So Full of Your Answer

 

“And if you have ready-made answers in your head,
you will not be able even to listen to the question. 

You will be so full of your answer, you will be incapable of listening.”

(Osho) 

 

I love the phrase, the thought, “so full of your answer.” 

Like an old house full to the rafters with pale, outdated things, things that have served and have therefore been put away to serve again, worn and imperfectly fit to whatever the new circumstances, too many there for any scrap of wisdom to be found, for any chance of picking up the trail of curiosity and wonder like a neat track in the snow, a glittering small track with only one tipsy or errant line of boots or four-toed paws, or no track, just the untracked sand or snow. 

 

Listen along the way away from the burdensome clutter, that head and heart already full of answer, and hear Rilke’s “perhaps a bird.” Perhaps the calling of a distant bell in its medieval tower on a Tuscan hill, perhaps a lapping, or a slush, a match scratching, a whoosh, a whooo, the rasp of a gutteral “r,” a whispered uncompleted word, a halting syllable that makes all consummately clear. 

 

 

 

image: dog footprint, Филип Романски 

(Wikimedia Commons)

 

Writing Spaces

 

image:  photographer unknown

Writing Spaces (A Journal Page)

 

Writing Spaces

 

"Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate . . . "

(Go, thought, on golden wings)

—Temistocle Solera, for Verdi's Nabucco

image:  Franklin Booth, Giving Wings to Words

Writing Spaces

 

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Ashmolean Museum

Keeper of Winds

 

Like Odysseus, after encountering the god,

I’m carrying my bag of winds—

 

the eight winds I learned in Catalán

from dictionaries,

mestral, xalac, migjorn, and then

the wind across the mountains

coming from the north.

 

The winds found on that other island

years ago, while looking for temples, fish traps,

the old sugar cane shipping port.

 

The pastures upswept by the wind,

the long grasses and wild sugar cane shoots,

only the gray horse and green chair fixed 

within the constant motion of the rest.

 

I learned it's called 'apa'apa'a, that wind, 

blowing always in the same direction.  

And I was charmed, learning 

to call the wind by name.

 

A hand-lettered sign along the road

at the crossing between ancient districts

welcomed the winds to Kohala. 

 

The wind was even in the house at night,

and an Italian aria returning from far

places and old times, carried precariously there

along with the low voices of the sacred bells.

 

And here?  Kitesurfers

carried by wind and waves,

by curls of eyebright silk.

That sure, that light!

 

Will these be loosed and lost like those others,

or might they blow me always safely back to shore,

to some untroubled harbor which I’ll recognize

     as mine?

image:  Jan Jansson, 1650, compass rose surrounded by wind heads, Volume 5 of his "Novus Atlas" of the Ancient World.

Create

 

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

—Maxine Hong Kingston

 

 

 

image:  Christie B. Cochrell

Writing Spaces

 

Prayers in the fabric of it all,

of absolutely everything we write—

whether the fabric is

salt-drenched sailcloth

or gold-shot silk, 

grandmother’s softest calico

or a rustic spice-drenced kilim.

However we wear it,

hold it against our skin.

 

 

 

images:  Christie B. Cochrell

Compassion

 

Writing Spaces

 

image:  Kwaidan, Masaki Kobayashi

Writing Spaces

 

image:  Christie B. Cochrell

Appeal

 

Appeal

 

I summon the comet back,

tail oh so long, splendid and glad 

as a cathedral train

sweeping along behind the bride

at the wedding of light to light,

attended by Venus

and a cohort of lucent stars 

there in the western sky

above the skeleton of the gray whale;

 

summon those owls of summer

haunting the interstices

of Shakespeare’s soliloquies,

frisky or fateful murmurs

in the hallowed grove, there on

the unceded ancestral homeland

of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe.

 

I persuade the traces 

of the driftwood labyrinth 

drawn in remembrance 

on our little sandy beach 

to tarry one more day 

here on this shore,

on the uneasy limen of winter

and the onerous year beyond.

 

A line or two of it’s rewritten every night 

by the kleptic November waves, 

exacting this and that, 

but I bid what stray sticks and branches 

of the whole circle are still in place 

and can be paid homage by my bare feet

to stay a little longer within reach 

in their steadying dignity,

in their contemplative orbit. 

 

Inspiration.  Heartsease.

Sometimes, I think, all that

can possibly save us.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell

Writing Spaces

 

How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore 
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds 
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of 
praying, as you no doubt have yours. 

