"Let Us Gather at This River" Performance with Marie Dunkle improvising original music at The Mountain Heritage Center, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, N.C., January 19, 2012
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Movie: Poetry Reading at the Chattooga River, November 26, 2011
Poetry Reading at the Chattooga River, NE Georgia, November 26, 2011, sponsored by Georgia Forest Watch. Original poetry by Laurence Holden and original music by Marie Dunkle on fiddle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L00ulNuxhRs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L00ulNuxhRs
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 5, 2010
OF DAFFODILS AND WINTER WORK
"...one might be walking in the forest and come across a patch of daffodils in bloom. This, she said, would likely mark an old homestead, where a woman, seeking to brighten her family's life, would have planted some bulbs. Since daffodils can live 100 years, they could well be the only visible reminder that someone once lived there." This quote from Marie Mellinger, a local friend wrote me on reading my poem "Will You Be The One?" and being reminded of one of Marie's springtime newspaper columns from back in the late 1980's.
Yes, the daffodils have bloomed. Here along the northern foot of Rainy Mountain they only bloomed a few days ago. Let me say it again because it sounds so nice - the daffodils have bloomed! - such good mouth fun to say!
It has been a long, cold winter this year here in the Southern Appalachians. During this winter a poem I wrote in September,"What's Needed," unexpectedly became prophetic and a daily mantra for me:
WHAT'S NEEDED
What's needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where silvered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
This winter there was almost nothing foreseen, and a lot of not knowing. The poem stayed with me all winter as a kind of hope.
Wise friends counseled me to go slow, to take in the winter, and there to listen and let germinate. So the paintings and the poems grew slowly, uncertainly, and often not at all. Their shapes shifted from day to day, as if drifting in a cold mountain mist. But nothing was foreseen. It was a long winter.
On those cold days, somber winter colors drew my gaze deeper and deeper into the greyed landscape to catch only the ephemeral scent of some richer color. Hiding beneath the mauves I began to see, or only imagined, the purples, and sunk beneath the ruddy ochres the yellows, and beneath the burnt siennas the reds. These were almost just a sliver of memory, and perhaps only an imaginative hope of re-conjuring of them.
The paintings and poems came slowly like that too. At times I wondered, in a kind of sadness, if there would ever be any more. But there were. If I had only payed more attention to the springs up on the mountain, which continued all winter to bubble up from old root ways and make wandering passages through the rimes of ice. Then I would have known they would come:
"Winter Wall," oil on paper:
"Candlemas" oil on paper:
"Wall Stead - in Heorot," 2010, oil on paper:
And then, curiously, near the end of winter, just as bright green shoots of daffodils broke ground, old left off with paintings, flush with summer colors, caught my eye with renewed promise:
"Summer Mountain,: 2007-2010, oil on wood panel
53 1/2"h. x 75"w. x 1 3/4" d.:
"St. Molin's Well," 2007-2010, oil on wood panel,
40"h, x 40"w. x 1 3/4" d.:
:
And then the poems unlocked themselves:
IMAGINE A GARDEN MADE
Imagine a garden made
not grown. Stakes first
driven into the ground
should do for roots.
Then lattice strips
and papery leaves
stapled to the fret of this
painted green in advance.
No need of water or time.
Braces added later
will hold up the higher fruit -
tennis balls on strings
might do.
Addendum:
Imagine a life made
not grown. Ideas first
driven into dreams
should do first for principles.
Then a geomancy
of facts and figures,
nailed to cross timbers
of thoughts, indexed and sorted
by a thesaurus of death.
No need of spirit or heart.
Theologies added later
will prop up desire -
dogmas and litanies
in ledgers might do.
HE ASKED IF EVER
(a variation on some last lines by W.S. Merwin)
My hands
greasy with paint
he asked
how can you ever
be sure what you paint
is any good
at all.
I am old
and grimy with the oil
and rags and bones
of my heart.
I say
you can't. You die
without ever knowing
if anything was
any good
at all.
If you
have to be sure
don't paint
I say
wiping my hands
on an old rag
of a dream.
THE LAWS OF FALLING BODIES
Galileo did in Padua find
the laws of falling bodies
dropping lead weights, not birds or dreams.
But as he should have known
all things issue from their source
the sun: each proton
and person descends along
its own particular and precise
frequency. Singing
each falls into matter
with its own signature
still echoing. And here
just here
this unerring lightness
of being arises.
THE WILD NETTLE
This wild nettle
that is Creation
trembles.
My touch and words
pinch at the knot there
that is knowing
and not knowing.
THIS STORM, THIS ROCK, THIS LEAF
This storm
this rock
this leaf
torn loose
to wander and fall
could be any one's life.
This wilderness
enfolding each simplicity
might comprehend
such a life
completely.
