Shine (Stick Figure)

[photo credit:  Sarah]

So... I turned 70 years old this past Monday (August 5) and, through a bizarre yet synchronistic series of events, we celebrated in Ormond Beach.  Too complicated to retrace the details of our on-again/off-again MossFam cat-herding expedition, but it also included a visit on Saturday to Jupiter (Florida, not the planet) with extended family (Uncle Andy, Aunt Jeannie, Andy's sons Drew and John, and Drew's son Brian; it had been over five years since we'd all seen each other!).  At this point, we didn't know if we were driving away from Hurricane Debby or directly into it.  Yikes... 😲

Halfway to our destination, we continued on another two hours and checked in to the hotel about 9 p.m., delightfully surprised by our room's spaciousness, elegant simplicity, and oceanfront view.  The next four days alternated between drizzly, windy, sunny, and everything in between, which of course didn't stop us from beaching, pooling, jacuzzi-ing (or, as Colin says, shacuzzi... 😂), putt-putting, basketballing, ping-ponging, Ouisi-ing, bedtime-storying, etc.  Family-friendly as well as relaxing... 💥😎

Michele and her crew met up with us Tuesday afternoon and, as she said, it was so beautiful to watch our now grown-up children with their own kiddos, who got along swimmingly (pun definitely intended!).

And Rob found the perfect casual beachfront restaurant to celebrate me, and after dinner we went practically across the street to a cheeZy souvenir shop (in fact, this entire getaway was so reminiscent of our longstanding and long-ago Ft. Myers Beach family vacations), where I promised everyone $10 (Sarah added the extra challenge of "in 10 minutes") to locate a cool find for themselves, and darned if Colin didn't choose a sharktooth necklace, just like Eric used to get... every. damn. summer... 🦈

No surprise there were multiple Eric visitations: Three Little Birds art in our room... an owl whistle in NovelTea Bookstore/Coffeehouse (where Michele and I snuck away to Facetime with our dear friend Rox, and to open presents)... a rainbow... perfect playlist at the restaurant, including Slightly Stoopid, Rebelution, and Stick Figure (Shine is my new favorite song of his; conjuring it for Saturday's concert... ✨)

Returned home about 4 Wednesday afternoon, but I pretended I was still on vacation the rest of the day, and only today allowed Real Life to intervene (unpacking and reorganizing and laptopping, oh my!).

I sat on my balcony this a.m. feeling waves of abundant Gratitude and Peace (the latter in short supply these last ten months) and, most surprisingly, Clarity.  It was as if all of my foggy brain cells since Eric's death conspired to unite in solidarity (like Swimmy)...

...the next level up from glimmers, to crystallize my inner vision and mend my broken heart.  The sun is shining through... 🌞

P.S.  All this to say:  I  need more Beach Time in my life... ⛱

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

SONG:  Shine by Stick Figure

BOOK(S):  Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age by Mary Pipher

How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley

POEM(S):  

No one told me 

it would be like this— 

how growing older

is another passage

of discovery

and that aging is one

grand transformation,

and if some things become torn apart

lost along the way,

many other means show up 

to bring me closer 

to the center of my heart.

No one ever told me

if whatever wonder 

waits ahead

is in another realm

and outside of time.

But the amazement, I found,

is that the disconcerting things 

within the here and now 

that I stumble 

and trip my way 

through, also

lead me 

gracefully

home.

And no one told me 

that I would ever see

an earth so strong 

and fragile, or

a world so sad 

and beautiful.

And I surely

didn't know 

I'd have

all this life 

yet in me

or such fire

inside my 

bones.

~Susan Frybort

This Body by Joyce Sutphen

When I stepped ashore in this body

I was recognized at once

and given a name.

My bones were smaller, but the shape

of the cheek and the chin

are the same.

This is the only body I know: this color

my eyes, this color my skin.

Every scar is mine.

I have become as tall, as slim, as old

as I am. My voice has carried the weight

of what I had to say.

Words were scattered along the way: words

on gravel roads, in hallways and staircases.

Words on a wire.

Somewhere in a field, my hair. Somewhere in a lake,

my skin, some rooftop where my gaze rested,

some star, a wish.

This is my address on earth: temporary, fragile,

a name in the phonebook,

at the moment, alive.

Idea by Kate Baer

I will enjoy this life. I will open it 

like a peach in season, suck the juice 

from every finger, run my tongue over 

my chin. I will not worry about clichés 

or uninvited guests peering in my windows. 

I will love and be loved. Save and be saved 

a thousand times. I will let the want into 

my body, bless the heat under my skin. 

My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life.

