I stare at the flowing river, and, for a moment, it seems still, as the world whips into a wild ride of vertigo, leading me to question all I believe about the still & the moving. Everything that's still is spinning, orbiting, and expanding Everyone who's still is a seven-jetted space monkey on a rocket ride.
They say hands are the hardest human part to artistically render -- to draw or sculpt or paint, causing artists to hide hands, or at least to not replace them when an earthquake or inept movers break them off. I believe them. The perfect curve is not easily attained, all those random crenulations and creases, the lumps and knuckle nubs, the veins and blemishes, all that is necessary to convey life -- be it a hard, hammer-wielding hand, or the soft suppleness of an unworked hand. Straight digits can create an uncanny valley as surely as does a rubberized face. Emotion is expressed through hands, as through faces. I heard that the straightened fingers of Olympia's left hand caused quite a controversy when Manet presented the painting, causing almost as much of a stir as the fact that she was an ashen, syphilitic prostitute. In Dream Yoga, we do reality checks with our hands, looking at the hand, looking away, flipping it over, and then looking at it once more. Doing this whenever one sees anything strange or suspect. It trains the brain, which - in sleep - shuts down its suspicious bits, to take note of the nonsensical. If you're awake, you just see your same old [underestimated] hand. If you're asleep, you won't see five perfectly curved fingers, you might see an expansive fractal pattern, or a cloven, bifurcated, mitt. Even our sleeping brain can't keep track of five wriggling little digits. No wonder they give artists such fits.
In the early morning hours, a staggering drunk asked me if I were him, thinking he was looking at a mirror rather than through a glass door. I told him it was too early for such metaphysical inquiry.
I watch a frangipani blossom -- its elegant five twisted petals swept downstream, drifting toward the smooth laminar lip that rolls over the cascade. And I feel a teensy queasy, watching it be lifted and whipped over the edge. As if I were it, and it were me.
to be poured steaming tea from a dented kettle, in a wooden building, hanging at the mountain's edge, at the end of a long day's journey, has a special spirit-raising force
Maybe there’s no moving mountains,
but blow out the clouds and one may appear.
Out of the wall of white comes a rocky shoulder,
clad in spiky pines and stony protrusions.
Saffron-hued flowers huddle on a wind-whipped clifftop.
Sea breezes toss and twirl pollen,
eddies send some back down to the beach.
Land breezes feed pollen to the dark waters far below.
The flowers are ever-tousled by the wind’s rough hand.
What must they love, in their sightless stance,
that matches my sighted stare at sea and sky?
The little “e” epiphany
strikes me in
the middle of the night.
Enveloped in darkness, I lie,
contemplating
the bold stories the world has told.
I think upon slapped cheeks
and
grand strategy
and
the universe outside my door.
I wonder whether one can
be change
and
change one’s being,
or
whether there’s a choice to be made.
I feel at peace —
though not enough
to drift back to sleep.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 