It carries a gift
and when they wake
they wake into it -
those who live by dreams
they who live by voices
we may never hear.
This house
not made by hands
is invisible.
THINGS TO SAY (while there's still time)
- for Lynn
I love you.
The dogwood just opened.
Spring remembers for us.
This war can still end
and there can be peace.
Wild violets grace the yard.
The cold tonight will seep to the root.
That 'yes' and 'amen' mean the same thing.
And then, on a bright still day, the forest all grey and standing in an ancient chorus around this clearing, there were "Daffodils," their new brightness still clinging to the frets of somber winter tones, a monoprint, oil on paper, 30"h. x 22"w.:
Yes, the daffodils have bloomed. Here along the northern foot of Rainy Mountain they only bloomed a few days ago. Let me say it again because it sounds so nice - the daffodils have bloomed! - such good mouth fun to say!
It has been a long, cold winter this year here in the Southern Appalachians. During this winter a poem I wrote in September,"What's Needed," unexpectedly became prophetic and a daily mantra for me:
WHAT'S NEEDED
What's needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where silvered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
This winter there was almost nothing foreseen, and a lot of not knowing. The poem stayed with me all winter as a kind of hope.
Wise friends counseled me to go slow, to take in the winter, and there to listen and let germinate. So the paintings and the poems grew slowly, uncertainly, and often not at all. Their shapes shifted from day to day, as if drifting in a cold mountain mist. But nothing was foreseen. It was a long winter.
On those cold days, somber winter colors drew my gaze deeper and deeper into the greyed landscape to catch only the ephemeral scent of some richer color. Hiding beneath the mauves I began to see, or only imagined, the purples, and sunk beneath the ruddy ochres the yellows, and beneath the burnt siennas the reds. These were almost just a sliver of memory, and perhaps only an imaginative hope of re-conjuring of them.
The paintings and poems came slowly like that too. At times I wondered, in a kind of sadness, if there would ever be any more. But there were. If I had only payed more attention to the springs up on the mountain, which continued all winter to bubble up from old root ways and make wandering passages through the rimes of ice. Then I would have known they would come:
"Winter Wall," oil on paper:
"Candlemas" oil on paper:
"Wall Stead - in Heorot," 2010, oil on paper:
And then, curiously, near the end of winter, just as bright green shoots of daffodils broke ground, old left off with paintings, flush with summer colors, caught my eye with renewed promise:
"Summer Mountain,: 2007-2010, oil on wood panel
53 1/2"h. x 75"w. x 1 3/4" d.:
"St. Molin's Well," 2007-2010, oil on wood panel,
40"h, x 40"w. x 1 3/4" d.:
:
And then the poems unlocked themselves:
IMAGINE A GARDEN MADE
Imagine a garden made
not grown. Stakes first
driven into the ground
should do for roots.
Then lattice strips
and papery leaves
stapled to the fret of this
painted green in advance.
No need of water or time.
Braces added later
will hold up the higher fruit -
tennis balls on strings
might do.
Addendum:
Imagine a life made
not grown. Ideas first
driven into dreams
should do first for principles.
Then a geomancy
of facts and figures,
nailed to cross timbers
of thoughts, indexed and sorted
by a thesaurus of death.
No need of spirit or heart.
Theologies added later
will prop up desire -
dogmas and litanies
in ledgers might do.
HE ASKED IF EVER
(a variation on some last lines by W.S. Merwin)
My hands
greasy with paint
he asked
how can you ever
be sure what you paint
is any good
at all.
I am old
and grimy with the oil
and rags and bones
of my heart.
I say
you can't. You die
without ever knowing
if anything was
any good
at all.
If you
have to be sure
don't paint
I say
wiping my hands
on an old rag
of a dream.
THE LAWS OF FALLING BODIES
Galileo did in Padua find
the laws of falling bodies
dropping lead weights, not birds or dreams.
But as he should have known
all things issue from their source
the sun: each proton
and person descends along
its own particular and precise
frequency. Singing
each falls into matter
with its own signature
still echoing. And here
just here
this unerring lightness
of being arises.
THE WILD NETTLE
This wild nettle
that is Creation
trembles.
My touch and words
pinch at the knot there
that is knowing
and not knowing.
THIS STORM, THIS ROCK, THIS LEAF
This storm
this rock
this leaf
torn loose
to wander and fall
could be any one's life.
This wilderness
enfolding each simplicity
might comprehend
such a life
completely.
It carries a gift
and when they wake
they wake into it -
those who live by dreams
they who live by voices
we may never hear.
This house
not made by hands
is invisible.
THINGS TO SAY (while there's still time)
- for Lynn
I love you.
The dogwood just opened.
Spring remembers for us.
This war can still end
and there can be peace.
Wild violets grace the yard.
The cold tonight will seep to the root.
That 'yes' and 'amen' mean the same thing.
