cardboard box algebra

it's mabon... which you probably only know if you are a pagan.
or if you've been clinging to the equinox - looking forward to the balance of dark and light.

the picture above is by samuel palmer, who was only recognized for having any talent in death. an artist's reality that is too-frequently the reality; greatness realized in darkness, when it is too late to do its creator any good.

there is a certain bravery in being the moon in the night sky - illuminating nothing; a world asleep. and yet, without it? without the moon? what would become of the tides?

i feel sorry for those artists who thought their struggle was in vein. what reward did they ever have? save being true to themselves? likely, because it was impossible for them to do anything else.

i came across a charles simic poem the other day. it's unrelated, but maybe, in some future moon-tense, where the y's and z's balance out, it's actually the answer...

nearest nameless (by charles simic)

so damn familiar
most of the time,
i don't even know you are here
my life,
my portion of eternity

a little shiver
as if the chill of the grave
is already
catching up with me --
no matter.

descartes smelled
witches burning
while he sat thinking
of a truth so obvious
we keep failing to see it

i never knew it either
till today.
when i heard a bird shriek:
the cat is coming.
and i felt myself tremble.

auld lange syne

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas

A winter sunset as seen from the mountain behind my house - captured during a snowshoeing trek with Kasey, Tom and my dad.

Farewell 2009... x

trays of ice cubes

Heavy

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.

- Mary Oliver

I think grief is one of those things you have to melt through like a glacier - it's cold and terrible, but if you hover over it, rather than press it close to you, well... it simply won't evaporate.

The painting is one by Cassandra Barney called Spring. I swear, I felt some connection between the poem and the glacial colour palette/expression on the woman's face, but I didn't appreciate the appropriateness of the title till just now.

my work

Messenger
by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Just a couple images from a sunset stroll along the Thames.

On Journeys...

Goodbye el Borne. Goodbye Barcelona.

The Catalan cats have been left to their own devices for a night and will be reunited with their owners’ tomorrow morning, meanwhile their former caretaker sits in the BCN airport, tap tap tapping away, waiting for her flight home to London.

Home to London. Whoever would have thought I’d be saying such a thing? Not me. Not really. And whoever would have thought a month ago that I would now be saying farewell to Barcelona after spending two weeks exploring its nooks and crannies? Given that the city ranked pretty low on my fairly prioritized travel agenda, not me. But that’s exactly what I absolutely-love/can’t-get-enough-of about life – that you never really know what will happen in the next breath; I may have some image of what my life will look like next month, but it may not look like that at all. Yay.

During my stay here, I rediscovered a Mary Oliver poem,
Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me, while looking for an email address amongst old mails. I have a number of Ms. Oliver’s poems committed to heart, but I’d totally forgotten this one, and it circulated in the air and my thoughts after sundown during my many inky blue evenings on Barcelona’s beach. It goes like this:

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

- Mary Oliver

And what of this particular journey? Certainly, there are books and chapters I could probably write on what has unfolded here – or maybe just a sentence, which would go like this:

It is not what I thought it would be beforehand, and exactly as I thought it would be during, yet all the while, there’s been the sea, together with the constant shore - distant enough to need seeking.

Buenos noches Barcelona.