Why Not?

[Diane]

Hi Carm. I read your excellent, unique concert report in the Vancouver thread, which reminded me that I wanted to thank you for the butterflies you placed on my grave. This thread of yours looks marvellous! It will be part of my holiday reading, along with Pete's new tome. I hugely enjoy biking also:-) Happy Christmas to you.

I often think about you when I’m pedaling
alone in my room with my soul open and
the daydream lost somewhere in my head…

[mat james]

while subtle presences within quietly but insistently
press on toward some sort of poetic revelation.

("...and something they are stammering leaves me dying."
San Juan de la Cruz)

I am enjoying your unfolding.

cycle on to silence

[carm]

I've been away.

But now I am brought back by the force of this song that lures and wills my quiet mind.
And so, here I muse within the music's poem, as the hours coalesce and mere seconds
pound their heavy tick, perhaps as a statement – feeling as they might, that they are on
the brink of something important, though at times they leisurely brush past each ear.

Maybe if I am proactive in my approach, time will be kind and inch me toward some form of
resolution and hope, allowing my thoughts to spill freely – first to the left, then to the right.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp_5HPoohtU

This glancing life is like a morning star
A setting sun, or rolling waves at sea
A gentle breeze or lightning in a storm
A dancing dream of all eternity…

…and something they are stammering leaves me dying

(Thanks Mat)

.....

60 minutes,
60 miles,
30 minutes,
30 miles,
20 minutes,
20 miles,
10,
9,
8…

[carm]

As the evening light gently fades to black, my thoughts
retrace the hours that came at me within the silence of
this day. Somewhere close by I hear my pen heave a sigh,
and tucked in beside it, my favourite book sleeps – Its creased
corners indicating the many pages where I have paused mid-
sentence, with eyes too heavy to bring into focus the story's
very next word. But look how they strain now in their desire to
capture the incredible sensuality of this darkening landscape.
See here, there’s such an ominous glow to it, one that blends
well into colour’s absence. I can feel the light hovering as the
minutes shift. I am not so interested in the light per se, but in
its penetrating reverberations of quietude. As tomorrow begins
at the very tip of this midnight, I’ll be nestled snug in the shadows,
dreaming of where I might go from here, drifting far away from
this moment in time. Just as I am writing this down, a tiny chill of
excitement wells up in the corner of my eye and my mind shimmies
off to the point of distraction, traveling far beyond what might
be expected, to geographies containing other interesting realms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO9Ac1y- ... re=related

.....

…10, 9, 8.

[carm]

How pure this day, how carefree – out here where the sequence of things escapes you. Feeling
the force of the days silence, a spirit-laden hush blankets my mood. Permeating reflections offer
flickers of hope, providing nourishment and aeration of my soul. As one thought loses itself, another
comes forth, appearing just a tad bit stronger. As vivid impressions begin to proliferate between these
lines, an exchange of energies takes place within. While the snow continues its fall at the close of this
quiet hour, I am struck with a feeling of plenitude, swaddled as I am in this happy state of equanimity.
They say the heart is a paradigm for something held deep inside, capable of infinite love. I’ve always
believed some sort of pizzazz or charisma exists at the core of things.

Suddenly my focus shifts, giving way to an image of a tiny church resting off in the distance of this imaginary
landscape, just a few footsteps on up ahead. And I am immediately enticed by its various telling splashes of
color that cast a rainbowed glow, alighting the snow. It is there where I recognize that in this heavy drift of
white, time is unmarked. Quickly my mind takes flight and I hold tight to the serendipity of wingless time,
save for the requisitioning of a handful of prayers that surround me here, at the end of my sentence, just as
I walk into this empty church, having no place else to go…

.....

I suppose the morning’s horizon will lie brittled with ice, yet the sun will keep shining, circling, shining,
perhaps not as intensely as ones heart, but constant, still the same. Slaked with a free and thirsty soul,
she will continue her cycle, alone on life’s adventurous path, where images of the days perceptions sculpt
her varying states of mind. You can almost feel the chill of the wind nipping at the empty hand she’s stretched
forth, as a welcome perhaps to that awe-inspiring horizon.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8WGlhJK ... re=related

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him... give my heart.

[carm]

As 2010 ends and 2011 begins, may we continue to capture life’s journeys from
unexpected angles, its intrigue from new perspectives, as each new day unfolds
and invites us in. So long as we are open to messages of love, we'll remain young
at heart, witnessing first-hand how the subtle beauty of one thing can add a little
more beauty to everything else. Taste it, feel it, smell it, inhale it and sense it –
be part of the song that is the day, playing happily within its rhyme.