And then, on a bright still day, the forest all grey and standing in an ancient chorus around this clearing, there were "Daffodils," their new brightness still clinging to the frets of somber winter tones, a monoprint, oil on paper, 30"h. x 22"w.:
Monday, February 15, 2010
PAINTINGS & POEMS: A RIVER RUNS THROUGH THEM
This year, as the year and I and the dim sun turned, I made a book of poems and paintings; small enough to fit in the hand and large enough to share - ten poems, some new and some a little older, and eleven new watercolor paintings created to converse with the poems - a thin keen clean volume.
I think a kind of river runs through it.
As I could only manage an edition of 25 copies printed on my aging, mean tempered, and perversely quarrelsome HP ink jet printer, here are some selections.
As you look through this selection I invite you to ponder the following possibility:
Paintings and poems share something important -
We are always dreaming,
the good life, the bad life,
the life not lived.
In our ceremonies
we mark our bodies
with the signs of our dreams:
flames and crosses and circles.
Wearing our dream marks
we carry our whole lives
into the country of our days.
We must do this - keep it up,
this dreaming into our waking country,
keep it going, keep it safe,
even into the desert of our selves.
OUR MEMORY OF IT:
Our memory of it,
like Half-moon River Marsh
in late summer or early fall,
a sweetened breeze
coming off the sea
its light a silvering of the past,
the tide of it
washing in and then back
again. That day
down on the sunlit dock,
the children singing.
Those times - more than enough
to burst the heart open.
Too much of it to hold now,
yet too little of it to ever keep.
WE ARE ALL:
I think a kind of river runs through it.
As I could only manage an edition of 25 copies printed on my aging, mean tempered, and perversely quarrelsome HP ink jet printer, here are some selections.
As you look through this selection I invite you to ponder the following possibility:
Paintings and poems share something important -
a concentrated form of paying attention -
paying attention to what IS!
paying attention to what IS!
And what is, is both moving and still.
Paintings are still and yet move in our minds,
thoughts and feelings.
Poems are always moving in our minds,
our thoughts, our feelings,
and yet they are always forming pooling echoes
of the still and eternal present.
Paintings and poems - two sides of one coin,
and a river runs through it.
Paintings are still and yet move in our minds,
thoughts and feelings.
Poems are always moving in our minds,
our thoughts, our feelings,
and yet they are always forming pooling echoes
of the still and eternal present.
Paintings and poems - two sides of one coin,
and a river runs through it.
DAWN:
Dawn,
with lighted fingers
stitches a delicate thread
an amber line of ridge against the night
- then begins
to hem
the greening march of trees
down along the still dark creek
- and begins
to mend
out of what might have been
this day together
- once again
such prescient
marvelous
needlework!
- surely sewn
we together
out of wonder
this world.
WE ARE ALWAYS DREAMING:
Dawn,
with lighted fingers
stitches a delicate thread
an amber line of ridge against the night
- then begins
to hem
the greening march of trees
down along the still dark creek
- and begins
to mend
out of what might have been
this day together
- once again
such prescient
marvelous
needlework!
- surely sewn
we together
out of wonder
this world.
WE ARE ALWAYS DREAMING:
We are always dreaming,
the good life, the bad life,
the life not lived.
In our ceremonies
we mark our bodies
with the signs of our dreams:
flames and crosses and circles.
Wearing our dream marks
we carry our whole lives
into the country of our days.
We must do this - keep it up,
this dreaming into our waking country,
keep it going, keep it safe,
even into the desert of our selves.
OUR MEMORY OF IT:
Our memory of it,
like Half-moon River Marsh
in late summer or early fall,
a sweetened breeze
coming off the sea
its light a silvering of the past,
the tide of it
washing in and then back
again. That day
down on the sunlit dock,
the children singing.
Those times - more than enough
to burst the heart open.
Too much of it to hold now,
yet too little of it to ever keep.
WE ARE ALL:
We are all vagabonds
on this earth, wanderers
with hungry hearts
looking for a home
we never had.
At night we gather
to distant fires
of scavenged wood and brush
stir the ashes there
and seek answers in the stars.
In ceremony
we mark our faces
with our dream of want -
flames and crosses and circles.
And we carry this into all our days
even into the desert of our lives
dreaming into each new country
our home again.
WHAT'S NEEDED:
What's needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where silvered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
on this earth, wanderers
with hungry hearts
looking for a home
we never had.
At night we gather
to distant fires
of scavenged wood and brush
stir the ashes there
and seek answers in the stars.
In ceremony
we mark our faces
with our dream of want -
flames and crosses and circles.
And we carry this into all our days
even into the desert of our lives
dreaming into each new country
our home again.
