journey

... I would walk alone,
In storm and tempest, or in starlight nights
Beneath the quiet heavens; and, at that time
Would feel whate'er there is of power in sound
To breathe an elevated mood by form
Or image unprofaned; and I would stand,
Beneath some rock listening to sounds that are
The ghostly language of the ancient earth,
Or make their dim abode in distant winds.
- Wordsworth, Prelude, 1805, 2.321-329

more to come...

lift

continue tours doigt...

begin

handling with care . . .

offer

mind the gap . . .

behold

trust

Mansion Of You

On any day there is
a room where a poem
can be built, but
the best days are
the mansion of you,
columns and rafters
in pine ascent, your
trunk a solid ocean and
frank lloyd wright pure.
I am not surprised
that your truth is
a garden where one
tree bears all fruits
and your attic
is a place where
all are welcome.
Have I told you
that I wander
at night in the
chambers of
your heart,
where I draw
the curtains
and write secrets
which someday
you might whisper.

range

I am dedicated to a range.
These are my limits.

The field is defined on the one hand by my artistic capacity and on the other hand by my willingness to permit my unraveling. I am learning, though, that my range is also a habit or a tendency and often it is something I hold dear to my heart. I developed my range to survive things that happened to me. I discover how I open and then why I close. My friend Jeff used to say, "when in doubt, close."

Is range about comfort? (a comfort pig self-reflecting...)

 

  

provide

You can't ever get what you really want. You can only give what you really want. And in the giving, you become it. And you live as it. And you die as it. And there is no difference.

The circle was the beginning of something. Eventually it led me to Jens Jensen's council rings. The bird was literal. We found her on the beach in Pescadero one evening with medicinal light.

I said in class that the drawing on the left was the father of the drawing on the right. I can get behind that.

  

touch

Touch is about transformation - from the person we think we are to who we really are. I learned to speak truth in clear sentences (not stories) when I experienced being touched safely. Thank you to Marion Rosen, my teacher, and her student, Sara Webb, also my teacher.

I shattered my left shoulder falling off my bicycle last November. It was the hardest thing. It was repaired with a steel plate and 7 screws, my friends for life. At first, for the first week after the surgery, I couldn't touch it, nor associate with it. Since, I've spent lots of time holding onto it with my right hand.

Also, this. One of my favorites: 

"I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone"

The dogs greet me, I descend
into their world of fur and tongues
and then my wife and I embrace
as if we’d just closed the door
in a motel, our two girls slip in
between us and we’re all saying
each other’s names and the dogs
Buster and Sundown are on their hind legs,
people-style, seeking more love.
I’ve come home wanting to touch
everyone, everything; usually I turn
the key and they’re all lost
in food or homework, even the dogs
are preoccupied with themselves,
I desire only to ease
back in, the mail, a drink,
but tonight the body-hungers have sent out
their long-range signals
or love itself has risen
from its squalor of neglect.
Everytime the kids turn their backs
I touch my wife’s breasts
and when she checks the dinner
the unfriendly cat on the dishwasher
wants to rub heads, starts to speak
with his little motor and violin—
everything, everyone is intelligible
in the language of touch,
and we sit down to dinner inarticulate
as blood, all difficulties postponed
because the weather is so good.

---Stephen Dunn

so, there will be words each week

The first one, received during class, was "nudge."

And the ships leave the harbor,
Each, with its compass and orientation,
Headed into out.