tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30001242823404436992024-02-19T07:32:31.640-08:00The Cassia TreeJoanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-53424609588758309102014-09-10T15:26:00.000-07:002014-09-11T12:35:47.683-07:00Sleeping Beauty<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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If you think to wake me</div>
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Just remember</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Spin for me a sign of trust</div>
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And I will spin tomorrow. </div>
Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-32362646218179886842013-11-03T15:32:00.000-08:002013-11-03T15:32:38.229-08:00Thoughts for Samhain, 2013
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji48OczGMHB3iklOulIjf5Z4lRkfV6rEAPPJIUFZQp0DHdOZF5nzj9TP0KWnRBh2rOvXvGxBm4iXPaLT47yj654evfCOfGKkg4qrwL0uW6NbypFoLNclTiWFy4qtwCuGBIxG2wYIuBo6zW/s1600/sunset.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji48OczGMHB3iklOulIjf5Z4lRkfV6rEAPPJIUFZQp0DHdOZF5nzj9TP0KWnRBh2rOvXvGxBm4iXPaLT47yj654evfCOfGKkg4qrwL0uW6NbypFoLNclTiWFy4qtwCuGBIxG2wYIuBo6zW/s320/sunset.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Guided by the Lonely Star,</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Beyond the utmost
harbour-bar,</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I’ll find the heavens
fair and free,</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And beaches of the Starlit
Sea.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Ship, my ship! I seek the
West,</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And fields and mountains
ever blest.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Farewell to Middle-earth
at last.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I see the Star above my
mast!”
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"Bilbo's Last Song", J.R.R
Tolkien</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">On Thursday it was
Halloween, or Samhain, the Celtic new year and the time when the
veils between the worlds are at their thinnest, the time when we
remember those who have gone before us, and in joy and celebration
become that which scares us.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In neo-Pagan tradition,
the West is often the direction of the water, and of the dead. It is
the realms of the deeps and the setting sun. The way West across the
seas is the way home, to the home beyond home, the Isle of the
Blessed. In Irish tradition, the sea god Manannan Mac Lir guards the
gates to the Otherworld that lie beyond the sea. That last and final
journey across the seas is part of our myths and dreams, as Tolkien
well knew.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In culture, dreams and
stories the ocean is our trusted infinity, the depths from which
nothing returns, the great vastness that enacts our ending.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">On Tuesday, my sister
linked me an article about the oceans, written by Greg Ray in the
Newcastle Herald.
(http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/) It
describes yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen's journey from Melbourne to Osaka
to San Francisco. When Ivan made the journey ten years ago, there
were fish to be caught every day. This time, because of over-fishing and pollution, he caught
just two. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">From Osaka to San
Francisco, Macfadyen saw one whale, 'rolling sort of helplessly on
the surface.' Here, the rubbish was so dense that they were afraid to
start their motor for fear of the propellers getting tangled in
buoys, ropes, nets and plastic rubbish. They returned to Australia
with their yacht dented from the trash, it's yellow colour faded and
bleached from the chemicals in the waters. Recalling his previous
journeys, Macfadyen said:</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"In years gone by I'd
gotten used to all the birds and their noises.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"They'd be following
the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again.
You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the
distance, feeding on pilchards."</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This time, apart from the
waves, the wind and the thudding of debris against the hull, the
voyage was made in virtual silence. For 3000 nautical miles there w<span style="font-size: large;">ere</span>
“No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The responses beneath the
article, and to friends I had linked it, were similar. What now? Is
there any appropriate action to take to this article – ideally, an
action that doesn't turn us into freaks and social pariahs, biting
off the head of the supermarket clerk when we're offered plastic
bags, lecturing families behind us who have forgotten theirs, raging
at our friends for eating packaged salad and drinking from plastic
bottles? (I don't do these things. I don't want people to hate me.
But I think them.)</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And I don't want to eat
fish any more – except I do, and I'm a little afraid I might turn
into the mother of Oskar, from Gunter Grass' <i>The Tin Drum</i>, who was so
sickened by the thing she saw fished from the seas (a rotting horse
head), that she died from gorging herself on any fish she could find,
as if disgust and desire were – when it comes to the oceans –
quite the same.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">And maybe if we knew more
about the relationship between disgust and desire, if we understood
why we need – why we want – to get rid of all the things we are
endlessly creating – to make and make and make and then shed and
forget - then we'd know something more about what we're doing.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Is there any action we can
take? And where – when we remember our dead – can we find a place
for remembering that distant awful present that is our dying world?</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Not to be depressing, or
anything.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I just want to end these
contemplations by thinking about darkness. This winter solstice, I
broached the darkness of Ditchling beacon alone for the first time in
my life, and danced under the stars. I dreamt that night that I had
cut off my own electricity and what I loved was falling from the sky,
and the next night I dreamt that I had eaten of the Nile, and life
couldn't return to it.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">These dreams seemed larger
than my own stuff – and I think I only had them because I danced in
the darkness. What I mean is – what I'm trying to say is – it's
all very well to enjoy the dark at Halloween with companionship and
celebration - otherwise how would we get through the winter?
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But what if there was a
way – a necessary way - to find that dark space inside ourselves
and to step into it. I mean – the space that isn't full of stuff.
That space that isn't about having. The place that is just like the
infinity of the oceans – that we mistakenly think is somewhere
outside ourselves.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Examples? I eat more than
I should, and I know that I do it because beyond doing it is the
hunger that feels like a cold night outside alone. I have been
frightened of losing my partner to others – because beyond that
duet of complicity is the space that reminds me of death.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">What are our points of
safety beyond which we can feel that infinite darkness, and would it
make a difference to the oceans if we could step past them?</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">That's my Samhain thought.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-67654907698689474532013-10-13T11:18:00.000-07:002013-10-13T11:18:51.045-07:00Sea Lament<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiiHlGRbIGaTyLAaX2D0o7UrAt4qy52pJHbkY7_9fkGY6YRlz0NrrciJDJtTiqgy8-lp_yR0b4wSPzWnxfmyJxIHLXGv1BEDfYzU54e1jjGKr7c1rDChp9MU0TeSfvh3F2lmIv86J8npBS/s1600/sea-waves-wallpaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiiHlGRbIGaTyLAaX2D0o7UrAt4qy52pJHbkY7_9fkGY6YRlz0NrrciJDJtTiqgy8-lp_yR0b4wSPzWnxfmyJxIHLXGv1BEDfYzU54e1jjGKr7c1rDChp9MU0TeSfvh3F2lmIv86J8npBS/s320/sea-waves-wallpaper.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
There is a wound<br />
too deep for tending<br />
there where the ocean turns<br />
the rending.<br />
In the darkness, there we weep.<br />
<br />
We are the torn<br />
and faded graces<br />
ribbed in desolation's faces.<br />
In the darkness, there we weep.<br />
<br />
We are the grief<br />
the ocean hears<br />
We are the living<br />
tide of tears<br />
In the darkness, there we weep. <br />
<br />
Dark to the song<br />
a blue unbounded<br />
Dark to the depths<br />
the sea be sounded<br />
In the waters, there we weep.<br />
In the waters, there we weep.<br />
Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-87333241124628849282013-07-24T00:47:00.000-07:002013-07-24T00:47:16.991-07:00The Song of the Albatross
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 115%; widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Calibri",serif; font-size: 11pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 11pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Calibri"; font-size: 11pt; }</style>
<br />
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 115%; widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Calibri",serif; font-size: 11pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 11pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Calibri"; font-size: 11pt; }</style>
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 115%; widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Calibri",serif; font-size: 11pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 11pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Calibri"; font-size: 11pt;</style>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); line-height: 115%; widows: 2; orphans: 2; }P.western { font-family: "Calibri",serif; font-size: 11pt; }P.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 11pt; }P.ctl { font-family: "Calibri"; font-size: 11pt; }</style>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sunrise,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">sunset</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">upon
the wave</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a
great expanse </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
flowing cave</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">sunset,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">sunrise,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">upon
the land,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a turning bank</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
burnished sand.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
am a great white gratitude,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">upon
the starry sea,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
see the ocean seven-tombed,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
see the world </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
warders see.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
rolling rocks,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
stubborn skies,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
way the tender South wind lies,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
fish beneath,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
fish above, </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
white canescent moon</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
see the place,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
wa<span style="font-style: normal;">rder knows,</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
knead the space</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
wind has hewn.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
know the roaring patterns</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
wind to lifted wing </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
scale-enamoured oceans,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
fluxing shoals that ring against </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
banked cliff face</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">a
climate high</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">gull-scored
with nesting song</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">around
its feet,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a
fishful foam</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">turning
around</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
rocky spume.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
when the stars</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">are
gulfs of light</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">there
comes the moon and I,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we
glide the earth towards its girth</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
ocean, </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">folding
land to sky.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
things I see when flying</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">are
maps of unspoke words</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">twixt
krill and squid and shark and </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">breaker</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">life
is a plexus shared by the speaker</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">death
is a point that falls to the deep</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">opening
out into limpets of light.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
journeyed through the journey</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a million miles by sea</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a</span> million miles again by home,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
then I saw my broken bone. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
couldn't rise</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
couldn't fall, </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
human things</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">had
thrown the pall. </span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">lengths
which catch the salty fish</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
slam us in turn from our wings</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">reaching
to the secret deep,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
thinking the enthundered meek</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Shall
I grieve</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
broad white death,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">slam
to the keening grave?</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In
life and death</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
field the planks</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
earth and</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">greening
waves.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A
thousand, thousand slimy things </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">live
on and so do I </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
am the banks of rot</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
feather</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">under
the starry sky.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My
death was like a greeting </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
the ocean to the land.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My
downward slant,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">w</span>as
ready</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
the Kraken-kindled sand.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We
are the journey bearers</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we
are the living shore</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
when we cannot travel on,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">when
wings have gone,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we
travel more.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet
I would will,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">my
grey-white child,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
fly upon</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">my
vital mile.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To keep my watch,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">f</span>rom
sea to land,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">t</span>o
guard the salt-white glow.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Instead
he was too young </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">alone</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
pecked at gibes of </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">flummoxed
flow</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
is no sin in dying</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">nor
killing when done well,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">but
there are things within the sea</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that
rise and rise, and cannot swell.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That
rise and rise and cannot fall</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
rot with a bewildered pall. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
endless sea</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">is
ribbed with bits</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that
cannot be entombed and stilled</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
lightning map </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">is
torn and rent</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by
that which has no way to end.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We
were a great white gratitude,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">upon
the starry sea,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we
saw the ocean seven-tombed,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we
saw the world </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
warders see.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
rolling rocks,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
stubborn skies,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
way the tender South wind lies,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
fish beneath,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
fish above, </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
white canescent moon.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We
saw the place,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
warder knows,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">k</span>neaded the space</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
wind had hewn.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet
oceanic maps of life </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">are
darker than they were</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">blinded
by the blinding patch</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">from
an encumbered shore. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
I would wish my children life</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
not the living death they bore. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For
there aren't </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">albatross
enough</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