WHAT'S NEEDED:
What's needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where silvered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH THIS:
-for Bill McLarney
A river runs through this
Blacksnake sliding under Jewelweed
flushing Robin surprising Blue Jay
screeching over mirror striding Water Spider
reflecting wheeling Red Tailed Hawk calling:
where are you where are you to Lizard
scrambling across old barn wood parched in the sun
gliding over Otter slipping from rock into water
flashing by Golden Shiner scurrying toward Sculpin
nuzzling mud beneath silver racing Gilt Darter
darting past Bloodroot stemming into whitened flower
from the moss blanketed bank shouldering
into the stream as rainbowing Kingfisher
alights and makes the heart stop
and the river run through it.
A river runs through this
a poem where I am swimming around you
composing dreams about rivers
to all of you swimming about me
who are dreaming poems about yourselves
and I am coming to a place and don’t have the words
and someone else tells me the next one
and so it goes, generous,
the swimming and the dreaming and the telling
and the river runs through it
you and me,
this river runs through us.
-for Bill McLarney
A river runs through this
Blacksnake sliding under Jewelweed
flushing Robin surprising Blue Jay
screeching over mirror striding Water Spider
reflecting wheeling Red Tailed Hawk calling:
where are you where are you to Lizard
scrambling across old barn wood parched in the sun
gliding over Otter slipping from rock into water
flashing by Golden Shiner scurrying toward Sculpin
nuzzling mud beneath silver racing Gilt Darter
darting past Bloodroot stemming into whitened flower
from the moss blanketed bank shouldering
into the stream as rainbowing Kingfisher
alights and makes the heart stop
and the river run through it.
A river runs through this
a poem where I am swimming around you
composing dreams about rivers
to all of you swimming about me
who are dreaming poems about yourselves
and I am coming to a place and don’t have the words
and someone else tells me the next one
and so it goes, generous,
the swimming and the dreaming and the telling
and the river runs through it
you and me,
this river runs through us.
SPIRIT SALSA - for Lynn:
Come and dance
you and me
come and go
around and back
and come again
all the patterns flying
there is no you
there is no I
and we two are
but a fold in time.
Come!
and dance between
all the patterns making
and unmaking
you and me now
step again
with me now
into this always
changing
moving
desiring
and then just there
and then
where it calls us back
into the circle
where letting go
is holding on
to where
the meaning always is
moving on
to a desire
that brings to life
and the dance between
you and me
always making
come and go.
My love!
Come and dance with me!
TRINITY:
1.
This stream
is right here somewhere where I am ten
and running naked under the old oaks
along Trinity River.
2.
And this one
flows in my blood
with a generosity I can
in no way account for now.
3.
And this one
like a breath is slow
and long, smooth and deep,
even and balanced by that other,
the heart still flung open.
LESSON #2:
HOW TO LIVE A LIFE ON THIS RIVER:
Reach out
beyond yourself so far
you have to let go
of the shore.
Gather in what happens here.
Then pull back
against the undertow.
Sit on the beach
and examine your hands.
Most days
you will only be left
with flecks of mica broken
pieces of shell, the sands
of rock and time.
But sometimes
you will be left with fiery bits
of starlight.
These are yours.
So enter a river,
a poem, a church, a conversation
anywhere. Swim around
listen for the resonance
in the waves, for the motion
in the current.
Let each filament of river
weave into your breath.
Then say what happens here.
Know that we all are listening.
A river, a poem, a church,
a conversation, even a breath
it’s all a great river. I’ll meet you there.
Come and dance
you and me
come and go
around and back
and come again
all the patterns flying
there is no you
there is no I
and we two are
but a fold in time.
Come!
and dance between
all the patterns making
and unmaking
you and me now
step again
with me now
into this always
changing
moving
desiring
and then just there
and then
where it calls us back
into the circle
where letting go
is holding on
to where
the meaning always is
moving on
to a desire
that brings to life
and the dance between
you and me
always making
come and go.
My love!
Come and dance with me!
TRINITY:
1.
This stream
is right here somewhere where I am ten
and running naked under the old oaks
along Trinity River.
2.
And this one
flows in my blood
with a generosity I can
in no way account for now.
3.
And this one
like a breath is slow
and long, smooth and deep,
even and balanced by that other,
the heart still flung open.
LESSON #2:
HOW TO LIVE A LIFE ON THIS RIVER:
Reach out
beyond yourself so far
you have to let go
of the shore.
Gather in what happens here.
Then pull back
against the undertow.
Sit on the beach
and examine your hands.
Most days
you will only be left
with flecks of mica broken
pieces of shell, the sands
of rock and time.
But sometimes
you will be left with fiery bits
of starlight.
These are yours.
So enter a river,
a poem, a church, a conversation
anywhere. Swim around
listen for the resonance
in the waves, for the motion
in the current.
Let each filament of river
weave into your breath.
Then say what happens here.
Know that we all are listening.