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, 
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.

 

—Mary Oliver

image:  John Stoehrer, Girl Writing Outdoors

Writing Spaces

 

image:  source unknown

Writing Spaces

 

A possibility of getting away . . . 

whether to or from.  Words 

as escape and restoration, both,

the means (or place) of finding 

a still center, still, a plumb line 

fashioned from that line of text,  

or alternately a good sturdy paragraph 

laid down into a temporary bridge 

from shore to open water, ripples, drift,

impatient embarkation point for some 

exultant odyssey, no land in sight, 

or maybe a fine panoply of turrets 

off on the horizon, shimmering 

with silken banners, clarinets and horns.

Passages read, waterbound passages 

to becoming demesnes—

contiguous and oh so far,

foreign and achingly familiar,

ours.

image:  Getty Images, Noel Hendrickson

Tea

 

TEA

 

In tea leaves

I read my fortune,

journeys past

and yet to come.

 

Orange pekoe

was my grandmother,

dawn leavetakings

from Flagstaff, trains passing

in the lonely hours of the night.

Against those departures,

a comforting circle

of yellow lamplight, tea,

which reassures me even now.

Lapsang Souchong, my father 

called Old Indian Moccasins, 

smoky and exotic

as the Old Prospector’s Shop

where in my teens I bought

crepe paper flowers 

from somewhere in Mexico,

holding within themselves, 

their folds, whispered and deep,

a whiff of copper, the bewitching 

smell of unaccustomed distances.

In Hawaii we learned 

the almost sacramental genmai cha, 

green tea with toasted rice, 

shared from a sly-lipped pot

with our kupuna friends

in the big airy dining room 

of the rustic hotel near Captain Cook, 

with wooden walls and floors 

and those friendly old screens 

welcoming ocean breezes in.

 

At Tassajara, in its far valley,

peppermint tea, delicious, iced,

after waking at dawn to running bells, 

rising to walk down soft footpaths

to the bath house, still half asleep, 

and sit in one of the hot springs

under a bough of pine, moon fading

to a watermark as daylight takes the sky,

while others chant in the zendo 

and in the kitchen bread is baking—

seeded, rounded, full.

 

At the long-vanished teahouse

on one of old Palo Alto’s downtown streets,

in a warren of galleries and bookstores

and the futon shop, Earl Gray 

and finger sandwiches, its fragrance

telling of the past and things to come.

A moment of quiet reflection before 

stepping out the door again to go on 

shopping for my best friend’s wedding dress.

And finally,

at The Teahouse on Canyon Road,

back home, yet not, never again,

plum cinnamon or pepper berry—

fragrant teas, far too many to try.

For I am out of time.

Mornings, walking the labyrinth

barefoot, time and again, before

heading on to the hospital.

Needing the tea for the solace 

it’s always offered in the past. 

Having this time to pour it 

out myself, drink it alone.

 

 

images:  

Pierre Bonnard, Breakfast or Lunch

WWII teacup, Etsy

Japanese teapot, Oitomi

A Reader Lives teacup, saucer, and spoon

Writing Spaces

image:  CourageinStone, Etsy 

Election Blessingway

 

Election Blessingway

(after the Navajo)

 

In this time of mortal danger,

full of kindness may we walk.

With eyes open to justice may we walk.

With all fellow beings beside us may we walk,

and tell the constellations with our hands,

with open, sharing hands.

Mindful, may we make our way again.

Mindful, may we make our way

on long quizzical paths. Paths looping back

like question marks upon themselves. 

Making our way back, mindful, to the start,

and asking if we started wrong, or where

the wrong turn came. Where stumbling started

and the fear of being too far lost 

to venture hope again of being found.

On a road of wonder may we walk.

On a road of wonder, alive to every turning, may we walk.

With spirits dancing, like the sun on water, 

joyful, may we walk.

Beside a quiet bay of sea turtles,

barefoot and humbled by their wisdom, may we walk.

May we walk high above the sea

and in it, to our knees.

May they acknowledge us, the sea turtles,

and swim around us easily and unafraid.

May it be lucid and green there, where 

they have come again, where we can be.

In the tracks of deer dancers

with pine bough antlers may we learn to dance.

May there be sunlight on the farthest hills, 

and when night comes the light of stars 

in ancient canyons on old snow.

May Orpheus too come, bringing music,

and all the gods I learned to call by name once 

in a distant starwashed place.

In this time of terrible wrong-going,

may we find our way again.

May every step be surer than the last.

