Jim Harrison, Poet and Novelist

Yadkin River from a "walk in the woods" day

"In a life properly lived, you’re a river. You touch things lightly or deeply; you move along because life herself moves, and you can’t stop it; you can’t figure out a banal game plan applicable to all situations; you just have to go with the “beingness” of life, as Rilke would have it."  ~Jim Harrison

This quote comes from a wonderful interview with Jim Harrison, written in 1986 and published in the Paris Review. If you have some time available, grab a cup of hot tea or your favorite cozy beverage of choice and curl into this interview on writing, art, and above all living.

Here are a few of his  poems as well...so gracious to have stumbled upon his work today.

Dan’s Bugs

I felt a little bad about the nasty earwig
that drowned in my nighttime glass of water,
lying prone at the bottom like a shipwrecked mariner.
There was guilt about the moth who died
when she showered with me, possibly a female.
They communicate through wing vibrations.
I was careful when sticking a letter
in our rural mailbox, waiting for a fly to escape,
not wanting her to be trapped there in the darkness.
Out here in the country many insects invade our lives
and many die in my nightcap, floating and deranged.
On the way to town to buy wine and a chicken
I stopped from 70 mph to pick up
a wounded dragonfly fluttering on the yellow line.
I’ve read that some insects live only for minutes,
as we do in our implacable geologic time.

Sunlight

After days of darkness I didn’t understand
a second of yellow sunlight
here and gone through a hole in clouds
as quickly as a flashbulb, an immense
memory of a moment of grace withdrawn.
It is said that we are here but seconds in cosmic
time, twelve and a half billion years,
but who is saying this and why?
In the Salt Lake City airport eight out of ten
were fiddling relentlessly with cell phones.
The world is too grand to reshape with babble.
Outside the hot sun beat down on clumsy metal
birds and an actual ten million year old
crow flew by squawking in bemusement.
We’re doubtless as old as our mothers, thousand
of generations waiting for the sunlight.

Broom

To remember you’re alive
visit the cemetery of your father
at noon after you’ve made love
and are still wrapped in a mammalian
odor that you are forced to cherish.
Under each stone is someone’s inevitable
surprise, the unexpected death
of their biology that struggled hard, as it must.
Now to home without looking back,
enough is enough.
En route buy the best wine
you can afford and a dozen stiff brooms.
Have a few swallows then throw the furniture
out the window and begin sweeping.
Sweep until the walls are
bare of paint and at your feet sweep
until the floor disappears. Finish the wine
in this field of air, and return to the cemetery
in evening and wind through the stones
a slow dance of your name visible only to birds.

Debtors

They used to say we're living on borrowed
time but even when young I wondered
who loaned it to us? In 1948 one grandpa
died stretched tight in a misty oxygen tent,
his four sons gathered, his papery hand
grasping mine. Only a week before, we were fishing.
Now the four sons have all run out of borrowed time
while I'm alive wondering whom I owe
for this indisputable gift of existence.
Of course time is running out. It always
has been a creek heading east, the freight
of water with its surprising heaviness
following the slant of the land, its destiny.
What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket?
Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us
birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water
and all living things borrowing time.
Would I still love the creek if I lasted forever?

This One Wild and Precious Life

 

I finally got around to adding one of my most favorite lines of poetry (from Mary Oliver's The Summer Day) to canvas and know that this will be one of many works I add for inspiration in my home.  I love poetry and quotes and special strings of words that arouse my spirit and find that all too often I keep them hidden in the pages of my journal where there are not reflected upon as often as I would like.  Now I can take my favorite ones and rotate them and even give them away as they feel called to be with someone else that needs them.

This morning after a long walk with Miss Butters I sat down with a cup of heavily creamed but still quite strong coffee and Susannah Conways workbook,UNRAVELLING THE YEAR AHEAD 2013 (which also spends time reflecting upon the current year).  Please check out this link for yourself and make time for this wonderful exercise...I promise you will find all kinds of secrets within your soul just waiting to be written upon the page:   http://www.susannahconway.com/2012/12/2013-workbook/

I needed this reflection after the past 3 weeks of packing and moving and travelling back and forth between homes.  A new family has moved into our old home and I have fingers crossed that in the new year this will be their new home, full of their new dreams.  It is another chapter in my life, and a huge one in my married life, that is now over.  Alan built the home for us right after we were married and we had many dreams of the life that would be lived there, some of which came to be and some that are still to be realized and written. 

