and too

Don't bring me art
It's too painful
the beauty
the truth

of a place
within

buried
as
seed

for to know it
is to know
the absence
of
it

as one knows
the filling
of lungs
or
the beating
of
heart

and too
a priori
the
lack
thereof

770. as hue to petal

as hue
to petal

as warmth
to ray

home

in
your
arms

drifting
beyond
shore's
sight

voices
once heard
but
seen

this place
of
quiet
lapping

warm
sun

beyond
words

beyond
endless
discourse

in
your
arms



Yul put the poem down, a solitary stain falling upon parchment.

769. eating apples

I'm eating an apple and thinking you might be too. Such a simple thought brings me great joy. If you can understand that then I think you have some inkling of what you mean to me.

Text message Trev sent to Em from the banks of the lake

768. once black, now bright

Her lips heal wounds seen not of eye, felt not of hand, known not other than tear streaked pain. And in her arms, salvation, light, a future once black, now bright.

Can you understand that asked Trev.

Rog looked at him judging the proper response.

You don't, do you?

I'm sorry Trev. Just don't really get it.

Trev sighed. Rog looked away. Nothing more was said.

Solar Bluebells

Sometimes you see a product and feel the need to share: Gardeners website

Solar Bluebells Light the Way
With real glass shades and verdigris steel "stems," our Solar Bluebells are beautiful garden accents even in the daytime. When evening falls, they provide 6 to 8 hours of illumination on a full day’s charge.
Adjustable remote solar panel for best solar exposure
Each light may be located up to 10 feet away from the solar panel
White LED bulbs last 50,000 hours
Sold in sets of 4

Very First Image created on my iPad

767. the others

I want to go into town he said. To a cafe, one with an outdoor patio to the street. And I want to sit there with you, just us, and watch people walk by.

She smiled and said okay.

But that is not really why he added.

Oh?

I want to hold your hand.

Again she smiled.

And I want to kiss you.

You know we can do that here.

We could, but then I wouldn't be able to see the others.

What others?

The others looking at us.

Really?

You know that look, that smile, the kind one has when walking into the sun. I want to see that; and too, to give that, to give those smiles. You know we can do that.

She sighed and opened her arms. Then let's go.

Thankful and Hopeful

Yesterday was my second full day of proctoring final exams at LSU (temping for four days). As I was watching I thought of how thankful I was that these kids were learning how to build bridges and roads, create businesses and run them, or heal the sick and injured. But I found too that I was hoping. Hoping that somewhere else, outside these walls of higher education, someone was teaching them to love, for as nice as bridges and roads and doctors and such are, none seem nearly so important as knowing how to love.

And wherever this school of love is, the enrollment seems much smaller, for I've run across far more doctors and lawyers and engineers than souls that could touch another as only love can.

766. before the envelope

ed note: Von sits apart, envelope in hand. Not so much a journal entry as a recording of his thoughts:

I walk an edge between madness and bliss and I'm beginning to think the two are not so far apart, that what we refer to as sanity, is the illusion our minds create to protect us from forces beyond the hynerian form. So this is it. Madness or Bliss. And upon this tightrope, I feel a step away from one or the other.


What is it I want to know, need to know? What part of me is missing with the memory? What part of my heart did they take that makes me less than I was such my very footsteps call forth the hollow echo of emptiness? And too, of not knowing, from not remembering. This envelope feels as a knife to my throat, holding what pleasure, what pain, for surely it must hold both. So again I say, to what profit do I walk this road of re-creation, as if some minor god playing in the river of long ago? How many regrets do I unlock, which can never be locked again nor fixed nor corrected, unleashed to haunt me to my dying day? Yet, still, the longing to know of a hug between father and son, of the look now forgotten, of love known only to the parent, and too, I suppose the child. For this, if but the one memory of him and I, together beyond language, for this, I would risk it all.


I am under a magical spell, of a power greater than any strength I have to resist, if resisting were sought. I am upon the raft drifting to the waterfall. My eyes are open. I am not dreaming. I know where I am going. And I am powerless to stop it.