guide the years in.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
are not living birds enough</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
hear the weeded wonder sing.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Each
wind-scaped bird</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">is
like a grip </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">which
holds a scope of land to sea</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
if the birds</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">are
killed by ghosts </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">each
folded place,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">will
then not be.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
map is growing darker now,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">this
is a thing I've said,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
I would wish my children life</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">yet
know that they are dead.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
we who guard the tidal night</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we
hear the rising thunder</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
still we watch and still we sing</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">with
wings of flummoxed wonder.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
I might wish for more than flight</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
see the deep come to the height</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
turn against the living ghosts</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
rout them from their watching posts</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet
I am steeped to wind and sea</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
am the journey of the free,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
watch and then I living rise,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
rise and then I fall</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for
watching, flying, dancing, dying,</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
can do no wonder more.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-64596510248749687772013-04-05T14:23:00.000-07:002013-04-05T14:23:01.528-07:00Words Rain<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Words rain – </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
breaking<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the
gutter</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
shattering our sutures</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and transfiguring the ground.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have been wearing our umbrellas,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have been shrinking in our best,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have been scarfed and laid to rest</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
but words rain </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
down.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Words come and break the mirror</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
flowing deeper</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
than before</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a sudden scattered light</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a shard like-flight<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
on wooden shore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We had been sleeping in our shivers</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And from pillar slung to pillar</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But words rain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till we take upon our heads</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A ragged cap of motley</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till we rise up from our beds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And throw open all our doors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till we whistle to our wolfhounds</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till we clamber to our cliffs</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till we trip the trap of starlight</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Till we whet our aching lips</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tomorrow we riddle</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today we ring</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday we were singing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To words as they cling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They rain the grass to ribbons</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And they rain the o to moon</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They rain the foaming pebbles</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And they rain the liquid tune.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They rain the new believers</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And they rain the falling fool</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whose leap off the cliff-face</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is kiss-faced</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is liquid</div>
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And bliss-faced</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is word-paced</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As they rain</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
down the dawn.</div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-8556090487098252232012-10-11T13:39:00.003-07:002012-10-11T13:40:50.949-07:00If I Were a Frog<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">If
I were a frog </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Sitting
calm on my log</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">with
its great collapsed moss</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">like
conglomerate broth </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And
flat-fleecing the flies</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">riding
up in my skies</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
licking the air</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">of
its angel sun-hair.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
would stare</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at
my lair </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And
say God of the bog!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Aren't
they dizzy</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">those
exceptionous humans </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">so
busy? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">so
whizzy?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">so
fizzy?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">so
giddy?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Draining
the streams </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">with
pecunious dreams</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">they
are liars</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">those
triers </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">those
fake anti-diers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">doing
everything quick </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a trick, what a trick!<br />
what a stab in the back</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a great brutus hack!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a felo de se </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a plain bizarre way</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">to
live</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">in
the sieve</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">while
their lives</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">flow
quite plain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">down
the drain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
the faster they go</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">then
the slower they move</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">kicking
time off its groove</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">then
those dead things, they lose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a ruse</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a schmooze</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">what
a quick way to lose</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">when
they crusise</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">on
their shoes</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">of
fiscal remove.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
they stamp out the lives</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">of
the blossoms and hives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">with
their shodding of gold</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">that
they think will </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">keep
them</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">all
out of the cold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't
they know don't they know</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">there's
a cold in their bones</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
it beckons them back</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">to
the blossoms and stone?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't
they know don't they know</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">that
the end is so slow</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">that
it feels like winning</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
soft green beginning?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Damn,
God with your green face</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">who
started that mad race</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">with
conceivable end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">clearly
quite round the bend.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">If
I were a frog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
would swim in my bog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
stretch out my feet</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">brown
and green and elite</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">-
what a treat</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">to
beat </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at
the fronds so sweet -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
am cold and heat</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">but
my voice isn't mete.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And
if I were a frog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Squat
and tall on my log</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
think I would weep</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">for
the slaughter of sheep</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">in
the field beyond</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I'd
dream I were tall</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
were more, I were all</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">than
a frog with a song</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">then
I'd sing for more long</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And
I'd sing for more ears</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
I'd say, you who hear</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Please
don't fear</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">to
disappear</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">for
your fractures of fear</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">make
clots in my weir</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
how will I know</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">the
path to appear</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">if
the moth and the mosh and the squash and</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">the
marshes and pots</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">in
the valleys are lost</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">in
spoil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
in oil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
ridiculous toil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't
boil my soul.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't
rubble my scrubble.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't
plunder my mess</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't
take me for less</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">than
the one at the end</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">who
re-makes the beginning</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
unmake the stopping</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I
release the dropping </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">of
bodies and bones</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">I'm
the grandeur of tombs</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">in
my moss in my blossom</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">beginning
is sudden</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
quick like the sun</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
however you run</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">you
are frog, worm and the soil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Head
upper to tail</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Wing
upper to scale</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Come,
look to the sky</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
learn how to die,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Come,
stare at the sun</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">with
its fury of light </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">equilibrious
height</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
up there where you run</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">in
its endless of gold </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">is
the pond - </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">black
and old -</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">you
come from.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">But
I'm just a frog</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">sitting
calm on my log</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
all that I do</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
all that I knew</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">is
the dive and the run</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
the swim and the sun</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">and
the pond – black and old </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">-
you come from.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-13274204114197961592012-01-03T14:35:00.001-08:002013-10-07T13:47:18.427-07:00BeesWhat is this wonder-taker<br />
whisper-shaker<br />
ground-life strummer<br />
spirit-maker<br />
dusk-dark dancer<br />
of the sword<br />
in crumble dust<br />
in sunray cord?<br />
<br />
This magic mage<br />
this holy sage<br />
this golden god<br />
this darksome cloud<br />
this humming one<br />
this wonder song<br />
this glisten priest<br />
this forest loud?<br />
<br />
Life of ochre<br />
life of bronze<br />
potion singer<br />
living song.<br />
Under black leaves<br />
in daylight towers<br />
your daylight soot<br />
ignites the hours.<br />
<br />
Carry the crust<br />
of life to life<br />
the flower-crux<br />
the starting might<br />
the yellow fleet<br />
the quickening heat<br />
that brings becoming<br />
from the deep.<br />
<br />
Black enactment<br />
sun bright word<br />
never-ending<br />
world interred.<br />
Hive and honey<br />
wax and god<br />
you are the clouds<br />
that stir the sod.<br />
Enchanters of the pillared pine<br />
we trace your trail<br />
we drink your wine.<br />
<br />
And other things<br />
are done by us<br />
not nearly clean<br />
not nearly earthed.<br />
Webs upon the living field<br />
that smell like what<br />
the dying yield.<br />
Changes to the pillared pine<br />
that shrink the swollen<br />
time of wine.<br />
<br />
And so the silence<br />
of the hives<br />
after the humming summer.<br />
And so the bodies<br />
small and black<br />
entomb the carcass winter.<br />
<br />
And grieving seems<br />
a smaller thing<br />
than sight of a dead hive.<br />
For after all<br />
the sages say<br />
this dying will<br />
enact the tide.<br />
<br />
Once we did a rite that seemed<br />
to fill a swarming story.<br />
Perhaps to satisfy ourselves<br />
perhaps to hear the apiary.<br />
There we dreamed<br />
and there we danced<br />
within the dance<br />
there was a glance.<br />
Knots were close within blue sky<br />
knots of past<br />
and knots of hive.<br />
Memories came<br />
and so did swarms<br />
the sky alive<br />
the wood was warm.<br />
The sky alive<br />
and hummed with wings<br />
the story lived<br />
the winged sing.<br />
<br />
The story lived through golden words.<br />
The golden goddess combed her hair.<br />
And palaces of cell-souled wax<br />
repeated, multiplied her sight,<br />
repeated, multiplied her swarm<br />
the story lived<br />
the Queen was known. Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-2870498321924000662011-07-07T00:40:00.000-07:002011-07-07T00:44:33.350-07:00JonahA Poem about the Seas<br /><br />In days that were mountains<br />and blue oceans open<br />and sun like restoring light<br />gold on the tombs<br /><br />I wore grass on my feet<br />and He was my grandeur<br />And then, when I fought Him<br />I fell to the darker<br /><br />In calm and in roaring<br />the storm was enfolding<br />in forests of dulse<br />I stole to the sand<br /><br />I slanted like sun rays<br />of long and low colour<br />And shoals of quick speakers<br />were loud as the thunder. <br />While I was sand dying<br />as dark as Osiris<br />A great blue allotment<br />of galloping life.<br /><br />And inside the whale<br />in rivers like skin<br />I loved Him I knew Him<br />blue black and unhome<br /><br />The time when I fought Him<br />I foundered in Whale.<br />and liquid corroded<br />I rose from the bone.<br /><br />I foundered in Whale<br />as blue as my sin<br />as amber as musk<br />I sunk me to Him.<br /><br />I sunk me to him<br />as dull as my bone<br />as constant as city<br />as callous as home.<br /><br />::::<br /><br />Today in the cities<br />with fire encased <br />with sun strung like webbing<br />and wind clammed like wire.<br /><br />I wear time on my feet<br />and my soul is as a taut<br />And then, when I fight Him<br />I fall in the cold.<br /><br />To visit the sailors<br />I dive off the shore<br />And I came to the ocean<br />where blue black things roar.<br /><br />I've grown with the years<br />or at least my ship.<br />no straws to draw<br />only steel to equip.<br />Am I as massive<br />as grail and as granite<br />am I as greedy<br />as life upon death?<br />And when I reach whale<br />The whale is nothing<br />and I am as large<br />as my head on a plate.<br /><br />To see what will happen<br />in dawn concrete days<br />I dive off the shore<br />and I rest on my ways<br />and all that I've made<br />in a frenzy of what<br />covers the ocean<br />in all that it's not.<br />covers the ocean<br />and dulls its own pulse<br />as large as my frenzy<br />as large as my health.<br /><br />For sure when my answer<br />is not as it should be <br />and all my enhancements <br />are not as they could be<br />when I see the sea<br />I just see my own eyes<br />and the gods of divison <br />are gods of my size.<br />and I speak a word<br />and the tiny things shudder<br />and I make my mark<br />and the smallest things falter.<br />I grieve for the day<br />when the salt of the sea<br />was the thing that reminded<br />of my god to me.<br />now the salt of the sea<br />is the thing that reminds us<br />of what we accomplish<br />with nothing behind us<br />as wide as a whale<br />we score through the oceans<br />accomplishment feeble<br />and poisons of potions.<br />the belly, the centre,<br />the spiral, the dance,<br />is clogging?<br />is beating?<br />was only a trance?<br />when the years were older<br />than you or than me.<br />And now they are younger<br />than all we can see.<br />forgive us <br />remind us<br />now who speaks to who?<br />It once was my mission<br />to city the sin.<br />And now I say <br />what?<br />Bones are clean.<br />Look within.<br />My tongue was of ashes<br />my skin was of sackcloth<br />no reason, no rhyme, when the mammals are here<br />on plates and in potions<br />in death, not in oceans.<br />So live, breed or weep.<br />If you tremble,<br />Invent it<br />And stay<br />To defend it<br />A space made of blubber<br />of reincarnation<br />An amber of certain<br />A God that restored.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-60281938880081837082011-03-29T05:14:00.000-07:002013-07-24T01:13:22.813-07:00Melinda: RagedHe found her in the viewfinder, the night was ivory with the moon and the elms were very pale. Outside of the photo there was only the brunt of the night and the far off stars but when he pressed he saw her, the colour of sepia, a Victorian ghost amongst the trees.<br />