The Birth of Phoenix by Beth Weaver-Kreider

This is the story of the woman

who believed that happiness

lay in the sound of Anything-At-All

slipping through her open doorway,

who grew beyond bounds,

whose walls dissolved in a grey mist

to let in a garden,

a star,

and a small silvery snake,

who discovered the spiraling staircase

which led to the Aunt in the attic,

who plied that old woman with indecent questions

and robed herself warmly

in old woman’s laughter,

who carried the rage of the crone in her pocket

like a sculpted soapstone jackal,

who suckled that fury—that ravenous infant,

who knew a canary from plaster pretenders,

who built her own cottage of clay, thatch, and brambles,

who walked through the market,

unveiled by the eyebrows

of merchants and gabblers,

who swam to deep waters

alone like a manta,

who left the green waves for a road full of daughters,

who shaved off her hair,

to step naked and newborn

among glowing embers.

There Is a Girl Inside by Lucille Clifton

There is a girl inside.

She is randy as a wolf.

She will not walk away and leave these bones

to an old woman.

She is a green tree in a forest of kindling.

She is a green girl in a used poet.

She has waited patient as a nun

for the second coming,

when she can break through gray hairs

into blossom

and her lovers will harvest

honey and thyme

and the woods will be wild

with the damn wonder of it.

QUOTE(S):  "Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born." ~ Albert Einstein

“Just because you’re not doing what other people are doing, that doesn’t mean you’re failing or falling behind. You’re charting your own course and staying true to yourself, even though it would be easier to join the crowd. You’re creating a life you can fall in love with instead of falling in line. You’re finding the courage to do what’s right for you, even though it’s uncertain and scary and hard. Give yourself some credit, because these are all reasons to be proud.” ~ Lori Deschene

"When we are young, it’s the illusion of perfection that we fall in love with. As we age, it’s the humanness that we fall in love with- the poignant stories of overcoming, the depthful vulnerability of aging, the

struggles that grew us in karmic stature, the way a soul shaped itself to accommodate its circumstances.  With less energy to hold up our armor, we are revealed and, in the revealing, we call out to each other’s hearts... Where we once saw imperfect scars, we now see evidence of a life fully lived." ~ Jeff Brown 

“I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.” ~ Charlotte Bronte

“And then there are the cravings... Oh, la! A woman may crave to be near water, or be belly down, her face in the earth, smelling the wild smell. She might have to drive into the wind. She may have to plant something, pull things out of the ground or put them into the ground. She may have to knead and bake, rapt in dough up to her elbows. She may have to trek into the hills, leaping from rock to rock trying out her voice against the mountain. She may need hours of starry nights where the stars are like face powder spilt on a black marble floor. She may feel she will die if she doesn’t dance naked in a thunderstorm, sit in perfect silence, return home ink-stained, paint-stained, tear-stained, moon-stained.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés

"Drench yourself in hope

It is always on the horizon

The sun will arrive

Gravitating to you

Seeking you

Warming you

With the golden light

Of something new glistening"

~ Victoria Erickson

Wonder of Birds (The Innocence Mission)

Whew, what a week (in a good way), busy but rewarding!  

I wrote on Tuesday about attending our second bereavement support group; I am keeping them (mostly widows) in my heart, especially with the holidays right around the corner, a definite trigger. 

I had high hopes for my first therapy appointment, and she met all my expectations, and beyond.  I wept through most of the session, as I was able to speak so freely about Eric... the details of his passing, a multitude of memories, and what coping mechanisms (so many coping mechanisms!) I'm using to move forward.  We have set up an every-other-week schedule, with the next one being Monday November 27 (after we return from our trip to the Atlanta area for Thanksgiving).  I realize it's Pandora's Box, unleashing all the pain and suffering in the (my) world, but I have to believe that, like the myth, Hope remains an achievable possibility... 💖

Sarah and I did indeed follow through on our scheduled psychic reading; I've had so many visitations (stronger at first, less so now), so the timing felt right.  All I told Celeste (our reader) in advance is that I lost a loved one, and asked if we should bring something of theirs; she replied no, that she didn't like to know anything beforehand.  The session resonated on so many levels; I wish I'd recorded it but Sarah and I went back to her house for lunch afterward, and I took notes from what was fresh in our collective minds.  

Celeste used the Light Seer's Tarot deck, and I've been able to do some research since then.  I was pretty much a puddle from the beginning, but Sarah kept her wits about her to ask intuitive questions; The Queen of Swords was what came up when Sarah asked if E had a message for me (notice the bird, one of many in our session; also, many of the cards showcased a grouping of three).  Goosebump-inducing.  So much more, but I'm holding it close for now.  Maybe at some point I will share on Facebook the "map" of our read and ask for opinions/thoughts from those who have tarot backgrounds... 🤷

Lastly, I went over to Sarah's last night so we could watch Funny Girl together (she'd never seen it!); we had previously entertained the thought of attending the touring production, currently at our local Broward Center for the Performing Arts, but the timing didn't work out.  I picked up dinner from our fave sushi place, and warned her that I knew all the words to every song, but would try not to sing along, saving that for Thanksgiving clean-up with my sister Mari (I will share that story next week).  "I got 36 expressions, sweet as pie and tough as leathah" - ha!).