Writing about the year and gently reflecting upon it helped me to seek closure and celebration for this beautiful and messy life. This afternoon feels lighter somehow and there is the taste of possibility and a vision of a new path forming in my mind for our future.  I dream of a bungalow near the sea with an herb garden and a vegetable garden in lieu of a lawn.  There is an idea of community involvement and community gardens and paintings hung in cafes. There are renewed dreams of a child and morning walks and evening lullaby's.  There is a sense of hope that I will find the truest sense of love and belonging within myself and there is a vision of a book being written on the same table shared with paints and bobbles of other creations. 

I wish you the warmest of holidays snuggled up with your favorite loves and the bright possibility of an abundantly wild and precious New Year.  xoxo

A Poem from May

 

 

Drift Seeds

　

At a stoplight entering downtown

on a late afternoon in May

I spot downy drift seeds floating from the sky.

　

At this intersection

old majestic trees give way

to stone, steel, and brick.

　

I do not know the origin of these fluffy orbs of life

or even what they will grow to be.

I only know they cause me to pause and wonder.

　

Do the other passengers and drivers and walkers

see with the same eyes and heart?

Will the stoplight camera on the corner

capture this unfolding of life?

　

All around, so much that we take for granted.

Life continues to open and close as a breath,

indifferent to the pavement or time or passerby.

Days Thirteen And Fourteen: Favorite Things-Painting and Poetry

A Few of My Paintings and Books of Poetry

Even though I disappeared for a few days and this is technically day 17, I wanted to finish this series with two more of my favorite things, Poetry and Painting.  By the way, day 13 was spent  perusing aisle after aisle of books on fiction, poetry, geography, field guides, crafts, and cooking at a local used book store.  My neck hurt a little after over two hours of craning it to the left and right to read all of the book spines.  I left empty handed but with a head full of ideas and headed to a craft store to pick up a few tubes of paint and a new canvas.  On my way to the check out (after fighting the "I want's" for new journals and more paint I didn't need but wanted) I spotted two books on painting and stopped to check these out.  I had heard of both of these books (Brave Intuitive Painting by Flora S. Bowley and Daring Adventures in Paint by Mati Rose McDonough) and have been eager to check them out.  After flipping through both books, I decided I would get Flora Bowley's book since I had taken an online painting class with Mati already but was new to Flora's work. I had a 20% coupon that made the purchase even more attractive and decided this would be my birthday gift to myself.  Day 14 (my birthday) was spent enjoying the gift of time with my family over a shared meal at my mother and dad's house.  We had lasagna, a huge fresh salad and chocolate cake with chocolate icing topped with roasted hazelnuts.

Both the reading and the writing of poetry have long been a favorite of mine.  After years of dormancy I began writing poetry again after attending a retreat and taking a workshop with the most wondrous Susan Wooldridge.  What a gift she gave me in finding this lost piece of myself!  Reading poetry is a balm to my soul and a reminder that I am not alone no matter how wretched I may feel at times. I initially fell in love with Whitman and then Rumi through the translations of Coleman Barks.  These days I find joy and solace in the works of Mary Oliver and John O'Donohue. It is hard to explain how a poem can move you and change you, but it can, and will.  This poem by Mary Oliver is one that stays always near the surface of my thoughts, the last two lines a question worth answering again and again :

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

 

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I began painting about 2 years ago when I signed up to take an online painting course, Get Your Paint On, taught by Lisa Congdon and Mati Rose McDonough.  With the exception of a few items (a mannequin face and wooden boxes) that I painted for a friends store years ago, I had not painted since high school.  I loved the techniques taught in this class and the images that began to appear in my work.  While my work is not purely intuitive (I generally go in with an idea) I still see in retrospect how the subjects I painted were reflective of what I was feeling at the time. Two of my favorite paintings, the Seahorses, were reflective of our struggle with fertility.  The dragonfly that I painted around the same time symbolized not only how these creatures were appearing everywhere I went but also served as a totem of sorts for the change and deeper thinking that was taking place in my life.  The painter that has long inspired me for his brilliant color, texture, and emotion is Vincent Van Gogh.

These days I have been contemplating combining words and paint on canvas because there are quotes and lines from poems that I want to have in front of me as a reminder and prompt.  The last two lines of The Summer Day poem will be my first combination. 

I would love it if you shared your favorite poets and poems and painters and paintings too.

Stellar Debris

Bubbles, Curacao 2009

My name is Copper Penny,
child of turquoise waters and
indigo skies.

An algebraic formula of
harmonious delight.
Star dust fallen to the ocean;
Iron, calcium, and carbon
swirled in salty luminosity.

