Exposure
It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,
And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,
Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.
How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends’
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me
As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?
Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls
The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne
Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet’s pulsing rose.-Seamus Heaney
Naked As We Came - Iron and Wine
(photo, Liam Frankland)
Alone In The Woods
Alone in the woods I felt
The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees
Nature has taught her creatures to hate
Man that fusses and fumes
Unquiet man
As the sap rises in the trees
As the sap paints the trees a violent green
So rises the wrath of Nature’s creatures
At man
So paints the face of Nature a violent green.
Nature is sick at man
Sick at his fuss and fume
Sick at his agonies
Sick at his gaudy mind
That drives his body
Ever more quickly
More and more
In the wrong direction.-Stevie Smith
(photo, Craig Moore)
Baby light, good morning, good morning
pink and sandy little arms
cherry powder face and alphabet charms,
your print and footfold and your name I am told
was snipped and into a paper doll string
strung gold from here to there,
I read and reread the ceiling tiles
your years in my tears,
your days in my smiles,
braiding your hair and your button’s pearl thread,
pressed to my bosom, warming your head,
baby light, baby light, it is just me here tonight,
drawing your bath and making your bed.
Before Sleep
The lateral vibrations caress me,
They leap and caress me,
They work pathetically in my favour,
They seek my financial good.
She of the spear stands present.
The gods of the underworld attend me, O Annubis,
These are they of thy company.
With a pathetic solicitude they attend me;
Undulant,
Their realm is the lateral courses.
Light!
I am up to follow thee, Pallas.
Up and out of their caresses.
You were gone up as a rocket,
Bending your passages from right to left and from left to right
In the flat projection of a spiral.
The gods of drugged sleep attend me,
Wishing me well;
I am up to follow thee, Pallas.
Ezra Pound
Climbing the Wave, oil on canvas, Nancy De Boni
Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew
holy crap...I just made the most amazingly delicious tomato sauce...
papardelle….prepare yourself for orgasm.
Richie Havens - Here Comes the Sun
(…this one too, from thebronzemedal. Pity no one has “San Francisco Bay Blues” on here.
yeah, make me smile…
My morning window…the sun does something quite amazing with my eyes each morning. It feels like these tiny sun fingers reach out of the horizon and flick and warm my lids gently open. It is unlike anything I’ve felt before. Not like the disturb of a sudden flash or the alarm of an accompanying traffic of nature gearing up for the day. This is a blissful moment that I always seem to forget is coming. This is a lovely dance and a dip with my hair brushing the floor. It touches my heart. For someone whose home has always been dark and cave-like for many, many years, this is definitely my new way of life. Sun…touch me all you want.
Daphnis et Chloe, Marbre de Jean-Pierre Cortot (1827) photography, Yvan Lemeur
