R. Frank - travellin'

These are all images from the genius American photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank. I found out that he lived in the tiny town of Mabou, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island for a time (thanks Leah!). I was in Mabou earlier this month. I stood on one of the most beautiful beaches, and the only thing I could hear was the crash of the waves and the wind whipping past my ears. This was a beach fully exposed. The sun was brilliant that day. The beauty was not lost on me at all there.

These images of his speak to where I'm at right now. Each of them, in their own way, remind me of the strangeness that seems to always accompany travelling - for a longer stretch of time. A paradox always exists when you are constantly on the move - there is the wonder and energy that comes with discovering new places and people, and there is the constant letting go that occurs as you move on to your next destination. Always the good-byes. And then the hello's. And then the good-byes etc

 You receive. You let go. You receive. You let go....

I feel lucky this time as I've had a wonderful home base to push out from, complete with a dear old friend, and now new friends. And even though I'll be away for almost another month, I already feel the anticipation of saying goodbye....I seem to always feel it keenly before the fact! This has to be a good thing since life is so full of good-byes. Traveling is good training in living them out as well as possible. Along with the hello's.

I look out onto a grey and rainy day in New Brunswick. The usually slow Cocagne river is moving with uncharacteristic speed. It's the first day of rain out here in awhile, and I wonder if this marks the creeping entrance of fall. I guess we'll see.

Often I wish life could be like this all the time. Always in motion. Always  moving. Always involved in the exciting process of discovery. Always meeting someone new. Always being confronted with new ideas - with new ways of being. Always being shocked out of habitual patterns of living and thinking into new, spacious ones. These are the things I thrive on. The thought of coming back "home" which is not really any kind of real home to me at all outside of family, is a daunting and sad thought. Where the hell is my home anyway? The truth is I am pretty homeless right now. And from where I sit right now there is something really freeing about that.

Some of us are just built for motion.

That's all for now.
Happy travels.

Something about it

Something about the way the brightness of the morning sun
reflects on the river
makes you never want to leave.
It's in the way the sky turns so pink
as the sun is setting,
and the way your mind and body
starts to sync
with the naturalness that is everywhere.
It's in the sound the sheets make
in the wind.
and the steady thrum of
the hummingbirds wings.
There's something about the way
that your name is spoken,
the way a smile can hold you steady
and warm you.
There's something about all this
that makes your journey
start to root itself
in a people
and a culture
and a place.
It gives you dreams of full, heavy laden branches
and a big harvest.
Something about all of it
makes you never ever want to leave.

Amazed

A poem inspired by and dedicated to the L'Arche community of Whycocomagh, Cape Breton.

Amazing how a place
can manifest such peace
that can even infiltrate
a mind so
steeped in
tumult.

Amazing how the doubt,
confusions, insecurities
slowly recede
like a wave
until the mind feels fresh
and open.
Strong again.

Amazing the way
possibility can suddenly shine
to create lit pathways
where before
there was only a blind groping
through
the black tunnel.

Amazing that the fruit
of such a peace
is deep gratitude for the struggle
itself.
And a growing confidence for having met each fear -
honestly.
No backing away.

Amazing how every place you cast your eye
the beauty
radiates.



"Life is precious. And it is brief. And you can use it well."  -Patrul Rinpoche

Cayouche

Cayouche, I'll never forget that night
under the Cocagne stars
on the porch of Ronel's old house
where the bootleggers
once lived
and drank
and sang.

I can hear the voices of your ancestors
so clearly
through your own as you sing
your beautifully worn songs
of renown.

Cayouche, I wish that I could see
the portrait of you father
dans la maison de votre naissance.

I'll never forget that night, Cayouche.
I drank wine
while you drank beer,
we all shared the songs,

and you pointed out the north star
to me, Cayouche,
under that  piece
of Acadian sky.

Wolfville

Sun beats down hard
on me as I walk down
down, down into the town.
Orchards and vineyards line both sides
of this highway,
Queen Anne's lace growing proud
but every now and then bending low by a sudden
breeze.
The wind brings a shock of relief
to my burning shoulders.

Rumour has it they grow peaches here,
and that the twisting ancient apple trees
are that of legend.
I stuff the urge to pick one,
but they arent ready yet
so I stop myself.

I bend down and gently pick the Queen Annes lace
instead.

Shediac

Calm waters in this shallow bay. Nature is in no rush at all. On this lazy, lazy coast. A white heron wading. All elegance and awkwardness. Today I wish. I knew more names of birds. These un-named are diving into the water. In pairs. They shriek with giddy laughter. 3 men fish off the rocks. One quietly sings a tune. In something like french. I want to live inside. His Acadian lilt.

the long long dark

So what happens when after enduring for so long this black, intangible,

yet utterly palpable inner shredding, one has literally become ‘a chaos’ unto herself?

What then?

This is the all encompassing chaos of disconnectedness on the deepest levels, of randomness, of plotless-ness, of mental and physical confusion and torment.
This is the real anguish. It is an anguish which, if suffered long enough, reaches well beyond people, places, things, or situations.
It is an anguish that ties you to your bed as if by cobwebs – cocooned - and tells you that this is where you will always be, and that this is where you deserve to be.

Is this how it feels to be some kind of embodiment of chaos?
This chaos will stop at nothing, choosing it’s victims and then stretching its cold hand right into your very center, clutching at your very essence with its icy fingers.
Your essence – the very thing, without which, you would not exist as part of the universe at all, the chaos will try and squeeze to death.

Make no mistake, this chaos will snuff you out.
So that you forget who you are. So that you forget why you are.

The word “Pain” is an insulting and laughable word for this state of being.
Pain is what happens when you have a migraine. Whatever this is it is definitely well, well beyond the word “pain”.

I know many admirable people, who have endured the ravaging of Cancer and its treatment with an amazing amount of grace and dignity.
I know NOBODY who has endured this kind of mental agony with anything but a deep and terrified groaning, an angry demand to the emptiness for an answer that never comes, and ultimately succumbing to the dark when that is all that is left to do.

I have had both of these afflictions and here is the truth: Give me cancer any day. Stick a fucking needle in my arm and pump me full of poison. But take me out of this mental hell I’m in. Please.
Surprised? Don’t be. It’s a hell of a lot more common than you think.

There is no fighting this one off, there is no battle to wage here.
Because if it chooses to this chaos will beat you each and every time.
This is a nasty one – and it is much, much bigger than your efforts to fight it off.
This particular one thinks that my efforst are pretty funny, actually.

Under this kind of oppression, there is no real companionship.
They have all fled, or you have fled them,
Because there is no one who can or will ever understand
this very personal onslaught.
There is no one with the wisdom and grace enough to understand,
That you don’t need advice, or to be told to “go for a walk”, or what your flaw is, or how this happened, or what you need to do...etc.
There is no one who will just sit with you, in silence,

Read you the paper, or your favorite book, or just be around.
(unless you are one of the lucky ones)

And that’s okay. Because you don’t want to describe anything anyway.
Because you are so so tired of it.
So very utterly exhausted in every part and every way.

All you want is to be alone

In the ghost cave

And wait.

Cycle backwards

 

And so we move

 

from words to poems,

poems to songs,

songs to one song,

one song to the note

the note to silence.

 

The cycle will repeat itself

over and 

over again.

 

Just as I can feel

that bead of sweat

travelling slowly

down my back,

 

Just as I strain

for the precise word

and its corresponding

sound,

 

The universal struggle

to be understood

and to understand.

to be understood.

and to understand.

 

to be understood.

 

Now the bead of sweat reverses

as it will from time to time,

and travels up my back

I swallow the words

the poem the songs,

the note.

They are back inside my body.

Protected. Safe. Precious.

 

And so we move

again,

 

to silence.

 



bottle

 

 

I write my rage filled letters,

and furious poetry,
roll them up,
and slide them into a bottle.
These are letters to an ominous,
silent God
who is too busy, or too indifferent
to answer me.
It’s hard to say which,
and I wonder which body of water
I should fling this bottle into.

When I was eight

I sent my first message in a bottle.
I threw it over the side of my grandfathers boat.
The great Atlantic took it
before the cod jigging began.
It was early in the morning
with the mist and fog still hanging
just above the water,
and the rise and fall of each giant ocean swell
carried my bottle further away.

My letter then was not to God,

or full of rage.
It was a letter to a would-be pen pal,
maybe a new, true friend, from some far off land,
maybe a boy or girl my age,
with a heart for adventure,
just like me,
way over on the other side
of the expanse.
Maybe they will send me a letter...
maybe I will visit them some say when I'm older.....

So much hope.

I never did receive an answer.

I waited all that summer into the fall
with the spark of hope still stubborn
in me.
I gave up eventually. Reluctantly.
I think it was the following fall.

It’s funny how I have never really stopped

thinking of it.

Plato once said somewhere

that pain restores order to the soul.
This leads me to only one conclusion:

Plato must have been

on fucking

crack.

Feast of Rilke

Happy almost first of July. I wanted to share some of my recent inspiration from Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my go-to poets when in need of a serious inspiration jolt. These poems are taken from a particularly potent volume of his poetry entitled Rilke's Book of Hours [love poems to God]. Many of the poems in this book can satisfy me like food, and comfort me in a way that little else can. I've included four poems in this post (and could have easily added many more). Hope they satisfy you, too!
Happy Summer!