A river, a poem, a church,
a conversation, even a breath
it’s all a great river. I’ll meet you there.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
A POEM FOR WINTER SOLSTICE
WHAT’S NEEDED
What’s needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where silvered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
What’s needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where silvered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
Monday, November 9, 2009
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: A CHATTOOGA RIVER POETRY HIKE
October 24, 2009: Georgia Forest Watch sponsored hike (with poetry) to the Chattooga River in Rabun County, Georgia. Thanks to Brooks Franklin and Maureen Keating for organizing and leading this walk.
Poetry is the tongue of our nature spirit.
I am going to tell you some poems here
poems about rivers
about edges and currents,
immersion and emergence
of coming and going
We’ve come here each flowing
out of the rivers of our own pasts
And today we’ve come together
through pine and laurel,
oak and hickory, poplar and hemlock
out of time and its river
to this clear and present edge of here and now.
It is a river liquid and mercurial
alive and breathing
the great snake of it sliding by us
elastic, connective, extensive
the pattern of it made new in every moment.
Am I talking about the river, or of us?
The film maker Jean Luc-Godard says “ Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret selves.”
I reply - Nature attracts us by what it reveals of our most secret selves.
I say the river draws us to her by what she reveals of our own secret flowing selves.
We are not lost here:
LOST by David Wagoner
"Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you. "
you and me,
this river runs through us.
TRINITY
1.
This stream
is right here somewhere where I am ten
and running naked under the old oaks
along Trinity River.
2.
And this one
flows in my blood
with a generosity I can
in no way account for now.
3.
And this one
like a breath is slow
and long, smooth and deep,
even and balanced by that other,
the heart still flung open.
Honor Woodard’s poem (7/14/09)
"the river flows
threads drift on the surface
what lies beneath
who knows
the river carries on
and carries with it
all things within
going down
toward the sea
all things answering
gravity’s pull
fighting or flowing
in the current
all things answer
gravity’s pull
and the river flows on
to the sea"
The water falls the rain
falls and breaks
the order of words
to penetrate
thought's interstices
and wash the rivulets
and the mind
thinking of them
clear again, a moment,
to the Unknown:
Down stream
another juncture of
water to
waters
uncover the
cold rock, strip
dirt off down to nets
of roots hold laurel,
oak, and hemlock
tight and live:
Leaves drop in
and are carried off,
limbs are taken off to rot:
And the water leaves
what holds
deep to what
the strong earth
itself
through all
uplift and turmoil
does not unfold.
(for more on Jeff Davis' poetry go to: Jeff Davis
James Dickey’s
INSIDE THE RIVER
Dark, deeply. A red.
All levels moving
A given surface.
Break this. Step down.
Follow your right
Foot nakedly in
To another body.
Put on the river
Like a fleeing coat,
A garment of motion,
Tremendous, immortal.
Find a still root
To hold you in it.
Let the flowing create
A new, inner being;
As the source in the mountain
Gives water in pulses,
These can be felt at
The heart of the current.
And here it is only
One wandering step
Forth, to the sea.
Your freed hair floating
Out of your brain,
Wait for a coming
And swimming idea.
Live like the dead
In their flying feeling.
Loom as a ghost
When life pours through it.
Crouch in the secret
Released underground
With the earth of the fields
All around you, gone
Into purposeful grains
That stream like dust
In a holy hallway.
Weight more changed
Than that of one
Now being born,
Let go the root.
Move with the world
As the deep dead move,
Opposed to nothing.
Release. Enter the sea
Like a winding wind.
No. Rise. Draw breath.
Sing. See no one.
As we came down the trail, did you notice the springs
squeezing out of rock, slipping over granite slabs
flushing into clattering branches under laurel
knotting strand by strand through stands of hemlock
weaving into creeks that become the River?
ON A DAY, STILL
On a day still
as sleeping cats, among
a stand of pines, one cracks
near its base and falls
against another.
No fault
of weather or storm,
just a failing within -
a fissure running six feet up
and all the tissue there
collapsing like a knee blown out.
In a moment
drawn out so long
it too is stilled,
the broken one leans
against another
as if it stumbled
in some crowd going to a game
and the others
not taking notice, but
kindly accept to offer
a shoulder to a stranger.
One against another,
no one speaking -
sometimes it’s all we’ve got,
each of the other.
Six months later,
coming down the trail
this moment is still here
and now, lifted out of a spring
as a handful of water
is lifted out of time.
Listen!
Do you hear that bird?
LESSON #1: HOW TO LISTEN TO A BIRD SING
Take off all
your clothed and
clammy thoughts.
Sit awhile.
Make nothing up
between the intervals of silence,
but listen to them.
Between each breath
is a song you’ve forgotten,
is always calling us
to gather to this wild
and shocking world.