765. of tea and love

ed note: this chapter takes place at the cottage, late at night around a fire, everyone present save Mairi




As in all things of form and shape, there is a first and a last. Most live between the two, fearful of tasting either, content to be grey. But I tell you my dear Kyra, you are not destined for a grey life and as long as I have breath, you will not settle for a grey life, even if I have to breathe the hue of love into your very soul.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when he spoke. Grand was in bed, her days within the counting of fingers and there was Papa, making tea. But it wasn't the making of tea so much, which he did for her every day, but how. I can still see it clear, but not so much see it as to feel it. As I remember those mornings, I feel the sight as if light, his light, could penetrate my heart and soul, as if, again, he was teaching by showing, not telling. You see, he warmed the water not on the stove, but in his hands. I could see, as I did the night of the fireflies, the very heat of love. And when the tea was ready, I watched him place it on a tray and with steps not heard, carry it to her bed. She would sit up, pillow propped, and maybe it was just the imagination of a young girl, but when she took a sip, with him sitting by her side, and I don't know how to explain this, but there was a look between them, her eye to his, that I never saw outside of this daily ritual.

Bright Star Revisited

Watched Bright Star with my mom last night. Her first viewing. My fourth full viewing, which is to say, since I got the DVD, I've watched individual scenes multiple times. I'm not one to watch a movie more than once and I can count of two hands the number of movies I've watched twice, none of which was nearly as good as the first viewing. Bright Star, however, for reasons I can only guess, remains for me a deeply moving personal experience and the fourth viewing was as wonderful as the first three and the emotions again flowed as they did on the earlier viewings. It is as if within me a wound that this movie touches as nothing else is or has been able to reach and with each viewing, a bleeding fresh of my own past, my own longing, of knowing first hand of what I see on the screen and knowing I've never seen it captured better. The acting seems, to my heart, not acting. And the looks exchanged between John/Ben and Fanny/Abbie seemed not to belong to the art of movie making but of something other, as if what was captured was something greater than just a story or acting. When you watch this movie, pay special attention to how they look at each other and in particular, how Abbie looks at Ben, and if you can tell where the line is between the craft and love, you have better eyes than I.

Blogger comment issue and workaround

I just discovered that many of my postings from 2005 and 2006 are showing zero comments. These are postings I know contain/had dozens and dozens of comments. I have submitted the issue to blogger; however, quite by accident, I've discovered a workaround. So if you want to see comments from any post in 2005/2006 that is currently showing zero comments, this is how we do it:

Leave a comment on the post in question. It will not show up except on the recent comment widget and in my email. Upon seeing your comment, I will go to the post in question and also leave a comment. It seems that when the second comment is left, all of the older comments magically reappear. I've tried this on three of the postings in questions now and it has worked all three times.

The good news: all those precious comments have not been lost

764. beyond compromise

Breathe this air, she said. Beyond compromise. There is no other way to know me. There is no other door. So breathe.

They sat this way before the lake, holding hands, synchronizing hearts. The rhythm of nature fading into the rhythm of that place, beyond compromise, beyond language, beyond the machinery of thought, of sense, of perception. Just light. Just pure light.

763. sitting with the morning

As Em slept, Trev slipped down to the lake with pen and pad and sat the morning as the turtles near by. He began to write:

I am a child before her smile and in her arms feel no need to go anywhere, to do anything but be, exist, float, the connection to life, to living, so strong. And as I watch the flowers swaying I feel a kinship I've never known and the separation between body and mind slips away and there is a feeling of peace that I can only describe as floating upon a summer lake, in the mountains, with nary a sound or song outside of cardinals and sparrows and, perhaps, a nightingale.

762. what is madness if not

"What is this?" asked Em, holding parchment unballed.

"My fear," said Trev.

"But I am right here."

"And that was right there," his hand pointing to the trash.

______

Upon the page thrown and held:

What is madness if not the absence of her voice, of the page never touched by hand or quill? I am utterly lost in those moments cold, when word last has faded of warmth and night beckons silent, still, of a dance never danced as minutes and hours scammer off, empty of life as autumn leaves. This love I wish upon every man and no man for it is either heaven or hell, night or day and yet still I would enter the barren cave and endure the endless winter for the promise of one more moment of sun, fleeting as a single kiss it might be.


And I think of her lips, of where they might be in touch or whisper, in smile or tear, all of which I would gladly bear, could bear ten times ten thousands times. But hell is not of sound and fury but the cold silence of eye and ear. Blind I am in these moments of a mind turning on itself, weaving what no mistress would weave, spinning what no spider dare dream. She is somewhere and her presence is felt, known by someone, her fair hand holding spoon, her lips parting of substance taken, given, imbibed and inhaled. She is the color unseen, unlighted to my eye, the dress not worn before lights and stage, the hand not held above wood and iron and grass endlessly green on a summer eve.

