In Betweening

A crazy old man told me today, “I’m too blessed to be distressed”.

Seriously cheesy? You bet. But I suppose I’m in the same place. Life is a messy thing. I am juggling unkempt bills, an unruly social life, politics at work, household relocation schemes, socioeconomic stress at home and abroad, a lingering case of wintry sniffles, that weird smell in my house that I can’t identify, and artwork and writing that won’t mentally gel.

But I’m happy.

If it’s true that being in the middle of depression, drink, and the devil (and the deep blue sea?) makes creating next to impossible, the flip side is true also. Contentedness and comfort can hamper one’s best artistic inclinations. It’s not impossible to make art when things are going well; that’s a myth of what it means to be an artist. But sometimes, a comfortable life is something I have to find a way around. Once again, I hit the road for some fresh perspective. So tonight’s post is one part pretty pictures (from time spent along the Nehalem and Spruce Run Rivers here in the Pacific Northwest), one part a completed cycle of poems (from last December’s relaxathon in the Dominican Republic), and the two have nothing to do with one another. Schizophrenic? yes. But it allows me to move forward a bit with other, more cohesive ideas…

 

Tropic I – Morning

I lay still and light on the beach,
a piece of some foreign choreography
in place with that might and weight;
the juggled water and sun and sand
and the sound of each together and
kaleidoscopes behind closed eyes.

I think there may be no perfect
measure of these and think again
there is witchcraft in threes and kisses,
and no more perfect affection
as there is love in warm skin
on the cold grey morning,
as there is warmth in hands and lips,
as there is energy in a resting body.

For I am miles and miles away,
beholden only to small details;
a bright sand that clings to a body,
a body at rest and restless, broken shells,
salt water to hands to hair, rising tide
and the untarnished sun is my love now.

 

 

Tropic II – Afternoon

My spaniard says the storm comes,
look to the west.

The air has become heavy,
grey blue green fabric to be rung over us,
we breathe like gills gasping,
waiting like needy fish.

The rain fills my shoes, my eyes,
plasters my clothes, my hair, my groceries,

warmly. This is not an ill thing.

And then the light is failing;
I lay quiet and naked in my room,
listening to the tangles,
long threads of storm
that rattle and thrum
against the dirt and stone,
rain that washes the thatch and foliage.

I hear water like stars
and my mind drifts to
he whom I like best;
I hear water like stars torn out
and I think of past and future love,
water like stars confused,
hell bent for the earth,

and my mind will not go in sober turns;
and I lay my head in arms, secretly
fixing the nature of heat and water.

 

 

 

Tropic III – Night

Somewhere revelers sound,
and sleepers sleep upon night,
but I keep vigil by this lagoon,
barefoot, beer and cigarette,
watching swamp trees and
flowered vines twine
off into nothing,
a nothing too fine; too easy
to let the night slip
through my palms,
easy to lose time
and timeliness, space,
physics peeling away,
easy to lose a world inside,
to let go a work, needfulness,
belonging, a belovedness;
or having,
or wanting.

Easy to be careless,
lose the sight of love,
the scent of ice, brokenness,
home’s pines and herbs.

All is lost save the damp night,
the night birds,
things moving thickly
but not seen, heavy
things in the water,
heavy things in the air;
leaf and leaf and leaf
sags from the weight
of its own greenness,
the weight of the evening
holding as nothing will.

 

And lastly, a wisp of philosophy that came to me as I was scaling rocks with a bum knee to sit on top of a very small mountain overlooking the sea…

Whenever possible, take the long way,
the hard road, the road not taken.
Take the scenic route.
Go down the dark path and meet what lies there;
not because it means you are braver,
or stronger, or more virtuous,
not because it toughens yours soul,
or saves your soul,
but because it is there,
because it exists and the beauty it carries
wants and needs to be noticed.

Any wisdom that I might have to pass on should be considered very suspect, but I’m working on it so that when I’m very old and grey, I’ll sound cool.