Alive and calm,
enveloped in a familial embrace,
the gurgle and echo of my own breath
a meditation sparking primordial memory.

New Years Eve

What do I love about New Years Eve?  The raw potential, reading other people's facebook and blog posts and seeing the hope they have, the readiness to let go of what is no longer working for them, the shimmering light at the end of the tunnel,...the freshness of it all. 

On this New Years Eve, I am wishing you healing where it is needed, trust to recognize your dreams, strength to see those dreams come to life, joy in your heart, and a connection with the pulse of life around you that lets you see just how very much a LOVED and NECESSARY part of the universe you are.

I will admit I am going into the New Year with tears and smiles, light and dark, fear and hope...and also the growing (expanding and increasing) knowledge of how very precious this very moment is.

 

The new year is a whisper

in my ear.
So close I turn around smiling
thinking I hear her enter the room.
a breath of fresh air.
a new day.
sunshine and rain and foggy mist rising.
courage to put one foot
in front of the other,
forward going.
the taste of incoming tide
salty and blue,
cleansing.
the currents carrying sea
foam far unto the horizon.
This is as much a blessing for me
as it is for you.
A story more ancient than
light.
Shake out the dust.
Blow the motes a gentle kiss.
You are soft
warm clay.

Unfolding

All weekend I felt like fall.

I counted the moons and tides
and the lines of my own mapped body.

Today I feel like lapis
washed  soft and smooth
with veins of pyrite sparkling.

I am timeless and nameless,
in tune for this very moment
with the energy of all life.

This very well may be my fall.

In spring I was drunk on the green vine,
shatter proofed.
In the summer I was lustful and lazy
in the damp humidity of creation.

A praying mantis dead and broken on my door step,

the color of green-grey bark,
is placed on my mantle
along with the birds’ nest,
long empty,
and the remnants of lilies and a gum tree barb.

I see differently now.

There are stories unfolding.
Leaves fall like pages turning.

A Poem

Photo taken September 2010, Washington State

This poem struck me with its simple beauty of witnessing everyday life; the stories that take place in our lives in between the stories we tell.  I find it serendipitous that often, when I don't know how to tell my own story, I often find a poem to tell it for me. 

Telephone Repairman

By Joseph Millar

All morning in the February light
he has been mending cable, splicing the pairs of wires together
according to their colors,
white-blue to white-blue
violet-slate to violet-slate, in the warehouse attic by the river.

When he is finished
the messages will flow along the line:
thank you for the gift, please come to the baptism,
the bill is now past due:
voices that flicker and gleam back and forth
across the tracer-colored wires.

We live so much of our lives
without telling anyone, going out before dawn,
working all day by ourselves,
shaking our heads in silence
at the news on the radio.
He thinks of the many signals
flying in the air around him
the syllables fluttering,
saying please love me, from continent to continent
over the curve of the earth.

Begin Again

 

The smell of cedar

awakens the memory of Self-Reliance.
The similarities between poplar leaves
and manta rays could keep me
occupied until eternity.

I don’t know when I will stop crying

or what the ancient pyramids of Egypt
look like at dusk.

After 9 months of freedom

I do know how to cook.
I know now that I can always
begin again.
 

Healing will be a lifelong journey.

Impromptu Trip

Central Park

July has been filled with gifts large and small and one of those gifts was an invitation to New York for a few days to visit a friend and attend a performance of Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall.  It had been years since I had been to New York (we are talking late 1990's) so I really did not know what to expect.  Other than a slight delay from the origin airport, there were no issues what so ever getting to La Guardia and getting a taxi to Upper West Side.  Of course I had copious notes from my friend on how to get there and which cross streets to mention along with a picture of the building. 

During my 3 day visit we:

* Walked through Central Park (#50 on my Wish List).
* Had cocktails at the Oceana Restaurant (They have the most beautiful blue agate stone mosaic columns that I could not capture by photograph).
* Attended an AMAZING performance of Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall.
* Discovered my love of Corona Beans and Shrimp at Cafe Fiorello.
* Shared a pot of coffee and talked for hours in our PJ's.
* Bought a gently used (and signed) book of Poetry at a neat thrift store called Housing Works.
* Darted in and out of lovely boutiques to beat the heat and to shop with my eyes.
* Ate lunch at Frida's (yummy).
* Went to the Museum of Natural History and studied the stuffed animals.
* Had cocktails and giggles at the Ocean Grill.  I loved the dark wood and molted mirrored walls with white coral sconces.
* Ordered take-out pizza and talked and giggled some more.
* Shopped West Elm and Pottery Barn for inspiration and discovered Gracious Home.

This invitation was one of those moments when my head said NO (No you just got back from the beach, no you don't have a job, no you can't have fun when Alan is stuck at home working, no you still have another long distance invitation to fulfill, no you need to look for homes...) and my heart said YES (yes you need this, yes this is a gift you have been given take it, yes today is all you have)...so glad that I listened to my heart. 

New York Trip in Pictures

She Whispers

collect sacred poetry
as it is revealed
in pools
of illuminated
familial fluid.

And then, unburdened
meet
the rhythmic lessons

      waves
               walk
  clearing     
           bursts
                          listen
                 glint
                          sway

Word Whispers

This morning these words were whispering in my ear....

I am not the piece of furniture that others see as old and ugly and abhor.
I am not the brokenness in the cane of the chair that needs fixing.
I am not the rug that needs to be cleaned or the reason that it is soiled.
I am not the reason you are out of sorts like a rubber band stretched too far.
I am not even the fresh-picked basil that lends the lively taste to the baked ziti,
(But sometimes I would love to be the cheese)
I am not the illness inside of you any more than I am the medicine that allows you to regain your strength.
I am not the lawn or what the lawn will look like months from now when I am gone.
I am not in charge of every holiday much less the universe.
I am not really the reason that you smile even though I would like to believe it to be true.
I am blue, green, and gold with a patina deepening along my edges.

I hope some part of this resonates with you and you too will recognize what you are not and how deeply your truth resides beyond the superficial.

Playing with Words

I decided to incorporate words into the Sun Painting (that I am still working on).  I gathered the words and placed them on a black foam board I bought for the frame work of the Seahorses (they should be framed by the end of today!)  The other evening I decided to group the words together in preparation to adding them to my painting and the words started revealing the most beautiful imagery.  I would scoot a word here and a word there and form these stories and even mosaic pictures from the word shapes.  Now I am am having a hard time finishing the sun painting because I am attached to these words.  The thing with creativity is you never know where it will take you.....words for my painting became a poem of their own, the opening for lines for a novel (perhaps), and the inspiration to begin a project that has been in the dark long enough.

Strolling down the geranium bathed sidewalks
I find kindess water offered at the
corner of incarnation and fiction.

What an adventure in solace
this heirloom light
awakens.

I dance across pools
of wild cosmos
lingering under the mosaic moon
while you write suitcase poetry
from the Shangri-La gardens.

Throw Open the Windows

Today it is sunny and windy with a chance for severe storms expected late this evening.  At this moment though it is the perfect day with the bluest sky and the greenest new leaves bursting forth from the trees, the air is warm and cool, and the sun is bright and cheery.  If Goldilocks was to give her opinion I believe she would say it is just right.

We have been doing so much sawing and painting that this gusty day is just what we needed to breathe new life in and take away the old.....for both me and the house.  So I threw open the windows upstairs in my office and also in the guest bedroom on the opposite side of the house.  I am caught in the middle of a wonderful cross breeze.

Hanging Rock, NC 2009





Throw open the windows

and let the air rush through like a snakey tributary

flushing out the old and outdated dust clinging to your bones.

Throw open the windows

and breathe in the cobalt blue sky.

Let it fill you up

and up and up

until you are floating high above the tree tops.

Throw open the windows

to your heart, to the very center

and receive the blessings that are ripe and to be shared

and received like a communion between you and the universe.

Throw open the windows

and just sit.

Feel the wind dancing over your skin
tickling the hairs on your arms and holding you
in a gentle embrace.

Throw open the windows

and hear the music and how the leaves dance

in fervor across the lawn and listen to the trees
sway in delight.

Throw open the windows

and allow this push and pull,
this give and take,
this spring cleaning  to commence.

Lucky

I feel lucky for this morning as I awake with no alarms,
just the sunshine and my body deciding it is time to rise.
I feel lucky realizing that we have both outlasted our previous models
and time frames and notions of how long love could last and that we are still
in love with one another.
I feel lucky that when I cry and whine to you about some utter nonsense
that is a result of me being too tired or too sensitive or both that you patiently listen
and reassure me once more.
I feel lucky that I was born to the caretakers that raised me and comforted me and taught me how to live and even swatted at my legs with switches when I was ornery or bad but mostly turned a blind eye to my often reckless nature.
I feel lucky for my deepest friendships that have weathered adolescents, and college, and distance, and jobs and husbands and babies; changing as we grew and continue to grow into the women that we are.
I feel lucky to find four leaf clovers in the early morning while stumbling in the back yard with the dog that is my sweet shadow.
These 8 petals of green life remind me of what is good and true and free.
I pinch myself and whisper...... this really is your life. 

Week 5~Get Your Paint On

Week 5 of Get Your Paint On took me into weeks 6 and 7 for completion.  I think this one took me the longest to paint because I honestly had no idea what on earth I wanted to paint, because I wanted to try to incorporate pretty papers into the piece (which I had never done), and this piece seemed to require a lot of time to sit and steep.  The fact that this took me 3 weeks to paint does not make this a staggering work of genius either-I realize that.  This piece is rather simple in fact.  It did however allow me to play and experiment and really listen to what I thought should come out of this and that for me was simply wonderful.

Here is the evolution of the piece from painting that first coat of petal pink, to thinking I would cut out a design that I would incorporate into the piece (it inspired swirls) that led me to cut out a simple heart instead, to a sketch in my idea book of a heart and grids and words, and from landscape to portrait and laying more paper on top of it all.  Even the original words that came to me originally when I sketched out the idea grew into new lines of their own. 

I don't know that this painting is really done yet, but what I remembered from this process is that neither am I.  I truly believe that we are all works in progress and that everyday we have the opportunity to grow, stretch, and move in new ways...ways that change us...ways that give us those ahhhhh ha moments.  Sometimes I forget this and am thankful for the reminder this painting gave me.

Get Your Paint On meant so much to me and was just what I needed.  I cannot thank Mati and Lisa and all of the my lovely class mates enough for sharing your talent, inspiration, kind words, ideas, skills, and camaraderie with this beginning painter. I cannot wait to meet up with everyone again in the fall for part 2!!

While our class is over, I am inspired to continue painting and hope to share more with you in the future.  I have an idea for two paintings that I want to paint for my bedroom that I plan to begin within the week.

Today Was Good

Today was good

in the way that stretching and twisting

and pushing and pulling can be.

In the way that you know will hurt later

but feels so good now

moving in a new way.

Today was good

In the way that catching

glimpses of spring-green chickweed,

shoots of hosta of the deepest purple,

and the movement that of an unexpected  spider camouflaged in the mulch can be.

Today was good

In the way that thoughts

of all the flowers and vegetables and bushes and plants

that had come before

out of this ground

can be.

Today was not sad.

It was a remembrance and celebration of the earth,

My little square of it

as I have claimed for these past 6 years.

Today was good

in the way that I wondered and hoped

that the new owners would fall in love with this hodge podge of life.

Today was good

In how I fell back in love

with all of it,

all the while wondering what will they fall in love with.

Will it be the feathery ferns that will appear out front under the shade of the trees, unfurling as the days grow warmer and summer rains soak the ground?

Or the peonies pushing through the ground and the mystery of hundreds of ants crawling over their green stalks that dazzle their eyes.

Maybe it will be the simplicity of purple buds bursting open and unleashing bright red leaves from the Japanese maple.

I hope they welcome the Snow on The Mountain that came from my grandmother

and the purple verbena that I have babied into returning each year.

I hope they too will grow

tomatoes

and pumpkins

and herbs of all kinds

and that they enjoy the earth that has been tended to

and cared for

with layers of love.

Today was good.

Star Dust

We sat in the kitchen in early February

with the door open to an unusually warm day and

 welcomed the outdoor noises in.

You replaced switch plates and I read in the paper.

We talked about your daughter and about our family.

We talked about the newly laid tiles.

And then I came across a letter

 in the Parade magazine that asked

If many stars are so far away from earth

 that their light takes millions of years to reach us,

how do we know they  exist?

Marilyn responded,

We don’t.

When we look at the stars

 we are viewing the past.

This struck me

and I felt melodic and chromatic.

Like we, you and I, were floating in a soap bubble,

spinning through space and time.

That this moment we were having in the kitchen

 had been played out before

 and would be played out again.

I felt the utter beauty and

substance to this moment that I

rarely pay attention to

and I said to you,

Well what if all of this is

 really in the past and

you and I don’t even exist anymore,

and this moment right now is not real?

And you said somewhere in this vast universe

we are in the past.

That by the time that part of the universe

saw or heard this conversation

we would be gone.

And I said that as fast

As the speed of light is,

 it is still too slow.

But what I really meant to say

was that all of this

is spinning too quickly.

Please let me hold this

moment against my breast. 

Let me wrap my arms around it and

let me press my lips to its ear

And whisper.

Stay.