761. replant me

Trev took a walk down by the lake. Em stood in the kitchen, watching him from the window. About to pour coffee in her cup she noticed a note rolled within:

Dear Em,

If I've been uprooted, will you take me in your hand and replant me? If my petals thirst for love, will you shower me with your kisses? And when the moon rises and darkness descends, will you hold me and protect me from the cold of night?

sigh,

everything that I am, is yours, all of it

Trev


Placing the cup down, she read the note again and again until what was clear became blurry and what was written of pen became written within. She looked again as he skipped rocks upon the lake and from the distance she saw not of him, but of them, of life itself as she had never known it.

760. then you become

"On and off in my life I've kept a journal, and so from this I know certain things," said Von.

"I take it you have not opened the envelope?" asked Zoe.

"No."

"Why?"

"Fear, I think. Seems silly doesn't it. This old man, afraid of a memory."

"I would think--"

"That I would want to know my son."

"Yes."

"I do."

"So open the envelope."

"I wish it were that easy."

"Tell me what is so hard, what is the fear?"

"To remember the son is to remember the father. And--"

"He loved you Von. I've told you that. His admiration--"

"I know."

"So what is the problem?"

"What if it is not true. What if I was not the father he told you about. What then?"

Zoe stood and opened her arms. "Then you become the grandfather that makes him smile from heaven."

759. new muscles

Trev, looking in the mirror, massaging his face in ever tightening circles. Em watches till she can't stand it. "What the heck are you doing?"

"Checking out my new muscles."

Choking on her coffee. "Are you shiotting me? You got muscles on your face?"

"Yeah." Points to his cheeks. "Right here. Started to noticed them shortly after we met."

"Yea?"

"Yeah."

"Come here, let me see."

758. emptying myself

"What are you doing?" asked Em, as she watched Trev sitting, eyes closed, legs crossed.

"Emptying myself."

"Okay, I'll play. Why are you emptying yourself?"

"How else to pour you into me? How else to know you, all of you, from within?"

757. indescribable

So clear, the image of you and I, noses touching, lips parted, eyes locked, simply breathing together. And your face, so indescribable, neither smiling nor frowning, but just looking as if in the looking you could draw me within; and the eyes, your eyes, so clear, bright, open, and I feel your breath stroking me, as mine you, and in this moment, supine and prone, in this holding and looking where nothing is said, I feel it, I feel love and in this love, I find words so lacking as to simply say, you are the very life within me.


Em put the journal down. "Dang."

"What?"

"You gonna write of everything?"

Trev smiled, "Yeah, I think I am."

756. once touched

love is


either everything


or nothing


within which


bliss, joy, pure as light


outside of


pain unimaginable


and once touched


of love


of this light divine


one can never again


be untouched


the world


never again


as once


it was

found within Trev's journal

755. as breath

As breath, you are my thoughts.

note Trev slipped under Em's pillow

754. walking

I see us walking, her arm in mine. And in the storefront glass of night, two smiles, a squeeze of arm, a kiss soft of lingering lips parted. And all I know is a thousand times ten thousand kisses all feel as the first, as life, as joy, consistent as sunrise coloring the day. I believe in heaven, for she walks with me when I walk, eats with me when I eat, and sleeps with me when I sleep. Where there are few words, there are looks and touches and proximity as she moves like dance within my view, a grace of soul as much as foot, her hair summer rain fresh, cut with care upon my shoulder. And when she smiles it is as the lighting of christmas, of the first tender snow, the crackling of aged wood before raised goblets of sweetened fruit. And when she holds me, I'm home, our breathing synchronized, as too our hearts and dreams and hopes; that place of multitude as bread and fishes. I've never seen sunshine like I see in the way she looks at me and I've never felt strength as the whispers of her lips upon my ear and I've never known love as the breath she imparts with each butterfly kiss. And I think, this is it, that perfect state where nothing more is needed, nothing more need be subtracted, where the smiles comes as stars upon the night.

taken from Trev's journal

ed note: this chapter was inspired by Count Basie. Not so much the lyrics as the mood and tone. I imagine Mary may have been familiar with the song. :-)




______

bonus snippet: written this morning, it seems just a bit light for its own chapter and this seems like a good place to tuck it. An exchange between Em and Trev:

E: Why are you smiling?

T: No reason.

Do I have to tickle you?

Ok, Ok.

Well?

You.

Awww.

And you know what?

What?

I couldn't stop if I tried.