Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Nothing rich


Leaves and grass only.
Nothing rich
with depth of flavor please.

No white linen,
bottles of oil,
or silver creamers.
Just a rough-hewn meadow-table
under a scorched-leaf tree.

Even the bare neck
of the sky does not long
for jewels and grapes.

I do not fall
on my knees
where once I fell craving
amethyst where
the Canada thistle glints.

I sink on my knees
with the doe to rest
under the incarnadine sumac
burning itself up.

What does she know
of the beyond
or care for anything
more sacred than
the taste of this thin flame?

20 comments:

  1. She's our teacher, there is nothing beyond or more sacred than the taste of this moment. Where the riches are. Reminded me of Mary Oliver 's work.

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  2. Beautiful. Leaves and grass are enough. The flame may be thin, but it burns so brightly.

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    1. Thanks, Robert. Just hoping it doesn't smoke. :-)

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  3. You're on a roll, like a stone polished by time and circumstances, and this proves it.

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    1. Rosaria, thank you for this. Life is just "doing the work" isn't it?

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    2. I'm trying to see the shift in your life, with a new life around, and the old life...
      Everything around us shifts all the time; we only notice the big shifts.
      I read your poem and thought how You shone through and through. How wonderful, this sharing between strangers, this peeling off layers. We are most revealing in these moments.

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    3. It is difficult to convey tone in these boxes. My question to you was affirmative, soul to soul, for I feel it strongly from you, too.

      Yes, who we are shines when we are most pressed and torn apart. You, too, share from this bare, raw place.

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  4. So glad to see your voice back...This Is Wonderful:)

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  5. So hard to lay down the grapes and jewels, yet beauty is just as much in a leaf that gives a roof of peace, perhaps much more so to the doe, where safety to survive another season might mean more than color and fruit.

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    Replies
    1. Well put, Hedge. Life brings both, thankfully, each in its season. Thank you.

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  6. Nothing more sacred than that thin flame...yes...beautiful.

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    1. Whatever is here, it needs my attention. Thank you for reading, my friend.

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  7. yes, when the soul's longing is for reduction and simplicity, any richness is pain (real pain, no poetic figure...). i have been there, i think, when a glass of water would be overabundance, a touch would break me. of course, the stripping away reveals in the end that there is nothing more sacred than the thin flame of the sumac. as someone (i forget) says: there is another world. it is in this one ...

    .

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    Replies
    1. James, it is good to know you understand, though I feel fraudulent, because my life is rich, and I am grateful. It's just the spirit that is quiet. I googled the quote: WB Yeats. Isn't it tremendous?

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All responses are welcome.