 For BP Nichol ___________________ Nowadays I listen only to duets. Johnny Hodges and The Bean, a thin slip of piano behind them on this page on this stage craft a breeze in a horn. One friends sits back and listens to the other. Nowadays I want only the wild and tender phrasing of "NightHawk," its air groaned out like the breath of a lover. Rashomon by Saxophone. So brother and sister woke, miles apart, in those 19th century novels you loved, with the same wound or desire. We sit down to clean and sharpen the other's most personal lines —a proposal of more, a waving dismissal of whole stanzas — in Lethbridge in Edmonton you stood with the breeze in an uncomfortable Chinese restaurant in Camrose, getting a second cup at The Second Cup near Spadina. I almost called you this morning for a phone number. Records I haven't yet returned. Tapes you were supposed to make for me. And across the country tears about your death. I always thought, someone says, he was very good for you. Though I still like, Barrie, the friends who are not good for me. Along the highway only the duets and wind fill up my car. I saw the scar of the jet that Sunday trying to get you out of the sky. Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkings. An A and an H, a bean and a breeze. All these twin truths There is bright sumac, once more, this September, along the Bayview Extension. From now on no more solos I tie you to me
0 Comments
 Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash I read it hear in your very word, in the story of the gestures with which your hands cupped themselves around our becoming — limiting, warm. You said live out loud, and die you said lightly, and over and over again you said be. But before the first death came murder. A fracture broke across the rings you'd ripened. A screaming shattered the voices that had just come together to speak you, to make of you a bridge over the chasm of everything. And what they have stammered ever since are fragments of your ancient name.  Photo by Josè Maria Sava on Unsplash If there were no emptiness, there would be no life. Think about it. All those electrons, particles, and whatnot crammed in next to each other like junk in an attic, like trash in a compactor smashed together in a flat block so there’s nothing but plasma: no you no me. Therefore I praise vacancy. Vacant lots with their blowing plastics and teasels, vacant houses, their furze of dust, vacant stares, blue as the sky through windows. Motels with the word Vacancy flashing outside, a red neon arrow pointing, pointing at the path to be taken to the bored front desk, to the key-shaped key on the dangling brown leather key holder, the key that opens the vacant room with its scored linoleum floor a blear-eyed yellow its flowery couch and wilted cushions its swaybacked bed, smelling of bleach and mildew its stuttering radio its ashtray that was here seventy years ago. That room has been static for me so long: an emptiness a void a silence containing an unheard story ready for me to unlock. Let there be plot.
 Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash My Body Is a Vessel ~after Mary Oliver ______________ for the sun and a home for the salt air, buried in concrete and dust, and risen again -- as if my skin remembers its spring song, no longer a young and dying thing but at last, winged. Bring my body back to slow rivers. What's the word for flock of little joys? I think it was blessing.  photo by Prateek Gautam on Unsplash Kindness becomes more apparent in dark times, kind of like how our hearts seem louder, more alive, in quiet places. — acts of kindness as a source of light Today is my dad's 70th birthday. This is one of his favourite poems. Happy birthday daD! — Love, neJ Photo by Andreas Dress on Unsplash Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. ~Robert Frost  Photo by Redd on Unsplash
 This is a series of poems by Thomas King, Canadian writer and photographer, of Cherokee and Greek descent. This is from his first collection of poetry, 77 Fragments of a Familiar Ruin. I'm not going to record myself reading these. I'm not First Nation, and this is not my story to tell. But I'm presenting it here because I think it's important for others to read. The coyote is often found in First Nations storytelling. He is the trickster, and uses humour and deception to rebel against social conventions. 6.
25.
48.
60.
 Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me; so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go. ~Theodore Roethke My grandmother had me recite this poem at her 80th birthday celebration.  When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick flowers in other people’s gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children. We must have friends to dinner and read the papers. But maybe I ought to practise a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple. ~Jenny Joseph
 When's the last time you wrote anything out by hand? A blog post, a letter, anything beyond your grocery list (oh, that's on your phone, too?). I'm writing this in cursive, and I'll type it out later. It's using my brain in a different way, which changes how I think, and subsequently, what I say. [As I'm typing this later, I'm seeing how I would have written sentences differently had I been typing them, but I'm editing as little as possible.] Interesting.
I just came in from sitting on the front porch (left my phone inside), where I finished reading The Shallows: What the Internet it Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. It's a fascinating and somewhat terrifying journey through the history, psychology, sociology of our interactions with technology, or tools of the mind. We dream up a tool, create it, but the using of it recreates who we are. It's a book that should scare you into putting your phone down and going for a walk. Likely you'll Google it, maybe you'll even order it. But I would encourage you to also read it, to consider how what you are doing is shaping your brain, and how that changes who you are, your relationships with others, and ultimately the world we live in. This is a must read.  photo by Lauren McConachie on Unsplash When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. ~ Mary Oliver  Photo by Sendi Gibran on Unsplash i don’t expect any of us to know what it’s like to be free of worry all i ask is that when a tree or stone or cloud mentions the possibility we stop what we’re doing turn our heads listen Leath Tonino “Poems of Walking and Sitting” (May 31, 2020)
 we are always in transition stretching reaching growing at our edges one day we will wake up and reveal the truth that none of this is permanent all is temporary and the time for forgiveness has always been now so move through your blocking release what keeps you tethered to the ground step out of comparison and open your palms to your own unique brilliant experience the one that is unfolding just for you — because it is for it's in the unknown we find a deeper understanding we come alive in the mystery of it all When I slow down enough, I start to be able to hear myself, and usually when I do that, some crazy ideas come out. It's like a post-it brainstorming session for my life. The first ideas that appear are terrible — no, really, I'm not just being self-deprecating, they're really bad. The next ones are okay, but nothing earth-shattering or ground-breaking. But tonight I had an idea for a project to embark on, and it was truly terrifying, and that's when I knew I'd hit the jackpot. Pema Chödrön, American Tibetan Buddhist and writer of many books including When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, wrote: Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. And there it is. Fear shows itself when I'm moving in the right direction. If I'm moving in the wrong direction I'm disinterested, but when it's right, it's daunting, unnerving, and I find myself filled with dread. I think that's because I care. If something bombs that doesn't matter, that's no skin off me. But if that project coming together is important, beginning it is really scary.
When we're afraid, we need to lean in, look closely, take our Superman stance, and feel the courage rise to meet that mighty foe. So I'm standing here, fists on hips, looking slightly up and off into the distance, feet planted on the ground. Fear — I hear ya, and I'm ready.  Photo by James Day on Unsplash Even After All this time The sun never says to the earth, "You owe Me." Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the Whole Sky. From The Gift: Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master, translations by Daniel Ladinsky.
Do you know what it feels like to receive love like this? Have you ever loved like this? Is there something in you that stops you from giving or receiving love in this way? Look around you — can you can find examples of love that lights the whole sky. See if you can allow some big love into your life today. I went to the ballet this week, and to a classical guitar concert last week. I'd forgotten how lovely it is to engage with art like that, how it feeds the soul in a different way than watching it online. Live art is beautiful. I have a degree in piano performance (with minors in singing and conducting). Yeah, I know — what??? It seems like a lifetime ago, but I used to participate in art regularly. April is National Poetry Month, and I love poetry, so I thought I'd share some favourites over the next few weeks. I might even, along with the text of the poem, record a short video of myself reading the poem. It's still on a screen, but it's more interactive than simply reading the words. I hope that you enjoy these moments of art and reflection.
|
RSS Feed