Dinner tonight with friends Buck and Kathy, and tomorrow will find me at the Miami Book Fair (zippity!).  Although grief is always in evidence (as it should be), Life feels calmer, more peaceful, manageable.  E assured us:  "I am standing right next to you".  I feel him... 💗

SONG:  Wonder of Birds by The Innocence Mission

BOOK:  And Still the Bird Sings: A Memoir of Finding Light After Loss by Linda Broder

POEM(S):  One Boy by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Today the heart is full of ghosts—

one doing backflips and one

eating ice cream and one throwing

rocks in the river. One drops

a camera into a lily pond while trying

to take a picture. One peels apples

and one rides on my hip and one

sings country songs. One lights a candle

and one blows it out and one spends hours

arguing about which of the ghosts is most right.

And one is never satisfied. And one

has a thousand dull gray eyes. And one,

one whispers, I’ve got this, Mom.

And I turn to them all, one at a time,

and say welcome, you’re all welcome here.

Even the ghost who slams the door.

Even the ghost who bristles, who swears.

Ghost playing drums. Ghost aiming

nerf guns. Ghost wearing button down shirts.

Ghost with a brain made for zeros and ones.

Ghost with hands in the dirt.

And the heart expands to hold them all—

or were its corridors already stretched?

Straight A ghost. Red canoe ghost. Ghost

of the man I’ll never know. Ghost

who sits beside me at the table,

who says nothing, sipping sweet tea.

Ghost who tucks me into bed, then

slips into my dreams.

While in the Middle of Many Errands by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

At the edge of the Big Five parking lot,

in a tree still fully leafed out in November,

there must have been hundreds of invisible birds

all singing as if singing is what a day is for,

and the riotous song traveled

over the vast black asphalt sea

crossing all the organizing straight white lines—

so much song for such a small tree—

and stunned, my daughter and I stood and listened,

our rush stopped by the glorious commotion,

as if awe is what a day is for,

as if we exist to be stretched ever wider by disbelief,

as if we are here to know ourselves

as part of something greater,

the world calling us again and again

deeper into the mystery.

QUOTE:  "It is the paradoxical nature of grief to lead us to love. There is a seed planted in loss, an evolution made in breaking, a genius found in separation that is rarely apparent in the heart of crisis. But often what looks like deviation is really proliferation, like satellite initiatives born from a group’s dissolution. Intimacy is forged in the hearts of those who know exclusion. To them is given the gift of tenderness which can mentor another through their own isolation." ―Dreamwork with Toko-pa

“Our work is to show we have been breathed upon—to show it, give it out, sing it out, to live it out in the topside world what we have received through our sudden knowledge, from body, from dreams, and journeys of all sorts.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Only If You Run (Julian Plenti)

I've said previously that the golf course in our condo complex is now closed, which of course was no problem since neither of us play golf.  The plus side is that we now have full access to the golf-cart-turned-walking paths, a much more expansive and scenic route.  Another plus is that now my husband and I are walking at different times (trust me, it's for the best!), and I've been able to enjoy my music again, plugging my earbuds into my phone Pandora app.  We have a diversity of stations, and putting it on Shuffle becomes a nice mix of Joni Mitchell, Dar Williams, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Todd Snider, Amy Rigby, Danny Schmidt, Brandi Carlile, The Avett Brothers, Indigo Girls, John Prine, Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, and of course all the other random artists they sprinkle in who have the potential to become new discoveries.  That's where today's title song comes in.  Never heard it before, and now it's a favorite.  Boom!

Of course, I have a lot of Christmas/holiday music on there too and, every time one comes on during my walk, I stop, skip ahead to the next song, and resume walking.  Pandora allows you only so many skips, and then you just have to keep listening.  The other night (because I was on a phone call with my daughter) I left the house at 7:30 p.m., not my usual 7 p.m. start time, and by the time I was on my second loop of the golf course, way toward the back of the property, it was getting very dark.  What comes on but the soundtrack to the movie Halloween, scary as all f*ck, and of course I had run out of skips.  Eek!  I honestly expected something horrible to happen (such a cliche) but, thankyoujesus, I lived to tell about it...  :-)

From now on, I will listen to every single Christmas song, saving my skips for situations such as this [ominous music plays] (closed captioning text while watching The Outsider...  👀)

Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter
April 15, 2020
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I hope that during the coronavirus crisis you have been entertaining wild truths and pondering the liberations you will initiate when the emergency has passed. I trust you have been pushing your imagination beyond its borders and wandering into the nooks and crannies of your psyche that you were previously hesitant to explore. Am I correct in my assumptions, Leo? Have you been wandering outside your comfort zone and discovering clues about how, when things return to normal, you can add spice and flair to your rhythm?