----------------------------------------------------

Wer seines Lebns viele Widersinne

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth -
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each discourse you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.
----------------------------------------

Du siehst, ich will viel

You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it's not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.
----------------------------------------

Ich komme aus meinen Schwingen heim

I come home from the soaring
in which I lost myself.
I was song, and the refrain which is God
is still ringing in my ears.

Now I am still
and plain:
no more words.

To the others I was like a wind:
I made them shake.
I'd gone very far, as far as the angels,
and high, where light thins into nothing,

But deep in the darkness is God.

----------------------------------------

Du, gestern Knabe, dem die Wirrnis kam

You, yesterday's boy,
to whom confusion came:
Listen, lest you forget who you are.

It was not pleasure you fell into. It was joy.
You were called to be bridegroom,
though the bride coming toward you is your shame.

What chose you is the great desire.
Now all flesh bares itself to you.

On pious images pale cheeks
blush with strange fire.
Your senses uncoil like snakes
awakened by the beat of the tambourine.

Then suddenly your left all alone
with your body that can't love you
and your will that can't save you.

But now, like a whispering in dark streets,
rumors of God run through your dark blood.

------------------------------------------

poem for a kindred...

The Intervening

You carry the song
that grace sings
inside of you,
and all who cross your path
can pick up a strain
of her melody.

Truth shows its gentleness
in your eyes,
and in your words,
carefully and lovingly chosen,
like a child's bouquet.

These things don't fade
over the miles,
or over the years -
this essence of who you are,
who you have become,
or who you are yet to be.

Know this -
that Wisdom will not hide her face
from you,
She is your constant companion,
as you navigate
this treacherous terrain
with it's unspeakable rending.

Because a woman like you,
who bears the beauty of life
high,
like a solitary
bright torch,
will always endure.

A woman like you,
at the end of it all,
will stand.

And when you do,
you will look down,
astonished
to see this present suffering
re-create itself
before your very eyes.

You will know what it means
to sleep in deep peace,
Beloved,
and to greet the morning

with hope.

this elegy

In the mid-afternoon
the invisible poems crawl
up and down the walls,
waiting. whispering.
I ignore them,
concentrating on the sound the rain is making
as it hits the balcony railing.

If I give in to them
I hope for a raucous celebration of words,
I pray the pen will give evidence of some uncontainable joy.
But I know better.
Not now. Not yet.

Because I spied them on the walls.
Because I know what they contain,

The only thing that comes out of me,
the only thing that makes sense to me -
is this elegy.

"Transformation has it's price"
Is the price too high?
40 days of rain and fire,
disconnected fragments of truth,
the taste of impending loss
like blood
on my tongue.

I still cling to these patterns the light is making,
like watching fire throwers at night.

On the darkest days
I'll retrace all the invisible imprints with my hands
long after they've disappeared.

Feel it all

I heard this song today...and realized it is the inaugural song of this summer. Feist comes through for me yet again. Sometimes, like it or not, I feel it all. Might as well embrace it.
Happy June. 1st

 

 

 I feel it all, I feel it all, I feel it all, I feel it all

The wings are wide, the wings are wide

Wild card inside, wild card inside
Ooh, I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll be the one to hold the gun

I know more than I knew before

I  know more than I knew before

I didn't rest, I didn't stop

Did we fight or did we talk?
Ooh, I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll be the one to hold the gun
I love you more, I love you more

I don't know what I knew before

But now I know I wanna win the war

No one likes to take a test

Sometimes you know more is less

Put your weight against the door

Kick drum on the basement floor

Stranded in the fog of words

Loved him like the winter bird

On my head the water pours

Gulf stream through the open door

Fly away, fly away to what you wanna make

I feel it all, I feel it all,

I feel it all, I feel it all

The wings are wide, the wings are wide

Wild card inside, wild card inside

Ooh, I'll be the one to break my heart

I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll be the one who'll break my heart

I'll end it, though you started it

The truth lies

The truth lied

No one knows

And lies divide

Lies divide

name day silences

You observe another year
of your life
pass by,
and you marvel
from your hearts deep silence
as you gaze back
at the beaten path,
with all its destruction,
and searing pain,
which forced in you
a new,
vulnerable growth
that you never wanted
or asked for.

Seemingly,
now on this of all days,
the world suddenly offers you a present.
It lifts you gently out of the dark void
so that your squinting eyes
must slowly adjust
to this new light.
and the ears of your ears
must listen attentively
to these new,
emerging
sounds.

The world has finally taken pity,
if only for awhile,
extends its unfamiliar hands,
and invites you in from the cold.
It wraps you up in a warm blanket -
like a gift.

The world tells you:

"For right now,
in this moment,
you are alright,

you can lay your head down,
you can rest your mind,

It's O.K."




