I heard a Fly buzz
by Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air – Between the Heaves of Storm – The Eyes around – had wrung them dry – And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset – when the King Be witnessed – in the Room – I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away What portions of me be Assignable – and then it was There interposed a Fly – With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz – Between the light – and me – And then the Windows failed – and then I could not see to see – I came across this quoted in "The Moth Diaries". The school girl Dora who died falling from the roof had been writing a novel, a dialogue between Nietzsche and Brahms. Emily is also a favourite of Camille Paglia and Dora would have understood Emily. Was it Nietzsche or Dora that said, "Better to believe in the void than to believe in nothing" ?

Walking by Thomas Traherne

Walking

BY THOMAS TRAHERNE

To walk abroad is, not with eyes,
But thoughts, the fields to see and prize;

         Else may the silent feet,
                Like logs of wood,
Move up and down, and see no good

         Nor joy nor glory meet.

Ev’n carts and wheels their place do change,

But cannot see, though very strange

         The glory that is by;

                Dead puppets may

Move in the bright and glorious day,

         Yet not behold the sky.

And are not men than they more blind,

Who having eyes yet never find

         The bliss in which they move;

                Like statues dead

They up and down are carried

         Yet never see nor love.

To walk is by a thought to go;

To move in spirit to and fro;

         To mind the good we see;

                To taste the sweet;

Observing all the things we meet

         How choice and rich they be.

To note the beauty of the day,

And golden fields of corn survey;

         Admire each pretty flow’r

                With its sweet smell;

To praise their Maker, and to tell

         The marks of his great pow’r.

To fly abroad like active bees,

Among the hedges and the trees,

         To cull the dew that lies

                On ev’ry blade,

From ev’ry blossom; till we lade

         Our minds, as they their thighs.

Observe those rich and glorious things,

The rivers, meadows, woods, and springs,

         The fructifying sun;

                To note from far

The rising of each twinkling star

         For us his race to run.

A little child these well perceives,

Who, tumbling in green grass and leaves,

         May rich as kings be thought,

                But there’s a sight

Which perfect manhood may delight,

         To which we shall be brought.

While in those pleasant paths we talk,

’Tis that tow’rds which at last we walk;

         For we may by degrees

                Wisely proceed

Pleasures of love and praise to heed,

         From viewing herbs and trees.

Traherne 1636-1674 was a poet and mystic who influenced many.
The stained glass windows to celebrate his work are by Tom Denny and were installed in Hereford cathedral in 2007.

Candle Snuff and Wood Ash

Candle Snuff fungus on dead wood

and

wood ash.

 

 Green ferns of several species

are quiet

in the moist brown leaves

of an autumn wood.

Message from Tamara (itsallinasong)

Well, I've been posting on Blogster for awhile now, and I have to say ... I miss Multiply.

I miss all you guys, I miss this format, the fluid way it all works here.

It's a very good thing ... that's being torn down.

Kind of like those old stone buildings that hold ages of history and beauty nothing else could ever come close to replicating.

And the "new kids on the block" ... you know ... the ones with the money ... they come along and tear it all down because their boring and predictable and cold steel methods are more profitable than any amount of old stone work could ever be.

They create empty space where there used to be palpable, tangible life.

... and call it "progress".

I have seen a few things that our "modern ~ high tech" world has brought us that benefit life.

Much more so, a general demise of the very fabric of society and the values that used to hold it cohesively together.

Ironic, that.

We have nearly instant ... ... ...
... ... ... nearly 'instant anything' ...

and yet we have so much more "nothing" ... we are becoming lost in it's debris.

Fall, this year, is making such a grand effort at presenting itself true to form.

It could just be me.

But I've watched me long enough across the decades now that ... I know a few things about me.

And this season ... is making an attempt to show up in full form.

It's beautiful.

But you know ... it's one of those kinds of "beautiful" that makes me cautiously wonder ...

... you know ... like when things suddenly go into slow motion during some kind of ... "event".

I'm just going to go with ... " it's beautiful " ... and let it stand at that.

I miss all you guys.

I hope you're making life the adventure you're worthy of.

Where ever you go, follow your heart.

And have almost too much fun.

***

Here's one I wrote about 4 years ago.
Seems fitting ...

Away away

Upon hushed harmony

Quietly my voiced breath

Sings

Perhaps one day

Beyond hurried dissonance

Resolution will come

To things

Dance between the dawns

Through the night set your dreams aloft

Cast your weary sorrow

Upon restless seas

And with the returning tide

What treasures may you find

Moments forever now

In the re-membering

***

Happy Holidays

with love,
Tamara

 

Tamara is now at www.blogster.com/itsallinasongagain
 

 

23 November - Scurrival windy evening walk.

As we left, the autumn sunlight lit just the tops of the trees, our woodland cottage being in a shallow valley.

A strong chilling wind accompanied us as we walked over pebbles to the rocky shore for the sunset;

bright yellow sunbeams behind a black cloud on the horizon and approaching from the SW the dark smoky pillar of a rain shower.

Light shone through the spray crested waves and lit the foam that piled in among the pebbles. In the shelter between the black rocks the wild sea was green with an exquisitely changing gold gilt, polished and warm.

We returned beneath vast high tops of burning clouds that turned to ashen grey.

 

November 11th, Sunday

November 11^th, Sunday. A relaxed morning. Read in bed to Constance from Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal. After a breakfast of fried bacon, marrow and mushrooms C went to church and I worked in the wood. A beautiful day, calm, good light from a broken sky. Autumn colours the finest I have seen. Even the sycamores have shades of yellow and red, the maples big golden blooms and cotoneaster like crimson fireworks. Underfoot the coloured leaves exceeding beautiful. I felled several trees and sawed a large pile of seasoned wood for the stoves. In the evening we dined on a thick broth of peas and ham. I wrote to TM about an Osmunda fern he’d shown me long ago. I moved one last year from the wild. It took well and was now a good yellow. Curious to read that its flower used in amorous Slavonic rites. In the evening I struggled with Wallace Steven’s essay, ‘Imagination as Value’ and turning instead to his poems found, ‘The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain'. I think it exceeding good and seemed to speak of Dorothy and William’s poetic struggles.

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home. 

Atlantis (photo by son Tom, 2009)

Sunset glisters

from the sea serpent’s scales.

 

Night’s lighthouse beams reach out,

till lost in dark Atlantic wastes.

 

Where below,

on red lava pillows,

you snake shift,

shape shift,

lover of the torn and bleeding

oceanic depths,

 

till we wake again

to playful sunbeams

and the soaring birds.

 

Atlantis (Son Tom's Video 2009)

Sunset glisters
from the sea serpent’s scales.

Night’s lighthouse beams reach out,
till lost in dark Atlantic wastes.

Where below,
on red lava pillows,
you snake shift,
shape shift,
lover of the torn and bleeding
oceanic depths,

till we wake again
to playful sunbeams
and the soaring birds.