Gaia Community: Ron's Blog

Carrying a Ladder

http://dukka.gaia.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:47:21 GMT

Kay Ryan is the new poet laureate, reluctantly so. I love her poetry. The way she works with words in short spare sentences leaves me pondering .

Carrying a Ladder

We are always
really carrying
a ladder, but it's
invisible. We
only know
something's
the matter:
something precious
crashes; easy doors
prove impassable.
Or, in the body
there's too much
swing or off-
center gravity.
And, in the mind,
a drunken capacity,
access to out-of-range
apples. As though
one had a way to climb
out of the damage
and apology.

-Kay Ryan

Tags: Kay Ryan, poem

The Loneliness of the Car is On-going

http://dukka.gaia.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:26:28 GMT

The loneliness of the Car is on-going,
not like reading a newspaper
where things seem to end.

I sit inside the Car
behind the wheel. Its
life can be felt here in
this seat.
But with limitations.
If I talk to you
something different happens,
subtle or not.
But here in this space
looking out on the road
it feels like my eye. My
eye does this one thing.
Continually.
Only this one thing.
Focusing.
Meanwhile I do the
looking. The Car is
like this. It carries,
I travel.

In it's loneliness the Car
craves my voice. It wants
to be soothed. But I look
over it or through it. I absent
myself from its heart. It sits
in the rain, the snow, the
hot sun, and waits for me.
It is not going anywhere
until I engage it.
What does all this mean?
I wonder as I stare at the
Red dash lights.
How can I bring this form
into my arms?
If I close my eyes the
Inside of the Car seems
a dark blue in the evening
light. When I open them
it has no color. Just darkness.
It is peaceful, like bread,
here in the Car. I fill
the Car while the Car
takes me in. It seems
I am everywhere in the Car,
in a way that is necessary.
The Car is obligated to let
me have these thoughts:
that I am driving, that
I am going somewhere,
and there is no Car.

Tags: perception, illusion, limits

Transatlantic Blue

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:21:56 GMT

I get up in the morning
And brush my teeth.
Behind me in the mirror
Is a shale blue waterfall.
I am closer than I think
To being outside in the velvet
Of rain, the rawhide belts of
Trees, the smells prying at
My nose, scanning the diary
Of deep green fragrances.
But what a mess as I come back
To the sky blue tile, the reptilian
Tube of toothpaste, the floss.
I turn the head and notice the
Hand propped on the counter.
Again I reach for land, I reach
For discovery. Now this way
And that. Through the shiny
Feedback of this loop behind
The sink, like a drive-in movie,
I lean back, letting evening in.
No more delay in the night's first
Stars. Just this double feature
Falling back and back to morning,
To the stillness of trance.

Tags: Time, reverie, poem

Doppelganger

http://dukka.gaia.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:31:37 GMT

I nailed that sucker down
To the hot wood and leaned
Over it, deepening it with my
Free shadow.
"How's that feel," said I.
"Sweet fellowship," said the dark prisoner.
The day was moving and life was
Changing for these jet lovers,
The one crucified, the other faultless.
After the sun went down I used the
Rudiments of triangulation.
Location, location, location...
Knowing the geometry of nails
Doesn't lie I stirred the black
Crepe from its dozing.
"In your element, aren't you?" said I.
"Darkness, darkness," shrugged my shadow.

Tags: Poem, acceptance

The Dazzle

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sun, 17 May 2009 21:44:42 GMT

The beech leaves move up and
Down my spine, shimmering,
Flipping like cards-from mint to
Scalding white. The wheels turn
In the vegetable light. Pin wheels.
Somewhere inside me is
Condensation, breath on
Clear glass, thought hushing
The place where things stick,
Where a mark is a diamond.

My hand is growing in the
Grass, wondering itself in
The simple form that contains
Everything. My name is not
My hand. Only the sun, falling
In sheets, patting my head,
Patting my shoulder, knows
The name of each thing.

Each part is jigsawed to fit
Somewhere, to hold itself
Against another. We keep
Coming back, the picture
Grows clearer, the gaps
Shrink and our resolve moves
Across the ground. Things
Fill in.

I see that it is moving inside
Something else. Evidence is
All around me. Something
Green is scooting through
The tall grass. The wind is
Such a puppeteer I think.
Now my hand is resting
Just below the surface
Holding everything like
A waiter with a tray held
High overhead, about to
Serve.

Tags: poem

Singing a Potato

http://dukka.gaia.com — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:58:09 GMT

"It is impossible to know reality for the same reason that makes it impossible to sing potatoes; they may be grown, or pulled, or eaten, but not sung. Reality has to be 'been': there should be a transitive verb 'to be' expressly for use with the term 'reality'." -Psychoanalyst W. R. Bion quoted in Mark Epstein's book Going on Being.

