Why Not?

[carm]

Cate writes:

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

Cate, I suppose over the years I've held this song somewhere in the back of my mind,
and then I bumped into it again, just the other day…

.....

Thanks for your comment regarding…

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.

Ceasing
temporarily,
reflecting
on
the
ledge
of
this
song.

Finding
release,
in
the
letting
go.

I am reminded of a poem I posted on another thread by Thomas Merton…

In Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

…which leads to the accompanying quote, posted there by Diane, as well as the Pablo Neruda quote.

Stones and rocks are the most silent and eternal aspect of our landscape. – Diane

Earth, give me back your pure gifts,
the towers of silence which rose
from the solemnity of their roots.
I want to go back to being what I have not been...
to be one stone more, the dark stone,
the pure stone which the river bears away.

– Pablo Neruda

[carm]

Imagination
twists, stirs, turns,
whirls and eventually
awakens into something
no one knows,
until…

.....

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting
by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing
to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book
her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or
conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,
'thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as
she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy
and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-
chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and
picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit
with pink eyes ran close by her…

`Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much
surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to
speak good English)…

– pieces from Alice In Wonderland – by Lewis Carroll

…..

I remembered
nothing
of this
cotton-candied
day, until
the colours
of a gathering awe
carried me
to places
where the 'I'
in me
seemed not.

As I was
sitting comfortably,
within the limits
of my imagination,
a lively butterfly,
so thin and graceful,
ever so softly
impressed itself
upon my senses,
offering me
something
of its interior-ness,
in a subliminal
sort of way,
as it tripped
the light fantastic.

I could feel
it nudging
every aspect of
my imagination.

How content
it emerges,
wafting silently
through times
changeable skies.

Its flowering
certainty –
primordial
in its
expression,
bespeaks
the spectrum
that is it.

We are locked
in a kinship
of sorts –
the butterfly
and I –
here
within the
long stretch
of this
chimerical
briefness.

Oh,
to hoard
its gentle spirit…
to mimic
its absolute
calm.

.....

In an eye-flick
the imagination fades‚
and with it,
ones judgement
of things.

I suppose
there will
always exist
a crumple of words
lying in wait
for their
creator –
inevitable,
or so they
predict.

.....

To this day,
I feel the laughter
of that butterfly
as it flits about
in the wilderness
of my mind,
where everything
momentarily spins
of things imagined…

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA7gvvdo ... re=related

Every wish, every dream you ever had
Close your eyes
And it will all come rushing back
Fly away
All you need is to believe and remember when

[Diane]

I'm still loving your poems, thoughts, and music, Carm:-) And especially your graphics. You bring the words alive. Thought I'd pop in to mention a couple of favourites (it was a tough choice):

file-2.php.jpg (34.92 KiB) Viewed 1357 times

file-1.php.jpg (43.24 KiB) Viewed 1357 times

[carm]

Diane, thank you for your kind words.

No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.

– John Greenleaf Whittier

.....

They say gratitude makes sense
of our past, brings peace for today,
and creates a vision for tomorrow.

[carm]

[carm]

Gazing at me,
a ladybug,
its presence palpable
as we stood
side by side
in the green
of the forest.

The moment,
a recognition
of sorts, for both
of us as we shopped
for something to wear…
a smile perhaps
amid the silence
of the day.

Overhead
an eagle spoke.
Picking up its
piercing sound –
the wind.

And suddenly
all that was,
just the moment
before,
seemed gone,
including
the ladybug.

Word has it
she escaped
through the
open window,
there,
in the woods –
vanishing
within the mist
of a low
cumulous cloud.

What next?

Spring's renewal,
I suppose,
for I feel it
toying
just around the corner,
enthusiastic
to restore
some semblance
to everything
old man winter
had taken in –
obstinate,
his grip.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iStrSEG3KQQ

.....

[carm]

Grey-brown,
golden, brick-red,
white, and tinges
of cinnamon too…

The morning
caught me
listening to the
musical cheery,
cheeriup, cheerio,
cheeryip whistle
of a robin –
sounding of spring.

Drawing in,
each breath is
barely audible
as the robin skips
a quarter of an inch
or so,
here and there.

Quick and
nervous-like,
its pace –
loud,
its liquid song,
irresistible too –
its grace.

Something
that I can’t
quite touch on
forces a vision –
the drawing power
perhaps, of winter’s
stronghold slowly
coming undone,
gradually dismantling
itself – trusting
spring’s unfolding
amorous charm,
inspired perhaps,
by Mother Nature,
as she hastens
steadily onward.

Challenging always,
her intricate ways –
some cleverly
untouched by time
as she continually
offers up stirrings of hope,
as found in the incantatory
quality of her speech –
genuine, a gift to all.

Back again
to the robin,
where an open moment
of possibility awaits…

Dipping into the soil,
the robin unearths
a common earthworm,
forcing it out of its
tight seclusion.

Hurriedly again,
the robin navigates
the green of the lawn,
then away it flies –
steadying itself
atop the branch
of a bush full
of red berries.

All this
as I stand
at a distance,
cleaving to the
movement of one,
and the tranquility
that surrounds it –
anticipating too,
the not too far off
idea of spring.

Suddenly
from out of
nowhere,
the robin speaks…

‘Draw me!’, it demands.
‘In this light?’, I inquire…

And then…
in its longing
for the sky,
the robin opens
its wings,
and is gone,
where high
up above me,
it soars,
over how many springs,
no one knows.

The moment –
simple, its composition –
cheery, cheeriup,
cheerio, cheeryip…

Mother Nature’s
richness,
simply
acknowledged.

.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWsg076 ... re=related

Oh your smiling face, your gracious presence
The fires of spring are kindling bright
Oh the radiant heart and the song of glory
Crying freedom in the night