day entry

I am sitting typing near my favorite window, where the trees lift up their roof, and connect the room with thousands of leafy branches...right now they are drenched almost black from last night's rain, and the light is speckling through the very tops of the light green down to the ground...our stone wall is not as firm as it used to be, but still has that dry comfort that grey rocks give near the mossy floor...How shall I explain it?
I have been quite devoid of energy lately, nearing the end of summer and feeling like it never quite truly began...perhaps we really expect too much of summer during the school year...but then maybe others don't expect the summer to be the time when you organize and clean the garage, learn a foreign language, or teach yourself to paint...when you homeschool it's easy to view school year as extra-curricular activities full of orchestra and scholar's bowl team etcetera, that summer seems to be the only time you can actually learn everything you wanted too...but perhaps I am only revealing my habits, especially when I lack the discipline and patience required for excellence, hence my inability musically, artistically, physically, knowledgeably, poetically, linguistically, and culinary! Yet in each task, after my dogged determination to be disciplined, I inevitably fall prone to frustration in the mundane of repetition...even in writing...am I insane?
Before I make either of us so, I shall set a little poem I have written that shall hopefully have nothing to do with anything what I have said today.

We make silly rhymes and cry.
and when we finally try,
we find we cannot see sun
Without breaking it from one into one
thousand shattering pieces glittering
their bitter songs, shaking
our fears onto sky.
And we still ask why,
And find the pool of tears beneath
Reflecting the rippling answers back. 6-19, 6-20-09

Lord's day

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day,
and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying,
“Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches,
to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis
and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me,
and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,
and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man,
clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.
The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow.
His eyes were like a flame of fire,
his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace,
and his voice was like the roar of many waters.
In his right hand he held seven stars,
from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword,
and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
But he laid his right hand on me, saying,
“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one.
I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Revelation1:10-20

2008-7-31 rant

fool, fool, thou art full of lies, dust and flies
do not desecrate what you do not know
—man of dust, you do not know—
Neither do you sow, but lay upon the ground the center of the road,
where carts repeat to roll
Let those reap your fallen body in the ground,
seeds that have sown, tears that have grown, No
you brought flies even when you were alive
–so that you may lie here alone. yet
I have seen the sun, felt the rain, run
—against and with the wind
Fought, bled, died; begun again.
Sown my self, my blood, my tears—yes
I have whispered to the stars
(as night air sang among the trees)
yes, I have seen the sky
(alone, when men can cry)
when she covers herself with veil and
when she laughed and kissed and cried.
No she is not the day
She shows herself to men at night
—you thought you knew—but did not
—how can you when you refused to see the light?
She is harsh and cruel to those who refuse to know
to try to ever see
—how can they when they are blind?—
but I cannot ask what I cannot understand.
So you think you have seen the sun—which dries up water and continues to run.
you think you’ve seen the night—who hates the light
and loves fresh blood flown.
Oh fool! You have never seen the day or dark that you hate so well.
Flies eat flesh, as those who love death, and hate yourself.
Fool! you actually believe you are rotting, flesh which can pollute a well, block the feet of man to pass, cry against the living life by smell
but you do not know—even yourself—
if only that you were!
There is only a pile of dust
Nothing more, nothing less.
but what is blown away by wind,
Carried across the field, and seen no more
is wet by rain for fields of grass
and under which men pass.

6-17-09

Do not fear
When waves roll in
and overtake you,
When plunderers come
or steal this earth away,
When wind surrounds you
And wipes away
this world.
Do not fear
When men assail and torment and lunge
And pierce and break against
This wall.
All will be safe,
All will not fall.
It shall hold till break.
Of day.

child's confession

Why is it so hard to keep resolutions? Especially childhood ones? Like deciding not to grow up, not to stop playing legos, to become a teenager, to "like boys", fall in love...or the traits of the adults that I resolved never to become? Especially the petty things, like the adults who wanted the extra piece of cake, who could be rude, sometimes grumpy, sometimes bossy, but always boring, never imaginative, or easily annoyed...
Today I discovered my adult self being "annoyed at the little ones" and decided to "let down my hair" in how I really felt about "the brats" who happened to be some little persons who were not related to me.
The horror struck me as a thunderbolt how they saw me: a towering figure of authority and height acting anything less than the magnificence that was bestowed upon me. Me, who was to be the essence of regency, of beneficence, of some sort of maidenhead that preceded motherhood...the essence of womankind, and quintessence of femininity...Was not Plato right in understanding children's innate desire for the ideal? And why had I dared stab it by my disregard for the sacred childhood desire for grace, love, and gentleness?
Of course, as soon as I snapped to the boy that "he didn't need it, if he didn't want it" after he said he didn't like the drink with so few sugar--I had immediate flashbacks to adults I so despised, then not so much because I despised their person, but because their person so much despised me, or something they saw in me--perhaps even themselves--I could not tell then.
The faded images of that disgruntled mother of my friend, who reprimanded me ever so slightly in what I considered a choppy manner after I so helpfully corrected someone's pronunciation or grammar, still breached my ideals of complete magnificence, and my aunt who briskly took the cheese grader in a brief act of annoyance to my sweet reply that "I didn't need any help"--to me displayed profound immaturity by exposing temper, even though I knew that I had perhaps acted impertinently--I still could not understand how an adult could behave so plebian by even responding to my immaturity because when one did, one would immediately lower one's own dignity to the child's.
And of course how much easier it is to behave like a child when one had excuse! Now our childhood bodies have grown, and we must pay the rent for being taller and swifter and bigger.
Yes, so we must suffer as I do now, paining my little pity of a soul to stretch itself and grow into some bare resemblance that my image of G-d requires.
When I confessed to my sister of my lost childhood resolutions, she suggested that I strive to change now--not exactly what I wanted--but I reluctantly shared the rest of my icecream with the stampede of devouring children. I must repent of small or slight sin to the little ones just as if they were the royal family, for in G-d's sight, all men are heirs to the royal image and breath that He bestowed upon them. And if to all men, especially for us royal children, heirs to the high priesthood in the order of Melchizedek,King of Righteousness, through the Grace and Mercy of our Lord.

cliff notes visited

yesterday, I spent most of the morning reading Cliff's Notes on Hamlet and All The King's Men, just to see if what I had interpreted was standard stuff. I enjoyed reading what other people thought, though of course this was only enjoyable because I read and re-read and thought and re-thought much upon the subject before. (yes, I know you should never use a preposition to end a sentence with.) I was interested to know that there was a Neo-Freudian interpretation in Hamlet, (popularized in the 1940s) because, as they pointed out, wouldn't you be mad at the guy who killed your dad and married your mom because you wanted to? If not, you obviously have not been enlightened by Freud who would have freed your repressed psyche (or sorry, id). Anyway, I don't see how reading Cliff's Notes before the book helps much, because theories and interpretations can be boring.
However, I confess I continue to be so fascinated analysing, that even I get tired of thought-dissecting. Let art be art! (if only we knew what it was.)