May we, stepping, learn again to sing, 

to find the harmonies that will carry us on,

and through—to owls, comets, what we are

at best, with lovingkindness and infinite compassion

all around.  Above, below, within.

May it finish in beauty.

May it finish in beauty.

May it finish in beauty.

images and words:  Christie Cochrell

True North

 

Just published by Toasted Cheese Literary Magazine, Issue 24:3, this short story tells of a mother and her young daughter having to relocate from Arizona to the San Juan Islands—the two facing the involuntary move with very different expectations and first impressions.  Melda dreading the idea of north, and all that water, motion, instability; Luna excited by everything new she meets with open arms and heart.

 

“When the ferry took off, into the wind, Luna shifted from foot to foot at the deck rail—lost in wonder, feeling the spray caress her skin, and all the while chattering a mile a minute at her newfound friend as the big boat plowed up the Sound and then the Salish Sea, the open water between Seattle and Vancouver Island.  Melda, meanwhile, leaned against the comfortless support of the hull or bulkhead or whatever they called it.  She didn’t even know the names of things here, or their purposes.  She drew as far back as she could into herself, her still center, though it felt assaulted and anything but still.  She stared blankly at her phone, trying to summon the spirits from home, a million miles away, to help her through this awful journey into the unknown.  She’d saved and brought along the words which she and Shanti had collected for a little ceremony last summer before Shanti’s graduation from Arizona State.  All four of the directions were there, in this prayer, but now she had to focus on the North.

         Great Spirit of Love,
         come to us with the power of the North
         make us courageous when the cold winds 

            of life fall upon us.
         Give us strength and endurance
         for everything that is harsh,
         everything that hurts,
         everything that makes us squint.
         Let us move through life ready to take 

            what comes from the North.” 

 

Images:  Rafael Quaty, Pexels

thefullonmonet, Pexels

Writing Spaces

 

image:  pexels-beytlik-10048049.jpg typewriter

No Rest for the Wicked

 

A story which was fun to write (inspired by another prompt from The First Line, namely “Mrs. Morrison was too busy to die”), and has been given really fun personalized illustrations by Iuniki Dkhar on the Half and One website, posted September 9, 2024.

 

One of the illustrations (above) is of this ineffective séance which Margaret Morrison asks her friend Sally to conduct, in hopes of contacting her dead husband Ellis:

“They lit candles and held hands at the little mango wood table with its mandala design Sally had snatched up at a car boot sale somewhere, but though one of the candles flickered madly at one point, and her cat Tinkerbell gave them an awful fright springing up out of nowhere into Margaret’s unguarded lap, claws out, the spirit world contributed nothing.  Sally (transformed into ‘Salamandra the Seer’ with dusky purple velvet drapery at village fêtes) cajoled and even threatened for a good half an hour, but could get nothing out of Ellis’s intractable spirit.

“You know he never did like me; he says his lips are sealed.”

So they gave up and spent the rest of the evening contemplatively eating ice-cream with an Amaretto float (brought home by Sally at Easter from Mantua after seeing the Chamber of the Giants and the Relic of the Holy Blood).”

 

 

 

image:  Iuniki Dkhar

The Great Thieves

 

My words have traveled far—all of the way to Australia, where a story of mine, “The Great Thieves,” was published at the end of August in StylusLit, Issue 16, September 2024.  The story’s set in Boston, so it’s well-traveled altogether.

 

This is a fictional account which draws on the real-life (bigger than life) occurrences of March 1990, when thirteen major works of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston's Fens—a lovely museum I’ve visited often, standing each time looking sadly at the empty frames waiting forlornly for their missing contents to return.  This account of “the single largest property theft in the world,” still unsolved over thirty years later, is purely fictional but in broad terms based fairly closely on what actually happened.

 

One of the characters in the story dwells on the subtleties of theft:  “Life is essentially all about theft, I’ve concluded.  What we steal from others; what we make of that.  Mireille stole this space, to improve it, transform it.  What my mother steals is to obliterate, lay waste to—like salting the earth behind a retreating army.  The theft of your paintings, who knows?  Only the thieves know what they’ve done with them, and why.  Diogenes, who I studied at Tufts, compares the little thief (Mireille, if you like, and each of us to some degree) to the great thieves—my mother, taking life and possibility away.  Whoever stole the art.  The ‘treasurers of the temple’—the crooks in charge, who have the power to ruin great segments of the population daily, just because they can.”

 

 

 

image:  Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum