Scotland poems thus far

'Upon Arrival'
(Sept 25, 2009)

it is the wind that hits me first -
the Arctic north wind flying
south for the winter

when it rains, i'm told, it will
hit me sideways and even
the sturdiest umbrella

is no match for this gale force
which will whip my hair
like a flag half-mast.



'The Waves'
(6 Oct 2009 - after finishing V. Woolf's _The Waves_)

'Yes, this is the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and fall and rise again.' - Virginia Woolf, _The Waves_

it is when the wave
punches the sand with its
white fist, when it digs

its heals and makes the bar
sink lower, that we learn
there will always be

death, always life, always
childhood with its big curious
eyes, always adolescence with

its unsteady limbs. we will
surely die. we will surely
survive the death of another.

and the kiss behind the
barn, the trip to India
which never happened

will be everything, will
be nothing, will be the
water and tress and bird-songs

which fill our lives
with wonder, with regret,
with splashing.

Things You Don't Want to Hear at an Airport

1.) "Please move." -- After 10 hours on a plane across the Atlantic and at least 30 minutes walking from our arrival gate to our new departure gate, we were told to move 10 feet from gate 55 to gate 54.

2.) "Yes, hello, please move." -- After finally finding food and coming back to gate 54 and falling asleep, Gabby and I were asked to move outside of the gate area. We would need to go through security (for the third time in that airport) in about 30 minutes.

3.) "Don't drink the water." -- I asked for tap water, rather than paying 4 euro for a small bottled water. They put water in my water bottle but said that i should not drink it. I did. Everything was fine.

4.) "Due to malfunction, your flight will be delayed." -- This announcement was, of course, in German (as we were in the Frankfort airport). We had to ask for a translation.

5.) "Your bus is here."

Denise Levertov - from _The Stream and the Sapphire_

Primary Wonder

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

After driving 1500miles...

My parents and i pulled up to the old house on Oregon Tr. just after midnight on Monday. I think it took me all of 2 minutes to makje my way to the basement, brush my teeth, and get in bed.

This morning i felt a bit lost. I knew where i was (i didn't wake up thinking i was in Vancouver...which has happened before when i visit my folks' place), but I didn't really know what to do with myself. There wasn't really anything for me to do, other than unpack...which will be a long process and i wasn't prepared to do pre-coffee.

So what did I end up doing? ...I unpacked enough of the car so that I could get to my clothes, showered and got dressed and had coffee with my dad. Now it's quite hot outside...so i think i'll postpone my walk around the 'hood to the evening.

It's funny seeing what's the same and what's different at my parents' house. Like trees that have grown, furniture re-arranged, updated photos in old frames. There are pictures of my nephews everywhere...which makes me miss them all the more. I'm looking forward to seeing the park near the house with the tree i used to climb barefoot and read in...and i'm looking forward to seeing friends.... like my crazy friend Chaundra whom i lived with for three years; she did her degree in musical theatre and now lives in New York working and getting gigs... or Clara, who also did English literature and whose wedding i was a bridesmaid in a few years back...and i wonder if i'll run into old professors or the gals i did grad school with here. Those gals and I used to go to Roma Pizza in Greeley on Monday nights for margs and bazooka beer. Good times.

Oh! and i'll definitely have to go to Gib's Bagels. yummy yummy... and explore downtown...and ride my bike along Spring Creek Trail (which flooded in 1997 and was a HUGE deal; lots of people died, actually and there's a statue up where the most devestation was)...and hopefully have beer with the guy who went bar hopping with me on my 21st birthday...

But mostly I hope to hit the "reset" button - just take a break and gather myself together before embarking upon the next adventure.

To Ink or not to Ink...

Since I was about 18 or so I have pondered getting a tattoo. A few things held me make, including not wanting to do everything my sister did (and she got a tattoo on her ankle for her 18th birthday). But mostly, it has always been a commitment issue. Will I like the image all my life, even when it goes out of style, even when my skin loosens and sags and flaps as i move as though it were an extra layer of clothing?


But the sex appeal and general cool-ness still lure me. So I have spoken with a tattoo artist and am waiting for his stetches. I assolate between two images: a lion and a tree. Right now I think the whole Tree of Life essense is more what I'm interested in. (The picture to the right is from an artist in Colorado who I know. I'm having the Vancouver artist use this as a template for his sketches.)



Whether I get it tonight or in Colorado or at all, is still to be determined. But the question still looms: to ink, or not to ink?

even though I'm not an optimist...

...I can still write about what I call Historical optimism. I wrote a little article on the use of the genre of Utopia in the Enlightenment era, and argue that the Enlightenment was a unique time of historical optimism in which there was a flurishing of literature of the utopian genre.

Feel free to have a glance: http://colloquy.monash.edu.au/issue017

a poem

Purgatory

If it’s about not knowing
your destination or how long you’ll
stay put, then I’ve been here quite a while.

Surely even Dante would let a sigh
pass his lips before going mute at the
sight of Beatrice, the vision of grace and holiness.

The bus stop where I currently
sit is the perfect example, because
it’s Vancouver and no one really knows

whether the bus is coming or
if they missed it all together. And now
I’m late for church.

My pacing gets me no
further, nor does circular reasoning
pushing me forward on my way through

the thicket of indecision and
anxiety. The bus has still not come.
I fear I will be here quite a while still.