“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

06 May 2009



i am getting older. more myself every day. and my life may change for the better soon, i may become one of the blessedly employed. according to my pagan heart, summer is here, the garden is a third in, the third that can stand a nip of frost in the lowland. my tomato seedlings poke up through their pressed-pot beds. i started pumpkin, cucumber, zinnia for now and hollyhock for next year. everyday out there is something new, something lovely and green. i bring in a grand bouquet of lilac. i am an old woman with her head in a bush, breathing deeply.



i see my reflection and i see the face of my mother, the broad bones and sad eyes, but the defiant chin of my fathers people, the high forehead, the thin lip. i think -- handsome, resilient, defiant. i am growing into my skin. the skin of my hands is going crepey, my withering decolletage. the roads of blood begin to show, where ive been all along.



employed at a place where i can use my heart and mind, my soul and hand. the other day i received a freshly plucked tulip, and an enameled heart pin i promised to wear every day. i work with children, food and books. i am useful. and with the work of my life i may be able to feed my children, treat them to movies and pizza, new jeans and fresh socks, a trip to the glass factory or the gorge. a life for all of us. a margin of air.



it rained and rained, great silver sheets of water on the ground. and then the clouds cleared off into shining cumulus landscapes separated by oceans of sky. i saw a woman raise her face to the sun, its been so long, a week of stratus, of cool. we are grateful for our portion of light.

2 comments:

  1. Debrina12 May, 2009

    I've been feeling old lately. I'm 38 years old. Depending where you are on the age spectrum, some would say, "that's young!", my son would say, "that's old".

    Sometimes, I say to myself ...oh I just can't be bothered...then I catch myself. That's the mindset of someone who is out of touch with the potential of possibilities. I just have to come visit you to remember that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. peregrine15 May, 2009

    37 and still dancing down the primrose path.

    ReplyDelete

Blessed Be.

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"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)