Shadow Blossoms

Inspirations

[shadowblossoms]

a poem by steve kowt

I hiked to the end of Sunset Cliffs

& climbed the breakwater

sneakers strung over my shoulder

& a small collection of zen

poems in my fist.

A minnow

that had sloshed out of someone’s bait bucket

& that I came within an inch of stepping on,

convulsed in agony.

Delighted to assist,

I tossed it back into the ocean:

swirling eddies sucked about the rocks,

white pythagorean sailboats

in the middle distance.

Kids raced the surf,

a labrador brought down a frisbee,

& the sun sank pendulously

over the Pacific shelf.

I shivered and descended,

slipping the unopened book

into my pocket

& walked south

along the Southern California coastline-

glowing

in the rouged light

of midwinter sunset.

Even now

it pleases me to think

that somewhere

in the western coastal waters of America

that minnow is still swimming.

-Steve Kowt-

[shadowblossoms]

love after love

The time will come

when with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the others welcome,

and say sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

-Derek Walcott-

[shadowblossoms]

change

A change of heart or of values without a practice is only

another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.

-Wendell Berry

[shadowblossoms]

Journey

It may be when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

-Wendell Berry

[shadowblossoms]

vagabond’s house

When I have a house, as I sometime may,

i’ll suit my fancy in every way,

i’ll fill it with things that have caught my eye in

drifting from Iceland to Molokai.

A paperweight of meteorite

that seared and scorched the sky one night,

A moro kris...my paper knife...

Once slit the throat of a Raja’s wife.

The beams of my house will be fragrant wood

That once in a teeming jungle stood...

-DON BLANDING- a verse from vagabond’s house

[shadowblossoms]

Emily Dickinson

I dwell in possibility-

A fairer house than prose-

More numerous of windows-

Superior-for Doors-

Of Chambers as the Cedars-

Impregnable of Eye-

And for an Everlasting Roof-

The Gambrels of the Sky-

Of Visitors- the fairest-

For Occupation-This

The spreading wide my narrow Hands-

To gather Paradise-

-Emily Dickinson-

[shadowblossoms]

Contribution

Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. She stoops down, then straightens up to her full height, casting her arm out in an arc. Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish, and she is throwing them one by one into the sea. He lightly mocks her: "There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?" Smiling, she bends down and once more tosses a starfish out over the water, saying serenely, "It certainly makes a difference to this one."

[shadowblossoms]

william james

I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of human pride.

-William James-

[shadowblossoms]

A.E.Hauseman

Up, lad:

thews that lie and cumber

Sunlit pallets never thrive;

Morns abed and daylight slumber

were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood's

a rover; Breath's a ware

that will not keep. Up, lad:

when the journey's over

There'll be time enough to sleep.

-an excerpt from-

Reveille

-A.E. Houseman-

[shadowblossoms]

Postscript

And some time make the time to

drive out west

Into County Clare, along the

Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when

the wind

And the light are working off

each other

So that the ocean on one side is

wild

With foam and glitter, and inland

among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is

lit

By the earthed lightening of a

flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and

ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-

looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy

underwater.

Useless to think you'll park and

capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither

here nor there,

A hurry through which known

and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the

car sideways

And catch the heart off guard

and blow it open.

From: THE SPIRIT LEVEL

By: Seamus Heaney

[shadowblossoms]

testament

So often has it been displayed to us, the

hourglass

with its grains of sand drifting down,

not as an object in our world

but as a sign, a symbol, our lives

drifting down grain by grain,

sifting away - i'm sure everyone must

see this emblem somewhere in the mind.

Yet not only our lives drift down. The stuff

of ego with which we began, the mass

in the upper chamber, filters away

as love accumulates below. Now

I am almost entirely love. I have been

to the banker, the broker, those strange

people, to talk about unit trusts,

annuities, CDS, IRAS, trying 

to leave you whatever I can after

I die. I've made my will, written

you a long letter of instructions.

I think about this continually.

What will you do? How

will you live? You can't go back

to cocktail waitressing in the casino.

And your poetry? It will bring you

at best a pittance in our civilization,

a widow's mite, as mine has

for forty-five years. Which is why

I leave you so little. Brokers?

Unit trusts? I'm no financier doing

the world's great business. And the sands

in the upper glass grow few. Can I leave

you the vale of ten thousand trillums

where we buried our good cat Pokey

across the lane to the quarry?

Maybe the tulips I planted under

the lilac tree? Or our red-bellied

woodpeckers who have given us so

much pleasure, and the rabbits

and the deer? And kisses. And 

love-makings? All our embracings?

I know millions of these will be still

unspent when the last grain of sand

falls with its whisper. Its inconsequence

on the mountain of my love below.

-Hayden Carruth-

[shadowblossoms]

thank u

How 'bout getting off all these antibotics

How 'bout stopping eating when I'm full up

How 'bout them transparent dangling carrots

How 'bout that ever elusive could've

Thank you India

Thank you terror

Thank you disillusionment

Thank you frailty

Thank you consequence 

Thank you thank you silence

How 'bout not blaming you for everything

Hou 'bout me enjoying the moment for once

How 'bout how good it feels to finally forgive you

How 'bout grieving it all one at a time

The moment I let go of it

was the moment I got more than I could handle

The moment I jumped off of it

was the moment I touched down

How 'bout no longer being masochistic

How 'bout remembering your divinity

How 'bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out

How 'bout not equating death with stopping

Thank you India

Thank you providence

Thank you disillusionment

Thank you nothingness

Thank you clarity

Thank you thank you silence

-Alanis Morissette-

-1998-

[maksymenko]

Visit Original Link

[shadowblossoms]

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[pha--zed-blog]

[shadowblossoms]

connection

"Swim as far as you can in your dream.

Away from:

your home

your mate

your children

your pets

your belongings

your work place

your colleagues.

See if you drown or survive"

-connection piece VI-

-Acorn-

-Yoko Ono-

[shadowblossoms]

cleaning

"Write down a sad memory.

Put it in a box.

Burn the box and sprinkle the ashes in the field.

You may give some ashes

to a friend who shared the sadness."

-cleaning piece 1-

-Acorn-

-Yoko Ono- 

[shadowblossoms]

thought experiments

"Find a spot that is comfortable for you.

Keep the spot clean.

Think about the spot when you are away."

-City Piece 1-

from -Acorn-

-Yoko Ono-