<br />
His hands were shaking. In the next image she had lifted her hand. He put down the camera and saw only blue black branches of trees.<br />
<br />
'Are you a ghost?'<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
Her voice was soft.<br />
<br />
'What are you?'<br />
<br />
Then she was gone, and the images only gnarled trees. When he got back he uploaded the picture to his P.C.. He put it as his screensaver, and then he took it off. He went to sleep and dreamt of her lying next to him. Her hair was soft and dark in great waves.<br />
<br />
He came at dusk the next night and the stars were already coming out like cold thoughts. He pointed the camera at an oak tree, bent by a storm, and he saw her, and trembled in the brief air. He went towards the tree. There was a warmth there, and a breath in the air, like laughter and grief.<br />
<br />
He said:<br />
<br />
'Are you a ghost?'<br />
<br />
'No,' she said again. 'I'm real. I'm just – not visible.'<br />
<br />
'Not visible?'<br />
<br />
This was not what he had been imagining. He had considered ghost. Hallucination. Angel. Not visible hadn't crossed his mind. What did it mean? How did you take a photo of not visible? So he asked: 'What's your name?'<br />
<br />
'Melinda.'<br />
<br />
'You're so beautiful.' He said. 'Like silver on the tree.'<br />
<br />
'Will you marry me?'<br />
<br />
'What?'<br />
<br />
Melinda said: 'It's necessary that you see me. Through your lens. It tastes like – berries, when you're hungry. Sweet, centred with cold. I like your hair. What do you take photos of?'<br />
<br />
'Landscape mostly,' said Philip, his heart still pounding.<br />
<br />
'When you photograph me,' said Melinda, 'I can feel the air beat on my skin.'<br />
<br />
'Is that good?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Melinda, and again. 'Today – yes. On the hill no one has seen me. Not visible is weightlessness. Falling like - feathers. Not bad only nothing to be done. When you take me I can feel - my feet.'<br />
<br />
He felt a soft touch on his neck, and jerked in shock, but then she left her hand there, and it felt normal – only, well, not for Philip, since he hadn't been touched there for years, and he knew what she meant then, about the weightlessness and weight.<br />
<br />
'How long have you been – not visible?'<br />
<br />
'Since I fell out of the belly of a star. Perhaps we were an asteroid. When I landed scientists took photos. I hated them, though. When I laughed, they didn't. So I ran away. Here. I was watching you with your camera.'<br />
<br />
He had considered alien, and felt on stronger ground.<br />
<br />
'You come from a star?'<br />
<br />
'So do you,' said Melinda. 'Your bones, your blood, all turned over, over and over, once before up there, in the dark cool night, like light and thunder.'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip, who didn't understand, but the truth was, that he wanted to embrace her and there was a wild joy beginning in him, unlike anything that had begun before.<br />
<br />
He moved his hand, and felt an arm, a hand. Hesitant. She moved her fingers out and around his, and said with the sternness of a fairy tale princess:<br />
<br />
'So, you'll marry me?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip.<br />
<br />
'Oh,' said Melinda. And in that oh there was a depth of sadness, and Phil didn't understand from where it had come from. And he said: 'That's what you want?'<br />
<br />
'Oh yes,' said Melinda, 'and you know, I might be – like the frog, and when you marry me, I might come back. All – you know. Skin and human.'<br />
<br />
'Well yes,' said Philip, feeling lightheaded. 'Quite. You don't have any objection to a church do you?'<br />
<br />
'A church might object to me.'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip thoughtfully. 'And are there any – you know – things. Like I can't strike you, three times, or you'll disappear with all your cows.'<br />
<br />
Melinda laughed, and it was all over the hill like children's glitter.<br />
<br />
'I don't have any cows,' she said. 'And you can't strike me, not if you can't see me. But I'm not a fey, I'm not an undine, I'm just not – visible.'<br />
<br />
Phil took her hand in the glittery night, and they walked down the tuffety hill hot with ravens and colour flowed in through her and she blushed, although it could be seen to nobody but the wind. So she raised the back of Phil's hand linked in hers, raised it to her cheek so that he could feel the warmth and Phil thought that it wasn't fair, the happiness that was happening to him, it wasn't fair when there were people who weren't, and he hoped he would be enough for her.<br />
<br />
He took her home to his apartment, grateful that he'd cleaned last week. He felt that she would appreciate traditional manners, so he made the bed in the spare room that used to be Hannah's until she moved out.<br />
<br />
'Thank you,' she said simply, as he lead her up the stairs, and to the empty space, that still seemed to reverberate with Hannah's thrumming music, and sellotape scraps on the wall. She was not here anymore but Melinda could see her, sitting on a bean bag in her leather jacket and kissing her boyfriend's with the abandonment of true honesty, with the certainty of a very visible woman.<br />
<br />
'This was my sister's room,' said Philip.<br />
<br />
'Yes.'<br />
<br />
'Would you like a cup of tea?' It was disconcerting when he didn't know where, in the room, she was, when he had given it to her, she seemed to inhabit it unfairly, like a precious bird or poisonous gas. He stood hesitant on the threshold and felt uncertain, about her presence, about his promise.<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said a gentle voice by his ear, and immediately he felt ashamed. Did it really matter? Was he really the kind of person to mind, if there was love? And such - beauty?<br />
<br />
He went to make the tea. His camera was in his bag, by the door. He wanted to take more photos. But he didn't feel like asking. Not yet. He'd made her a promise – like in a fairy tale. It seemed to be the most important.<br />
<br />
He took in the tea. The room was empty. Of course. Only it wasn't. There was a movement in the air, a certainty in the molecules, a beauty of the veil in the way the breeze flew.<br />
<br />
'Melinda?'<br />
<br />
The cup moved gently from his hand over onto the table.<br />
<br />
'Where is she now?'<br />
<br />
'Who?'<br />
<br />
'Your sister.'<br />
<br />
'Oh – she moved out with her boyfriend. We were just flatmates when we were both students, you know. Some people thought it was weird.'<br />
<br />
'Why?'<br />
<br />
'Oh – I don't know.'<br />
<br />
Philip was nervous. Also, wondering if he was mad. And then her hand touched his shoulder again, and it seemed as if years of fumbling, and great crushing spaces of loneliness were gone in one motion of contact.<br />
<br />
She said: 'I'll go to sleep now. You'll see about the wedding?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip, automatically. 'Well – sleep well.'<br />
<br />
'Thank you Philip,' she said. 'Thank you Philip.' As if she was trying out the name.<br />
<br />
And the hand moved away from his shoulder and he went to his room.<br />
<br />
He wanted to touch himself and dream of her – and during the night he was in a wildness, very quietly, to take it up the camera, and open the door, and take a shot – just to see. How she was sleeping. How her hair was rising with her breath and her cheeks were flushed with sleep. After all, it was a risk he was taking – and it wasn't such a big thing – to have assurance about what he was getting himself into. But he didn't. He had been brought up to be a gentleman, and also, he had been bought up reading stories, and the tale of Cupid and Psyche was too close and too loud. But the wish was on the side of all his thoughts, as if his mind was a knife – and if it turned one way - easily – he would do it.<br />
<br />
He slept badly and then, towards morning, he seemed to slip deeper. He was in an orchard, everything was the colour of sepia, and she was there – and they were dancing. And the most silent-certain contentment flowed through him until he knew that without a doubt everything – but everything would be alright.<br />
<br />
Philip, used to waking for the morning light of photography - woke up at 7. It was a Saturday so no work. There was no sign of movement from his sister – Melinda's – room.<br />
<br />
He sat down at the kitchen table, and wondered how to do it. He picked up the phone.<br />
<br />
'What?'<br />
<br />
'Hannah?'<br />
<br />
'It's bloody 7 in the bloody morning Philip!'<br />
<br />
'I'm getting married.'<br />
<br />
Silence.<br />
<br />
'Only – there's this problem. Hannah?'<br />
<br />
'I'm sorry Philip - you're getting - who?'<br />
<br />
'Look, I was taking photos on the hill last night and this – well – it's hard to explain.'<br />
<br />
'I'll come over,' said Hannah. 'Make me a coffee.'<br />
<br />
Philip put the phone down, feeling relieved. 'Your sister's coming?' said a voice by his elbow. He nearly jumped out of his skin.<br />
<br />
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I frightened you.'<br />
<br />
'No, it's okay,' he said, holding on to the kitchen table. It's fine. Would you like some breakfast?'<br />
<br />
'What do you have?'<br />
<br />
He made her toast and jam.<br />
<br />
'What do you do?' she said.<br />
<br />
'Do?' said Philip. He was sitting opposite her, watching the disappearing toast as if he saw it every day.<br />
<br />
'You know – during the days. To make money to buy food and shelter. That's how people do it, isn't it?'<br />
<br />
'Oh – yes. I'm a receptionist at a vet's clinic while I finish my MA – er - studies, you know.'<br />
<br />
'Studies of what?'<br />
<br />
'I'm studying Fine Art and Photography.'<br />
<br />
'Oh.' He didn't want to give her his whole CV. It was too flat. Too headachey real and malignantly possible. Although as his fiance she certainly had a right to know. So he said: 'I'll maybe work in an art gallery after. It's difficult to get a photography job.'<br />
<br />
'You do it very gently,' said Melinda. 'That scaffolding-enfolding vision.'<br />
<br />
Then she said: 'Do you like it at the vet's?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip.<br />
<br />
'Why?'<br />
<br />
How to put it? 'It's very sociable,' he said. 'Not just with people, you know?'<br />
<br />
That sounded bizarre.<br />
<br />
Melinda was silent, as if she was thinking about something. After awhile she said: 'It's not normal here, to socialise outside your species?'<br />
<br />
'Er - no,' said Philip. 'I mean – well, people have pets. But it's not like – you'd invite them to the party.'<br />
<br />
Melinda said nothing. Then: 'Can I have another piece of toast?'<br />
<br />
She spread it with raspberry jam. And then she said:<br />
<br />
'Look at me while I'm eating.'<br />
<br />
Her voice was hunrgy, low. What about her? Was she human? Perhaps incubus. He got the camera from his bag, his hands trembling. He looked through the viewfinder but nothing. He had to press to find her there and then she was, with a crumb on her lip, and dark eyes, a Victorian goddess, a strange kitchen mate, a fairy-woman, a lynx-spirit, a wild-wife. Her eyes like soil run through with clear water. And her hair like strength.<br />
<br />
She looked at him and smiled.<br />
<br />
The doorbell rang. For the second time he jumped out of his skin, and pressed, and saw no alarm in her eyes, only an impatience, perhaps, a kind of hunger.<br />
<br />
'That'll be Hannah,' he mumbled.<br />
<br />
His sister clumped past him, laying her bag on the ground. 'What the hell you've been taking, little brother?' she said.<br />
<br />
'Hello,' said Melinda as she entered the kitchen, 'I'm Philip's fiance.'<br />
<br />
'Bloody fucking hell,' said Hannah.<br />
<br />
After that, it didn't go too badly, Philip thought.<br />
<br />
In a while Melinda went back into her room to have a rest. It tired her, she said, not being used to talking to people.<br />
<br />
Philip said to Hannah, not giving her a chance to berate him for his not visible bride:<br />
<br />
'The problem is, I can't see how – how - '<br />
<br />
He should have given his sister more credit. She slurped her tea thoughtfully. After awhile, she said:<br />
<br />
'Does she show up online?'<br />
<br />
Philip shrugged.<br />
<br />
'You didn't try?'<br />
<br />
He shrugged again. 'On my desktop the pictures – she's still there, the pictures are just pictures.'<br />
<br />
'What about live? Videocam?'<br />
<br />
He wondered why he hadn't thought about it before. To see her in full motion -<br />
<br />
'Don't get any ideas,' said Hannah, which Philip thought was bit rich, considering it was his wife-to-be they were talking about. 'I mean for the wedding.'<br />
<br />
She seemed to be taking it seriously then. Which was just like Hannah. Being a mathmatician, she very quickly adapted to the new variables set before her. But Philip – was confused. He would have either like her to have got angry, or that they had kept it a secret. His secret, breathing being. Why had he called his sister? Everything was mundane.<br />
<br />
Hannah was shaking her head. 'But, I guess it wouldn't be enough. They're probably not legal in England. We have to do it properly. If we got someone to come round to the house, and wired up the cameras, they could do it in the kitchen, and Melinda could stay in the bedroom. We could say she's got a deadly infectious disease. She'd still be technically present.'<br />
<br />
'She doesn't have an infectious disease,' said Philip testily.<br />
<br />
'Sure she does,' said Hannah. 'She'd infect any self-respecting priest with the fear of God and they'd be out of the house before you can say fuck me.'<br />
<br />
She stood up. 'I'll call Jake,' she said. 'He graduated last summer, you know.'<br />
<br />
Philip nodded. His thoughts were heavy like snow on snow, dark, massive, unclear.<br />
<br />
'She's nice,' said Hannah, as she picked up her bag. 'I like her Phil. Good choice.' She gave him a thumbs up and let herself out and Phil felt a barrage of affection for her, his utterly open-minded sister, who hadn't batted an eyelid once she'd heard her speak.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, she did show up on screen. After Hannah had gone, Philip slipped out to PC world to get a videocam and set it up on his laptop.<br />
<br />
He heard the door open, when he came back in, and somebody took hold of his wrist.<br />
<br />
'I thought you had gone,' said a voice. 'Broke your promise. Did she like me?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip, breathless that she was still here. 'And she had this idea - '<br />
<br />
She watched him while he set it up. She didn't seem to like the idea, she was moving through the small bedroom, the curtains kept lifting and the door moving back and forth. She made him nervous.<br />
<br />
When it was working, he turned around.<br />
<br />
'Do you want to try it?' he asked, uncertain.<br />
<br />
'Okay.'<br />
<br />
He turned the camera round to where her voice was, and turned it on. He pressed record and she was there, alright. She was standing by the window, looking as her sound had been.<br />
<br />
He looked on the screen. She was beautiful.<br />
<br />
'We can get married like this,' he said.<br />
<br />
She nodded. 'It makes me feel blurry,' she said, and she sat down on the floor.<br />
<br />
Looking at the screen, trying to remember exactly where she was, Philip went over to the window. Tentatively he reached out, and then he put his arms around her, leaning over her. It was as close as he had been. She smelt like magnesium.<br />
<br />
They rested like that, arms in arms, and stopped counting the time.<br />
<br />
The next day Hannah's friend Jake, recently-vicar, came round to talk to them about it.<br />
<br />
'She can't leave the bed,' said Philip. 'And we can't go in there. She's got these – light allergies. They are very rare. But she can be online, from next door, and I'll be here. I know it's not technically – you know. But she would be here, right Melinda?'<br />
<br />
Jake was a gentle man from Aberdeen who had been Hannah's classmate in Philosophy and the wells of the lochs showed up in his eyes. He looked at Melinda sitting on the bed in the spareroom (Phil had shifted the laptop). Then he rapped gently on the door and spoke with Melinda through it.<br />
<br />
'Well,' he said after a while, turning back to Philip. 'It isn't quite -.It certainly isn't quite-.' He paused and Phil bit his lip.<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Philip.<br />
<br />
'Well,' he said again. 'You know, I think we could fix something up. What is a kitchen wall in the eyes of God, now?'<br />
<br />
After he had gone Philip sat on her bed and they held each other's hands.<br />
<br />
They had the wedding two weeks later, with Hannah and a friend from the vet's as witnesses. They had a tall white wedding cake Hannah had baked. She put it in the centre of the table and surrounded it with tall wine glasses and lit candles. Melinda was wearing a dress her sister-in-law to be had brought her in Oxfam, ivory bright, and she looked on screen like a Gabriel Rossetti painting.<br />
<br />
The guests stood politely in the kitchen, Jake at the top of the wooden table, clear afternoon light coming through the high, fern spread window, illuminating the green wine glasses. Philip felt absurdly grateful to the vicar for standing there, for bringing the sanctity of his millenia old rite into his house.<br />
<br />
They went through the ceremony. It was bizarre, yet no one laughed. Melinda had made Philip turn off the speakers, but her voice came clear through the door, through the thin walls. As they went through the words Philip felt, dazed, that on the screen was a feeble trace and she was everywhere, really. She was the atmosphere itself and they were all made from her, enacting her conception of this early-evening green-light marriage rite.<br />
<br />
When Jake said: 'you may now kiss -' Philip slipped into the spare room and everyone in the kitchen clapped. He met her lips in need and even though the house was full he was in a house of silence.<br />
<br />