"You have to sit in the very bonfire of your distress, and you sit there till it's burned away, and it's ashes, and it's gone."   -Leonard Cohen

Seasons don't wait

Its strange to sit
and watch spring emerge,
to see the land wake
from it's long sleep,
when everything is at its brightest,
most beautiful and alive,
bursting with a vigour,
a rush,
an invisible pulsating force.
Its strange to sit
on the park bench
amid this incongruity
between the inner and the outer
when the heart
still endures
its own impossible winter.
Still imprisoned,
slightly frozen,
struggling to free itself
from the surrounding ice floes.

I watched two red winged black birds
playing like children,
tumbling through the air,
while the children themselves
laughed
and clapped their chubby hands,
faces turned upward
toward the blinding, perfect sun,
The bottoms of their little feet
stained by the greenest,
perfect grass.

These seasons,
just keep spinning
on the never ending wheel of time and history,
yet out of time completely,
only respecting the natural course of things,
over and over again.

They are no respecter of persons.

They don't wait for me to catch up,
or for my pain to recede,
before the jubilant display unveils itself,
and I am left sitting on the bench,
confused at so much joy.

The seasons wait for no one.

But this wont stop me from watching,
as if through the window of a cold room
which I am not allowed to leave,

for the time being.

Bizness

Tune-yards glory:

Note to self:
-loop pedal (and teacher)
-Uke
-2 snare drums
-extremely unashamed vocals
-horns
-pink feather boa.

gotta lose

 

 

One thing you cannot know:

The sudden extinction of every alternative,

The unexpected crash of the iron cataract.

You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it.

You only know what it is not to hope:

You do not know what it is to have hope taken from you. 

 

-T. S. ELIOT, The Family Reunion

 

 

 

"It's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything."

-Fight Club

Dear Mr. Kappus (Ms. Churchill),

I believe that all our sorrows are moments of tension, which we perceive as paralysis, because we can no longer hear our estranged feelings living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliarity that has entered into us; because everything intimate and customary has been taken from us; because we stand in the middle of a crossing where we cannot linger....one could easily make us believe that nothing has happened and yet we have been transformed, just as a house is transformed once a guest has entered. We cannot say who has come, perhaps we shall never know, but many signals indicate that the future enters into us this way so as to transform itself in us long before it takes shape. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad.

You must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, when a sadness arises in front of you greater than any you have ever seen; when un-ease, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and all you undertake. You have to believe that something is happening to you, that life hasn't forgotten you and that it holds you in its hand; it shall not let you fall. Why should you shut out any anxiety, and woe, and melancholy from your life since you do not in fact know what work these states carry out within you? Why do you persecute yourself with the questions whence this might come, and where it is going? For after all you do know that you are amid transitions and wish for nothing greater than to transform yourself.

In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is happening just now; you must be as stoic as a patient, and as confident as a convalescent; for perhaps you are both. And then in addition you must also be your own physician and watch over yourself. But there are many days in each illness; all a physician can do is keep waiting. And that above all is what you, inasmuch as you are your own physician, must do now. Don't observe yourself too much. Don't draw too hasty conclusions from what happens to you; simply allow things to happen.

Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, I think about with so many wishes. Do you recall how ever since childhood this life has yearned for "great things"? I can see it now yearning further, from the great to the greater. That is why it will not cease being difficult, and is also why it will not cease growing.

 

-Rainer Maria Rilke - From 'Letters to a young Poet'

 



for the swimmer

Submerged,

remembering the freedom

of weightlessness,

 

pull, pull, pull,

breathe.

 

Each time one arm descends

I watch tiny bubbles float up from the tips of my fingers,

 

pull, pull, pull,

breathe.

 

My neck rhythmically twists,

reaching for air, for life,

over and over,

one side, then the other,

in fluid repetition.

 

pull, pull, pull

breathe.

 

I feel the water flowing over and around my tired body,

it washes over my shoulders,

it slides over the small of my back,

like a comforting hand.

 

My eyes follow the thick blue line at the bottom of the pool,

to guide me,

to let me know when it’s time to turn around,

 

and begin again.

 

and I love

this symmetry.

An older woman winks at me as we reluctantly lift ourselves out of the water and walk towards the change rooms. I immediately notice the laugh lines etched permanently in her strong face. "You swim like a dancer", she tells me, "And you must know that fish love to dance". As I leave I hear her whistling in the shower. It's a tune I know from some old memory, but can't quite place.

no triumph

This is no triumph.
This is not what you meant.
This is not what you meant at all.

Tiptoeing softly passed the locked room
where you were huddled in a corner,
terrified that each breath,
each tiny movement,
would drag you deeper into the black.

This is no triumph.
This cornucopia of loss,
spread out before you
like a Eucharistic feast -
The feast of your most delectable sufferings,
and your best dressed despair.

Take,
Eat,
Drink the cup of your splintered life
down to the dregs.

But this is not what you meant.
No, it can't be.
Because this is no triumph.
This is no triumph at all.