Actually it is much easier to hum a potato than sing one. Whistling a potato might seem to be the easiest method to reflect the melody of a tuber. But I spent countless days as a child trying to get it right. To no avail. I did learn to speak banana. However I have lost that skill. Sadly there is no culture for it.

Tags: potato, reality, singing

A poem by Fanny Howe

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sun, 03 May 2009 05:32:11 GMT

The night was almost too long to bear
Then there was evidence of mercy-a passing car-
milky air-and I could see
dry walls & gravel on the way to a highway
Atlantic for its grays

Loss is the fulfillment of the Law
Space collected on a long line

I was eliminated as a locus of mothering-
a she-physical but imaginary as a restless daughter

Why this body and not another

The one who came to destroy the works of women-their
offspring-
knew how many people were resisting incarnation
He counted on them by accommodating them

Guilt relieving guilt
is the get of killers whose mouths shine
I can't say enough about this-red because sore
& polished because wet

One died to become the spirit-guide
Before that time
there were second persons in everything
Then saints, then no one
to guide anyone to heaven
Cosmic expansion has gone in its preferred direction

I can hear the hour, this never
happed to me before
One day I will shake the blue sky from my hair
and slip back to consciousness-
the thing that is always aware
with or without a living creature to share its pleasures

Tonight I request the precious gift of final perseverance
shored up in my sheets
not far from a predawn holocaust
of traveling children

-Fanny Howe

Tags: poem, mystery, loss

Wisdom

http://dukka.gaia.com — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:52:14 GMT

Technically I saw it before it
Happened. The fog machine,
No bell, no horn, no light save
Mine. The three of them there
In quick prophecy, the little
Glance forward, stepping out
In front of me, the horrific
Shattering of bodies, the air,
And car. But I slowed during
The preview, And still they
Waited for me, coming to meet
me... I could not stop again.
She watched me, then leaped
Through the warning sight, sliding
Across the red hood, dimpling the
Fender, smearing her bloody nose
Along the glass, landing upside
Down, like a stiff-legged toy. My
Watch had stopped, there were
Fireflies highlighting her as she
Lay in a whorl of high grass. Then
Rolling and rising she was gone
Zipped away in the fog, leaving
Only an impression, alive, rising
In its own orderly way. In a few
Days this grass would not recall
Anything. The wind would comb it
Like Elvis after a nasty fall. Until
Things were good, and the memory,
Not quite dry in that wind, was only
Mine.

Tags: Prescience, memory, deer

another poem by Fanny Howe

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:39:02 GMT

Sometimes a goodbye

seems a bee's
done buzzing

earily: purrs
in hair, furred

for the sting.
Fear's then

a hurt-leap.
Time comes in

like the words
Sit down.

Your nerves
reverses.

- Fanny Howe

Tags: separation, fear, healing, Fanny Howe

Far and Near

http://dukka.gaia.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:15:16 GMT

Small silver face out of the gray

I call it a deer in a phantom forest
Baader-Meinhof with a future

Smoke of assassination
Burning of oil

Maybe it's trees that have broken away
Or clouds around them

A dragon-shaped smear on a window

But there is a moment of clarity
When nothing is out there

Now I call it an asshole
In fiery red clothing

Light shoots from its finger
Like wind with hair

Is it an alien cowering
In the rape robe of war?

Mother and child on an icy globe?

Or just the eyes of day.

-Fanny Howe

Tags: war, fear, imagination

Moonlight Bandit, Sleepwalking

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:20:57 GMT

In the late afternoon sun
We crossed paths in the
Shadows. He elevated,
Turned as if suspended
By wire and ambled down
The slope. Then it seemed
My hands were inside him,
Outside any clock- moving
about -directing him to a
Log. There he lifted up, looking
Back at my pale face, those eyes
Streaked shiny with black war
Paint, made up by bigger hands.
I remembered my childhood then,
A silly facsimile perched on my
Head, the ringed tail thumping
Between my shoulder blades,
A plastic flintlock in my hand,
The moccasins.

Tags: a meeting, memory, davey crockett, the world

In the Yellow Morning

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:21:01 GMT

In the yellow morning-
My binoculars, high up
In a tree-was I a sleep
Climber? Out on the silvery
Deck, beyond the forest
Glass, a Downy pooed
On my shoulder. A
Tiny wet newspaper.
I carefully read this:
"Empty what is full.
Fill what is empty."
The faded flags flapped,
The feeder swayed, and
Charcoal feathers shimmered.

Tags: da birds, attention, woodpecker

Sending

http://dukka.gaia.com — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:03:55 GMT

Let each eye be a swan
That I may know the feeling
Of that movement that I
Know as sight. Let sight
be a mixture of transparency
And dark wet earth, of the
Rough edge of a camel's back,
Held together by the cold blue
Sky. Churn these bits into
Movement and the idea that I
Send out my world when
It's ready, when it's the
Yellow of an egg, and not
A moment too soon.

