HAUNTED BY THE HOLY GHOST

…..and you ask me, Lazarus, why I listen for the sound of my own breath?--because it stopped; stopped dead; for days and eternity---so, yes, hearing startles me, and always will

"I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail"

 

Diving into the Wreck

      
by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean            
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and et
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget      
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived her
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done 
and the treasures that prevail.    
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently                                    
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

 

photo "I Doubt if it be us"/"Framing the Peripheral Realities"/"Fragment"

by nikaa

With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs, woes of separation

 

 

Separation

May none be shattered like me by the woes of separation;
My life has passed by wasted by the throes of separation.

Exited stranger, lover, heartsick beggar, mind bewildered;
I've shouldered brunt of Fortune and blows of separation.

If ever separation should fall into my hand I will kill it;
With tears, in blood, I will pay all the dues of separation.

Where to go, what to do, who to tell my heart's state to?
Who gives justice, who pays out, for those of separation?

From the pain of separation not a moment's peace is mine;
For the sake of God, be just, give the dues of separation.

By separation from Your Presence I'll make separation sick,
Until the heart's blood flows from the eyes of separation.

From where am I and from where are separation and grief?
Seems my mother bore me for grief that grows of separation.

Therefore, at day and at night, branded by love, like Hafiz,

With nightingales of dawn, I cry songs, woes of separation.

Hafiz of Shiraz

Translator:
Smith, P. (1986)

Melbourne: New Humanity Books.

Why on earth am I pretending?...I'm here again, the stars befriending

   "Here beneath the stars I'm landing
   And here beneath the stars not ending
   Why on earth am I pretending?
   I'm here again, the stars befriending..."

 

How To Be a Poet (to remind myself) by Wendell Berry

   How To Be a Poet   

by Wendell Berry

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

 

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

 

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

 

PHOTOS:Back to the start by  Gabriela Camerotti 

A Day by nevertorun

Cold Hands by Gabriela Camerotti

by Hanna L.

Warning: Shameless Plug-NORTHERN SKIES......Drake's New CD Just Realeased

Northern Skies

The Newest CD released by Drake, the Band
(which includes my favorite Violinist
and one of my favorite daughters (Bea)

Yes, I have given up all hope of hearing strains of Bach, Mahler or Shostakovitch any time soon, unless she puts them into a riff/improvisation as part of one of Drake's songs. 
Not likely.

There is a "rumor" that one of the more "complicated improvise solos is based the theme song from "Sesame Street".
BTW,  she never even watched Sesame Street, or any of those "pseudo-educational/parental guilt soothing" TV shows; and most "kids" shows she gave up on after 5 minutes, miffed that most were an insult to ANYONE'S intelligence.

So how she picked up the Theme Song from Sesame Street is mystifying, especially in the light of a  late night phone call I received asking me if I had ever heard of  "SCOOBY-DOO".
She was sure her "band mates" were just making things up to pile on more "HOME SCHOOL" points...
Yes, Virginia(Bea, or whatever name you are going by), there really is a Scooby-Doo


ANYWAY....The CD is great, see the LEFT SIDE BAR to listen or download some sample tracks, watch a clip of a performance, and maybe order yourself a copy of Northern Skies (or their previous CD, "These And Other Things").

And not the warning on MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, which has a quick comment questioning the Bible Exegetical skills of someone named "George"....

...someone who's hasn't been seen or hear from since yesterday, Jan 20 around Noon.

Bea, what do you know, when did you know it, and how involved are you in with his disappearance????????

Sounds like a job for "you know who...."

or just watch this instead
(Bea's solo on the CD sample track is much more "WILD"-it was still new when this was done)

Drake - Mission Accomplished

Read from some humbler poet...who still heard in his soul the music of wonderful melodies

photo:mine

The Day is Done

 
THE DAY is done, and the darkness     
  Falls from the wings of Night,     
As a feather is wafted downward     
  From an eagle in his flight.     
 
I see the lights of the village            
  Gleam through the rain and the mist,     
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me     
  That my soul cannot resist:     
 
A feeling of sadness and longing,     
  That is not akin to pain,     
And resembles sorrow only     
  As the mist resembles the rain.     
 
Come, read to me some poem,     
  Some simple and heartfelt lay,     
That shall soothe this restless feeling,     
  And banish the thoughts of day.     
 
Not from the grand old masters,     
  Not from the bards sublime,     
Whose distant footsteps echo     
  Through the corridors of Time.     
 
For, like strains of martial music,     
  Their mighty thoughts suggest     
Life's endless toil and endeavor;     
  And to-night I long for rest.     
 
Read from some humbler poet,     
  Whose songs gushed from his heart,     
As showers from the clouds of summer,     
  Or tears from the eyelids start;     
 
Who, through long days of labor,     
  And nights devoid of ease,     
Still heard in his soul the music     
  Of wonderful melodies.     
 
Such songs have power to quiet     
  The restless pulse of care,     
And come like the benediction     
  That follows after prayer.     
 
