawn to the dragonfly imagery in the last verse...  Enjoy.

 

xo,

Marion

 

=============================

 

From:  POLAROIDS by Charles Wright

 

The lapis lazuli dragonflies

                                             of postbelief, rising and falling near
The broken slab wood steps, now one by one, now in pairs,
Are not the dragonflies of death with their blue-black eyes.
These are the tiny ones, the stems, the phosphorescent,
Rising and falling like drowned playthings.
They come and they disappear. They come back and they disappear.

Horizon-hump of pine bristles on end toward the south,
Breath-stealer, cloudless drop cloth
Of sky,
             the great meadow beneath like a mirror face down in the earth,
Accepting nothing, giving it back.
We’ll go, as Mandelstam tells us, into a growing numbness of time,
Insoluble, as long as landscape, as indistinct.

==============================

*Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (1891 - 1938) was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets.


Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Chasing the moon, 2009

 

 

INVICTUS
By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.
 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.
 

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

 

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

 

 

Spring is arriving late this year to the swamps. I let all of my precious potted plants die, so I'll be starting anew with fresh everything come Spring.  Thank God for seeds.  No flowers or blooms yet, only a few brave weeds. 

 

xo,

Marion

 

 

 Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

 

 

Notes on the Art of Poetry by Dylan Thomas

Illustration from Pinterest.  Me.

 

================

 

Notes on the Art of Poetry

by Dylan Thomas

 

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.   -------------------------------    

I Love Learning New Words

The Snowfall Is So Silent by Miguel de Unamuno

from Pinterest

 

 

Today our snow is melting.  I'll miss it, but it was fun while it lasted...

 

 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

 

 

 

The Snowfall Is So Silent

by Miguel de Unamuno                                
translated by Robert Bly                        

The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless; 
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls, 
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off 
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness 
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

==========================