where is the center?
always moving–
I can’t locate
the pivot
always moving–
the place of stillness,
the pivot
of this labyrinth
stillness
retracing
this labyrinth
emerging
retracing
beginning
emerging
expanding
to begin,
I relocate–
expanding
the center
For Earthweal, where Ingrid asks us to consider our labyrinthine times.
Why must we always quantify? 4, 3, 10. Add, subtract, multiply. Divide.
My prose poem, Aggregated, based on a painting by Hilma af Klint, was among those selected as a finalist in The Ekphrastic Review Women Artists contest. You can read the entire poem and see all the finalists here. The three winning selections are here.
also linking to dVerse OLN
“Ecosystems are so similar to human societies—they’re built on relationships. The stronger they are, the more resilient the system.”—Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree
we keep dividing
designating
a hierarchy
to pull what we share
apart
and so each
of us is missing
parts
each of us is
incomplete
why do we cling
to our separation
our isolation
who we think we are
alone?
the foundation
is faltering
and still
we hold
on
collapsing
into
the deep
hole
of ourselves
During a presentation Suzanne Simard made, early in her career, about her research into the interrelationships between trees and other species in the forest, and how all were necessary in order for the forest to thrive, she mentioned also the threat to climate from disrupting these systems. “Climate change means nothing in Canada” one of the audience said afterwards.
For earthweal.
Life is difficult.
Well of course it is. Easy is monotonous. Uncomplicated is boring.
What is possible must first be imagined.
Am I looking for the Land of Milk and Honey? Am I waiting for my Ship to Come In? Do I yearn for Promised Lands? Do I search for the Pots of Gold at the Ends of Rainbows?
Do I ask to be One of The Chosen Few?
No. I do not.
Weep at the world.
I am too busy.
Sharpening my oyster knife, so to speak.
Calling to the ocean, sailing on its moontides, seeking kinship on its shore. Culling only what still contains life, nourishment.
Cutting through the shiny exterior. Prying open the closed doors.
To see. What has been kept from me.
Secret, hidden, suppressed, denied.
A pearl or a grain of sand?
You can’t have one without the other.
Jade at dVerse has provided a quote from Zora Neale Hurston from “How Does it Feel to be Colored Me” in World Tomorrow for this week’s prosery: No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
Indeed she was.
these names that have lost their origins
names that have lost their sounds
that have lost their meanings
lost meanings without references
without words words that once rolled off
the tongue rolled off the tongue
immense with meaning
with meaning now lost now
untranslatable immense and untranslatable
these names without meaning
these names belonging nowhere
belonging nowhere to no one to no one
at all invisible undernourished
undernourished and withered into invisibility
without a way a way to put sounds together
sounds that together form words
words that become names
these names that are lost
these names without scripts
without scripts or context without
the context of language a language
of mirrors mirrors now empty
mirrors that yield no answers
answers to questions questions
without context how and what and where
and why are they lost and where did they go
who knows the names the names the names
the names that have lost their meaning
For dVerse, where Bjorn has us chanting,
I am still waiting for clarity–
sometimes I think about
the things I can’t see
and I wonder how
to place them inside my mind–
Out of the dark and still
I am dreaming of colors
liquid currents of sound
moving in all directions
between the gaps–
Do our visions swim
cataracted with refractions–
flooding the invisible
barriers of the portals
into our eyes?
As I told Phil, this week’s Kick-About prompt, fundus photography, was made for my watercolor mandalas. First, photographing the inner eye naturally makes for roundness, and the liquid state calls for watercolor to represent it.
I did 4 watercolors and embroidered on 2 of them. If I exaggerated the colors a bit, well, my eye often does the same.
I discovered who my local prolific serenader is. Of course the Oracle knew already.
always digging deeper–
roots that grow below, restore–
listening through decay beyond stillness,
a place that is neither
dark nor light, yet full, aware,
gathered germinating into witness,
distilled light casting words
that linger as counterpart–
revealing mysteries in all that is
held on the wings of birds,
circulated through the heart,
absorbed into the spiraling axis
It’s poet’s choice of form at Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, and how could I resist a syllabic form called “kerf”? I meant this also to be for the earthweal challenge this week, earthcraft, but obviously did not finish it in time.
Once again, art from the archives.
The same foolishness
everywhere. We talk over
each other, repeat
words until they are erased.
The lines become solid form.
We can’t see either
forest or trees. We respond
without listening.
The same actions, recast,
broken up, taken down. Angry
outlines drawn like guns.
Hanging over cliffs, waiting.
Holding on, out, back.
We banish heart, soul. Burning
every single bridge. Drowning.
Early in my blogging life, on memadtwo, I did a series of paintings titled what is it good for? Then I did some embroideries titled war is not healthy (for children and other living things). Unfortunately, it’s (always) (still) relevant. Even in my city (mostly) young men are killing and being killed every day by gang and turf wars that are little more than macho posturing. And of course, as in every war, civilians are merely collateral damage.
Three linked tankas for Colleen’s #TankaTuesday with synonyms for life and move.
I do not wander
randomly but I
also do not follow
a map. Unlocated, I
listen, I look. The Earth
claims me, returns me
with her favor. I
cannot name all
the colors, nor sing all
the songs she has nested
in my heart. They are
unmeasurable, eternal.
For earthweal, fierce love.