This music happens to us
before we can ever think about it
this song happens in us
before we can ever say it’s impossible
to listen before we speak
of nothing or everything.
These mountains are daily wrapped in mystery and fact:
the light, the dark, the round of seasons,
the time of deep past, deep present, deep future -
these all speak to us,
the mists alternately hiding and revealing -
the steep slopes, the shaded coves, the bright rivers,
our lives and our work.
We have to come to the river. The Cherokee who lived here would come many mornings “Going to Water” (“a-ma Da ye si ” in Cherokee). It was a daily sacred cleansing and purifying ritual.
DAWN
Dawn,
with lighted fingers
stitches a delicate thread
an amber line of ridge against the night
- then begins
to hem
the greening march of trees
down along the still dark creek
- and begins
to mend
out of what might have been
this day together
- once again
such prescient
marvelous
needlework!
- surely sewn
we together
out of wonder
this world.
Our breaths each time
reach out and come back.
They must so love the world
they always go back
for more.
Or perhaps I’ve gotten this
all wrong. This breath’s
not ours at all, but the world’s.
The world’s searching deep
into our opened chest
and then pulling back
for more.
This tide,
in its gravity of care
is drawing us on forever.
The teacher asked them
to draw what they wanted.
The commissioner's son drew streets,
paved and straight and bright.
The developer's son drew signs
covering the hillsides with crisp dollar bills.
The lakehouse owner's son drew mansions
in a shimmering necklace around the lake.
The environmentalist's son drew a river
bobbing with kayaks and laughter.
The carpenter's son drew houses,
board upon board, high enough to reach the sun.
The fatherless daughter drew just one
great mountain, like two hands
joined in prayer,
opening in praise.
Listen!
Will the world be still
after we depart?
Will there be cold? Will there be sweetness?
Will the birds still talk about
what we never learned to hear?
Or will it all be forgotten, or forgiven,
or will it just be still?
Listen!
Our children are coming and we are going.
It’s late, but listen!
If we fail to listen
and then to tell them,
the rivers and the mountains
will stop breathing in
their fullness. They’ll stop whispering
their care and advice, and there will be nothing
for our children to hear
but their nightmares.
Will you be the one
to leave a sign in the ground
for those who come after to find
that we too lived
and loved, cried and died,
fighting with ourselves and each other
to the end of us
and that one of the least of us
left this coin.
We are always dreaming,
the good life, the bad life,
the life not lived.
In our ceremonies
we mark our bodies
with the signs of our dreams:
flames and crosses and circles.
Wearing our dream marks
we carry our whole lives
into the country of our days.
We must do this - keep it up,
this dreaming into our waking country,
keep it going, keep it safe,
even into the desert of our selves.
What’s needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where slivered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
Reach out
beyond yourself so far
you have to let go
of the shore.
Gather in what happens here.
Then pull back
against the undertow
sit on the beach
and examine your hands.
Most days
you will only be left
with broken pieces of shell, flecks of mica,
the sands of rock and time
But sometimes
you will be left with fiery bits
of starlight.
These are yours.
So enter a river,
a poem, a church, a conversation
anywhere. Swim around
listen for the resonance
in the waves, for the motion
in the current.
Let each filament of river
weave into your breath.
Then say what happens here.
Know that we all are listening.
A river, a poem, a church, a conversation
even a breath
it’s all a great river. I’ll meet you there.
Poetry is the tongue of our nature spirit.
I am going to tell you some poems here
poems about rivers
about edges and currents,
immersion and emergence
of coming and going
We’ve come here each flowing
out of the rivers of our own pasts
And today we’ve come together
through pine and laurel,
oak and hickory, poplar and hemlock
out of time and its river
to this clear and present edge of here and now.
It is a river liquid and mercurial
alive and breathing
the great snake of it sliding by us
elastic, connective, extensive
the pattern of it made new in every moment.
Am I talking about the river, or of us?
The film maker Jean Luc-Godard says “ Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret selves.”
I reply - Nature attracts us by what it reveals of our most secret selves.
I say the river draws us to her by what she reveals of our own secret flowing selves.
We are not lost here:
LOST by David Wagoner
"Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you. "
A RIVER RUNS THROUGH THIS
(written for you today)
A river runs through this
Blacksnake sliding under Jewelweed
flushing Robin surprising Blue Jay
screeching over mirror striding Water Spider
reflecting wheeling Red Tailed Hawk calling:
where are you where are you to Lizard
scrambling across old barn wood parched in the sun
gliding over Otter slipping from rock into water
flashing by Golden Shiner scurrying toward Sculpin
nuzzling mud beneath silver racing Gilt Darter
darting past Bloodroot stemming into whitened flower
from the moss blanketed bank shouldering
into the stream as rainbowing Kingfisher
alights and makes the heart stop
and the river runs through it.
