This time, more so than before, the words of others occupied the space leading up to
this place
is a milestone for me, because now I recognize what lies ahead as completely unforeseen.
It's an openness that calls out, "You're free," and the choices to be made hang in the future suns' risings.
Today
It's just dusk
And the birds are all singing.
There are parts of me that couldn't speak coherently about all the metaphoric pools of feelings that have been turning my body, so I think I'll let their conversant chirping fill in for me.
They're speaking about seasons-
how the spring is finally arriving only to be leaving
although the leaves reach out so slowly to the sky that you can hardly perceive them shaking.
Trembling for the heat of the next few months where time is as thick as this valley's humidity,
they're slowly waving it in.
Leaves gain movement from their growing,
what fools mistake for the wind.
That subtle stirring becomes the past and
when viewed through a quickened time lapse
presents itself as a quaking.
Then it seems so amazing that the leaves didn't break away from their branches.
With all that incessant moving you'd think they'd lose track of those skinny little limbs.
It's a good thing Nature's proficient at dancing.
Only the insecure would grasp another's neck in an attempt to hold a pulse back,
since you can't stop what's alive from beating.
One should make like the leaves
and grow a bit wider
to see that instead of your grip,
those veins could have been kissed.
It's surprising what a heart can comprehend by simply being.
It drops a bass line for the fools:
Grace on the dance floor comes when you recognize your breath as the wind.
5.6.11
Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI feel a kinship to you, to be honest, which i can't explain.
Words like these reaffirm that.
This reminds me of a poem recited in the Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker:
ReplyDeleteMay everything come true, may they believe and may they laugh at their own passions.
For what they call passion is not the energy of the soul but merely friction between the soul and the outside world.
But above all, may they believe in themselves and become as helpless as children.... for softness is great and strength is weakness.
When man is born he is soft and pliable. When he is older he is strong and hard.
When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable but when it is dry and hard it dies.
Hardness and strength are Death's companions, flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life.
It's a beautiful poem and so is the movie. Your poem, which also talks about nature and trees and memory, is also quite nice.
I find Nature as a metaphorical concept is perhaps its most pliable, its most human. I find the contemporary Green movement's hypostatization of nature as a sort of Kantian Ding-an Sich to be deeply problematic.