"Every day you live/ you are essential"--pam rehm
hello! i am writing a book that is now called, i think, mother of lines.
in essence it is patiently waiting for me/ i am waiting for it
interactive art installation: write a poem by a river
(before going to bed decide to name your next baby river)
will it build goodwill and better friendships?
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| i made these blue curtains after long deliberation, as soon as it started to be spring |
we had come to the sea
we only had half an hour
we are at the misty silver blue and gray and white-black ocean and
(a delicious fog) "we only have half an hour"
"half an hour at the sea, you guys"
"then we've gotta go"
STORY OF DAFFODIL KINGDOM
On April 3rd 2015,
at or near 8 pm
in Des Moines, Iowa
at Witmer Pond,
a boy, 6 years 8 months old,
ran through a hillside of daffodils
as the full moon rose over the trees
he said, I want to set fire to the moon sometimes
when it's so close and flowers like to be petted mama
did you know that?
and he ran back through the hillside of daffodils
just a distance from a wizard (a gathering) of tall pine trees
and he petted the rest of the daffodils, yellow and white,
that he had missed, and they continued on
around the pond
the great white pale moon was still rising in the sky,
very big, a button almost, a rocky button,
and then they named the slope by the playground "run-around hill" because
it was good to run around on
and of course the daffodil hillside was
daffodil kingdom and a gray pebbly path was now called
MAGIC AREA and they wondered where the turtles go
at night to sleep (where were they)
and the moon still rising and this time she could see it seemed more like
a God or a plant, or--well, words should come to her,
she thinks about how words are forming in her mind,
and she had thought about that earlier, and continued to notice,
as she did when her son ran through daffodil kingdom,
closer to seven than six was he,
and she was closer to forty than thirty,
but if she could just hold on to that moment
when she first caught sight of the moon,
that big gray button pressed firmly on the sky by the thumb of gravity,
the handy hanging rock of it, the lower lip of it, the powers
and all its tree-like simpler perseverance,
simple hanging on, after being battered for eons
by comets and other debris,
and then if she too could hold, simply hold on
to the moment or the feeling or the word
when she'd first caught sight of it--
(what box of anxiety and absence and
blankness did everything disappear down?)
she was in Des Moines, Iowa, at the moonrise
with her son.Oh
and what about the moon?
it did follow them home, it WAS different, rising over their house and the trees on their block--
bigger, more liquidy, more ticklish.
And wider.
Her foot fell asleep during movie night.
The sun had been gray.
No that is not true.
The moon had been gray and silver,
and the daffodils yellow and white.
There were people fishing and smoking--Iowa--
two teenage hetero couples.
Teenagers teenagers like another dimension.
yes that is so, that is so.
We see across worlds and gaps.
The sun ran ahead; the moon sat
on a bench for a moment.
She does not want to leave that April full moonrise,
over the daffodil hillside, does she?
(She has suddenly thought of death.)
I will whisper it: she has worried needlessly
that her insides will suddenly burst outside.
Or that the knot in her head is somehow a lightning-streak,
migraine aura ocular tracers, and
it radiates a crack in her. On the way down
to the pond, the ghost of her dog Quinn had walked with them,
and her eyes had filled wordlessly with that presence until they were brim-full,
like a liquid moon rose in them,
a liquid painful (yet good) light/dark. Later on, movie night,
she petted both husband and son, on the couch, full of love,
that same fullness, which was continuing to fill and brim and almost wave.
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| Hyacinths coming up-- in Quinn's garden (put her ashes in with these bulbs) |
When Finn learned to ride his bike in March--
that night, falling asleep, he said something to me like
"Numbers go on and on but the alphabet stops at Z--why is that?"
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| Here he is with his art piece--after he took a class, they all had an art opening together at the art center. Below is his other piece in the show! |
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| Busy spring! At Kansas City Art Institute for a reading--sitting in the back drawing |
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| Quick cousin hangout in Minneapolis! (another poetry reading trip) |
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| And wowee just last week in New York City! We two-- |
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| And then w/ tobi & aleta, In the subway-- |
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| At Hudson River-- |
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| In Brooklyn with ice cream cone and Tobi-- |
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| This's from a family cabin stay at spring break-- |
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| Happy! Check that tooth-gap! |
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| More NYC, ice cream cone statue of liberty-- |
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| Making a poem at the children's room in Poets House-- |
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| And going way back! my 38th b-day celebration--in February-- |
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| Oh--Friend-cabin-camping trip to Backbone State Park during spring break! More photos from this to come-- |
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| Mother of lines::: You are from somewhere. You have muscles, a heart, knees. You stand behind yourself. Who is the mother here? You cannot give details. You guess your way past gardens, you know edges, you move lightly, you hope for suns. You squirm and inch along. You emerge from the sea. You become what is held in dirt-deep. You become low moving. You are animals in houses soon. Soon you will fly, walk, scamper. There are blues and purples in you and in mud, water, and light. You make a shadow. Since I am green and passing through your hands, you are a wall, eager to alleviate, freshen, breeze. The intelligent play of creeks over rocks and bends, with light glinting and circle ripples. Clear green-yellow with tadpoles and you. You in a finery of feathers, heart understanding of color as engine. No one else is you. | "Every day you live/ you are essential" |
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