(no subject)

[inspiredlife]

Today has been a not good day. How much like a broken record do I sound? Remember way back in 2005 when I was the eternally peppy one with too many exclamation points? Yeah, I miss those days.  There was a lot about that time that was pretty fucking awesome, tbh. 

Anyway, I planned to write a largely over dramatic post of whine which would have made Mish laugh and the rest of you roll your eyes but I can't do it. I'm annoyed with my whinging so I can't imagine how y'all feel.  

So, instead I propose a swap. I'm going to go and watch an episode or two of TW. Comment with something good...something in your life, a rec, a poem you love, Colin Morgan and when I get back I'll share something good with you.  (disclaimer: if i actually get sleepy (omg, please), I might not get back until tomorrow.) Also, if you don't see this til tomorrow, comment anyway. 'twill be good fun. 

<3

Comments

[slashfairy.livejournal.com]

When I was still taking care of the girls, the twins, there was a point at which the younger girl was in hospital, and each night her sister would wake up about 4am, lonely. And I'd read her back to sleep with one of two poems:

Kindness | Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

and

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

3. In Cabin’d Ships at Sea


1

IN cabin’d ships, at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves—the large imperious waves—In such,
Or some lone bark, buoy’d on the dense marine,
Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,
By sailors young and old, haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,
In full rapport at last.

2

Here are our thoughts—voyagers’ thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said;
The sky o’erarches here—we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation—ebb and flow of endless motion;
The tones of unseen mystery—the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world—the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
The boundless vista, and the horizon far and dim, are all here,
And this is Ocean’s poem.

3

Then falter not, O book! fulfil your destiny!
You, not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too, as a lone bark, cleaving the ether—purpos’d I know
not whither—yet ever full of faith,
Consort to every ship that sails—sail you!
Bear forth to them, folded, my love—(Dear mariners! for you I fold it here, in every leaf;)
Speed on, my Book! spread your white sails, my little bark, athwart the imperious waves!
Chant on—sail on—bear o’er the boundless blue, from me, to every shore,
This song for mariners and all their ships.


I have no GIFs, or words of wisdom, only my appreciation of you and all your parts. I am loving the effort of earning enough money to get ahead enough to be confident that I can take all 10 9-day sessions of Anat Baniel's Practitioner level course [www.anatbanielmethod.com, abmethod on youtube], even though it's a fuckton of work and I fall into my lesser habits of shame and doubt and woe and worry and that's like stepping in dogshit and kind of takes the fun out of it for a while. But *shrug* I'm washable. My shoes are washable. And the walk is worth it.

Much much xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo, darlin'. Hang in there.

[inspiredlife.livejournal.com]

Oh, such beauty. Thank you so very much for sharing. Both pieces have really stayed with me the past few days.

Marge Piercy is one of my favourite poets. Her work always touches me deeply. I thought you'd particularly enjoy the imagery of this one.

Colors passing through us
Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.

Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.

Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.

Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.

Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.

Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.

Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.