A river runs through this
a poem where I am swimming around you
composing dreams about rivers
to all of you swimming about me
who are dreaming poems about yourselves
and I am coming to a place and don’t have the words
and someone else tells me the next one
and so it goes, generous,
the swimming and the dreaming and the telling
and the river runs through it
(written for you today)
A river runs through this
Blacksnake sliding under Jewelweed
flushing Robin surprising Blue Jay
screeching over mirror striding Water Spider
reflecting wheeling Red Tailed Hawk calling:
where are you where are you to Lizard
scrambling across old barn wood parched in the sun
gliding over Otter slipping from rock into water
flashing by Golden Shiner scurrying toward Sculpin
nuzzling mud beneath silver racing Gilt Darter
darting past Bloodroot stemming into whitened flower
from the moss blanketed bank shouldering
into the stream as rainbowing Kingfisher
alights and makes the heart stop
and the river runs through it.
A river runs through this
a poem where I am swimming around you
composing dreams about rivers
to all of you swimming about me
who are dreaming poems about yourselves
and I am coming to a place and don’t have the words
and someone else tells me the next one
and so it goes, generous,
the swimming and the dreaming and the telling
and the river runs through it
you and me,
this river runs through us.
TRINITY
1.
This stream
is right here somewhere where I am ten
and running naked under the old oaks
along Trinity River.
2.
And this one
flows in my blood
with a generosity I can
in no way account for now.
3.
And this one
like a breath is slow
and long, smooth and deep,
even and balanced by that other,
the heart still flung open.
Honor Woodard’s poem (7/14/09)
"the river flows
threads drift on the surface
what lies beneath
who knows
the river carries on
and carries with it
all things within
going down
toward the sea
all things answering
gravity’s pull
fighting or flowing
in the current
all things answer
gravity’s pull
and the river flows on
to the sea"
GOING TO THE WATER
by Jeff Davis from his book: NatureSThe water falls the rain
falls and breaks
the order of words
to penetrate
thought's interstices
and wash the rivulets
and the mind
thinking of them
clear again, a moment,
to the Unknown:
Down stream
another juncture of
water to
waters
uncover the
cold rock, strip
dirt off down to nets
of roots hold laurel,
oak, and hemlock
tight and live:
Leaves drop in
and are carried off,
limbs are taken off to rot:
And the water leaves
what holds
deep to what
the strong earth
itself
through all
uplift and turmoil
does not unfold.
(for more on Jeff Davis' poetry go to: Jeff Davis
James Dickey’s
INSIDE THE RIVER
Dark, deeply. A red.
All levels moving
A given surface.
Break this. Step down.
Follow your right
Foot nakedly in
To another body.
Put on the river
Like a fleeing coat,
A garment of motion,
Tremendous, immortal.
Find a still root
To hold you in it.
Let the flowing create
A new, inner being;
As the source in the mountain
Gives water in pulses,
These can be felt at
The heart of the current.
And here it is only
One wandering step
Forth, to the sea.
Your freed hair floating
Out of your brain,
Wait for a coming
And swimming idea.
Live like the dead
In their flying feeling.
Loom as a ghost
When life pours through it.
Crouch in the secret
Released underground
With the earth of the fields
All around you, gone
Into purposeful grains
That stream like dust
In a holy hallway.
Weight more changed
Than that of one
Now being born,
Let go the root.
Move with the world
As the deep dead move,
Opposed to nothing.
Release. Enter the sea
Like a winding wind.
No. Rise. Draw breath.
Sing. See no one.
As we came down the trail, did you notice the springssqueezing out of rock, slipping over granite slabs
flushing into clattering branches under laurel
knotting strand by strand through stands of hemlock
weaving into creeks that become the River?
ON A DAY, STILL
On a day still
as sleeping cats, among
a stand of pines, one cracks
near its base and falls
against another.
No fault
of weather or storm,
just a failing within -
a fissure running six feet up
and all the tissue there
collapsing like a knee blown out.
In a moment
drawn out so long
it too is stilled,
the broken one leans
against another
as if it stumbled
in some crowd going to a game
and the others
not taking notice, but
kindly accept to offer
a shoulder to a stranger.
One against another,
no one speaking -
sometimes it’s all we’ve got,
each of the other.
Six months later,
coming down the trail
this moment is still here
and now, lifted out of a spring
as a handful of water
is lifted out of time.
Listen!
Do you hear that bird?
LESSON #1: HOW TO LISTEN TO A BIRD SING
Take off all
your clothed and
clammy thoughts.
Sit awhile.
Make nothing up
between the intervals of silence,
but listen to them.
Between each breath
is a song you’ve forgotten,
is always calling us
to gather to this wild
and shocking world.
This music happens to us
before we can ever think about it
this song happens in us
before we can ever say it’s impossible
to listen before we speak
of nothing or everything.
