even when you can't breathe.

"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."

-Martha Graham, as quoted in Dance to the Piper, by Agnes De Mille


Postscript: as i wrote over at mayo's, my computer screen has died, and until i can repair it (thank the gods it is repairable), i'll be mostly offline (thank the gods also for public libraries and public library computers). thank you to all who have left comments, and thank you to all who will, and i'll do my best to keep up-to-date with you until i'm able to return. love you all, my dear blogfriends. ♥

misgivings.

i clicked on "publish this post" and immediately the reaction set in, before the screen had even cycled through.

fool. fool. fool.

foolish
stupid
woman.




i'm such an idiot.

bemusingly apt.

With all that chilling mystery of mien,
And seeming gladness to remain unseen:
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an art
Of fixing memory on another's heart:
It was not love perchance -- nor hate -- nor aught
That words can image to express the thought;
But they who saw him did not see in vain,
And once beheld, would ask of him again:
And those to whom he spake remembered well,
And on the words, however light, would dwell:
None knew, nor how, nor why, but he entwined
Himself perforce around the hearer's mind;
There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate,
If greeted once; however brief the date
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew,
Still there within the inmost thought he grew.
You could not penetrate his soul, but found,
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound;
His presence haunted still; and from the breast
He forced an all unwilling interest;
Vain was the struggle in that mental net,
His spirit seemed to dare you to forget!


Byron, from "Lara"

and sometimes inanna.

He rode far from his friends, a forsaken man,
Scaling many cliffs in country unknown.
At every bank or breach where the brave man crossed water,
He found a foe in front of him, except by a freak of chance,
And so foul and fierce a one that he was forced to fight.
So many marvels did the man meet in the mountains,
It would be too tedious to tell a tenth of them.
He had death-struggles with dragons, did battle with wolves,
Warred with wild men who dwelt among the crags,
Battled with bulls and bears and boars at other times,
And ogres that panted after him on the high fells.
Had he not been doughty in endurance and dutiful to God,
Doubtless he would have been done to death time and again.
Yet the warring little worried him; worse was the winter,
When the cold clear water cascaded from the clouds
And froze before it could fall to the fallow earth.
Half-slain by the sleet, he slept in his armour
Night after night among the naked rocks,
Where the cold streams splashed from the steep crests
Or hung high over his head in hard icicles.
So in peril and pain, in parlous plight,
This knight covered the country till Christmas Eve

Alone;

And he that eventide

To Mary made his moan,

And begged her be his guide

Till some shelter should be shown.

from Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by Brian Stone, 1959.

storytime.

because i'm tired of writing about how bad everything is.

when i was a little girl, we had a hobby farm in oregon, and some of my best childhood memories come from that place. but not all -- when i was in second grade, we moved to montana, and that's where i grew up.

in montana, there was a campground behind our property. the land dipped abruptly down to a creek, and across the creek this great huge campground, filled with pine trees and places to explore. it had a playground with child-sized buildings to play in, like a little wild west town. the jail even had a secret tunnel escape route.

in the summer we would buy candy at the campground store and play in the creek. i had a friend who lived at the very back of the campground, in a teepee with her hippie parents. her place always smelled so good -- of leather and canvas and woodsmoke.

in the winter we would go sliding or skating on the bumpy frozen creek, and follow it further than we could go when it was running, past people's homes and pastures, until it went under a road in a culvert.

the best thing about the creek, though, and the reason i'm telling this story, is the fact that it had frogs.

i was very good at catching frogs. i could spot them where they hid, floating motionless in pads of algae, just their eyes above the surface. i could move quietly enough to position my hand just behind them, and them swoop down and snatch them up. after they struggled a little bit, they would just sit quietly in my hand. holding a wild animal like that was a magical experience. i never tired of it -- neither the exercise of my guile and skill, nor the wonder of feeling the breath and beating heart of that tiny creature in my hand.

we always let them go. it was neat to watch them swim away, and hide again.

that was my summer, before boys became more interesting than frogs. every summer, walking out to the long driveway of the campground, and down to the creek, and spending the afternoons along the creekside, looking for frogs, watching the other creatures that lived in the water, staying away from the slow-running spots where the leeches lived, inventing games and telling stories.

thank you, dear ss, for bringing that memory back to the fore.

jumbled.

someone's been rummaging around in my head, where i keep all the puzzle pieces that i haven't used yet. they've stirred them up, scooped them together, and tossed them in with the pieces i thought i had already fitted together.

or maybe it's just the aftereffects of a week-end overindulging in bad research. curiosity doesn't really ever kill the cat, you know, it just gives her a nasty hang-over.

in the past, when this place became a ground of shifting sands, i had the settled solidity of life outside to keep me centered, but now...

oh my.

i want to know that i'm helping. i'd like to know that there's a sequence to this. i wish to know eventually that we made a difference. i hope...

well, i have a lot of hopes.

and i hang on to my beliefs about this place because they're the only beliefs i have right now that make me feel worthwhile. everything else is up in the air and i don't know where they will fit when they land.

and i hope this doesn't make me a fool, and i hope that there's reality behind all these words, and i hope that this place where we meet in our heads and hearts isn't something i've made up wholecloth out of my head and heart.

and all that's left is to just keep on as i have been, jumbled or clear, fool or true.

sharper than a knife.

i put my poem up earlier. i had decided yesterday that would be an appropriate entry for this, the first day of spring on my calendar, so i went ahead and typed up the pretty little thing.

i was wrong about it's appropriateness.

no spring, no sweet frolic. no. today is black tar boiling up from the depths of my heart and the day wasted. the threshold crossed drunk on pain, curled on my knees on the floor.

reaching, always reaching, never touching.

and so.

so.

what will this year become? will i really be able to accomplish any thing at all? i doubt i have what it takes.

and all the talk circles around and around, endlessly biting it's own tail in cannibalistic glee. at least he is doing something with his life, at least he is making something with it, even if all the corbies pick at his words and flesh and crow about how fucked up he is. at least he isn't wasting it. there are enough of us still sitting in basements of our making, at least he got out of his.

at least there's that.

welcoming the maiden.

(a poem i wrote several years ago to celebrate the season.)


spring, you are a shy one.
you like to hide behind the cold tree.
you have furtive paths,
like the rabbit does:
when i turn my head to catch you,
you slide out of sight, a grey shadow,
nothing more.

spring, i know how to coax you out.
i will ply my broom, and its yellow bristles
will remind you to toss your hair.
i will wield my dust rag, and its dancing folds
will encourage you to swing your skirts.
i will shake winter out of my house,
i will open every door and window to your song.

then you won't hide.
then you'll become bold.
you'll deck out the trees in green lace,
you'll smile and the flowers will laugh for you.
oh yes, i'll coax you out,
and when you're here
i'll sing you welcome, spring, welcome!