Tags: Feeling, soul, egg

After the Operation

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:12:35 GMT

"Seriously," I thought, "I can work
My way back to the center."
It's a conversation I'd already had
But I felt sure it needed a beginning.
With one hand on the wheel and the
Other on my mantra I looked back to
Where I'd come from. I decided it
Would be best if I backed my way
Up to the emergency exit so I could
Get a running start.
"At least you've got your health."
He smiled into my wet windy face.
"What?" he cocked his head, hand to ear.
"I said I'm getting there."
The aquarium day tilted it's light
Toward my cap, featuring it in the
Rearview mirror. At the light I
Noticed two derivatives in the trash
Bin by the crosswalk. They looked
Tired, the color of two day old key
Lime pie. I could taste the tang.
But I knew if they came for me I
Could move on. The operation
Had been successful.

Tags: Change, the environment, perception, heart

The Future

http://dukka.gaia.com — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:02:47 GMT

"Are we in for a surprise?
The future is like magic. It wears no robes or veils but arrives naked,
tossing its surprises to the right and the left. How does it arrive? It
neither comes from ahead nor do we enter it running. This is because
it and we can only approach what is always coming toward it and us.
There is no possible action or sound that can be made without being
received elsewhere, thereby describing and deciding the future which
only wears the attributes of something recognized as past.
Is there such a thing as truth objectively speaking? This question
curves around and demands that I ask myself why I am asking the
question in the first place, what good an answer will do for me before
I am annihilated. If I am convinced tha the story of your life and
thought reveals the truth about our condition on this planet, then
wil I be happier as I proceed? Why else am I asking it?"

-Excerpted from The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation by Fanny Howe

Tags: future, past, the moment

You are not surprised at the Force of the Storm

http://dukka.gaia.com — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:44:49 GMT

You are not surprised at the force of the storm-
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit;
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered
leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

-Rilke's Book of Hours, Love Poems to God
Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Tags: poem, Rilke

In this World of Dissonance

http://dukka.gaia.com — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:27:44 GMT

"The world is everything," he said. "And the earth can take it away."

No one was quite sure how it happened. At first we thought. " it must be our phones." But then people without phones said, "no." There was talk of aliens and terrorists for a while but no one showed up from out there, no one from over there. People continued to talk, lips moved, just habit I guess. There was widespread speculation that other creatures such as dogs and whales were unaffected. Someone was looking into that. But the upshot of it all was that not a single human being on the planet could hear. The transmission of sound had ceased. We thought of exposure but new borns smiled and gurgled when that dictionary hit the floor. The truth was we had been turned off. For a while closed caption was the rage, then signing. Subtitles flew off the shelves. But eventually we realized that it just wasn't the same. Nothing would ever be the same. "Thank god we have texting and the internet." tapped many of us. But in this world of silence a great longing pushed us past our technology. We became exquisite monitors of motion. We began to notice. We began to share ourselves because there was less and less between us. We stopped flying and mass transit became massively entertaining because we wanted to be close. We walked and felt and paid attention. Instead of movies we began to watch each other. We stopped for clouds and storms moving in. We became vigilant. We saw things that the sun did, and at night, things the moon did. And we stayed close. Close enough to remember touch, close enough to hold each other's faces in our hands when we wanted to express something. And when it finally dawned on us that the world was holding our faces in its hands, a morning came when we heard a jay call, the wind rustle a curtain, and voices through our very breaths.

Tags: the world, closeness

Forgetting the world

http://dukka.gaia.com — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:58:24 GMT

These are the days when
I could be doing anything
But I am doing this now:
Standing on the gray deck,
Arms raised, pulling in signals
From the world. Everything is
Bringing from the future. And
Receving the future takes work.
It could be in the mailbox or my
Ear. The nuthatch at my door,
Just blue and shadow. The wind
Coming across, something is waving.
It says, "sustain this." I can't. It
Lands on faded prayer flags tacked
To the rail. Dropping my arms I think
About these things and for this moment
And the next, I forget the world.

Tags: Poem, the world, remembering

Grapefruit

http://dukka.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:42:09 GMT

After the salmon pulp I squeezed
The sunlight from the two halves.
I remember this now as I recalled
Something then, coloring outside
The lines of separation, digging
To get as much out as I could.
In the earlier light that almost
Chartreuse ball hid the possibility
Of a one made two, of the next thing
I would encounter after breaking
Apart the whole thing. Who could
Have known what sweetness there
Might be, there between the color?

Tags: poem, fruit, memory

Prayer

http://dukka.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:08:16 GMT

An interviewer asked Mother Teresa what she says to God when she prays.
"I don't say anything," she replied. "I just listen."
So the interviewer asked her what God says to her.
"He doesn't say anything," said Mother Teresa. "He just listens." And before the astonished interviewer could press her further, she added, "And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you."

Tags: prayer