Spring was moving in the air....



I think, Dear Ones, that The Wind in the Willows might be the perfect book.  In what way, you ask?

It has poetry, of course, in shovelfuls, and rhyme and song, too;  it is a joy to hear and read aloud:  it has a non-western philosophical tone, morals based on the nature of growing things, and attention to what Wodehouse's Jeeves would call the psychology of the individual.  It speaks of great spiritual questions, and of what it takes to carry on in the face of adversity, or worse yet, ennui.  It puts all its faith into relationships; it puts all hardship and sorrows into them, too. 

It is filled with imagery and description that carry the love of looking, of regarding.  It has zany high jinx, swashbuckling adventures, quiet introspection, and mythic mysteries.  It's life.

If you were reading only one book in a lifetime, this one might suffice.  Today, on a Spring morning, I contemplate transcribing each word to better feel each word's perfection, to hear it even more fully.
I think; That might be a worthy homage.




PS  If you can't bear anthropomorphizing (more's the pity), then read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek instead, O callous realist.  It is near perfect in similar ways.

Wanna fris a little more....?


Try her beautiful found poems, as in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel

Try "Transitory Life", in the top right-hand corner

Have it read aloud  to you, while you multitask your way through the new millennium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What have we here?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

an Aunt's jewelry box?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and what's this inside of it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The missing meteor fragment?!?

 

 

 

 



Myrtle-sippers, all:

 

a song of the feathers

 

 



another song 

If you feel like a little more scrolling, here is a poem by Pablo Neruda, an ode to the picaflor, or peck-flower, another lovely Spanish word for hummingbird.

Oda al picaflor Al colibrí volante chispa de agua, incandescente gota de fuego americano, resumen encendido de la selva, arco iris de precisión celeste: al picaflor un arco, un hilo de oro, ¡una fogota verde! Oh mínimo relámpago viviente, cuando se sostiene en el aire tu estructura de polen, pluma o brasa, te pregunto, ¿qué cosa eres, en dónde te originas? Tal vez en la edad ciega del diluvio en el lodo de la fertilidad, cuando la rosa se congeló en un puño de antracita y se matricularon los metales, cada uno en su secreta galería, tal vez entonces de reptil herido rodó un fragmento, un átomo de oro, la última escama cósmica, una gota del incendio terrestre y voló suspendiendo tu hermosura, tu iridiscente y rápido zafiro. Duermes en una nuez, cabes en una minúscula corola, flecha, designio, escudo, vibración de la miel, rayo del polen, eres tan valeroso que el halcón con su negra emplumadura no te amendrenta: giras como luz en la luz, aire en el aire, y entras volando en el estuche húmedo de una flor temblorosa sin miedo de que su miel nupcial te decapite. Del escarlata al oro espolvoreado, al amarillo que arde, a la rara esmeralda cenicienta, al terciopelo anaranjado y negro de tu tornasolado corselete, hasta el dibujo que como espina de ámbar te comienza, pequeño ser supremo, eres milagro, y ardes desde California caliente hasta el silbido del viento amargo de la Patagonia. Semilla del sol eres, fuego emplumado, minúscula bandera voladora, pétalo de los pueblos que callaron, sílaba de la sangre enterrada, penacho del antiguo corazón sumergido. Ode to the hummingbird The hummingbird in flight is a water-spark, an incandescent drop of American fire, the jungle's flaming résumé, a heavenly, precise rainbow: the hummingbird is an arc, a golden thread, a green bonfire! Oh tiny living lightning, when you hover in the air, you are a body of pollen, a feather or hot coal, I ask you: What is your substance? And from where do you originate? Perhaps during the blind age of the Deluge, within fertility's mud, when the rose crystallized in an anthracite fist, and metals matriculated, each one in a secret gallery perhaps then from a wounded reptile some fragment rolled, a golden atom, the last cosmic scale, a drop of terrestrial fire took flight, suspending your splendor, your iridescent, swift sapphire. You doze on a nut, fit into a diminutive blossom; you are an arrow, a pattern, a coat-of-arms, honey's vibrato, pollen's ray; you are so stouthearted — the falcon with his black plumage does not daunt you: you pirouette, a light within the light, air within the air. Wrapped in your wings, you penetrate the sheath of a quivering flower, not fearing that her nuptial honey may take off your head! From scarlet to dusty gold, to yellow flames, to the rare ashen emerald, to the orange and black velvet of your girdle gilded by sunflowers, to the sketch like amber thorns, your Epiphany, little supreme being, you are a miracle, shimmering from torrid California to Patagonia's whistling, bitter wind. You are a sun-seed, plumed fire, a miniature flag in flight, a petal of silenced nations, a syllable of buried blood, a feather of an ancient heart, submerged. Translated by Maria Jacketti Etiquetas: Pablo Neruda