through the glass

Use a mirror in difficult times:
You will see both cause and resolution.
--365 Tao, day 119

not the norm

the wind is howling
round the door,
i'm face first
down on the floor.
the trees are wild,
the light is gone,
the moon is big,
nowhere the dawn.
if i live til morn
i wonder why,
i arch my back,
and touch the sky.

zombies-gotta love 'em.

might be on to something

perhaps a new avenue?
we'll see.

so let's get monday off to a jump start:

kass-for you

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

at two with the universe

some folks, myself included, have been reporting a dearth of words, an absence of ideas, an insufficiency of inspiration.

so we wait.

dis barred

petal tracks

the illusion of time,
sifted in our minds,
makes us crazy for tomorrow,
whine and pine for yesterday,
and sleep through today.

and in keeping with the "flash from the past" theme:

the sun

it's been slightly less than a year since i picked up my camera and began using it in a more intentional, intelligent way. the sun coming through my kitchen window is approaching the same angle, the same flowers are showing up in stores.
pretty much nothing else is the same.

i'm currently sans inspiration, so i've been visiting the past. that's where these shots come from.
i'm looking to see what i was seeing, or not seeing, then. maybe i can see what i'm seeing, or not seeing, now.

i always wanted to know this

i love this.

How To Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

Source: Poetry (January 2001).

and then there's this:

fundamentals

after completion
come new beginnings.
to gain strength,
renew the root.
--365 tao, day 109

beginner's mind

i went back and looked at some of my (relatively) old photos. these are some of my first efforts. i like to see where i came from.
that would be baltimore.
or the stork brought me.
or under a cabbage leaf.
or rejected by aliens.
yeah, that one.








i've been thinking too much.
or not enough.
how do you tell the difference?

and then there's mexico.

sleep deprivation

i haven't been sleeping well, or much, or at all, for the last couple of weeks. the (only) interesting thing about fatigue is that it lets all manner of things run around the brain. and sometimes out the mouth, or blog, in this case. not always a good thing, but, hey. so it goes.

question of the day

Has my heart gone to sleep?

Have the beehives of my dreams stopped working, the waterwheel

of the mind run dry, scoops turning empty,

only shadow inside?

No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake.

Not asleep, not dreaming - its eyes are opened wide

watching distant signals, listening on the rim

of vast silence.

- Antonio Machado

look, no flowers!

i read some form of comics every day. they keep me (more or less) sane, and help me keep things in proportion. when i don't laugh at any comic strip, i know i'm in trouble.

recently i discovered this strip on yahoo comics.

this strip made me feel much better about my stalled photograpy.
now if i could just find one for my stalled poetry...
hey! i can just substitute "poetry" for "photography"-that works!

flowers, hidden hearts

warning: this clip contains racy material from 1910:

hearts, no flowers

how strange

...to be doing this again.

thru the looking glass

...and down the rabbit hole.