seeing

Staring into horizonless blue

I can easily see deep into the past and far into the future.  The present is a dream suspended between.

changes in attitude...

I was all set to have one kind of a day.  Moping around, filling my ears with Brandy Carlilse.  But then the sun got warm and in an inspired instant I switched over to the Jimmy Buffet station -- a little Eagles, and Skynyrd (but don't be hatin' on Neil Young), some racin' anticipation and suddenly it's a different world.  Gonna roast some pork, devil some eggs and maybe eat some cheese from a can (just kidding, we don't do that except for real special occasions) ... and I finally figured out what to do with this pile of limes.

songs from the road

A couple of young girls went
Sailing down A1A
Into the arms of Florida
Sailing down a highway
Singing their heads off
Protected by the holy ghosts
Flying in the ocean
Driving with their eyes closed

The night wants to kiss you deep
And be on his way
Pretend he don't know you the very next day
Isn't it hard sometimes
Isn't it lonely?
How I still hang around here
And there's nothing to hold me

You slide down into the seat
From twelve hours on your feet
And get the tide to wash you away
For thousands and thousands of days
And someone you never meet
Signs a check you get every week
You try and you still can't forget
All the strangers that you have met

The night never owed you nothing anyway
Makes promises that he never intends to keep every day
Isn't it hard sometimes
Isn't lonely?
How I still hang around here
And there's nothing to hold me

Every time, every year
The travelers come and go
You see them landing with their pale wings
And flying back to the snow
And the summer comes marching in
With his heavy boots on
Kicking along the blacktop
Sidewalks of A1A
The young girls in their bare feet
Cigarettes smoking
Looking every which way
Wishing and hoping

And you want the night just to let you sleep
And be on his way
Wrap you up in some cool sheets
And have nothing to say

Isn't hard sometimes
Isn't it lonely?
How I still hang around here
And there's nothing to hold me
--Patty Griffin

every song is a love song

"Love Is Making It's Way Back Home" from Erez Horovitz on Vimeo.

How it was made -- here.

revelations

temporal traces...

 

pond III

floating trees

lullaby

hypnotique

Loie, ou non...

pond II

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond.

It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,

the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen.

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live

your life.

--Mary Oliver, Mornings at Blackwater

sometimes

Yesterday I walked through the early morning and thought this:

sometimes
feeling the cool air on my skin
is enough

Later I wanted to run but somehow found myself at the library.  I was looking for Robert Bly but found Mary Oliver.  This morning I opened the book in the middle and there were these words:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

I turned the pages backward to read the title:  "Sometimes"

Sometimes the messages are clear, if not loud.

love notes

Almost late winter limbs are collectors.  Thick branches cradling heavy snow, thin stems laden with beads gathered from the low cloud -- and the snow below becoming honeycombed as water grows heavy with its own weight until it must let go.

 

Pretty sure I can't write a love note that doesn't mention trees.

...and the color of snow covered fields is just different from the fading gray of the mid-February twilight.  Spare but holding its own against the drama of the black and soaked trees. 

lullabye

Guess I'll lay my head against my elbow and the window 
Let my wheels go, let my wheels go...

pond

one more

still under the spell.

don't move an inch

listen for a singing

hitting in your bones like they were forts

if you hear what I hear

don't just sit there

we are only strumming water

on this most unlikely court

you got blown shore to shore

not quite sailing

riding on the trade winds of age

things blow in

don't just cast them

say it now, what you want to stay

I was once on a long boat

star mapping the night routes

lightening the load

just in case

but things float in to be taken

if you don't know by now what will stay

so don't move an inch

don't move a single second

until the shade behind your thoughts is not confused

because I felt your inch

I know the scent as well as any

clot in your guard

and all paints or pollen

brick in your mortar

petals to soaking

on the cracks

thicker or finer

milk in your water

black in your primer

wood in your brush

now I am your cloth

whatever you want

the best is upon us

its a finicky muse 

with only potential

to choose

to choose

out on a school night

... no, not tonight, but it has taken me a couple of days to catch up.

With a few or more hundred of our closest friends for a lovesound fest ... the last song of the encore was performed unplugged and down from the stage after we were all magically persuaded to sit on the floor of the music hall.  It went something like this:

...banjo, upright bass, trumpet, squeezebox and killer harmony ... so quiet.  It blew me -- very. far. away.

a riddle*

my editor's current favorite:

What is the difference between roast beef and pea soup?


*Thanks Grandpa for this and all other gems!

perspective

 

Snow came just in time to save me from a stale mood.  It wasn't heavy but it was nowhere near light either and it clung to every surface, cemented by its own irresolution between freezing and not.  Do I mean the mood, or the snow...?  Overall it didn't create a dramatic shift -- only a subtle change in light, a little more contrast, a little more color than has been visible against the blue or gray.

I don't know what word the eskimos have for snow that clingsandmeltsandfreezesagain to make jewels that hang from leaves but I'd like to.  

moon song

Time go easy on me tonight

'cause I'm one of the lost sheep alright

Take what you must, take what you must

Of what I've lost as I have roamed

Let the moon follow me home

bluestrees study