.....

Gone in a shrug,
intimations of thought
like the kiss of the sun
and its incessant retreat,
always just out of reach
from wherever I am. In
the guise of a beggar I
take freely what is given,
like the New Year accorded,
spinning already from one
moment to the next, where
calibrations of silence trail
the order of things. I stand
as one blessed in the cool
breeze of time, consumed
but alive, clasping tight to
that benevolent horizon,
yet always in search of
a more expansive dawn,
colored in a true blue sky.
Humble in spirit, I'm bound
to the magnitude of life’s
gravitational pull, pushing
the days limits toward some
form of balance. As daylight
flourishes, affirmations are
witnessed and I take pause,
loitering in the quiet of black,
waiting daily for something
to give, in the washed stillness
of this coming New Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e39UmEnqY8

Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee…

[carm]

No one bestirs times continuance, yet
lickety-split it unwinds itself just the same,
and as circumstances merge and diverge,
a velocity of words fall like droplets of rain
into a sea of timelessness, where thoughts
too deep for rhyme or reason rest, and
complicated visions hover, just as the day
is caught spying for shoots and buds, for
beginnings indelible, that change the surface
of things here in the isthmus of a moment,
in the sediment of unscripted, cumulative time
that slips as quietly out as it silently slipped in.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjJXD4XNrPk

And when it's all over you wont know
Just when you're comin' from when you go

[carm]

Inside, dreamed-up sleep combines with
the dormancy of these hours, where each
lapping minute works well to calm the
senses, here in this middle of nowhere.
Just as I'm turning my face to the glorious
sun, round and whole in its shine of white,
flooding this ambiguous morning, a poetic
voice offers its song. Feel how the melody
plays lovely and strong, far beyond this
brilliant palette of sky, where doves soar,
steeped in peace. I cannot readily name it,
those faint whispers of things left unsaid,
that now come at me as my inseparable
shadow pushes its limits, well beyond the
day’s restraint. Following me as it does,
like no other will, ceded as we are, here
in the midst of this buoyant terrain, dipping
deeper into this and that, and everything
else in between. I've cast my hook in hopes
of reeling in a star from above, a sweetened
left-over perhaps, from last night's vision,
resting still and radiant-like, this diamond
in the sky. Even as, like the heart, the world
beats impatient and quick, involved as it is,
spinning us to sleep then back again, where
hopefully we arise, sated at last. Charmed
still by this song, my heart is afloat, rocking
with me on the porch of this sea, where luckily
there’s always room for one more! Though my
bearings be lost every now and again, eye
continue to spy with my little eye, beautiful
images that appear as brief as my breath or
so the story goes, piece by puzzled piece.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2JbLUVt0Z0

Motherland cradle me
Close my eyes
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe
Lie with me
Stay beside me
Don't go, don't you go

[carm]

And then I see it, a storm, hesitating off
in the distance, like an inseparable shadow
in pause. Caught here shivering, the brute
force of the wind finds me unawares and
sneaks up from behind requisitioning what
feels like a bucket full of water that soaks
me all over, my entire tiny frame. Suddenly
my cocooned happy mood turns cranky and
benumbed – just as Edgar Allan Poe decides
to have a light-hearted chat with my soul.

.....

They say when challenging circumstances
pit us up against every imagineable obstacle,
we can be brought literally to our knees…
So, imagine if you will, this sky, its mystery,
see how its poetry stretches way beyond the
here and now. I tremble a little, feeling the
edge of everything. Persistent in its unfolding,
it awakens me to a force like no other.

This night that is filled with words and visions,
that are piled high with other words and visions,
and among them, others still – whistling a tune
to the spirit of things believed, things unknown
but felt, with a weight invisible and sounding
like a dream – reconstituted down to something
held in the eye of the mind, where everything
spins of things imagined, things undefined…

.....

Then like a miracle, the storm abates, and I'm
brought back to the slip slap slipping of transient
waves caught up in their habitual return to the
sides of my ship, which teeters a little off-kilter.

The night still festooned with fire, tries to find rest,
while tomorrow floats on the horizon, where it will
no doubt be lovingly greeted by the dawn and hopefully
balanced by the blue of the sky, a peacekeeper of sorts,
to the day…

.....

When the confines of the waking world
blend with the world of dreams…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZyNKrYo9I4

.....

