Friday, December 31, 2010

The Depths

The Depths
A poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Not only sun-kissed heights are fair. Below
The cold, dark billows of the frowning deep
Do lovely blossoms of the ocean sleep,
Rocked gently by the waters to and fro.
The coral beds with magic colors glow,
And priceless pearl-encrusted mollusks heap
The glittering rocks where shining atoms leap
Like living broken rainbows.

Even so
We find the sea of sorrow. Black as night
The sullen surface meets our frightened gaze.
As down we sink to darkness and despair.
But at the depths! such beauty, such delight!
Such flowers as never grew in pleasure's ways.
Ah! not alone are sun-kissed summits fair.


Fish

"Fish"
A poem by D. H. Lawrence

Fish, oh Fish,
So little matters!

Whether the waters rise and cover the earth
Or whether the waters wilt in the hollow places,
All one to you.

Aqueous, subaqueous,
Submerged
And wave-thrilled.

As the waters roll
Roll you.
The waters wash,
You wash in oneness
And never emerge.

Never know,
Never grasp.

Your life a sluice of sensation along your sides,
A flush at the flails of your fins, down the whorl of your tail.
And water wetly on fire in the grates of your gills;
Fixed water-eyes.

Even snakes lie together.

But oh, fish, that rock in water.
You lie only with the waters;
One touch.

No fingers, no hands and feet, no lips;
No tender muzzles,
No wistful bellies,
No loins of desire,
None.

You and the naked element.
Sway-wave.
Curvetting bits of tin in the evening light.

Who is it ejects his sperm to the naked flood?
In the wave-mother?
Who swims enwombed?
Who lies with the waters of his silent passion, womb-element?
—Fish in the waters under the earth.

What price his bread upon the waters?

Himself all silvery himself
In the element
No more.

Nothing more.

Himself,
And the element.
Food, of course!
Water-eager eyes,
Mouth-gate open
And strong spine urging, driving;
And desirous belly gulping.

Fear also!
He knows fear!
Water-eyes craning,
A rush that almost screams,
Almost fish-voice
As the pike comes…
Then gay fear, that turns the tail sprightly, from a shadow.

Food, and fear, and joie de vivre.
Without love.

The other way about:
Joie de vivre, and fear, and food,
All without love.

Quelle joie de vivre
Dans l’eau!
Slowly to gape through the waters,
Alone with the element;
To sink, and rise, and go to sleep with the waters;
To speak endless inaudible wavelets into the wave;
To breathe from the flood at the gills,
Fish-blood slowly running next to the flood, extracting fish-fire;
To have the element under one, like a lover;
And to spring away with a curvetting click in the air,
Provocative.
Dropping back with a slap on the face of the flood.
And merging oneself!

To be a fish !

So utterly without misgiving
To be a fish
In the waters.

Loveless, and so lively!
Born before God was love,
Or life knew loving.
Beautifully beforehand with it all.

Admitted, they swarm in companies,
Fishes.
They drive in shoals.
But soundless, and out of contact.
They exchange no word, no spasm, not even anger.
Not one touch.
Many suspended together, forever apart.
Each one alone with the waters, upon one wave with the rest.

A magnetism in the water between them only.

I saw a water-serpent swim across the Anapo,
And I said to my heart, look, look at him!
With his head up, steering like a bird!
He’s a rare one, but he belongs…

But sitting in a boat on the Zeller lake
And watching the fishes in the breathing waters
Lift and swim and go their way—

I said to my heart, who are these?
And my heart couldn’t own them…
A slim young pike, with smart fins
And grey-striped suit, a young cub of a pike
Slouching along away below, half out of sight,
Like a lout on an obscure pavement…

Aha, there’s somebody in the know!

But watching closer
That motionless deadly motion,
That unnatural barrel body, that long ghoul nose,…
I left off hailing him.

I had made a mistake, I didn’t know him,
This grey, monotonous soul in the water,
This intense individual in shadow,
Fish-alive.

I didn’t know his God,
I didn’t know his God.

Which is perhaps the last admission that life has to wring out of us.
I saw, dimly,
Once a big pike rush.
And small fish fly like splinters.
And I said to my heart, there are limits
To you, my heart;
And to the one God.
Fish are beyond me.

Other Gods
Beyond my range… gods beyond my God.

They are beyond me, are fishes.
I stand at the pale of my being
And look beyond, and see
Fish, in the outerwards,
As one stands on a bank and looks in.

I have waited with a long rod
And suddenly pulled a gold-and-greenish, lucent fish from below,
And had him fly like a halo round my head,
Lunging in the air on the line.

Unhooked his gorping, water-horny mouth.
And seen his horror-tilted eye,
His red-gold, water-precious, mirror-flat bright eye;
And felt him beat in my hand, with his mucous, leaping life-throb.

And my heart accused itself
Thinking: I am not the measure of creation.
This is beyond me, this fish.
His God stands outside my God.

And the gold-and-green pure lacquer-mucus comes off in my hand.
And the red-gold mirror-eye stares and dies,
And the water-suave contour dims.

But not before I have had to know
He was born in front of my sunrise.
Before my day.

He outstarts me.
And I, a many-fingered horror of daylight to him,
Have made him die.

Fishes,
With their gold, red eyes, and green-pure gleam, and under-gold.
And their pre-world loneliness,
And more-than-lovelessness.
And white meat;
They move in other circles.

Outsiders.
Water-wayfarers.
Things of one element.
Aqueous,
Each by itself.

Cats, and the Neapolitans,
Sulphur sun-beasts.
Thirst for fish as for more-than-water;
Water-alive
To quench their over-sulphureous lusts.

But I, I only wonder
And don’t know.
I don’t know fishes.

In the beginning
Jesus was called The Fish.
And in the end.

From Birds, Beasts, And Flowers: Poems by D. H. Lawrence

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Awake, Ye Sleepers, Awake!



"We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn."
--Henry David Thoreau


Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thanksgiving Blessing


You have given so much to me
Give one thing more--a grateful heart:
Not thankful when it pleases me,
As if your blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be
Your Praise alone.
--George Herbert
Wishing you peace in every moment, joy in every beauty, and love in every breath.

Transformation


"Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive ... and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize that it is working for us."

--Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist



I didn't think The Alchemist was a particularly well-written or engaging book, but I do like this sentiment, that we are all connected to and part of a universal soul.


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Prayer for the Earth



"O God, awaken in us a sense of wonder for the earth and all that is in it.


Teach us to care creatively for its resources."


--R. W. Hesse, Jr.


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Bouquets?

"Bouquets"
--a poem by Robert Francis

One flower at a time, please
however small the face.

Two flowers are one flower
too many, a distraction.

Three flowers in a vase begin
to be a little noisy.

Like cocktail conversation,
everybody talking.

A crowd of flowers is a crowd
of flatterers (forgive me).

One flower at a time. I want
to hear what it is saying.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Faith of the Heart

Faith of the Heart

as sung by Rod Stewart

It's been a long road
Getting from there to here
It's been a long time
But my time is finally near

And I can feel the change in the winds right now
Nothing's in my way
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No there not gonna hold me back

Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith
I've got faith
Faith of the heart

It's been a long night
Trying to find my way
Been through the darkness
Now I finally have my day
And I will see my dreams come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No there not gonna change my mind

Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believeI can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith
Faith of the heart

I've known a wind so cold and seen the darkest days
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change
I've been through the fire and I've been through the rain
But I'll be fine

Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith

I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any starI've got faith
I've got faith
Faith of the heart


It's been a long road

Oh, it's been long road

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

"The Sea Refuses No River"

The Sea Refuses No River

lyrics by Pete Townshend

I remember being richer than a king
The minutes of the day were golden
I recall that when the joint passed round
My body felt a little colder
But now I'm like a sewer channel - running lime and scag
Let me get at the master panel - let me at my stack

The sea refuses no river
And right now this river's banks are blown
The sea refuses no river
Whether stinking and rank
Or red from the tank
Whether pure as a spring
There's no damned thing stops the poem
The sea refuses no river
And this river is homeward flowing

I have seen a trace of strain
In other's eyes not spoken
I must admit that I enjoyed their pain
But this time it's me that's broken
I demand for you and His
This must be the time
When we decide what freedom is
Turn water into wine
For the sea refuses no river
We're polluted now but in our hearts still clean
The sea refuses no river
We tried not to age
But time had its rage
We're washed over stones
From babes into clones of the mean
The sea won't refuse this muddy river
Nor deny the sulfurous stream

There was a fool in a dressing robe
Riding out the twilight hour
Lonely and cold in an empty home
Trying to assess his power
But now he's like a stream in flood
Swollen by the storm
He doesn't care if he sheds his blood
Let him be reborn

For the sea refuses no river
Remember that when the beggar buys a round
The sea refuses no river
And rain fills the gutters
No time for stutters
This is our chance
To sing and to dance and to clown
The sea refuses no river
And rivers were sprung to drown

The sea refuses no river
No pecking code respected for the damned
The sea refuses no river
Whether starving or ill
Or strung on some pill
Just 'cos you own the land
There's no unique hand plugs the dam
The sea refuses no river
And the river is where I am

The river is where I am.