Then read from the treasured volume     
  The poem of thy choice,     
And lend to the rhyme of the poet     
  The beauty of thy voice.     
 
And the night shall be filled with music,     
  And the cares, that infest the day,     
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,     
  And as silently steal away.



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

NOW

Now the silence, Now the Peace
Now the empty hands uplifted;
Now the kneeling, now the plea,
Now the Father's welcome,
Now the hearing, now the power,
Now the vessel brimmed for pouring;
Now the body, now the blood,
Now the Joyful Celebration;

Now the Wedding, Now the songs
Now the heart forgiven, leaping;
Now the Spirit's Visitation,
Now the Son's Epiphany,
Now the Father's Blesing,
Now, Now, Now.

Jaroslav J. Vajda

TELLING STORIES....

, originally uploaded by nikaa.

"But any walk within fictional worlds has the same function as a child’s play. Children play with puppets, toy horses, or kites in order to get acquainted with the physical laws of the universe and with the actions that someday they really will preform. Likewise, to read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world.

This is the consoling function of narrative–the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time. And it has always been the paramount function of myth: to find a shape, a form, in the turmoil of human experience."

from “Possible Woods” by Umberto Eco

Do you not know that your body is a temple....

We thought of finding God where the body ends:
and we made the body suffer and we turn it into a heavy load,
an obedient entity, a machine of work, into an enemy to be silenced,
and that way we persecuted the body to the point of praising death
as a the way to God, as if God preferred the smell of sepulchres
to the delights of paradise.
And we became cruel, violent, allowing exploration and war.

For, if God can only be found beyond the body, then everything
can be done to the body

Alves, Rubem.
1983. Creio na Ressurreição do Corpo.
Rio de Janeiro: Cedi.

Again for my classmates: writings from the past-THE BONES WITH ALL THE SKIN AND FLESH SCRAPED OFF

FROM GLEN WORKSHOP, 2006....

I am leaving tomorrow for Santa Fe.  My apologies to those who have been waiting for these chapters.

“Be properly scared, and go on doing what you have to do, but take the necessary precautions. . . . Cheers, Tarfunk.”  Flannery O"Conner

Looking forward to seeing you all again. 

____________________________________________________________

FRAGMENTS

IV. GREAT LENT 2006: CONFESSION:

"With the Cross that Catches All Thieves, He Caught That Thief For Life."

Confession           

The words claw their passage      
From the mouth, a lifetime's shame revealed,
as the best face crumbles.
The secret me is thrown before God
like a shackled intruder,
the strong man who always threatens to return
is finally bound; I am released.
The priest begins to speak,
but instead of condemnation he grants eternity's pardon,
and all that was named is no more.
I am reformed to begin again,
daring to believe in such miracles.                         
                                —Stephen Baile  (1)

Where does sin go when you are not allowed to speak of it, confess it, or even admit that sin is sin?
The Lament is silenced.
The church is practicing her prerogative of binding and loosing.
Love is loosed
No greater love is to be found than not offending another's sensibilities.
Sin is bound.
Bound so tight it is nowhere to be found, except in me.
My soul was never served notice on the new rules, of no rules.
All is lost

Speaking, I would commit a greater sin, against love.
If I remain silent, never reveal in all its darkness, the evil that lives in me,
I take the weaker medicine, and die slower.

What happens to the soul when the church's confession of sin
becomes nothing more than a vague declaration of corporate wrongs
done to anonymous persons half a world away?
How do you stop the numbing of your own heart as you break law after law?
murdering with words and deeds the person standing right next to you?

When you violate the Word that is carved into your heart before memory?
How do you lift your eyes to heaven when there is no absolution proclaimed?
Neither is there a call to turn from this road, since all roads are one.
Who will unbind your heart and conscience, and free to stand and begin the climb again,
to that God-imaged person you were meant to be?

When I close my eyes demons sneer and dance in the darkness.
Ordinary sounds startle my senses, they all become whispers and wailing’s
accusing me of what I already know. 
It will not do to assure me that it was all washed away at that font, long years ago.
That infant wailed because she knew.

She wept for the sorrow of the stain, and the joy of the cleansing.
But she also wept for the struggle, and violence to come.
The evil that tempt, succeed in ripping her from that state of purity;
and she would go willingly.
Most of all she wept because the day would come when she would cease to weep,
and she would forget Him who will never forget her.

This daughter of the Immortal King demands to know
what she will answer Her Father when her poor soul stands before Him
unprepared and unable to give answer.

I do not fear the His future words, " I do not know you".
I fear more my words, spoken today;
"Father, I do not remember you,
I can't recall the slightest contour of your face, or the touch of your hand.
And your voice, the voice that sang and still sings all things into existence, I have become deaf to it.
I have locked myself in the silence of my soul and will never hear, again, the music of the spheres."

Sola is a very small word, and it shrinks and stinks in this noon of the dark night.
Sola the soul, who has turned away.

THIS WAS WRITTEN OVER A YEAR AGO, BUT I PROMISED MY CLASSMATES SOME MORE OF MY WRITING: " THE POWER OF NAMING NAMES"

ESPECIALLY FOR LAURA....