These mountains are daily wrapped in mystery and fact:
the light, the dark, the round of seasons,
the time of deep past, deep present, deep future -
these all speak to us,
the mists alternately hiding and revealing -
the steep slopes, the shaded coves, the bright rivers,
our lives and our work.
We have to come to the river. The Cherokee who lived here would come many mornings “Going to Water” (“a-ma Da ye si ” in Cherokee). It was a daily sacred cleansing and purifying ritual.
DAWN
Dawn,
with lighted fingers
stitches a delicate thread
an amber line of ridge against the night
- then begins
to hem
the greening march of trees
down along the still dark creek
- and begins
to mend
out of what might have been
this day together
- once again
such prescient
marvelous
needlework!
- surely sewn
we together
out of wonder
this world.
OUR BREATHS EACH TIME
Our breaths each time
reach out and come back.
They must so love the world
they always go back
for more.
Or perhaps I’ve gotten this
all wrong. This breath’s
not ours at all, but the world’s.
The world’s searching deep
into our opened chest
and then pulling back
for more.
This tide,
in its gravity of care
is drawing us on forever.
This river, these mountains, we’ve come to think of them these days as all so fragile. Some of this reflects our very human fears about our own fragility. But some of it is very real. You only have to look north a few hundred miles to see them removing the tops of whole mountains for the coal, or see the plans for cutting an interstate highway through the mountains of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. You only have to look at our own county here, Rabun. Here hundreds of citizens worked on a comprehensive plan to insure the quality of life for our children and grandchildren, but the County Commission could only see trees (and certainly there were enough of them) and profits to be made on real estate. So they put it in a drawer.
Perhaps we can’t save this river and these mountains without first saving ourselves in some way. John Muir said, when they wanted to flood Hech-Hechy in the Yosemite, that “What is dollared can’t be saved.” I think it will take something else. Some way to re-inhabit this world by coming to it with open hands in respect.
WHAT THEY WANTED
The teacher asked them
to draw what they wanted.
The commissioner's son drew streets,
paved and straight and bright.
The developer's son drew signs
covering the hillsides with crisp dollar bills.
The lakehouse owner's son drew mansions
in a shimmering necklace around the lake.
The environmentalist's son drew a river
bobbing with kayaks and laughter.
The carpenter's son drew houses,
board upon board, high enough to reach the sun.
The fatherless daughter drew just one
great mountain, like two hands
joined in prayer,
opening in praise.
LISTEN!
Listen!
Will the world be still
after we depart?
Will there be cold? Will there be sweetness?
Will the birds still talk about
what we never learned to hear?
Or will it all be forgotten, or forgiven,
or will it just be still?
Listen!
Our children are coming and we are going.
It’s late, but listen!
If we fail to listen
and then to tell them,
the rivers and the mountains
will stop breathing in
their fullness. They’ll stop whispering
their care and advice, and there will be nothing
for our children to hear
but their nightmares.
WILL YOU BE THE ONE?
for Honor and RobinetteWill you be the one
to leave a sign in the ground
for those who come after to find
that we too lived
and loved, cried and died,
fighting with ourselves and each other
to the end of us
and that one of the least of us
left this coin.
This last year my dear neighbor Honor Woodard taught me to appreciate how dreams are not part of some separate world. Each week we used to meet in a dream circle to tell our dreams. Often when it came my turn I would say “I had this poem to tell you” not realizing I had replaced the word “dream” with “poem”. Honor would point this out, and gradually I came to embrace this porous sense of what the world is made of, and that we are made of -(the same old star stuff as everything else?)
WE ARE ALWAYS DREAMING
We are always dreaming,
the good life, the bad life,
the life not lived.
In our ceremonies
we mark our bodies
with the signs of our dreams:
flames and crosses and circles.
Wearing our dream marks
we carry our whole lives
into the country of our days.
We must do this - keep it up,
this dreaming into our waking country,
keep it going, keep it safe,
even into the desert of our selves.
WHAT’S NEEDED
What’s needed
is water
and dark
moving to a time
as slow as roots
in a well
where slivered fish
swim
in a dream
of knowing
not caught
but foreseen.
HOW TO LIVE A LIFE ON THE RIVER:
Reach out
beyond yourself so far
you have to let go
of the shore.
Gather in what happens here.
Then pull back
against the undertow
sit on the beach
and examine your hands.
Most days
you will only be left
with broken pieces of shell, flecks of mica,
the sands of rock and time
But sometimes
you will be left with fiery bits
of starlight.
These are yours.
So enter a river,
a poem, a church, a conversation
anywhere. Swim around
listen for the resonance
in the waves, for the motion
in the current.
Let each filament of river
weave into your breath.
Then say what happens here.
Know that we all are listening.
A river, a poem, a church, a conversation
even a breath
it’s all a great river. I’ll meet you there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