SONG:  Only If You Run by Julian Plenti

BOOK:  Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

POEM:  Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.

Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.

Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

QUOTE:  "Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.  This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.  We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it." ~ Arundhati Roy

Blue River (Eric Andersen)

All this talk of coronavirus.  Lately I find myself in a pendulum between "this too shall pass" and "these are the end times".  Today, I need a palate cleanser.

Brian Doyle.  Who here has heard of him?  I am embarrassed to say that he did not even appear on my radar until a few weeks ago.  I can't recall where we crossed paths, except I think it was a Goodreads pop-up for One Long River of Song:  "If you liked that, then you will love this." I immediately set out to find everything about him, and discovered he died a few years ago, of brain cancer, at the age of 60. Where had he been all my life?!?  I felt like I had missed the proverbial boat but, then again, through the magic of books and the Internet, he was now my new best friend.

I immediately Amazoned (yes, I made it into a verb!) him to my friend Roxanne, as a "belated* birthday present.  I had him Amazoned to me, so that I could transport him across county lines, and deliver him to Dar in St. Augustine as an *early* birthday present.  I want to give this book to everyone I know.  It is my new love language:

"Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to quiet glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size, renown, or commercial value, and he brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings.  A life’s work, One Long River of Song invites readers to experience joy and wonder in ordinary moments that become, under Doyle’s rapturous and exuberant gaze, extraordinary." ~ David James Duncan

And this, from Doyle himself, as a brief bio/teaser:

Brian Doyle lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is inundated by the laundry of three teenagers and finds that the deeper thickets of marriage are more interesting than the open woodlands of serial affairs. 

Hmmm.  We should all do this; construct a mission statement in one sentence, less than 50 words, to encompass our life, hopes, and dreams.

SusanM lives in Pembroke Pines, Florida, where she is in a constant struggle to balance her Pollyanna self with her Eeyore alter-ego, and whose brain is so full of song lyrics that she can hardly remember her To Do List.

Your turn...  :-)

P.S.  All this to say:  READ THE BOOK!


SONG:  Blue River by Eric Andersen

BOOK:  One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle

POEM:  What Do Poems Do? by Brian Doyle

I was, no kidding, a visiting writer in a kindergarten recently,
And the children asked me many wry and hilarious questions,
Among them is that your real nose? and can you write a book
About a ruffed grouse, please? But the one that pops back into
My mind this morning was what do poems do? Answers: swirl
Leaves along sidewalks suddenly when there is no wind. Open
Recalcitrant jars of honey. Be huckleberries in earliest January,
When berries are only a shivering idea on a bush. Be your dad
For a moment again, tall and amused and smelling like Sunday.
Be the awful wheeze of a kid with the flu. Remind you of what
You didn’t ever forget but only mislaid or misfiled. Be badgers,
Meteor showers, falcons, prayers, sneers, mayors, confessionals.
They are built to slide into you sideways. You have poetry slots
Where your gills used to be, when you lived inside your mother.
If you hold a poem right you can go back there. Find the handle.
Take a skitter of words and speak gently to them, and you’ll see.

QUOTE:  "Modern storytellers are the descendants of an immense and ancient community of holy people, troubadours, bards, griots, cantadoras, cantors, traveling poets, bums, hags, and crazy people." ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Wood Song (The Indigo Girls)

Continuing along the ocean/journey (outward and inward) theme, I recently rediscovered the following essay by Clarissa Pinkola Estes - enjoy!

Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times

Mis estimados: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now... Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind... Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over brought down by naivete, by lack of love, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme. We have a history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially - we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection. Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered can be restored to life again.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?...

Understand the paradox: If you study the physics of a waterspout, you will see that the outer vortex whirls far more quickly than the inner one. To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer, to cause it to swirl much less, to more evenly match the velocity of the inner core - 'til whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again. One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or desperation thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl.

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D

SONG(S): The Wood Song by The Indigo Girls

Ships by Tom Kimmel and Michael Lille (I could not find lyrics to the entire song, but here's the most popular snippet, which Clarissa refers to in her next-to-last line).

BOOK: After the Storm: True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea by John Rousmaniere

POEM: I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone by Rainer Maria Rilke

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.
I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

QUOTE: "If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery