November sidles up in a ghastly affair. Soon all is muddled, missing beneath the misting mornings, a hallowed eve on winter's frostbit hearth with ice crackling as the bones of autumn, and the trees shiver as chimes. The sun's false facade a saccharine sweetness, etching warm memories onto frozen hearts. A ghost town, ghost town, echoes in my head. Ghost town, lights down, I'm going, gone away. Watch ye the birds, veering south it seems. A warning? A mirror of nighttime dreams? None, the difference, between raven and writing desk, as night transcends, descends, and November names them now as one.
What is one day's difference? Dreams demarcate the day, a beautiful boundary. A sky so clear, a miracle blue. Oh, those clever birds, pie-wedged and pointed south. What if I might see everything tween the sky and I? Each molecule drifting, whisked and borne on the breeze; each bacteria and virus, dastardly nomads; each seed and fleck of dust, each blue-winged bird, whirligig pod, scarlet leaf - might I join the sacred dance of sky and sweeping wind?
Where art thee in this hallowed hunt so hollow? Into light all things must fall, glad at last to have fallen. (Jane Kenyon). Chime, chime, gallant graceful hills, trees - a valley sings surprise and beckon. Hither come when lost: grassy knolls and evergreens are ever green against the pumpkin patch palette of undecided deciduous leaves, and silver clouds blanket, the rook of heavens folds its wide wings around this earthly egg.
When weary footsteps plod along alone, unfound, follow these ancient trails, snaking along rivers, against mountains, home is where heart leads.
Who is it who asks me to find language for the sound a sheep's hoof makes when it strikes a stone? (Jane Kenyon)
Time approaches, recedes, with whimsy's grace and no trace of solemnity. Regal pretext, no forbearance accords the king of draining moments, seconds seeping from that shattered hourglass. Alice, dear, what's that you dream? If, when, you descend, clasping at roots and stony outcrops, the rabbit hole, I promise, promise, I'll catch you where you fall.
If one hand by yours be clasped, Father
What then is t'other for?
Breath of fire, cloud by light
Beggar me with brilliance, Lord
Blind me with keen sight
Bless, begin, bestow upon
Break beyond a fight
Showing posts with label november. Show all posts
Showing posts with label november. Show all posts
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Books, Names, Things
I've encompassed myself with literature. I'm double stacking my bookshelves because, until I own a house, it makes little sense buying more bookcases without anywhere worth putting them. Actually, this is one of my favorite and least favorite aspects of Oregon. Powells is awesome. For the last several weekends, I've invested a little time in visiting the Beaverton branch and studying, reading, researching. Powells is a magnificent beast, though beast it is. With such a marvelous new and used bookstore stamping its colossal footprint into the valley, how can smaller bookstores compete? Countless customers flood into the Portland Powells every day, and, though quantitatively less, Beaverton Powells exhibits the same draw (without the intimidating city aspects of parking and entry/exit).
But in the surrounding cities and towns, the quantity and quality of everyday bookstores feels almost non-existent. This is one of the draws of Washington. Half-Price Books was nearly a second home for me, and the Redmond and Sammamish libraries offered vast collections of books for perusal, and an incredible system for inter-library requests in the greater King County region (Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue and a whole host of great libraries besides - though Seattle eventually decided to be lame). Where I am situated in Oregon, counties are bordering on all sides, and each neighboring town seems to claim its own library system. It makes for a miserable me when wanting access to all the vastness of literature immediately.
Erhem. Anyway...
I've little time left. November approaches in tumultuous bounds and my frozen fingers fret over story strings, but my rhythm's off-beat and my prose's pitch poorly sings - my muse's gut requires replacing and a fine-tuned vacation. The only reliable aspect is the metronome clicking in my head, reminding me that time ticks forward inexorably. It's the names, there are too many. Characters dreaming and flying in season, capturing a magic and the mystery of life unto their own. My creativity insufficiently breathes their dusty ink into life. Then the trees: the sugar maples and japanese hedge, the round-lobed leaves of oaks and gyro-copter seeds of maples, the rust hues of cedar and the deceptive camouflage of shaking aspens among the birch - how can I ever remember their names, Old Man Willow?
The flowers, oh so many flowers. Gallant sunflowers, fragile snowdrops, intrepid trilliums, dichotomous roses, delicate daises, gentle germaniums and fragrant violets, lurid and voluptuous tulips, splayed lilies. Would that I might taste with my toes like the butterflies, and see in so many colors that the flowers are a forest, a coral sea of colorful creativity, where each flower paints an invitation to sensory ecstasy. Would I were a bumbling bee, capturing the world in ultraviolet, where whites are blues and nectar ambrosia is a visually euphoric entreaty of blooming delicacy.
