As John to Patmos

As John to Patmos  by Derek Walcott

As John to Patmos, among the rocks and the blue, live air, hounded

His heart to peace, as here surrounded

By the strewn-silver on waves, the wood’s crude hair, the rounded

Breasts of the milky bays, palms flocks, the green and dead

Leaves, the sun’s brass coin on my cheek, where

Canoes brace the sun’s strength, as John, in that bleak air,

So am I welcomed richer by these blue scapes, Greek there,

So I shall voyage no more from home; may I speak here.

This island is heaven – away from the dustblown blood of cities;

See the curve of bay, watch the straggling flower, pretty is

The wing’d sound of trees, the sparse-powdered sky, when lit is

The night.  For beauty has surrounded

Its black children, and freed them of homeless ditties.

As John to Patmos, in each love-leaping air,

O slave, soldier, worker under red trees sleeping, hear

What I swear now, as John did:

To praise lovelong, the living and the brown dead.

What is Your Saw?

Sawing wood:  heats ya twice. 

Ever read Digging by Seamus Heaney?  These photos remind me of that poem.  What is your spade?  Or if you prefer, what is your saw?  A pen?  A stethoscope?  A ruler?  A microscope?  A paintbrush?  Scissors?   Computer code?  A wrench?  Feel free to surprise me with a comment--I'm often challenged by this question and I'd love to know what others feel is their calling.  And no, this is not one of those new-fangled Instagramatification photos, though those are pretty cool.  Discovered these prints in an obscure shop in the mountains of Miles Island in a basket just under the twenty cowbells that were hanging from the ceiling (upcoming post).  

                                                                                       (Switzerland?  photographer unknown)

Birds in Flight

 (all photos taken during a week in Kenya - Lake Naivasha, Masai Mara, Samburu, Mt. Kenya)

                      The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins

                      To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

The Wild Braid - Stanley Kunitz in the Garden

One of our beloved poets on the island was Stanley Kunitz, who lived from 1905-2006.  His garden was, and is, a quiet place of solace, reflection, and meditation.  One of the books I'm reading this spring is The Wild Braid - A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.  The book contains conversations that he had with Genine Lentine, a "bouquet" of poems, and 26 gorgeous photographs by Marnie Crawford Samuelson.  It is very inspiring to read about a man who had passion for his craft and knew that to get anything done, to plant a native flower and harvest a poem, you have to get your hands dirty and continue to nurture with light and water--each day, each day. 

 photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson

The Round by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

 

  photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson 

  photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson

 

 photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson

The First Day of Spring

 coastal Ecuador

Hey everyone, happy first day of spring!  Here on the island things are starting to get quite green, but the best part of all of this (and the showers) are the astonishingly beautiful flowers that we're seeing everywhere.  The world is a gallery...

Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         

   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         

   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         

   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         

   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         

   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         

   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.  

  coastal Ecuador

 coastal Ecuador

 highlands Ecuador

highlands Ecuador