[carm]

The impressions of a thought, prompted by the summoned mind, at times
wills the pen to write. Interweaved histories of experience bubble up to the
surface of things, within the quiet day-to-day dayness of one’s introspections.
As fog, that once trailed the story’s plot, lifts, one’s penchant for interpreting
things, surges too – thus allowing imagination and creativity to swell as well.

Why not throw our senses into the day’s glory, glory halleluiah, where the sun
habitually rises, peaking to its full majesty, almost as though it is offering itself
to each and every one of us – for the long haul, or for whatever, come what may…

Enduring emotions such as hope, love, peace and joy, etc., that we all carry
around with us, over time become that much more heartening and extraordinary
in their return. Their affect, which is sometimes inspired by the melody of a light,
passionate song – or the return of the sun, is felt deep in the heart as it dances a
beautiful solo, camouflaged as it is here, among the silence of this vast landscape.

.....

Oh, to be simple like a rock –
chalk-full of Haiku.
Being what it is –
simply what it is meant to be,
stripped of everything
unneeded.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EfHZtCKJGY

There is a ship, she sails the sea
she's loaded deep as deep can be
but not as deep as the love I'm in
I know not how I sink or swim

[carm]

Roaming about and consumed,
she turns and looks once again
out over the ocean, as though
lost in a moment of transience.
It's in that silence that the stilted
formalities of things acquiesce. In
a somewhat unhurried, peaceful
well-choreographed mood, amidst
this air that is now alive with song,
she becomes the dance. As time
pauses, the music commands the
hour and her heart pulses to its beat
of a two/four time measure. The
ocean upsurges – witnessing as it is,
the repatriation of her soul.

Attentive to all that lies behind her,
this woman's thoughts drift – out there,
and she reflects on all that might have
been, so many years ago. Almost without
notice, a tear forms then drops to the side
of her cheek in its pure swell of emotion.
Meditative symphonies of sea let loose all
around as she labours here in this moment,
in the recall of memory, caught up as she
is in those ambiguous currents of time gone
by. As the sea continues to surge, she
struggles fiercely with the contingencies
of reason as each new wave unfolds.

Moments later the sun stands in front of her
in an effort to lift her spirit, promising to carry
her a little while longer – to centre her among
those farthest reaches of hope, where ones fate,
at times tirelessly whirls and twirls in a dizzying,
circling motion. See how her faith intensifies as
the mind sifts and sorts to work things out, here
on this shore where love's charity is unfurled. As
her world slips by at the speed of light, she too
continues on in the dance, her spirit always adrift.
And still to this day, standing on that same shore
she endeavour's to catch glimpses, to uncover pieces
of truth hidden in nature, in the darkest of winter's.

But what if anything does it matter now, with Spring
close at hand – the days, as always, will continue their
amicable hum, revolving here in front of us, seemingly
unscathed.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-hSUYvSlE&feature=fvw

In spirit she's drifted to the ocean
All those years of waiting for the water
She's watching long shadows caught in the tide
But the sunset by the sea is in her mind
The sunset by the sea is in her mind

[carm]

She's paused here
(caught up as she is
in a metaphorical
stretch of time),
to peruse things –
things that seemingly
stay where they are,
where they always
have been, where
nothing moves
and all is soundless –
where not even
the faintest echo
willingly nods,
or winks an eye.

Meanwhile,
the wind e x h a l e s,
taxing itself into
some sort of tizzy,
in preparation maybe,
for yet another
maelstrom.

See how it
stirs up
the blue
of the sky…

But wait!

The sun,
so imperative
to this day,
is eyeing up the scene,
spreading its circle
of warmth,
unconditionally
lending itself –
its smile perhaps,
to the stillness,
to the quiet
questioning
of things…

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ucKmywpmA

Where do I go now?
Who will I be?
Where do I find the words?

[carm]

Ceasing
temporarily,
reflecting
on
the
ledge
of
this
song.

Finding
release,
in
the
letting
go.

Honouring
acknowledged
emotions.

Taking note
their perfect timing.

Blissful,
this
repose –

her
saving
grace.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vaABi-Pkr8&feature=fvw

Please, let the music play…

[carm]

The morning broke –
into a lovely melody.

And the day
continued
well –
into the evening.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa-mWuBY-is&feature=fvsr

Morning has broken,
like the first morning…

[Cate]

Midnight Blue – I had forgotten this song. It was nice to hear it again.

Oh, to be simple like a rock –
chalk-full of Haiku.
Being what it is –
simply what it is meant to be,
stripped of everything
unneeded.

I very much like this and it fits very nicely with

Ceasing
temporarily,
reflecting
on
the
ledge
of
this
song.

Finding
release,
in
the
letting
go.
...