Happiness Challenge, Days Three and Four

So my happiness for Day Three I cannot discuss yet. There is a Statute of Limitations....

Kidding! But I really can't talk about it yet - it is based on a terribly rad surprise for our newly wed B.F.F.s that have yet to come home from their honeymoon. When they are back (on Sunday) I shall divulge all!!!


My happiness today was the time spent in my favorite bookshop, with my favorite booksellers, Dan and Trudie. I sat on the floor and pored over the Classics. I love being there, with the quiet rustle of pages. It's almost like being in Church, and for me, it is a quiet, sacred experience. I love seeing the "regulars" but we never talk, we just give each other the half smiles you reserve for people that you half-know. Sometimes the shop Kitty will come to say hello, but most of the time she hides in the Childrens' section. I found some really fantastic things, including: an 1828 copy of Little Women (that is appropriately loved and and worn, and bears the preceding owner's signatures in spidery calligraphy), a very neat-o Japanese printing of a book of German Haiku (the book is bound in chartreuse Japanese silk cloth, and made with hand-made paper - it is gorgeous, and "up there" with my favorite finds), an autographed Memoirs of A Geisha, (which had two stubs from the special premier show at the Tivoli!) and a small copy of the essential Rumi.

Then last night, I admitted a really awesome couple for the birth of their first baby. They were fantastic, and chatting with them reminded me why I love what I do.

Those were some of my happinesses over the last 24 hours.

Hello, Tod

honey and
limon
and
sour mash
bourbon

mug and
spoon
and
stir well

warm
heat
fire in
my
belly

stand up
slowly

sleep
naked
like un
bébé

Happiness Challenge, Day One

Volunteering at Crabtree Farms made be sublimely happy today. Slogging home with soaking trousers, uber-muddy wellies, soaked hubby, bug bites, aching muscles, scratches, covered in strawberry goo, grinning at each other like dummies, because we were so tired...the feeling of doing Real Work with hands in the Earth. It was very restorative. (I kept thinking of Pearl S. Buck.)
Then making yummy organic pasta with asparagus and mushrooms in our semi-tidy house while the rain fell... Yup. Pretty much in my blissful element.





the sun, hide and seek in the clouds;
the buzz and hum of bees and gnats,
each and all clamoring to tell me their stories;
frogs singing in jazzy, raspy voices the Pond Blues;
blades of polite Buckwheat bowing to each other,
and whispering together;
hunting for strawberries like Easter eggs;
peas on vine, pale and plump,
dangling like earrings.

dirt, hay, basil and rain mingle as a perfume: Eau d'Eden

ate Somethin.

ate somethin
so cute today

it felt bad
to eat it

felt better
in my tummy
though

which made it
part of me

that's the way
the world
works

so now
we're all
okay

cause nobody's
guilty
these days

untitled.

voluminous and bright
beautiful beginning
the opening of eyes
and mind

the seeking of new knowledge
the amazement
that it was there all the time

growth and change
and the exultation in them

a blaze alight
a passion ignited
radiant

to the brink of overwhelming
this understanding is a vacuum
a void in which to lose
myself

A Rape Of Gifts

how could you

pluck the poetry 

from my head

like a bit of candy from a bowl?

sing the music

out of my mouth

before my voice

had found the words?

i called you "sister"
and my arms opened to you
you reached out to me,
but only to take.

you are insubstantial

i know you.

the faintest breeze

would scatter 

all of your flash and glamour
to make a shimmering wind.

i know where you come from,
for i passed through that place long ago.

i feel robbed

and wounded anyway - 

bereft, 

at the loss of verse

the visions i shared with you

you took for your own

you desecrated them

limited the potential

stifled the kinetic

i beat out the rhythm

and you stole the rhyme

but got the metering all wrong

your dance is discordant
and false
an ungainly Frankenstein built
of other peoples' poetry

What I Could Never Say

last night Noah

i dreamt of you

me and you,

walking through a museum

at closing time

then we were riding in a car

me up front, you

in the

backseat

i was laughing

something you must've said

i looked behind me

you were laughing, too

the sun was in my eyes

it shone on your hair

we were happy

we were all fine

but through the window behind you

i could see

something coming for us
heavy, and black

gathering on the horizon

danger

i reached out to you,

tried to save you.

only, it was too late.

too little. far too late.

i looked away.

i braced for impact.

a fantastic collision

and you, covered in blood

me, powerless

i knew deep down,

that i was responsible

i held you, then
though we were both broken

my guilt

saturated every fibre of my being
weighed me down

it took what was left of the life

you looked up at me
your eyes were so blue
and you never saw it coming

but i did.
we all did.

i understood then
that she was the danger

the collision was her.

it was always her

and i never had a chance

of saving you.

Born Among Mirrors

i was born among mirrors,

eyes closed

screaming into the face of the world

screaming at myself, first

and as i grew
i learned 

that to truly see myself,

(not through the dark glass

not in the reverse)

i must keep my eyes closed tightly

feeling my way through the world with fingertips

 everything that i touched was cold
the world was without form, and void

i had no concept of dimension

until one day

the brilliance of the sun

lit up my closed lids

and i turned my face toward the light

the sudden warmth,

the glow

made me grieve for all that i had missed

with my shut eyes

i swung out my fist in anger,

that the light was so long denied me
that i had denied myself

the mirrors around me shattered

into a thousand shrieking shards

but it was finally safe to open my eyes

and i see myself more clearly
these days

in those imperfect, fragments of mirror

than i ever could have
                               in the whole ones                                 

La Mer

for years i have asked these questions

of the Universe

quietly 

only half-heartedly

in case i should be taken

too seriously

maybe there was even some dread
 in my voice as i asked

 i have whispered these questions

to my pillow 

at night

by the light of the moon

when my husband is sleeping

i have carried them 

with me,
the burden heavy on my back
i have bowed low
under the weight

i am guilty  

of cradling the thorn

and the sting

using it to keep me aloof

i have both cherished 

the righteous indignation
my questions inspired

and feared it

in case it was not me

there were even times when

receiving only quiet instead of response,

my rage threatened

to sweep me away

lost forever to the tide

no trace remaining

not even my footprints on the sand

but

i never fought to know

i never made myself uncomfortable

to seek out the answers

and so they found me

crept up close to me

where i sat

i was caught unawares

my ears and heart open

so vulnerable

they slammed into me

those answers

an ocean wave

a fist thrown

an ambush

the tears sprang quickly to my eyes

for i knew them

immediately

disguised though they were

i knew them

my own

prodigal daughters

bearing knowledge in their hands

the wave receded

salty water ran down my face

dripped from my hair 

and ran under my chin

i had cried an ocean

for these answers

and they came to me

on the wave of my own despair

sometimes 

when you seek the truth

it finds you