Yesterday, we took Maria to the vet
for her weekly Cerenia shot. As we talked
with the vet, she sat in my lap,
ears up like tents. Not a word
could she know, yet alert she listened,
calmly, taking in every wave of sound.
When we left, I wondered who
had heard more.
++++++
I listen to a lot of music. Same songs
over and over again. Some with more
than a hundred plays. But I couldn't
tell you more than a phrase of a lyric,
more than a few words here and there,
and sometimes not even the title.
++++++
On those occasions where I felt compelled
to look up lyrics, sometimes, but not always,
something diminished, as if as the words
moved forward, something other,
something more beautiful
perhaps more natural
moved back
silently
++++++
From an early age I developed
a highly intuitive sense of tone
and mood, the texture of a look,
a cough, of foot on floor. I see
in this way, not so much with eye
but with the scent of movement,
that truthful flow around boulders
needed to navigate the stream,
or as I mistakenly typed: the screams
++++++
We have four dogs
but only Maria comes upstairs
and lies next to my chair
only occasionally moving
from one spot to another.
As I rose to return my coffee
I stepped upon a warm spot
on the carpet, warm as fresh
piss, which was my first thought.
Instead, it was where she had
just moved, her warmth still
in the fibers and now upon my foot.
Reach any lesson you want. I just
know it felt good, to feel that warmth,
to think of how even the carpet
knows our touch and I think of the
room, and when I leave,
what another steps into,
in my absence. Do I leave
a warmth?
14 comments:
You DO, Tree. Across 1000s of miles, that warmth. Reading your post made me think how different we all are - I am the lyrics queen. I have to go look up the lyrics to EVERY song so I can fully absorb it. And had that warm spot been what you thought it was, I would have been able to tell you how to effectively clean it.
Oh if you saw my carpet after ten years of multiple dogs, you'd probably tell me to just replace it since the cost to clean and the cost to replace would probably be about the same. :-D
OH, no, Tree. Telling you to replace it would do me out of the job. I'm a woman who grabs for every job I can get. I'd numb you with scientific explanations, regale you with the feats of home dudes, and whip out the before-and-after photos to impress you. ; ~}
Ha! My word verification is "winse" as in "first we'd clean the carpet, then we'd winse it."
I must be touched by a similar poof, it's gone! genie because (not talking carpets, here)lyrics recall is practically nil, even a beloved song heard countless times. Heart-parts take up all the space. Exception: Garth Brooks' he-artful
'I could have missed the pain,
but would have missed the dance.' This one's hard to forget...
"From an early age I developed
a highly intuitive sense of tone
and mood, the texture of a look
a cough, of foot on floor. I see
in this way, not so much with eye
but with the scent of movement,
that truthful flow around boulders
needed to navigate the stream,
or as I mistakenly typed: the screams "
Somehow you kept not only your way of seeing, but making conscious what you see, hear, sense, through your writings & art. Kept the seeing in touch with the you. My similar seeing got cut off the instant it connected with feeling, couldn't contain it, I was so small and the hurts so huge. Got numbed, buried somewhere far from the self. Most vital of losses. It's as though all experience is an effort to remember and reconnect, mind to senses to heart, though often at huge risk. Reading you, I can re-member in the 'safety and comfort of my own home'!
"Even the carpet knows our touch ..." I love this.
Limes is fun-ny.
"From an early age I developed
a highly intuitive sense of tone
and mood, the texture of a look
a cough, of foot on floor. I see
in this way, not so much with eye
but with the scent of movement,
that truthful flow around boulders
needed to navigate the stream,
or as I mistakenly typed: the screams "
Meant to say: this is a particularly perfect bouquet.
Constance, yesterday I went for a walk in the park. Had just loaded 38 poems from Donald Hall onto my iPod and about six poems in, I realized I was not listening to the words at all, just his voice rising and falling and the love and energy and passion and humor by which he read his work. I do that all the time with music, but it never occurred that I do it with words too, although I've always felt there is a fine line between poetry and music. Somehow I think this links into my antipathy toward plot in all things--almost as if I know the ending of everything and therefore the ending is meaningless, but the how is everything. How over What--funny now that I think about it--I was teaching this more than twenty five years ago as a leadership technique but I had no idea where it came from, only that it felt intuitive and it worked not by effort, but by ease and fit.
And that Limes, well, she is HAWT as a pancake on a Saturday morning. :-D
Morning Limes :-)
Limes, since today is Keats's birthday, I have to ask: Did you ever see Brightstar and if so, what did you think?
Oh, and Constance, along the trail in the park was one huge oak tree and nestled all around the roots were the largest acorns I'd ever seen, almost comically large. I gathered as many as I could fit in my pockets, feeling like a thief as others walking by watched me like I was crazy. But I needed to have them on my desk, to hold them to my nose and before the light from my window. The texture on the caps is just magnificent. To give you an idea of size, three or four of them would fill the palm of your hand. And you know what? You would have thought I was coming home with diamonds rather than acorns. :-D
OH, Tree, am I hawt? I didn't know this. And, frankly, I was sitting this morning, pensive, feeling old and dull and . . . so you just made me grin from ear to ear.
Tree, I saw it. It was as beautiful, as overwhelming as you said it was and it was as emotionally wrenching as I knew it would be. That's what started the little rough patch I referred to. I will have more words to share with you about it, but not yet.
Conartisse, thank you for thinking I'm funny - I work hard at that.
Happy birthday, Mr. Keats. You were a bright star, indeed.
Limes, very.
Well, second big grin of the fairly difficult day. I thank you for telling me.
There is too much here to leave just yet ...
"I've always felt there is a fine line between poetry and music. Somehow I think this links into my antipathy toward plot in all things--"
I love this posture, it speaks for the infinite, for clouds, for Louis Bunuel movies, abstract art, haikus, and Beethoven's Fifth; for the ouroboros, the figure eight, a sphere, and the reality of a personal eternal we want to believe in. It's pure space. Nothing nailed down. Our essential freedom. Truth.
If you were starving had a pocket full of diamonds, you would still starve. Or get murdered. Or win the heart of Miss America who would then cheat on you for bigger diamonds. Three acorns in your pocket and you live, win the hearts of girls inside women, and rest in the shade of a big oak tree for eons to come (one for him, one for her, plant one).
A walk in an autum park, in a place where it rains ...
Constance,
to be a sublime note on the wind . . . fully alive . . . if but for a moment . . . better, I think . . . in the memory . . . of what we thought it was . . . I think I'd like that . . . to live in memory . . . growing in the air . . . that sweet dissipation . . . tell them you knew me . . . and when they say 'who' . . . just smile . . . and throw more hew . . . on the fire
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