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