FRAGMENTS

II THE POWER OF NAMING NAMES

In three weeks, Nathaniel Eastwood Carlson would have been celebrating his 21st birthday. (AUG 3, 2008, Nathaniel would have been 24)
Twenty times this day has rolled across my horizon; and twenty times I have swallowed the grief, still fresh, and still cold.
I have never spoken his name out loud.  I have written it down only once before.  The only visible mark, that confirms his existence is in our "Family Bible" on the page labeled "Deaths".

When I began recording the official comings and goings of our family, I always thought the bottom line of the "Births", and "Deaths" pages would eventually converge.   For every birth, a death, in an "Ecclesiastes-for everything there is a season" sort of way.
It's how the world works, or at least how I thought it worked. You are born, and then you die.  In between you might garner mention on other pages, baptisms or marriage, but you were only guaranteed the two entries.

No matter how many generations of Carlson's sojourn on this earth, recording their comings and goings, births and rebirths, unions and partings, the accounting will never balance.
Add and subtract, multiply and divide, there will always be the tiny remainder of Nathaniel Eastwood Carlson.
And each year, on this day, I note that my world is still unbalanced, tilted ever so lightly.  But I have learned to step as if all was level and firm.

Nathaniel died while still hidden in my womb.  No one knows why, and no one even thought it should matter.   
After all, the obscene mindset of this culture, that clings to the illusion that it doesn't know when life begins, refused to acknowledge his lovely, mysterious, short life.
Nathaniel never drew a breath, I never held him, or even saw him. 
These oft worshiped things called physical senses denied him.
And in theological circles I was enclosed in at the time, the seen always trumped the unseen.  So I silenced my rebellion and gave my assent. Negated Nathaniel's existence was the first step into the dark ream being called "the culture of death".  It would be a long sojourn.  He was only a potential, but he never, truly was a real live boy. And even if we were mistaken, God's mercy was more than enough to paper over our ignorance.
They were wrong, but in going against everything that my spirit was crying out, I was more wrong.

I open the Family Bible and look his name, and the date he ceased to be.  It is written lightly, tentatively, like it is a question and not statement of fact.

Was I aware then, of a desperate, unholy hope that human lives could be erased from the mind and the heart?  Did I even contemplate the next steps in this line of thought, that would lead me to value human life on my own terms, disregarding the absolute value God placed on it when he said  "And it was Good". 

I know that if I wrote lightly, and the day came when his memory became indistinguishable between reality and myth, I could blot it out, sparing myself a lifetime of hard questions.  A few strokes would erase him and level my world.  But I had no idea the shifting sands I built these hopes on were nothing less than the dust of crushed dry bones of those I would wipe from memory.
This was the old "Eden syndrome", and I was playing Eve's part.  Usurping God and claiming for myself, power over all matters of life and death, good and evil, being and nothingness.
It was a temptation that would be a motif of my life.

Sands Shift.  It took ten years, and the birth of two other children, and the death of my father before I would write that name in whisper strokes.  I only transferred to paper what was written on my heart and would not give me rest until I spoke it.
The realization of the permanence of things created ex nihlo was beginning to dawn. The sun was rising blood red, dark and horrible.
In another ten years I would reach the place that I could shout his name, along with curses that I am too shamed to recall, to God or anybody else.
But it would be many more years to dredge the black silt from my throat that would allow speaking clearly the other truths that came.
I can look back at that young woman, almost and then mother, and forgive her hubris, but not her sins.
She has paid dearly for any denial or ignorance of the Sacramental Mysteries called Life, and so did others.

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE...A Few More Words From Elaine Neil Orr

More from the short story Day Lilies by Elaine Neil Orr's

photo by ☮hanna

There were two truths about herself that Ellen had told her friend.
She wanted phone calls about awards and she did not want anyone else in her community to be named Ellen.
She had grown up a white girl in West Africa where other girls had names like Tunji and Deli or possibly Esther and Ruth.
Her parents had been missionaries.

Now in her American life, if she went to a party and was introduced to another woman named Ellen, she left.
Or even if she wasn’t introduced but just heard that some other woman at the party shared her name, she left.
Her reasons were obscure; she could hardly explain to her husband. Once she had tried:

“I came to the U.S. when I was fifteen. I felt so lost.
At night in bed, I would say to myself, ‘I’m Ellen and I grew up in Nigeria.’ I would say it over and over.”

“Right,” he had commented.

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“You felt lost so you said your name to yourself at night. Ok.”

And then he had turned on the television, signaling to his wife that she was being self-absorbed.....

****

Ellen grieved over years of tedious arguments with Martin when now she could see that neither of them had been right or wrong.
They had only been so different in their habits and desires. Since her father’s death, dreams dragged through her nights like heavy,
twined cables under the Atlantic.

She had a dream of her own death in which no one noticed her absence.

Ellen needed some things to keep her afloat and in the world. Her name, for example, or a certificate of merit that would say:
Look. You have performed splendidly. Many people love you.