And what of the stars stories and names? Of Cassiopeia vainly boasting in her chair, or ursa major, glancing at his cousins below, bafflingly bereft of tail, or Orion shaking his shield and sword, or bow, and hunting the with the likes of Nimrod. The wind shivers and drags us into the mountains whose names I cannot recall, their silvery peaks smiling as the gods teeth, as a fiery chariot drags that unnamed beacon across the blue vastness of the heavens.
I cannot even remember the animals: the black-tailed deer, the sly bobcat, the eager raccoon, sly as a burglar, the mountain jay and the vexatious starlings tunneling into roof slats, the cougar, the crafty coyote, the industrious beaver, the scampering squirrel, the chattering chipmunks, praying with their hands cutely clasped, the mantis, praying a different prayer of predatory efficiency, the dragonfly with rainbow wings.
Hopefully, if nothing else, I can remember the name of wisdom.
Adventures are coming, distant and many, and I'll be seeking the intricate naming of many things: the touch-smell of the grey wolves racing through alpine woods, the graceful wings of the nighttime sky on the tops of mountains, the coinage of the sun on the steppe, the shifting of the seas of crimson sands.
I'm full of half-thoughts, now and always.
But in the surrounding cities and towns, the quantity and quality of everyday bookstores feels almost non-existent. This is one of the draws of Washington. Half-Price Books was nearly a second home for me, and the Redmond and Sammamish libraries offered vast collections of books for perusal, and an incredible system for inter-library requests in the greater King County region (Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue and a whole host of great libraries besides - though Seattle eventually decided to be lame). Where I am situated in Oregon, counties are bordering on all sides, and each neighboring town seems to claim its own library system. It makes for a miserable me when wanting access to all the vastness of literature immediately.
Erhem. Anyway...
I've little time left. November approaches in tumultuous bounds and my frozen fingers fret over story strings, but my rhythm's off-beat and my prose's pitch poorly sings - my muse's gut requires replacing and a fine-tuned vacation. The only reliable aspect is the metronome clicking in my head, reminding me that time ticks forward inexorably. It's the names, there are too many. Characters dreaming and flying in season, capturing a magic and the mystery of life unto their own. My creativity insufficiently breathes their dusty ink into life. Then the trees: the sugar maples and japanese hedge, the round-lobed leaves of oaks and gyro-copter seeds of maples, the rust hues of cedar and the deceptive camouflage of shaking aspens among the birch - how can I ever remember their names, Old Man Willow?
The flowers, oh so many flowers. Gallant sunflowers, fragile snowdrops, intrepid trilliums, dichotomous roses, delicate daises, gentle germaniums and fragrant violets, lurid and voluptuous tulips, splayed lilies. Would that I might taste with my toes like the butterflies, and see in so many colors that the flowers are a forest, a coral sea of colorful creativity, where each flower paints an invitation to sensory ecstasy. Would I were a bumbling bee, capturing the world in ultraviolet, where whites are blues and nectar ambrosia is a visually euphoric entreaty of blooming delicacy.
And what of the stars stories and names? Of Cassiopeia vainly boasting in her chair, or ursa major, glancing at his cousins below, bafflingly bereft of tail, or Orion shaking his shield and sword, or bow, and hunting the with the likes of Nimrod. The wind shivers and drags us into the mountains whose names I cannot recall, their silvery peaks smiling as the gods teeth, as a fiery chariot drags that unnamed beacon across the blue vastness of the heavens.
I cannot even remember the animals: the black-tailed deer, the sly bobcat, the eager raccoon, sly as a burglar, the mountain jay and the vexatious starlings tunneling into roof slats, the cougar, the crafty coyote, the industrious beaver, the scampering squirrel, the chattering chipmunks, praying with their hands cutely clasped, the mantis, praying a different prayer of predatory efficiency, the dragonfly with rainbow wings.
Hopefully, if nothing else, I can remember the name of wisdom.
Adventures are coming, distant and many, and I'll be seeking the intricate naming of many things: the touch-smell of the grey wolves racing through alpine woods, the graceful wings of the nighttime sky on the tops of mountains, the coinage of the sun on the steppe, the shifting of the seas of crimson sands.
I'm full of half-thoughts, now and always.
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