But afterwards, when he was shutting the door behind the congratulating guests, Philip suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of tightness, of claustrophobia that he had not felt up to now, that it hadn't been right, enough, that it should have been in a cathedral and there should have been aisles of orchids.<br />
<br />
The kitchen was all over with used wine glasses and a half-eaten cake. When he went back into the room she said: 'Can you see me now?' Her voice was childish, teasing, knowing that it wasn't so, and hoping all at the same time, mocking him and mocking her.<br />
<br />
'No,' he said.<br />
<br />
But he picked her up and took her to the bedroom anyway. She slid down under the covers, and while she was lying there, he got out the camera and took hundreds of shots while she giggled and stuck out her tongue and stuck out her legs and her arms and it seemed a terrible relief to her, to be married, even if she wasn't visible. Then they lay in bed together. Holding onto each other.<br />
<br />
Yet – he was nervous and sad, lying there. Of course, she was expecting more. Of course, he was disappointing her. Yet – that - thought was dizzying. She was too delicate, if he couldn't see her. They stopped with an embrace like at a gate. She moved his head down, and he pressed it to where he could hear her heart beating, and he felt as if he was again in that garden, the sepia garden. They slept their hair on each other's lips.<br />
<br />
They had three months, and everything was almost perfect. Philip went out to work or study during the day. Came home in the evening. Melinda had cooked dinner, though she ate very little herself, her cooking was sweet, delicate, like her. In the evening, sometimes they watched TV, though Melinda didn't seem to like it. She preferred it when she read to him. These were her happiest moments, when she curled up on the couch in the living room, and Philip sat next to her, with his hand in her hair, and read – it didn't matter what – although tales were best. Sometimes he read the newspaper, but it didn't seem to make much sense to her, and he could tell (he had become very sensitive to her breathing) that she was not so much bored, as bewildered. So he stuck to the tales. She liked the fairy tales best. When he got into One Thousand and One Nights, her breath was so soft and deep that he would have thought she had fallen asleep, if there weren't points and pockets of awareness in it.<br />
<br />
And it was all so – perfect – that while he was reading the words, he reached over to the stool next to him and pulled his camera, while he was reading, and he clicked a photo of her.<br />
<br />
He heard a sharp intake of breath and when he looked into the viewfinder, he was bewildered to find her eyes furious.<br />
<br />
He moved away on the couch, his heart thudding in confusion.<br />
<br />
'Melinda?'<br />
<br />
For a second or two, there was no respose. Then she spoke again, but her voice was soft.<br />
<br />
'You just took me by surprise, that's all.'<br />
<br />
He said nothing. <br />
<br />
Melinda reached up and took the camera from him. She laughed. 'I look horrible. Let's go to bed and take some more.'<br />
<br />
So they did, and all was peace, and afterwards, he kissed her breasts, and he heard the rhythm of her breathing, like Arabic spices.<br />
<br />
But then there was another afternoon, when the light was long in the sky, as if it was about to thunder, and the clouds were mackeral, pinkish, and he hurried home against the scourging North wind, and she put his bowl on the table, the plate rested apologetically.<br />
<br />
'It didn't work so well, today,' she said.<br />
<br />
It was fine, soup, just a bit tasteless.<br />
<br />
'It's really good. But Melinda – you don't have to do all the cooking, you know. I'm not such a horrible cook.'<br />
<br />
She said nothing. He was afraid he had offended her.<br />
<br />
'Melinda.'<br />
<br />
'I'm here,' she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. 'It's just – sometimes I'm sad because – what else exactly can I do?' Her voice was heavy and he wasn't sure what with. Sometimes in his own home he felt like a blindman.<br />
<br />
'I just - Hannah would kill me, if she knew I let you do all the cooking.'<br />
<br />
'Well, don't then.' He still couldn't read her. Another bowl of soup settled down and she began to eat, so so did he.<br />
<br />
Afterwards, he wanted to do something, to see something, her smile as sweet as phoenix feathers, so he went around to the other side of the table, where he felt her arms, and he moved her upwards, and he said very gently, come to bed.<br />
<br />
She came with him. He took out the camera, and in the first shot, he could see her back and shoulders. But when he took her face, there was that fury again and he let it drop, confused, frightened.<br />
<br />
Why didn't she say anything, if she didn't want it? He couldn't see her at all.<br />
<br />
'Melinda?'<br />
<br />
There was only ragged breathing.<br />
<br />
'Get on with it then,' said Melinda, and her voice was harsh and not like hers at all. Philip put the camera on the bedside table. He was shaking. He sat down on the bed. Again, her breathing was somewhere in the middle, between furious and gentle, as if she was trying to be his, but couldn't find her way through the storm. He put a hand on her waist, lightly, lightly. He was angry – it wasn't his fault, he couldn't see her. But he didn't want her to see it. He said:<br />
<br />
'What's wrong?'<br />
<br />
Her voice was like lead. 'You and you're fucking camera,' she said. 'You think you know me? You think you can see me?'<br />
<br />
Then there was the sound of moving off the bed, and a door slamming, and another one.<br />
<br />
Philip lay down on the bed. He knew he should move. His heart told him he should get off the bed and go after her. But outside was only dead air and occasional dusty leaves, and without anything to see her he wouldn't have a chance.<br />
<br />
He closed his eyes. Water interrupted the sepia dream, and so did time, making it dusty and unpleasant.<br />
<br />
'Melinda.' he said.<br />
<br />
When he woke, it was a sharp misery that came to him with consciousness. He heard a noise in the kitchen, and crawled out of bed.<br />
<br />
'Melinda?' he said on the threshold. The kettle was boiling<br />
<br />
'How did you sleep?' her voice was contained.<br />
<br />
'Okay - I - thought you'd -'<br />
<br />
'I'm not leaving you,' said Melinda. 'I'm married to you.' Then he was pulled into an incomprehendable, bear-like embrace.<br />
<br />
'You should go to work,' she said, pulling away.<br />
<br />
'About last night -'<br />
<br />
'We'll talk about it later,' said Melinda.<br />
<br />
****<br />
<br />
Melinda was sitting at the kitchen table when Hannah came round – at least, Hannah assumed she was, from the moving of the tea cup.<br />
<br />
'Would you like a coffee?'<br />
<br />
'Oh god,' said Hannah, 'You sound terrible. What's he been doing to you?'<br />
<br />
'Nothing,' said Melinda. She could feel the brittleness in her voice, like cold leaves. 'It's not him,' she said. 'It's me. I thought after I got married I'd get – well, you know. Better. And I haven't and now - I can't do it anymore. He can't see me. He only looks at me through that -'<br />
<br />
'Yeah, that would annoy me after awhile,' said Hannah, looking at the camera lying on the table top. 'I always thought it was a bit of weird, all that clicking.'<br />
<br />
'No '<br />
<br />
Hannah could feel her leaning further towards her, angry, trying to explain herself. 'It isn't like that. When he takes photos of me – that was why I married him – you know – because when he caught me on that hill, everything was filled out, suddenly, and terribly certain, and I could hear the blackbirds. And it makes him so happy, his whole self is concentrated. But then -' she paused confused and then said in a rush, 'Sometimes I think I could take it and smash it to pieces, grain by silver metal grain.'<br />
<br />
Hannah said nothing.<br />
<br />
'What is wrong with me?' asked Melinda. 'Not just the invisibility. All of it. I thought I would be solid with marriage, but I'm not. That's what all the stories say. If you're a fairy or an other being – you have to marry. But it's not helping. I need a witch at the back of a forest, to go and ask but there aren't any forests in this arctic town.'<br />
<br />
Hannah thought about it.<br />
<br />
'Not in forests,' she said. 'You could try one of my professors. She's kind of like that – you know.'<br />
<br />
Melinda thought about it. 'Who is she?' in a voice so soft that Hannah could see what her brother saw, or rather heard, in her sound, and her breathing.<br />
<br />
She said: 'At the uni. Professor Crispin. She's pretty old and wise. That's what you need, right? And I reckon she wouldn't have so much problem with you being unseen, some of them might.'<br />
<br />
Melinda said nothing.<br />
<br />
Hannah leaned across the table to where she thought her sister-in-law might be.<br />
<br />
'It isn't your fault, you know.'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Melinda firmly. 'It is. I let your brother think, when I was marrying him, that I would become something other.' Her voice was less brittle now. More stoney.<br />
<br />
'Well, maybe,' said Hannah. 'But if you don't like all that business with the camera, you don't have to put up with it. Nobody has to put up with -'<br />
<br />
'Desire?'<br />
<br />
'No, I just mean -'<br />
<br />
'He's my husband,' said Melinda.<br />
<br />
'Well what are you complaining about them?' said Hannah, irritably. She felt a soft collapsing opposite her, an uncertain misery, and regretted her tone.<br />
<br />
Then Melinda said: 'What did you say her name was?'<br />
<br />
'Crispin, she's in the psychology department. It's in the quad on -'<br />
<br />
'I know where it is -'<br />
<br />
Hannah looked up in alarm. Her voice had changed again.<br />
<br />
'Get out,' she said. 'Leave my house. Get out, get out, get out.'<br />
<br />
'What the fuck is wrong with you?'<br />
<br />
'Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out!'<br />
<br />
Hannah went. She reached the pavement, shaking.<br />
<br />
Upstairs, still Melinda sat down at the kitchen table and stared. She stood up, moved around the kitchen, listlessly.<br />
<br />
She was becoming invisible, she thought, even to herself now. Nothing she did seemed to have an impact, and so she turned up the pressure of actions, made the stronger, wilder, so she could see her footprints.<br />
<br />
What had she done now? Would Hannah – who was only trying to help – call Philip – and say what – not that it mattered.<br />
<br />
Melinda sat back down at the kitchen table. She wished she was back on the crest of the hill. And however good the seeing had felt she should not have run to it. She should have carried on drifting. She should have not been seduced by presence like warm stone. She should have gone.<br />
<br />
Philip's sweatshirt lay on the back of the chair. Melinda picked it up, and put down her face in it.<br />
<br />
She thought backwards.<br />
<br />
A fumbling fall – people weren't really born from stars – maybe she had dreamt the whole thing.<br />
<br />
What she had dreamt was – nothing – only long traced light like waltzing, making patterns on the clay blue dark.<br />
<br />
What she had dreamt was – a sudden stumble, a sharp relief - as if a pressure she hadn't known was over - and a knowing of aloneness that hurt like sky.<br />
<br />
And moving down very very quickly.<br />
<br />
And what she would later call grass, only she had known it was obliging sharp green, and damp on palms and legs.<br />
<br />
It had been night. Confused, she had turned over to sleep so that she could talk to the new soil.<br />
<br />
But before that, before she had managed, something had swept over her, and swept again. It hadn't been unplesant. It made her hiccup. And then a light that had asked her to follow it, gentle, like her, so she had followed it down stairs and through glass doors.<br />
<br />
A very strange kind of colour and sense. Around her, the unkeeping of secrets smelt like metal. And then a crisp clinking and over her a law like congealed winter, a closed cage.<br />
<br />
'There's something there,' said a cool, pleasant, excited voice. She opened her eyes. But this light was not happy, it had never been sung to sleep, it was not prepared for ending and so it was rude, like a child tyrant, like Lear's daughters, she thought later, when Philip read her Shakespeare.<br />
<br />
'Some kind of presence – but manifestly physical – look through the camera' – gasps of astonishment – and then to the naked eye – laughs of bemusement – 'shall I call Dean – saw something in the security cameras – a hallucination – disturbance in the air itself – or is to just to the senses – even touch evoked – the parapsychology lot will want to get a look – '<br />
<br />
They tried speaking to her through the camera.<br />
<br />
'Hello. How are you? Can you hear me?' They sounded embarrassed, as if they were speaking to their own reflections and they stopped.<br />
<br />
She didn't speak. If she had spoken, she could have explained that she was like them and they would have let her out, but she was embarrassed by the rude light and by the other things in boxes, the other things were not human, brown and dark big shapes, some, or small and fleet and white but allowed no fleetness, so they carried on thinking she was a paranormal phenoma that they had been lucky enough to capture. Which she was, also.<br />
<br />
They took a lot of photos. She was burnt by the fluorescent lighting and by the way the monkeys held onto the bars.<br />
<br />
One day they opened the cage to do a physical test and she slipped out past them. She had been studying the door. She slipped out past them and out of all the wooden dusty doors and back onto the grass but this time she didn't try to sleep on it she only ran. After that she had lived up on the hill. Nobody had seen her. Nobody had seen her, the sun only lifted its beak to her during the day, and the stars cheeped to her during the night and she had cheeped back and occassionally an owl had come down and settled on her arm that had been the extent of it. She had been lonely as a feather.<br />
<br />
When Philip came with his camera she had flown to him like mercury.<br />
<br />
Who was she and where had she come from?<br />
<br />
Melinda ached. She ached in her bones and in her spiral being. And she knew in the ache – though she had thought a wedding might procure a miracle – but without much belief in crosses and churches – nothing only fumbling and embarrassed slow love. She knew that in the ache itself, there was no space for love. There was only old compressed thunder like static and it would take them both away from life.<br />
<br />
'I'll go into the forest then,' said Melinda. And she took her red jacket that Philip had bought her because he knew that even though she was not visible she often got chilly in the Scottish wind -and went out of the flat. She was calm about it by now, even comforted, that she had to go back to the broken start to get a clear hold on this cold place. It made sense, like the stories. She wished she hadn't shouted at Hannah, who had only been trying to help.<br />
<br />
There was probably an easier way to the quadrangle with the psychology building, but Melinda walked up the hill and then down the hill, because that was the way she knew.<br />
<br />
The grass was still there, and it seemed friendly enough. But Melinda knew they had seen her in the security cameras.<br />
<br />
She walked across the green grass, her heart pounding enough to make her seen by a thousand eyes if she could be. But you can't, Melinda reminded herself. So you're safe. Blind substance without light to meet you. But from their eyes safe.<br />
<br />
The door was flat, and hard against her palm. All of the students – like bees – when she had been here before they hadn't. And she was confused that they were laughing and smiling and grimacing and carried around battered books and they didn't know about downstairs. Couldn't they hear thin stink of the doors? But all she could hear was the bursting open of coke cans and the ripping of paper and the clicking of pen lids while they waited for their lecture to start.<br />
<br />
Melinda saw one of the people who had been down there doing the tests. She crouched down by the wall. Could he remember? Could he remember her breathing? Her heart was still beating as it had beaten when they kept her here. Being a long time half awake/sleep against a ground that didn't give and nauseated by it.<br />
<br />
He was moving quickly. It was him who was giving the lecture. He ushered the students into the class. They looked cheerful. He was a good teacher, she realized, surprised. He had taken ultraviolet pictures and yet here upstairs he was a good teacher. Was this the way they all were here? Half and underhalf?<br />
<br />
Not Philip, though, not Hannah. They were kindled all over with being kind.<br />
<br />
She had been slow, inside the cages. Each time they took her, cracking their focus on her, it had slowed her down. That was why it had taken her so long to get out. <br />
<br />
She stood up. There was nothing on her now, and she was floating as quick as thought. So she went up to the board with the list of names.<br />
<br />
Professor Crispin was on the fourth floor.<br />
<br />
Melinda walked up the stairs. She hadn't been up, before. The stairs were blue carpet.<br />
<br />
The fourth floor was small, it only had four rooms. From the windows, Melinda could see a raucous grey sea and gulls like ships and it calmed her.<br />
<br />
The sign said:<br />
<br />
Prof. Crispin.<br />
Head of Department<br />
Theoretical Psychology<br />
<br />
As she was knocking, Melinda realized too late, given her state, it would have made far more sense to telephone first.<br />
<br />
'Come in.'<br />
<br />
The office was covered in books. As well as theoretical psychology, whatever that was, on the top shelf, there was Yeats, and Blake and there was even One Thousand and One Nights, and this calmed Melinda also. Behind the desk there was a picture of a forest that said it had been done by Emily Carr. On the desk was a pomegranate, a wooden statue of a tree, and an old beanie baby dog. Behind the desk was a woman with short grey hair, who was sitting very still and watching – not with terror, but with a very focused concentration as Melinda closed the door behind her.<br />
<br />
Melinda said: 'A friend of mine said you could help me – there aren't any witches in the forests – there aren't any forests - ' she paused in confusion – knowing she had begun badly and the woman's eyebrows were raised very high.<br />
<br />
'Is this a joke? A student prank?'<br />
<br />
'No,' said Melinda. 'I'm not visible.'<br />
<br />
'Oh,' said Professor Crispin. Melinda couldn't interpret her tone.<br />
<br />
Melinda sat down in the chair in front of the desk and waited. She made her breathing sound, so that the woman would know she was still there.<br />
<br />
Professor Crispin breathed through her nose. Then she said:<br />
<br />
'Dean Morris in the lunch room the other week was going on about invisble phenomenon visible under a camera lens – paramemories, they called it, something about a Victorian lady - '<br />
<br />
Melinda said: 'Yes. They thought they were imagining me and they wanted to do experiments.'<br />
<br />
'Good god,' said Professor Crispin.<br />
<br />
Melinda said making her voice sound calm: 'If you try to send me back there, I'll come and haunt your house and give nightmares to your grandchildren.'<br />
<br />
'Alright, alright,' said the professor. She turned her swivelled chair around and pulled out a bottle.<br />
<br />
'Would you like a whiskey?'<br />
<br />
'Yes please,' said Melinda.<br />
<br />
Professor Crispin poured two shots and downed hers in one, and so did Melinda. She swallowed and coughed. It reminded her of fire laden mornings before she slipped.<br />
<br />
Professor Crispin sat the beanie baby dog back up. 'You had better start from the beginning,' she said.<br />
<br />
So Melinda told her. She told her about the falling, and the lawn of the quad. She told her about the light like Lear's daughters, and the way she had felt under camera, a sudden slowing, like a screeching on of breaks.<br />
<br />
'It is like,' said Melinda, trying to find the words, 'Unseen I am all different thousands. My feet are free and there's no edges to my blood. I don't remember myself very well. I am swift and remember other colours better.<br />
<br />
And then, in that camera - I am stained and can't.'<br />
<br />
'Right,' said the Professor. 'I see.' She paused. 'And then you escaped.'<br />
<br />
Melinda told her about watching the door, and fleeing one day and about reaching the top of the hill and living with the white branches of the willow and yew and hawthorns. Then she hesitated.<br />
<br />
Professor Crispin waited.<br />
<br />
This was the first time Melinda had told her story all the way through. And it didn't seem to make sense, like two parts soldered weakly together. Maybe that was why it was all falling apart. She said:<br />
<br />
'A boy came up – a student – he was photographing the hawthorns and I got in the shot. I know tales but I don't know where from. I asked him to marry me. I thought it would give me a soul and so I would be seen.'<br />
<br />
The professor was still silent.<br />
<br />
'I was standing on the hill and I got in his shot. It wasn't like before in the lab. He saw me and his eyes went wide. Wide.'<br />
<br />
'I touched him on the collarbone and he was so suddenly still, just like I in his photo. I felt his hand in my hand before I had felt it. And we walked home together.'<br />
<br />
'A man called Jake married us, they in the kitchen and I in another room.'<br />
<br />
'But even through it I was not visible.'<br />
<br />
She stopped, not sure where to go from there. The Professor was looking at her.<br />
<br />
There was a long silence in the room.<br />
<br />
'Well,' she said, when she realized Melinda had finished. 'I have to admit I'm not really sure – Are you wanting to press charges against the university?'<br />
<br />
'Press charges?' Melinda was confused.<br />
<br />
'That's not why you're here?'<br />
<br />
'Oh,' she said. 'No - I – didn't think about charges.'<br />
<br />
'Ah.' There was a silence. 'Then why are you here?'<br />
<br />
Melinda was embarrassed and confused. 'My sister Hannah, said you gave advice, like a witch in the back of the forest, and I said - I had to go to her, because I thought getting married would give me back a soul, but then I thought – going to find a wise woman would do it.' She blushed, and was glad this time not to be seen in it.<br />
<br />
'Ah,' said the professor. 'A witch at the back of a forest. I see.' She half turned to look at the painting behind her, then she turned back.<br />
<br />
'Well, mostly I deal with anorexia, depression, the typical student – not really -'<br />
<br />
Melinda was silent. It seemed to her that, right at the top of this sad place, the professor had been looked at too much, as all dry and thinky, and she wasn't sure any more what it was she could do or who she was. She waited. And she watched her while she was waiting, trying to watch the old things out.<br />
<br />
The professor put the fingertips of her hand together.<br />
<br />
'Not visible,' she said, slowly. 'Fallen from a star.'<br />
<br />
'I need your help,' said Melinda.<br />
<br />
The professor frowned.<br />
<br />
'What seems to be the problem, exactly?'<br />
<br />
'I want to be seen,' said Melinda. 'I want him to see me.'<br />
<br />
The room was silent again. It seemed as if the wooden tree on the desk might come out in leaves. Melinda, listening very carefully, could hear, in the silence, the rocking of the sea.<br />
<br />
'I find it – strange that – you'd come back here after what has been done to you in this building.'<br />
<br />
'I need your help,' said Melinda again. As they were sitting there, up in the tower, she was becoming more aware of the rest of the town, the castle on the crest of the sea, and deep beneath it, tunnels.<br />
<br />
The Professor put her arm down on the desk.<br />
<br />
'Would you shake hands with me?' she asked. 'Just so I can - '<br />
<br />
Melinda did so. Her hand was dry, and lined.<br />
<br />
She took her hand away and nodded, as if she had made a decision. She said to Melinda:<br />
<br />
'I hope you don't mind my asking, but do you and your boyfriend -'<br />
<br />
'Philip.'<br />
<br />
'Do you have Philip have intercourse?'<br />
<br />
'No,' said Melinda. 'He is afraid of me. Wouldn't you be, of a voice you couldn't see? We sleep in each other's arms. But he doesn't reach me deeper. And I also - I am – sometimes when he takes photos - I remember the – first ones and I get a terrible reach of fury. After that intimacy would be a lie, and so I stay from him.' <br />
<br />
'I see,' said the professor. She thought for a time. 'And you don't remember anything from before you fell. From the -' her voice hesitated slightly – 'star.'<br />
<br />
'No,' said Melinda, 'But then - I remember everything. When I think about this planet I know – all about it. And I know the stories, although Philip sometimes has to remind me. But maybe that was from – before I was a star.'<br />
<br />
'And you were not visible since you came down?'<br />
<br />
'Not visible,' agreed Melinda, 'Yes. Only in the camera.'<br />
<br />
The professor took a breath and breathed out through her nose. Melinda waited.<br />
<br />
'You say it was like – when you can't be seen – you say it's like being everywhere at once?'<br />
<br />
'Not everywhere,' said Melinda, slowly. 'Just – more.'<br />
<br />
She poured them both another whiskey. 'You remind me of quantum physics.'<br />
<br />
'What do you mean?'<br />
<br />
'Like a quantum particle. Did you ever hear about the dual slit experiment?'<br />
<br />
Melinda nodded. Where did she hear, or when? But because the professor couldn't see the nod, she said:<br />
<br />
'They have tiny particles and shoot them through slits in a screen. When the particles are unobserved, it does appear as if they go through both slits at the same time. That is the pattern against the wall behind. Both at the same time. How can that be? They split like a wave, like a liquid, like a flow. Solid particles. Solid particles flow through the slits like a fountain and appear like great waves on the back wall.<br />
<br />
But – and this is the hardest part to comprehend - when the particles are observed, when someone switches a camera on and watches, they make a decision. They are, slowed down, like you said. Like particles should be. So they go through one space or the other, and reach the wall like a grain of granite. When the camera is switched on.'<br />
<br />
Melinda waited.<br />
<br />
'Whenever I speak of it, the beauty strikes me again,' said the professor. 'A beautiful and marvellous thing. Impossible, of course. Just like you.' She smiled.<br />
<br />
Melinda nodded again.<br />
<br />
The Professor stood up and went to the window, and was silent for awhile. 'Well, it's just that,' she said, as if defending the telling of this story to the invisible woman in her office, 'if I was one of those particles, I would consider both states of being a blessing.'<br />
<br />
Melinda said nothing.<br />
<br />
Professor Crispin walked back behind her desk, and studied the painting for awhile.<br />
<br />
'Canadian,' she said, obscurely.<br />
<br />
She poured herself another whiskey, and downed it again.<br />
<br />
'If I were not a member of this department, you know what I'd tell you?'<br />
<br />
'What?' said Melinda.<br />
<br />
'No, strike that,' said the professor. 'Science has many faces.' Her voice sounded newer, and fuller – of whiskey, partly. But Melinda's heart felt better. 'Yes, science has many faces. If you were to seek her on the Tree of Life, she would be at the home of the God of Thieves, did you know that?'<br />
<br />
'No,' said Melanie – although – although yes, in fact, she thought she might have known that, although the words had been different.<br />
<br />
'So what I say as a distinguished professor of psychology is: go downstairs, set the mice and a couple of the monkeys free, don't come back here - then go back to home and tell Philip to shut his eyes,' said Professor Crispin.<br />
<br />
She picked up a bunch of keys on her desk.<br />
<br />
'Here,' she said. 'As head of the department, I must have a key to everything for security reasons. She slipped a tiny one off it's hoop, and laughed a little self-consciously.<br />
<br />
'This is the kind of thing you might, have been expecting to get, yes? From the - witch in the forest?'<br />
<br />
Melinda shut her hand around the little golden key, and the professor could see it glinting in the air through Melinda's closed palm. <br />
<br />
'Yes,' Melinda said. 'Thank you.'<br />
<br />
Melinda went all the way down, the curving staircase. There was nobody in the basement cage floor. She didn't turn the light on. She remembered where they were. She also remembered, from where she had watched it, the finger rhythm of the combination to the alarm.<br />
<br />
Melinda let out all the mice and opened the door. They could find their own way. She hoped that they enjoyed the blue carpets.<br />
<br />
The monkeys were more complex, and to Melinda's guilty relief, there were only two in the lab right now, two small, young howler monkeys with long silky tails.<br />
<br />
They clambered up on her shoulders heavy and warm and it was only afterwards that Melinda realized they hadn't hesitated about it. Was a monkey eye something different?<br />
<br />
Melanie carried two monkeys home in her arms and everyone in the street was so alarmed to be hallucinating flying monkeys that they didn't come near her. They felt warm and she felt grateful.<br />
<br />
At home she let them off her shoulders and they clambered around to explore. They sat on the table and chewed digestive biscuits that she found in the biscuit bin. She named one of them Handel and the other Perseus.<br />
<br />
She texted Hannah with the phone Philip had bought her.<br />
<br />
'Sorry about b4. Went to see Crispin. Set monkeys free.'<br />
<br />
She cupped her hand around a mug of tea and luxuriated in the gentle burn, sipping and sipping again, feeling the fresh heat on her tongue.<br />
<br />
Tell him to close his eyes?<br />
<br />
The first instruction had been simple and its action a joy. But she wasn't sure what the second would accomplish at all.<br />
<br />
Close his eyes – when? When he was speaking to her? When they were embracing? For sure, it was not a problem, a small request – but she disliked it.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
<br />
He had no right to be eyeless. She needed him here. That was the whole point.<br />
<br />
She imagined what it would be like if he were really blind. Knocking about the apartment. What would be the point then?<br />
<br />
She knew that he had wondered, when he took the photos that first day at breakfast, if she was some kind of spirit. Incubus. She had seen it in his eyes. And perhaps she was. Without doubt there was a part of Philip, a seeing part, that she fed on. At least – needed. Wasn't it the same thing?<br />
<br />
Melinda put her head down on the wooden table.<br />
<br />
If he shut his eyes it would be her responsible – for the framing. And it made her nauseous. If he shut his eyes and put his hands out to touch her – he would need her – which was fine – but she would be the one burdening the particles with clumsy certitude. But she was a girl from a star and such dirty work would stop her going home.<br />
<br />
Handel was starting to chew the carpet so she took him onto her lap. Home wasn't really a place for monkeys. Should they take him to Africa?<br />
<br />
Perseus had wandered off to explore the rest of the house.<br />
<br />
A key turned in the door. Confused, she stood up, sending Handel chittering to the floor.<br />
<br />
'Melinda?'<br />
<br />
He was standing in the doorway watching the monkey chewing the red and white tablecloth.<br />
<br />
She went over to him quickly. She put her hands on his waist. 'I'm still here. That's Perseus. Handel's in the spare room'<br />
<br />
'Melinda, thank god,' he said and he clutched her shoulders. 'I thought -.' He shook his head and laughed.<br />
<br />
'You thought I turned into a monkey.'<br />
<br />
Philip reddened and looked away. 'Well, you know – when you marry a – and you're not sure -' He decided it was better to let it go. 'Why are there monkeys in our kitchen?<br />
<br />
Melinda kissed him on the nose and on the lips. She was so relieved by him. Relieved by his presence. Her heart hard-beating she took his hands, and lead him into the living room. She wanted to explain, and she didn't. She said:<br />
<br />
'I was looking for my soul.'<br />
<br />
'In the monkeys?'<br />
<br />
'Come outside with me.'<br />
<br />
'Outside?'<br />
<br />
'Later, when it's midnight.'<br />
<br />
'Alright.'<br />
<br />
They made stew together and spent the evening getting acquainted with the monkeys. After, it was late and cold. No one was out, only a late few students, who hurried past them, too tired, cold, or drunk to see anything at all let alone Philip and his flying monkeys.<br />
<br />
They walked through the cobbled streets and onto the small cove, bleak with gulfs of sand in the half set moonlight. The steps down were slippery and Philip held Melinda's elbow while she held the monkeys in her arms. She set them down and they started to play in the foam on the edge of the sea. Above them the crest of the castle.<br />
<br />
'What if they go too far out?' she asked Philip.<br />
<br />
'I'll dive in and get them,' said Philip gallantly, a bizarre thing to say when he wasn't a good swimmer and he had no desire to catch pneumonia but perhaps he wanted to show that he knew – or at least sensed - that Melinda had risked her life this afternoon and he also – when it came to it – could do the same.<br />
<br />
The lights of the moon were shining onto their skins, and onto the damp tight seaweed, and the sea was plashing between the rocks. The monkeys started throwing pebbles at each other.<br />
<br />
Philip took Melinda's hand. It was cold and clammy. Where had she been this afternoon? Who had she met or fought? He loved that there were monkeys in their house. But what if he shouldn't? If he should put his foot down and take them back?<br />
<br />
Sometimes Philip felt as if there was a man, in his mind, but it wasn't him. He was a boy, still. In Melinda's eyes? Even though husband? How could he be a man in his wife's eyes if she had no eyes for him to see?<br />
<br />
It was, after all, at times ridiculous.<br />
<br />
He said:<br />
<br />
'I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have taken the photos.'<br />
<br />
Melinda said nothing.<br />
<br />
After a time she said: 'Because I was upset?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' he said.<br />
<br />
Perseus howled as his toes got wet and rushed up to the top of the sand. Students laughed on the streets above. He could see ships very far out.<br />
<br />
What was the right thing to say?<br />
<br />
'I love you Melinda,' said Philip. 'I love you in all colours, even without them.'<br />
<br />
Melinda said: 'Yes.' She said: 'Philip, please close your eyes.'<br />
<br />
'Why?'<br />
<br />
'I don't know.'<br />
<br />
Philip swallowed and said: 'Melinda, I love you. But it's half past midnight and the ships are so far out at sea I can only see mist. Let's go home.'<br />
<br />
Silence.<br />
<br />
'Melinda?'<br />
<br />
Still silence.<br />
<br />
Philip sighed. He rubbed his eyes. The sand was tight round his feet.<br />
<br />
Both his hands were taken, and he felt the rough-salt on his wife's skin.<br />
<br />
'Please.'<br />
<br />
'How will it help?'<br />
<br />
'I don't know. I told her I needed you to see me.'<br />
<br />
'So I should be blind too?'<br />
<br />
'Why don't you want to try it?'<br />
<br />
'I don't know, Melinda. I feel -' He didn't know what to say. That it wasn't every man who would marry an invisible wife?<br />
<br />
'I'm just tired, that's all.'<br />
<br />
'Okay,' said Melinda, though he could hear from her voice that it wasn't.<br />
<br />
'What's wrong?'<br />
<br />
'I thought you'd be proud of me for trying out here. You know? But you think I'm just - silly.'<br />
<br />
'Silly? I married you, didn't I?'<br />
<br />
More silence. Footsteps.<br />
<br />
A voice from a rock.<br />
<br />
'Are you glad about the monkeys?'<br />
<br />
'Yes, Melinda, about Handel and Perseus I'm happy. But they're cold and tired, and I am too. Let's go home.'<br />
<br />
Shells fell out of pools where she was climbing. 'You made me invisible.'<br />
<br />
'What? Me?' Now he was angry. 'Are you crazy? I found you on the blasted -<br />
<br />
'Heath.' The voice laughed. 'I know it's unfair, Philip. Because you didn't. You're only a boy with a camera. You rescued me and took me home. You're an innocent. Only you aren't. When I say you I mean – you. Do you know what I mean?'<br />
<br />
'No.'<br />
<br />
'What if there were things that could be seen if you only had eyes to see them?'<br />
<br />
'Are you saying if I looked hard enough I could see you?'<br />
<br />
'Did you ever try outside of your camera?'<br />
<br />
'You married me because you liked the photos.'<br />
<br />
'Well? So did you.'<br />
<br />
'I don't know what you want from me,' said Philip.<br />
<br />
'Nor do I,' said Melinda.<br />
<br />
There was silence on the beach, and the wind rocked it. The monkeys came up to Philip and tugged at his trousers.<br />
<br />
'I'm going to take them home,' he said to Melinda. 'Come with us.'<br />
<br />
Silence. He scooped the warm furry creatures up and Perseus put his arms round him. He went up the beach, his heart thudding. The streets were icy and alien. And what if the bloody police took him in for stolen goods?<br />
<br />
He got home, he unlocked the door with difficulty and deposited the monkeys in the living room. He ransacked the fruit box and gave them each a chopped apple. Then he sat on the carpet and cried.<br />
<br />
When he couldn't bear it anymore he left them in the living room and opened the front door. As he did so, he felt a breath on the threshold and something -<br />
<br />
He stepped back, his heart rushing -<br />
<br />
'Philip,' said his wife. 'It's just me.'<br />
<br />
Philip stood on the hall, furious at his fear and his relief, at the insane situation into which he was married.<br />
<br />
Melinda said: 'I came back from the rocks. Come into the kitchen. Where are the monkeys?'<br />
<br />
'Living room,' said Philip. He followed her, and they sat down at the table.<br />
<br />
'My hands are icy,' she said, and put them against his. He took them and rubbed them.<br />
<br />
'You shouldn't have stayed out so long.'<br />
<br />
Then he said: 'I want to see you, Melinda.'<br />
<br />
Melinda was silent. She said. 'I want you to see me too. I was nasty to Hannah, but I didn't mean to be. She sent me to a woman, for help. In the same place where I was held. That's where I got the monkey's from. Marriage hasn't worked. I mean –' she hurried on 'It's nice. But it hasn't – you know. So I went to ask for advice.'<br />
<br />
'And she said I should shut my eyes?'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Melinda. 'I was afraid.'<br />
<br />
'Why?' said Philip.<br />
<br />
Melinda hesitated. 'I don't know if I really love you or if I'm just taking advantage of your sight. Like an incubus.'<br />
<br />
'But I can't see you.'<br />
<br />
'When you want to you can.'<br />
<br />
Philip paused, then he dipped his forehead down so he brushed his crown against Melinda's hand and said: 'I'm frightened too.'<br />
<br />
'Why?'<br />
<br />
'I don't know if I love the part of you I can't see.'<br />
<br />
'But you can't see any of me.'<br />
<br />
'When I want to I can.'<br />
<br />
'Yes,' said Melinda, with a thoughtful sigh. Then she said: 'The Professor said I was like quantum physics.'<br />
<br />
While Philip was reflecting on this, Melinda took his hand again and said quietly:<br />
<br />
'I think my star went down.'<br />
<br />
'Went down?'<br />
<br />
'Imploded.'<br />
<br />
Philip frowned. He couldn't see how that accorded to the laws of physics.<br />
<br />
She said again: 'I think it went down. It feels – as if that's what happened.'<br />
<br />
Philip said: 'Do you remember what it was like?'<br />
<br />
'Bigger than me,' said Melinda. 'Brighter than me. Me all over. No space for – Me all over.'<br />
<br />
Both were quiet. The sky seemed dense and near.<br />
<br />
Then she said: 'And it could be that I inherited something of the Star. It could be that it's wrapped around me like smoke. But its nothing that can be watched or caught. Only known when you close your sight. Terribly ugly and deposing. Ancient lines, and marvellous. I'm afraid of it, Philip. That colour, those outlines. So loud, and me and - awful.'<br />
<br />
Philip looked at her in silence. Silence seemed cubed, hexagrammed.<br />
<br />
'What will happen to me, then, if I see that dead star you?'<br />
<br />
'I don't know,' said Melinda, again. 'Maybe we'll stop dying.'<br />
<br />
Philip nodded. She wasn't sure if he understood or not. And he wasn't either. But it seems he took her hand. They checked on the monkeys, who were asleep on the sofa, rushing red on the brown cloth, calming the flat of its clackety clack of humanity, loosening the tales of the thing with other dreams.<br />
<br />
In bed which had soft sheets, they laughed as they laid each other down. Philip closed his eyes, and saw the lapse of colour. He felt Melinda touch his lips, and sense him feeling her, like swan's feathers, like bones.<br />
<br />
His heart was thudding. Melinda was nearly crying at the course singleness of action, but she made herself continue to command sensation, to imprint sense on vision, as if she was summoning an ocean, full and broken. Philip continued into the darkness until he was beyond the horizon. It was very gradually that the darkness took place and the place that it took was Melinda. Perhaps the moon saw them from out beyond the sill, where everything is stillness and motion.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-58992622850466872332011-03-18T08:49:00.001-07:002011-03-18T08:49:25.958-07:00ObscurationsApril 18th<br /><br />After that far off raw descending motion<br />of scarlet scalding boldly<br />sleep. <br />all plans by ash <br />exhausted, forced <br />to nought as nowhere horses.<br />And as you fall you know<br />The sky <br />is still,<br />as meditation.<br />Mediation with the round white hare.<br />singular stars untouched again<br />all fingers to themselves<br />Here is a well of depth unending - <br />Up to day – now cleanly rising.<br />not shrunken and not marked with timing,<br />Sun shoulders into fine proximity.<br />as birds are royal once more<br />and curve like mirrors <br />over the greening grass.<br /><br />Dreams lip the sky.<br />To crest it <br />just today <br />Fantastic<br />Imagination creviced <br />to the clouds <br />by reams of molten colour<br />beeswax, brazen,<br />pouring from possibility <br />to make a new blue ground.<br />a sound of nothing and extent<br />of human cockle reach.<br /><br />And then you water - straighter, <br />herbs in boxes<br />tiny pluses<br />helix seeds <br />and greedy-leaved <br />elope with air,<br />their daylight flare<br />and now not banked by roaring <br />crowds of hover-clouds.<br />But heading straight to straight to right on blue<br /><br />I think your breath, this day of granted,<br />day of granite, daylight grounded<br />is intrinsic, granted you're not stranded <br />or abandoned you are home and not<br />expanded to an airport ill and floundered<br />you're not sleeping in a sacking do not wake<br />to plastic cracking and lucky so you know<br />the purity of clouds not now below.<br /><br />And for the stranded out you pity cry<br />only you cannot help but<br />Rub the opal sky.<br />Walk to yourself, and speak with elm-tree stealth<br />about maintaining this delusion of confusion <br />and this one-off selfish <br />timely-fine solution<br />to the far-off flight deck problem of extinction.<br /><br />each plane trip is a blessing that<br />ensures us with a longer store of time<br />crests leaking out behind us in white coils<br />ghastly stamped upon a sanctuary <br />and leaving us whey-faced, wheezing.<br /><br />And yet you fly when frequent, for you also<br />want to make your mark upon a spinning world<br />and hold hands with companions so and lovers <br />So travel is denigrated, commiserated, emaciated to<br />a noughts and crosses gouging of the stars.<br /><br />You think it should have been,<br />a shy approach to tulips and sore feet.<br /><br />A mustering of courage, and a shouldering of <br />nights of wolves.<br /><br />a final thawing seeking fire through pawing <br />at the earth and seeing<br />primroses roaring<br />at the peeping sun.<br /><br />So yes you fly when frequent, and you planned <br />next month to visit loved ones, kings and queens.<br />but just now, in excuse of light and lava, <br />You're quite content to know <br />the smell of distance<br />like a dusty fox<br />and dig as if the folded universe has time to watch.<br /><br />And then to deepening blasts that shroud the sky, returning to it <br />endless blue and us to feet you genuflect.<br /><br />These are our red red gods.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-38353673970895247422011-03-18T08:42:00.001-07:002013-07-24T01:14:22.927-07:00Children's Poem of the Day: I am a dragon.I wrote this quite awhile ago and felt like resurrecting it today. It's waiting for an illustrator :-)<br />
<br />
I am a dragon so there<br />
I live in a flat in a square<br />
I wear blue and pink socks<br />
And I own an X box.<br />
And I am a dragon, so there.<br />
<br />
I am an angel called Derek<br />
I fly through the sky above Berwick<br />
Sometimes I play ball <br />
across treetops with Paul<br />
And a small horned goalie called Eric.<br />
<br />
And I am Paul the vulture<br />
I enjoy contemporary culture.<br />
I can stab my beak<br />
Through the ball at it’s peak<br />
And score goals of such feathery grandeur!<br />
<br />
My name is Eric, the goalie<br />
That’s Paul-the-cheat and that’s Derek-the-holy<br />
But I am the best<br />
I knock socks off the rest <br />
When I tackle Paul with my grand roly-poly.<br />
<br />
There is a phoenix called Kate<br />
She lives on the top of that gate<br />
And takes round the world trips<br />
In her underground ships<br />
Made of ash and of blue china plate.<br />
<br />
I’m a ship’s captain called Esther<br />
I’ve one leg, pink wings and a purple sou’wester<br />
Ship’s bound for Austria<br />
To visit Sofia<br />
My Aunt, who herds sheep and a tortoise called Nestor<br />
<br />
It’s good to meet you, I’m Sofia<br />
I’m a little bit deaf in this ear <br />
Come on in have some pie<br />
Dance with Nestor and I<br />
I’m becoming a DJ later this year.<br />
<br />
I am a goblin called Emma<br />
I learn art in a school in Vienna<br />
I’m painting Sofia<br />
Red, purple and greener<br />
And she’s teaching me Macarena.<br />
<br />
I am a striped wasp called Beth<br />
And this is my other called Seth<br />
We flit and we fly<br />
Through the purple-blue sky<br />
On the wind like a wide fat man’s breath.<br />
<br />
Here is a Dream called Che-lings<br />
She lies with the raindrops and sings <br />
When you try to sleep,<br />
She comes with the sheep,<br />
And whispers you blue-winged things.<br />
<br />
I am a dragon, it’ s true <br />
These are my friends, how d’you do? <br />
We laugh and we cry<br />
And we are, don’t ask why.<br />
I am a dragon; and you?Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-17100163586957339792011-01-08T15:57:00.000-08:002013-07-24T01:23:17.211-07:00Clarity<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style> <style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style> <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Obora Hvezda</span></div>
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When on the tram I can remember nothing</div>
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And the soil enlarged.</div>
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Crawling to a mean distemper</div>
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Trying to be heard. </div>
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Roads on runners</div>
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tyres on craters</div>
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feet on feet</div>
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and angry corners</div>
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Standing at the slamming upspring</div>
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Dust and muck and charge.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Trying to recall earth by song</div>
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Hearing just a slipping pier.</div>
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How do we know with nothing growing?</div>
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How do we hear with concrete showing?</div>
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In which ash-ache </div>
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does bliss benevolent </div>
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scarlet banner</div>
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bones</div>
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come near?</div>
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<br /></div>
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I score along the highway</div>
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To keep myself alive.</div>
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Markets high recall to me</div>
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Nothing I have known.</div>
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They are not skin or wood or wild</div>
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They are not friend or bone.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I slink into the forest</div>
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I scrabble quick, woodwise</div>
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Is there a wisdom in footknots?</div>
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Nothing we've not yet tried.</div>
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So laugh at me among up-bones</div>
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In sky all wired and wide.</div>
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<br /></div>
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My hands raw into snow hoops</div>
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for months they recognize</div>
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October to December</div>
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slash searing blue and night wide.</div>
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in whispers</div>
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fear lessens</div>
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oak trees outface lies.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It could be blessing or ending.</div>
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It could be a prayer or a blizzard</div>
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Yet I remember the footnotes</div>
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Your berries the colour of blood.</div>
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and I remember the endnotes</div>
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irreproachable thunder of lace </div>
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on the faces</div>
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of rivers </div>
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and stones.</div>
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That recall the places</div>
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I transgressed to know.</div>
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ice-dilated sight.</div>
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the exorbitant light.</div>
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Forests and monsters</div>
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Are awake at night.</div>
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The night they're awake in</div>
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Is one that I knew</div>
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a faultless white thunder</div>
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of rain sloping stars</div>
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a looming </div>
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an easing </div>
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coalescing </div>
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of prayers</div>
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and wolves with blue faces</div>
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who stare</div>
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and repair.</div>
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<br /></div>
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(Do you recall, when the moon comes,</div>
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We'll be told as we go on our way?</div>
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And we'll all have a way to be told on?</div>
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And we'll all know a rhyme at the end of the day?)</div>
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<br /></div>
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Snow creeks</div>
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Madness lessens</div>
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slopes off to its hearth </div>
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surrounded by those</div>
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that attended its birth</div>
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the valleys of crystal</div>
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the caverns of trees</div>
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the keening white branches</div>
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the swamp squandered leaves.</div>
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the berries all roistered</div>
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the eagle up high</div>
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the cloak of the piglet</div>
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the glistening sky.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I can shut my eyes in the forest</div>
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of lies</div>
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for the lies and the truth</div>
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are both under the roof </div>
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of the blue and black sky </div>
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and the stunning of ice.</div>
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and I wander through holes </div>
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in dim-darkening ground</div>
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and the woodsmen around me</div>
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do not make a sound</div>
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and beneath my eyelids </div>
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I can see the snow </div>
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and the berries that stain</div>
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and the holly that grows</div>
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and the urgency outside</div>
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is that which I meet </div>
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with the silence of blackness</div>
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I feel with my feet.</div>
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<br /></div>
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(Do you recall, when the moon comes,</div>
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We'll gather and toast at the port?</div>
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And we'll know the port that we stand on?</div>
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And we'll know the colour of pearls and of thought?)</div>
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<br /></div>
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I can shut my eyes in the forest</div>
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and witness the whitening trees</div>
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the branches that kindle the torrent </div>
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the opening and closing of leaves.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Eyes closed see the same as eyes open.</div>
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Black wooden pillars and tender white lakes.</div>
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Webbing of roots and a wide solar sky</div>
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A high star-stone building, white red and awake.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Little Red Forest Girl</div>
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Walking to Granny's</div>
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Walks away from the path.</div>
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The snow suspended, </div>
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The trees reply</div>
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The wolf responds</div>
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The black birds cry.</div>
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Is it your blood that I see on the snow?</div>
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Did you start the palace which promised to grow?</div>
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Is it your name that the rowan recalls?</div>
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Is it your bone house where snow softly falls?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Little Red Forest Girl</div>
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Outbrave the hunter</div>
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Cut nothing down </div>
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But what figures your crown.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I walk in the forest</div>
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and walk to be free</div>
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Oh red forest girl</div>
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Recall me to me. </div>
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No listless absenting</div>
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No smell of escape</div>
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You walk in the forest </div>
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In the forest you wait.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The dawn is denatured</div>
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Outside in the dust</div>
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But here in the woodland</div>
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I know that it must </div>
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- Come, when the wind rises</div>
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and when the sun speaks.</div>
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When berries are broken</div>
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their bodies decree</div>
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the lustrous of waking </div>
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the crashing of rivers</div>
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in woods I believe</div>
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that our thoughts are repeated</div>
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by swollen encounters</div>
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and glistening snow.</div>
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In trees I remember</div>
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The places I go.</div>
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<br /></div>
Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-34022289245424508052011-01-08T15:52:00.000-08:002011-01-08T15:53:00.593-08:00Writing for an audienceWho do you write for?<br />Write for the press.<br />Write for the Pope in his very smart dress<br />Write for the mice that sit under the boards<br />Write for the masses and write for the hoards.<br /><br />Who do you write for?<br />Write for the queen.<br />Write for the man with the glass tambourine.<br />Write for engagements and write on bequests<br />Write for the girl in the lavender dress.<br /><br />Write for your teachers<br />and write for the noise<br />that sits on the tube train with smart equipoise<br />Write for the tramp with the flower in her hat<br />who sits on the ground with her white ginger rat.<br /><br />Write for your breakfast<br />and write for your life<br />and apple bum bowers<br />and being too nice.<br />Write for surprises<br />and write to be sure<br />and the blue hatted man<br />who slips in through the door.<br /><br />Write for your brother<br />and write for your Dad<br />and the neighbour with false teeth<br />and you when you're mad.<br /><br />Write to remember<br />write to forget<br />write to tell lies<br />and to get out of debt.<br /><br />Write for the oak trees<br />because they stand sturdy<br />and write for the squirrels<br />all nutty and wordy.<br /><br />Write for the fairies<br />quite nonpareiled<br />and the knots in the wind<br />holly veiled.<br /><br />Write for that crack<br />in the half torn down wall<br />write to earn cash for the dolldrums toll.<br />Write for your fans<br />and write for your stories<br />and write for your losses<br />and write for your glories<br />But most of all all when you take up your pen<br />write to remember you're real again.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-86156288214126331302009-11-07T14:25:00.001-08:002013-07-24T00:20:06.079-07:00A Pagan Blessing<br />
A Pagan Blessing<br />
<br />
May you be safe from all external harm,<br />
Safe from illusion, confusion and fear,<br />
Safe where you sleep and at home where you walk,<br />
Secure in the knowledge that safety is here. <br />
<br />
May you take joy in the beating of your own heart.<br />
May you have grace in stillness and grace in motion.<br />
May you know that your way is a way that is blessed.<br />
May you live life in laughter, love, and devotion.<br />
<br />
May you love how you walk, may you love how you speak<br />
May you walk out to meet those you love on your path.<br />
May you find love in the furthest of places,<br />
May love make a home of your own hearth.<br />
<br />
May your fire burn bright, may your waters run deep,<br />
May your body dance, and may your breath sing.<br />
May the spirit be strong within you,<br />
May you know it in you, and in everything.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-50443760887136384092008-10-31T02:25:00.000-07:002008-10-31T02:28:13.532-07:00Finding the Real MagicEurik and I have been studying ADF druidrism for the last year, and so when we heard that the founder of the organisation Isaac Bonewits was touring Europe giving weekend seminars with his wife Phaedra, it didn't seem as if this was a chance we could turn down. So we took our little silver car on the longest drive of its life, all the way to an ecological centre near Dortmund in Germany, to meet the two legendary figures of Neo-Paganism, and hear what they had to say.<br /><br />As we stumbled stiff-legged from the car we had our first glimpse of Isaac and Phaedra, walking through the yellow beech trees to the house. Both of them are silver-haired, Isaac was walking with a stick and leaning on Phaedra's arm. He seemed to me frail and elderly, yet this was an impression which was soon to be eliminated as we gathered in the seminar room to hear him speak. Wearing a bright white polar neck, and numerous druid and pagan pendants, with a curly grey beard and massy white hair, and looking absolutely relaxed, his presence seemed to exude around the room. Almost before we were sitting down, clutching our cups of tea, he had dived into an explanation of the laws of magic.<br /><br />When I had pulled my attention from my breakfaast of squashed gingerbread and focused on what was happening around me, they seemed to be talking about crystals and magic; or more specifically, the fact that crystals don't have any. They don't have any intrinsic magic power, said Isaac, their power comes from their colour – or, as Phaedra put it, crystals are shiny, and, just like magpies, humankind is drawn to glittery things. Crystals are no better or worse a magical system than Tarot, or Astrology. All of these things work, according to Isaac, because they trigger within us different psychic states, and thus allow us to tap into that energy, ch'i or lifeforce which is all around us. Indeed beauty; beautiful objects, beautiful dance, poetry, words, or pictures, seems to be a key to magic, in the Bonewits' formulation. More on that later.<br /><br />What immediately caught my attention as we relaxed into the lecture was Isaac's idea that paradox is at the heart of magic. We all move in different realities; we all exist in a network of different values and truths, but because these different truths may seem to clash, doesn't mean that they aren't all true. An eighty year old lives in a different universe from an eighteen year old, but both lives are real. Reality is not single or simple; in fact reality, in Isaac's words, is 'a crutch for people who can't handle magic'. To do magic, you need to be aware that reality is multiple, and that if something works for you then you can use it, whether that be a room full of rose quartz crystals or an evocation of the dread Cthulu. This is the Law of Pragmatism: If something works, it is real.<br /><br />He went on then to outline a theory of the Spheres of Comprehension, which is essentially that the world can be understood through different spheres, the sphere of art, the sphere of science, and the sphere of religion. Long ago, back when human life began and we started to understand what was going on around us, the three spheres were overlapping - we understood science through art and art through religion. As we have evolved, the three spheres have separated; scientists leave religion for the priests, and artists leave science for the geeks ;-) But in the centre of these globes, in the space that still overlaps - where science can be art can be God – that is where magic happens. Magic, he seemed to be suggesting, is that state where everything is possible, and where opposites are one; the point where the Ouroboros comes back to swallow its tail.<br /><br />To develop his point he continued in talking about the history of faith and magic, and the history of dualistic thinking. An idea he repeated throughout the weekend was that the history of our culture, all the way from Zoroastra and the idea of a good and evil god, through the gnostic division of spirit and matter, to the adoption and adaptation of these ideas in Christianity, has turned us into dualistic thinkers. Even though many of us no longer hold to the view that life, morality, or even gods, divide into black and white, this split thinking still pervades our culture and our brains: 'it's the original poisoned water that we are swimming around in', as Isaac put it. Incredibly important, he kept stressing, is to develop a pleuralistic viewpoint: understanding that the universe, rather than being black/white, light/dark, right/wrong, is 'complicated, ambiguous and messy.'<br /><br />After this he continued talking about ritual skills, and ADF ritual style. I say 'he', yet although Isaac was doing most of the talking, Phaedra interrupted throughout with a fluidity that made a duet of their lecture; either supporting with examples or restraining with qualifications when Isaac seemed to be getting carried away in his own conceptions. She also supervised group work, and we were all struck by her demonstration of group energy. After a few hours of sitting we were asked us to observe the feelings in our body. We were then told to stand, and cross arms, letting our palms rest one above the other. Immediately my hands began to tingle: without having done any visualisation or meditation, but with the simplest of arm movements we had dramatically altered the energy of the room. When we sat down again, I not only felt buzzing with energy, but far more open to a group which, up to that point, I had not felt particularly comfortable in. It made me think about how significant it is in a ritual to think not just about the individual energies or invocations of the participants, but really get the energy moving around the group as a whole.<br /><br />After discussing ritual style for the afternoon, the evening consisted of the much-awaited ritual itself, lead by Isaac and Phaedra, with contributions from those who wanted; Eurik and I were quick to volunteer – how, after all, could we pass up the chance to work in an ADF ritual with the Bonewits'? It was fascinating to view their style in leading a ritual, and it was certainly a very powerful and enjoyable one, particularly Isaac's incredible sung invocations to the Morrigan and Dagda.<br /><br />Afterwards, we all sat around and prepared ourselves to relax and drink beer: thus were somewhat taken aback when Isaac and Phaedra commanded a 'bardic circle': moving around the group clockwise, each person had to recite a poem, story, joke, or sing a song. Despite being initially alarmed at such a request (I can't sing to save my life and jokes slip out of my head like fish): it was a truly beautiful evening, and a wonderful way to maintain the energy of the night, and keep things somewhat Pagan, and spiritual, and truly shared, rather than allowing the conversation to slip off into more general topics. We heard verse, stories, and all types of songs from German to English folk to the Beatles. The highlight for me was when Phaedra sang the old English folk song 'green grow the rushes' – the new, Neo-Pagan version, of course. Since she hadn't sung it, she told us, for twenty years, and only gave it a go on somebody's request, she was helped somewhat haphazardly by the rest of the group when she forgot the words. This did mean we ended up with lines like – '11 something somethings with Crowley', but we certainly kept the tune and spirit going. One of the runic blessings of the ritual had been the blessing of community, and siting in the recreation room, all of us fumbling to get the correct words of an old folksong, translated into a hymn of modern paganism, typified, for me, precisely this blessing.<br /><br />The next morning, we got up to a critique of last night's ritual, and then moved to what was certainly the most controversial part of the weekend, which was Isaac's comparison of Wicca and ADF druidrism. When describing modern Wicca, about which he was scathingly, and, many of us thought, unnecessarily critical, Isaac suggested essentially that Wicca was Gerald Gardener's version of Tantra for the Western world. In a Wiccan ritual, according to Isaac, the primary form of power raising is sexual energy, either explicit or implicit. However, since British people tend to be much more repressed than those in the East and not so comfortable with dancing about naked etc, Wiccan rituals, from their very beginnnings, found people trying to raise power through an energy with which they were neither comfortable nor familiar. In contrast, according to Isaac, ADF druidism uses art for its power-raising. Sacrifices to the gods in the form of poetry or dance, or vividly written invocations. I love the very idea of creating art to give to the gods, but as far as the Wicca/ADF comparison goes, I, as many of the others there, remained unconvinced. As one high priestess of a German Wiccan coven pointed out, Wicca has evolved a great deal from whatever Gerald Gardner meant, or didn't mean, it once to be.<br /><br />I also cannot accept that Wicca doesn't use 'art' to raise energy, or, in fact, that you can so easily separate the two methods of power raising to such an extent. Just because a ritual doesn't include reading poems which are then given into the flames, doesn't mean that the participants aren't praising the gods, offering to the gods, with the craft of their imagination. Isn't the ritual form itself an artwork? A piece of sacred drama? A Wiccan ritual which re-enacts a myth, for example Persephone's journey to the Underworld, certainly works with the Persephone/Hades energy, which is sexual on one level, but only on one. Indeed, Isaac himself pointed out to us a number of times that body and spirit are not separate – this is only a misconception of dualism. So if body and spirit are not separate, then, how can sex and art be so mutually exclusive? A Wiccan myth-working ritual is a re-enactment of an imaginary or mythical experience in the material plane, and if that isn't art, then I don't know what is.<br /><br />During this part of the seminar I was far more convinced by Phaedra than Isaac; who herself, as far as I understood it, has been a significant figure in the American Wiccan community. She pointed out that ADF and Wicca are not mutually exclusive, and that they still do a number of Wiccan rituals. She also made the interesting suggestion that ADF work is more appropriate for large public rituals, and a Wiccan ritual, which tends to be more intense, better for private work. Considering the number of wonderful open ADF rituals Eurik and I have experienced while working with it, this idea thoroughly resonated with me.<br /><br />One might think that all of this was enough for one weekend, but certainly not. Isaac ended the day with an intensive two hour lecture about the twenty six laws of magic: more information can be found here, for those who are interested. http://www.neopagan.net/AT_Laws.html I'm fascinated to see, now that I look at the webpage, that he first formulated this as a guide for players of RPGs. All the more fascinating because these laws don't seem to belong to the fantasy world; but also have a perfectly practical application to everyday life. Even the more 'magical' seeming laws, such as the Law of Contagion, that objects or beings in physical contact with one another continue to interact after separation, has, as Isaac pointed out, recent backing from quantum physics. It just goes to show that there really are different, but equally valid, realities, as well as prove my own personal theory that the magic of fairy tales and fiction is not so far from 'real' magic after all.<br /><br />In summary, it was a fantastic weekend, both rich and enriching. We wended our way back to Liberec buzzing with all of the new ideas we had come out with. I feel truly lucky that we had a chance to meet such venerable Pagan elders in the setting of the beautiful German countryside, and experience some magic with them.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-33502122595388501932007-10-26T00:22:00.000-07:002007-10-27T00:33:43.272-07:00Cailleach Beare<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsqsWEAUmMhWWBsu2tjMPQt-lihhsOzA-kPoVmbLLDZxkoG_YHCU5yHjEsmXZx-812syTP5EI-emvIBb8JNCEQCbODwxbx2qq-txMTeYPQ4aEOJWd5egqRuNyXCo_YTRiefU6xx3-oFBa9/s1600-h/cailleach_beara_1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5125545297519705330" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsqsWEAUmMhWWBsu2tjMPQt-lihhsOzA-kPoVmbLLDZxkoG_YHCU5yHjEsmXZx-812syTP5EI-emvIBb8JNCEQCbODwxbx2qq-txMTeYPQ4aEOJWd5egqRuNyXCo_YTRiefU6xx3-oFBa9/s320/cailleach_beara_1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div>In preparation for our first ADF ritual this weekend, I spent yesterday researching the wonderful goddess Cailleach Beare. Thus in the mood of Samhain, here follows a short and not very scholarly article about the crone goddess of Scotland and Ireland.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em></em></div><div><em>Her face was blue-black, of the lustre of coal,</em></div><div><em>And her bone tufted tooth was like rusted bone.<br /></em></div><div><em>In her head was one deep pool-like eye</em></div><div><em>Swifter than a star in winter</em></div><div><em>Upon her head gnarled brushwood</em></div><div><em>like the clawed old wood of the aspen root.</em></div><br /><div>(from Campbell: The Yellow Muilearteach, in Popular Tales of the West Highlands Vol 3.) </div><div><br />The Cailleach Beare, also called ‘the popular, ‘she of many followers’, was an ancient goddess who, according to one folk tale ‘existed from the long eternity of the world’. She was a creator goddess, who during the making of the world, carried on her back a great basket of rocks and earth. The earth she let spill from her bag became the hills of Northern Scotland, between them she released rivers and formed lochs. </div><div></div><div></div><div>In a conversation about age with Fintan the Wise and the Hawk of Achill she was once asked, ‘are you the one, grandmother, who ate the apples in the beginning?’ She was the mother of giants and grandmother to various tribes of mankind. She had, according to Professor Kuno Meyer, ‘seven periods of youth one after another, so that every man who had lived with her came to die of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races’. She is said to have had at least fifty foster children during her lives.<br /></div><div></div><div> </div><div>In Scotland, Cailleach Beare was the roaring mother of tempest who brought winter to the land. Called ‘Bringer of the Ice Mountain’, or the great blue Old Woman of the Highlands, she had one eye in her deep blue face, the sight of which was "as swift as the mackerel of the ocean". During winter she and her herds of deer, goats and swine leapt from mountain to mountain, using her long white staff to smite the hills with ice and frost. Another myth gives her the daughter of Grainne, or the winter sun.<br /><br />It is she who rules the world through winter, from Samhain to Imbolc, when she is overthrown by Brigid. In some myths, she doesn’t relinquish her power until Beltane Eve, when she throws her staff under a holly or gorse bush and turns into a standing stone to await, again, the coming of winter.<br /><br />One story tells us how she became furious when her son fled from her on a white horse, carrying with him a beautiful bride. She pursued him over mountains but he fled from her nimbly, taking his bride, the spirit of summer, who was terrified of the tempestuous hag behind them. Cailleach brewed storm after storm, to try and separate her son and his lover, and after the last tempest of ice and snow, which brought floods and was intended to destroy all living, her son fought her and sent her fleeing, and thus, “the old winter went past”.<br /><br />In Ireland she is associated with Kerry and Cork. According to the Book of Lecan (c.1400 ad) she was the goddess of Corcu Duibne people, from the Kerry region. Other sources consider her as 'The Old Woman of Beare', or Bearhaven, county Cork.</div><div></div><div> </div><div>She is the goddess of wells and overflowing pools, rivers and lakes. According to one Irish story, she was given the responsibility of guarding the well at the top of Ben Cruachan. Every night she placed a boulder over it, to stop the restless waters from overflowing, but one night she forgot, and the villages beneath the mountain were destroyed in the deluge. Thus the valley became Loch Awe, and the Cailleach, horrified at what she had down, turned into stone. </div><div></div><div></div><div>In Irish legends she is often a goddess of sovereignty. She appears as a terrifying, ugly hag, and if her chosen young man doesn't spurn her she transforms into a beautiful maiden and awards him Kingship over Ireland and Scotland. A version of this story occurs in the tale of the Nine Hostages. Niall, Fergus and their brothers encounter an ugly hag, who instructs them to kiss her. It is Fergus who kisses her on the cheek, and as she transform into a beautiful woman she presents him with sovereignty over Ireland. </div><div></div><div> </div><div>The most absorbing of these tales I've read is the Story of the Enchanted Fawn, or the naming of Carn Mail, from the The Metrical Dindshenchas, and quoted in full below. Here four brothers, after slaying their father's enchanted fawn, encounter an old, withered hag who was "hideous, unsightly', an 'obese lustful horror', taller than a mast, with ears 'bigger than a sleeping hut', a nose as long as a ploughshare and each fist bigger than a basket of sheaves. Struck with dreadful horror, the brothers would rather be buried alive than look upon her, but after being told they and their hunting dogs will all be devoured unless one of the brothers agree to sleep with her, Lugaid Laigde offers himself, and she is revealed as the beautiful maiden, 'Kingship of Alba and Erin'. Lugaid, however, isn't as lucky as many, 'nothing more', says the lady, 'will come of our meeting'. It will be his son whom she will sleep with, and he will be prophet, seer and king. Although not specifically identified here as Cailleach Beare, it is certainly a possible appearance of the goddess.</div><div><br />A Christianised poem from the tenth century describes Cailleach Beare as a frail old women, looking back on her life when she was beloved of kings and mourning her old age:<br /></div><div><em>Time was when cloths of every hue<br />Bedecked my head as we drank good ale.<br /><br />The Stone of the Kings on Femen,<br />The Chair of Ronan in Bregon,<br />Long since storms have reached them:<br />The slabs of their tombs are old and decayed.<br /></em><br />Some elements can still be seen in this poem of the original goddess, for, despite lamenting her old age and proximity of death, ‘<em>I hold no sweet converse’</em>, ‘<em>my hair is all but grey’</em>, she tells us:<br /><br /><em>The time is at hand that shall renew me.<br /></em></div><br /><div>Below is an extract from The Metrical Dindshenchas.<br /></div><div>CARN MÁIL<br />1. Pleasant is the theme that falls to my care, the lore not of one spot only, while my spirit sheds light eastward on the secret places of the world.<br />2. How is it that none of you demands, if he seek to weave the web of knowledge, whence came at any time the name of Carn Mail in the eastern Plain of Ulaid?<br />3. Lugaid Mal, great ruin he wrought, was exiled from Erin: with seven ship-loads sailed the prince from Erin to the land of Alba.<br />4. He contended for the eastern lands, in combat and conflict, from Brittany to teeming Norway, from the Orkney isles to Spain.<br />5. When he gained the right of proud kingship, he brought with him the hosts of his array till the harbours of Ulaid were filled with the grim warriors' barques.<br />6. A challenge comes from Lugaid to the men of Fal demanding battle or tribute, to carry them into battle with him who was to be their overlord.<br />7. Then down he comes with speed to offer battle, even-matched; a stone for each fighter he brought to battle, with these was built Lugaid's Cairn.<br />8. There stood Lugaid Mal, on the massy white-sided cairn, till he brake the great and famous fight against the goodly men of Erin.<br />9. Lugaid received at Less Breg hostages from Gall and Gael: he was the king that reared the round cairn which stands above fair Mag Ulad.<br />10. Seven sons had comely Daire, Lugaid was the honoured name of each: because of the prophecy—better so! one name served for all.<br />11. Daire, fiery warrior, owned an enchanted fawn, shaped like a wild deer: four of them loosed their hounds after it, from old Tara north-westward.<br />12. Swift fled the fawn before them as far as the stream by Sinann: the fawn fell a prey to the four noble striplings.<br />13. The sons of Daire from Dun na n-Eicess cast lots gleefully, that each might know his share of the enchanted fawn, without quarrel.<br />14. To Lugaid Corb there fell the carving of the fawn, rough though he was; so from him is named the clan Dal Mess Corb in the region of Cualu.<br />15. While each was busy with his share, Lugaid Cal fell asleep; so his offspring unsubdued are the Calraige of Connacht.<br />16. Lugaid [Orc] brought a draught of water; fair he was yet not forspent: so his seed thenceforth is Corco Oirche in the confines of Cashel.<br />17. Lugaid, Mac Con's great father, all Erin belonged to him alone: so from Lugaid Loeg onwards the clan of Corco Laigde has its name.<br />18. When the men were in the house sitting over by the fireside, there entered a hag, a loathly offence; she was hideous, unsightly.<br />19. Taller was she than a mast upright, bigger than a sleeping-hut her ear, blacker than any visage her form, a weight on every heart was the hag.<br />20. Broader her row of teeth—what portends it?—than a board set with draughtsmen; her nose stood out far before her, it was longer than a ploughshare.<br />21. Bigger than a basket full of sheaves was each fist of the misnatured woman: bigger than rough-hewn stone in rampart each of her black bony knees.<br />22. A paunchy belly she bore, I trow, without rib to the armpits: a scabby black crown with a crop of wens, like a furzy hillside, upon her.<br />23. She set upon them in the strong house where sat the King of Erin's sons; dire the dazzlement she cast upon them from her eyes—alas the deed!<br />24. A change fell on the nature of the tender youths before that obese lustful horror: sooner than look upon her they had chosen to be buried under earth alive.<br />25. Their spirit and senses turned, with a throb sorer than stark combat: the sons of Daire gave themselves over to a death of shame.<br />26. She addressed them with an evil saying: ‘One of you must sleep with me to-night, or I will devour you all, unaided, hound and strong man alike.’<br />27. When he saw the danger plain, Lugaid Laigde spoke: ‘I will sleep with her—unwelcome task: enough for you to lose me only.’<br />28. As the firelight fell dim, she changed to another wondrous shape: she took on a radiant form, beyond praise; rosy she grew, round-bosomed.<br />29. Such were her eyes (they were no tricks of cheating craft)—three shafts of sunlight in each of them: where her glance fell all was bright.<br />30. Down slid the crimson mantle fair from her breasts untouched by age, till the flesh-worm might be crushed in the room by the light of her lovely body.<br />31. Then the young man asked her, ‘Fair maiden, whence comest thou? name thy race, tell it now, speak to me, hide it not from me!’<br />32. ‘I will tell thee, gentle youth; with me sleep the High Kings: I, the tall slender maiden, am the Kingship of Alba and Erin.’<br />33. ‘To thee have I revealed myself this night, yet nothing more shall come of our meeting: the son thou shalt have, he it is that I shall sleep with—happier fate.’<br />34. ‘I will tell thee thy son's name, lucky his lot; Lugaid shall his name be and Mac Con thereto: of him therefore I pronounce thus much: he shall be seer and prophet and poet.’<br />35. Daire uttered a prophecy to them concerning Mac Con unreproached: ‘Mac Con shall win the ringing Hill of Brega, with Erin and pleasant Alba.’<br /><br /><br /></div><br /><div></div>Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-66667882511442423932007-07-29T09:40:00.000-07:002007-07-29T15:19:20.654-07:00Alchemical Transfigurations (or playing with plants)So it was back to Treadwells last weekend, for a sparky alchemical adventure, or workshop entitled 'Advanced Herbal Alchemy'. Not being sure if we were quite at the advanced stage of herbal alchemy - in fact not being sure exactly what it was - we crammed all information we could muster about herbs and planetary correspondances on the train up to London. But we needn't have worried. Paul, the lecturer, was very friendly and though assuming background knowledge in herbalism he explained the precise system he was teaching us from the very beginning.<br /><br />And a fascinating system it was. Again in the basement of the bookshop off Covent Garden, this time complete with mini-stove on which to carry out alchemical processes, we learnt how to reduce plants to their basic, alchemical components and then recombine them into healing essences. The workshop began with the clarification that alchemy was more than the foolish begins of science, that in fact it had contributed, even in the twentieth century, to many significant discoveries that 'science' in the typical sense, missed out on. But then, rather than move on to a discussion of my understanding of 21st century alchemy - a psychological and spiritual process - Paul took the workshop along a different track, the alchemy of plant.<br /><br />He dismissed the gold/lead question from the very beginning. From his perspective, any alchemist - and he said this with the assumption of their being a still existent species - must begin with plants, and only later, perhaps, can move onto the more advanced and hazy field of metallic alchemy.<br /><br />The theory of plant alchemy seems pretty clear, at least if I understood it. Any alchemical transformation begins with a break down of the substance into its basic essences, so that it can then be reformed into a purified state. First death, then re-birth. The ancient alchemists believed that the world was made up of three essences: Mercury, Sulphur and Salt. These three essences can be related to the three principles of Spirit, Soul and Body.<br /><br />To alchemise a plant, then, what you do is break it down into Spirit, Soul and Body. How, exactly? Well, in biological terms, you can relate Mercury (spirit) to alcohol, sulphur (soul) to oil and salt (body) to - well - salt. Because spirit is a universal, you can add any near pure alcohol to your herbal mixture. Then you simply have to extract the oil and the salt, a process which involves at least three months careful and patient work, ideally with a clay furnace, in practise, a barbeque could do. At the end, if you're successful, you end up with a potent and clear liquid that can be used as an infusion in tea or a glass of water. The effect it has is related to the planet to which that herb corresponds. We were working with star anise, which is a herb of Jupiter, and thus the benefits of the final product are related to Jupiter's qualities - Prosperity, Wealth, Honour, Strength etc. This was the only bit I felt lacked clarity - surely the effects of an individual herb are far more specific than their general planetary correspondances? (But perhaps if I'd been to a basic herbal workshop first I would have been more clear on this point!)<br /><br />What was great about the workshop was that we were told on a clear and practical level how to carry it out at home, (in Paul's words, Kitchen Alchemy) and then we got to do it ourselves. Paul produced a dark jar of vodka steeped star anise, which we crushed and then burnt in a saucepan to fill the basement with a wonderfully thick and pungent smoke. At the end of the workshop we had a glass of thick, earthy liquid, which was added to a glass of water and then passed around to sip. We also added some to bottles of water and took them home with us. Eurik and I proudly bought our bottle of Jupiter-water back to Ditchling and offered it to the family with the promise of enhanced prosperity.<br /><br />I'm not entirely convinced that wealth will fall out of the sky now we've finished off our bottle of star anise water. But this was a weak infusion made as a demonstration in a workshop. While I have a natural tendency to be sceptical about these things, the very time and care that must be given to one of these herbal preparations, the hours spent taking care of the calcinating plant under the embers, like a bird hatching her eggs, necessitates a deep personal involvement with the process; in fact mediation on each stage of the process is a natural and expected part.<br /> Later in the process, if you have the equipment necessary, you can distill your product, referred to in alchemical terminology as 'letting seven eagles fly'. This (I think) is the plant essence reaching to heaven and then returning back down to earth, cyclically, until it reaches an enhanced stage of purification. It is here that you meditate on your wish reaching from the heavens to the earth, becoming a part of both planes.<br /><br />Ideally, you take at least three months to produce even a small vial of liquid. It's the very opposite of 'instant cure', not just because it takes time, but because it's something you are spiritually involved in the creation of, not something you buy over the counter. This is one of the things I love about alchemy, the interweaving of down to earth scientific processes with spiritual work. And it was a real pleasure to see a practical demonstration of how it can, in fact, in 2007, be done.Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3000124282340443699.post-74359847028498718022007-07-14T08:02:00.000-07:002007-07-14T08:04:11.448-07:00A British Pagan’s Adventures in…BritainWell, now we are back in England for six weeks. It’s very green here, and there are plenty more cows than I am used to.<br /><br />Being back, I am taking the opportunity to explore the British Pagan community, and in case anyone out there is interested, to write about it. And so yesterday I dived right into the fray with an interview at Treadwell’s Bookshop of Peter Nash, an Alexandrian Wiccan who was initiated by Alex Sanders.<br /><br />Treadwell’s bookshop is hidden in a winding street just behind Covent Garden. It looks exactly the way an esoteric bookshop should, a long space with odd corners, sloping ceilings and stacked shelves of books, dusty, leatherbound and shiny, from contemporary Wicca to chaos magic to myth and folklore to alchemy :-). And lots of glass bottles and pendants and branching wands. The shop could conceivably have existed since eighteenth century London. (It was in fact opened about three years ago, but that’s not the point). I appreciated the fact that alongside all of the esoteric books they had many dusty literary classics, which enhanced the whole atmosphere of something serious and academic going on.<br /><br />The interview was down a winding staircase and into the packed cellar. Peter Nash is a very soft-spoken Welshman. My first impression was of someone nervous and pale, but this faded as he answered all the questions put to him honestly, and directly. The interviewer/bookshop owner began by getting significantly on nerves – when Nash began to talk about his childhood, she interrupted him – ‘no, move on, to Alex, we want to hear about Alex!’ Un-phased, Nash continued firmly on with his own story.<br /><br />He described to us how he came to Wicca. Nash was born in a seaside town in Wales and had throughout his childhood an enhanced psychic ability, seeing floating bubbles of colour and, one memorable night, a tiny man with a fedora hat at the foot of his bed, who left him quaking under his sheets until dawn. During an encounter with a Spiritualist psychic, later in life, he was told ‘the man with the fedora says sorry for scaring you.’<br /><br />He described a teenage move through Eastern religions, and then a discovery of Gardner’s ‘Witchcraft Today’ and Sander’s ‘King of the Witches’ in his parent’s second hand bookshop. Gardner being already dead, there followed a two year hunt for Alex Sanders. When finally he discovered him, Sanders invited Nash down to Bexhill on Sea for a weeks stay ending with initiation. Apparently the concept of a year and a day isn’t something Alex Sanders paid much attention to.<br /><br />The interviewer asked him what he considered to be the difference between Gardnerian and Alexandrian systems; Nash suggested that it was Alex Sanders who modernised Wicca, taking Gardner’s concepts and combining them with the Qaballah, Rosicrucian initiation rituals and more from the Golden Dawn. He described Sanders system as a complete mish-mash of different concepts, paths and theories, but a system that was also demanding and effective. He was also asked the question of whether Sanders was genuine, or a fraud, and his answer, somewhat surprisingly, was ambiguous. Nash didn’t give much credence to Sanders’ claims of being initiated by his grandmother, following a line of traditional witches. A lot of what he said, according to Nash, was simply made up. However, there was no doubt that Sanders was also a genuine and powerful psychic. In a wine glass in a pub, apparently, he was able to read the future for Nash. Yet while respectful to both, Nash described Gardner and Sanders as ‘deeply flawed men’, and noted with some surprise the fact that these two could have essentially ‘begun’ Wicca as it’s practised today.<br /><br />When asked where he thought the Craft was going now, Nash’s answer was that it’s at a crossroads. Perhaps unsurprising from an Alexandrian, he bewailed the lack of training many modern Wiccans experience, the number of fraudulent people out there, the fact that, even if you do join a coven, it’s often a question of doing what the high priestess says for a year rather than receiving any real training. He wanted more local moots, more festivals, and more integrated activity. On the other hand, he had nothing negative to say about people who practise without a group, and argued that being solitary can be both a conscious choice and a stage that many Pagans go through on their way to, and on their way from, practising with other people.<br /><br />My impression of the interviewer/bookshop owner improved rapidly after the talk, as she took everyone upstairs for wine and nibbles, and made sure, from a firm friendliness, that we all knew each other and there were no lost new faces, a relief to me, who had been standing self-consciously in the corner by the jewelled staff and key-rings, hiding in a dusty book about the holy grail and wishing that I knew at least somebody. Considering Vicky and Nic’s descriptions of unfriendly, cliquey moots in Oxford and York, I was expecting something a lot less welcoming. Soon I was chatting merrily to a very interesting and eccentric group of people, ranging in age from eighteen to eighty. I had an interesting discussion over the question of psychic ability. This is where Nash begun his story, but as one woman put to me, if you’re about as psychic as a brick, does this disadvantage you from really developing as a witch? As someone who’s never ever seen any floating bubbles or tiny men with fedoras I consider this a good question.<br /><br />Proving that Pagans do have a sense of humour, I met a lovely actress who told me about a film she’d just been in that had been partly filmed in Treadwells, Return to Ravenswood. It’s about the clash between a group of Yorkshire villagers and a group of new-age mystics who descend on the villagers, claiming that aliens will arrive there at the summer solstice. The villagers want to exorcise them, the mystics want to party. The film parodies both groups, focusing on a new age bookshop owner named Amber Chakra who is in direct contact with the aliens, and a high priestess who lives in the Yorkshire forest and tells those who meet her that she cannot stand society – that she needs to be alone with the woods in order to grow and flourish – apart from naturally when she collects her unemployment benefits. :-D It sounds great, I will be looking out for it.<br /><br />I left the bookshop clutching a long list of Treadwells talk’s on over the summer and having met a number of very interesting people. More adventures to follow….Joanna Gilarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860960901267016773noreply@blogger.com3