surreal

shhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppbluhbluhbluhbluh

shhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppbluhbluhbluhbluh

shhhhhhhhhhhhppppppppppbluhbluhbluhbluh

A drag off my regulator brings oxygen to my blood.  With each exhalation, bubbles percuss toward the surface of the sea, via the curve of my face and through the wet curls on my scalp.  I sense the excitation of tiny hairs on my skin raising in this rush, a contrast to the constant pressure of the ocean and its wombish support of my existence.  I remember laying my head in my mother's lap as she stroked my face and hair.  Although it is not dark in this underwater playground, the sun high and refracting above this soothing bluish hue, and although my body is not constricted into an egg of flexion, I remember an ancient, sacred space and long to be enveloped by my own mother's voice, to have my heart's cadence set by hers.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?  The terror of ceasing to exist always interrupts the serenity of my solitude, so perhaps my answer to that unanswerable question is "yes".  I try to catch another diver's attention but forget to use hand signals.  Without thinking I speak into the mouthpiece I am clenching with my teeth, and lose my words and vision simultaneously as my thoughts explode before me.  I am still learning how to rest in the encapsulation of my own atmosphere.

The coral at this reef grows upward in popcorn-shaped structures because here, the current is weak and does not wear it into smoother shapes. Tang, butterflies and angels graze the surface, like birds and insects in a field of wildflowers.

Hovering just past the reef, a puffer gazes at me, as if to extend an invitation.  IS this a dream?  No matter, for now in my solitude, I am no longer alone.  My presence does not threaten, and she keeps her poisonous weapons concealed.

I follow the exotic beauty over peaks and through crevasses in the live rock, losing myself in this dance of surreality.  She swims upward and I follow.  She turns to confirm my presence every minute or so, then continues her tour.  We dance a few movements of tide, and then she is gone where I cannot follow.

I reluctantly return to the ease of my natural environment on the deck of the boat and head back to shore.

conchoidal fracture

This term, conchoidal fracture, stuck in my head for days after it appeared in my stacked poem from the Tweetspeak Poetry Meet-Up workshop, then wove its way into the verse below. 

Jealousy Poem Stacks

(click the link for more)

in the absence of a

natural plane of separation

     (no inherent weakness

      to the structure)

obsidian heart

swELLs

at the point of impact


(either as the intended target

or a random landing 

force)


shock waves splay

from the bulb of percussion


radiating ripples over

the once-glassy

stone

Refractions: A Second Wind

Over the next few months, I, along with some friends, will be discussing Makoto Fujimura’s “Refractions: a journey of faith, art and culture”. I’ll be posting my reflections here at simplyMagnified, and linking them to the BreatheArts Facebook page as well.  Join in the conversation, won’t you?

I have a full-time vocation that doesn’t involve writing, yet there are works within me that clamor to meet ink and paper in daylight.  Poetry is my passion, and that is a gift that visits without predictability.  Unrest organizes images that self-craft as I experience a moment or emotion. That inertia will awaken me until its resolution in verse; then I am freed and move on.  Sometimes there is no verse for months, then without warning several emerge in an hour.

Just the opposite, it’s so difficult to express my voice in composition or narrative; I usually pound overworked versions of the ideas I want to convey, then toss them. Consequently, I have ignited and abandoned a lengthier writing project several times over the last 18 months. 

“The process of creating renews my spirit, and I find myself attuned to the details of life rather than being stressed by being overwhelmed. I find myself listening instead of shouting into the void.” (page 15)

I definitely did not feel “renewed” in this creation (more like “expired”).

(Cue window into my world when I sat to write)

“Where are you stupid words?!?!?” I shout.  Daily. Hourly. Blinking at the empty screen.  Checking my email.  Checking my work email. Eating a bowl of cereal.  Blinking.

 

“There are none in here!  Stop looking!!” echoes back from deep within the void. 

I sighed.  I knew it.  Nothing in there…but, then, wait a minute…what had replied if the void was truly empty??

After reading this first chapter, I became fixated on the word “process”. Mako didn’t, after all, write “creating renews my spirit”, but “the process of creating renews my spirit”.

Previously, I had no process other than “write when I am inspired”, “write when I am bored”, or “don’t write but carry the bones of what you’d like to write around with you everywhere, just in case an idea drops from the tree you are walking under”.  So, I gave myself a process.

For the month of February, I committed to writing just 250 words a day for the entire month.  No editing, or even re-reading, what I wrote.  Although I didn’t write every single day, I wrote many of the days and many of the days I wrote well past 250 words. I became familiar with my tools, my words, my thoughts. I heard that reply from the void, and dug deeper behind the façade of avoidance. I reflected on and released barriers impeding my journey.  There were so many subtle voices: don’t go too deep/make yourself too vulnerable/transparent/guard your words/what do you have to say that someone hasn’t already said?  I needed to allow those thoughts to surface in my consciousness, sit with them, and let them go.  That was my process.

By writing as a more discipline, something shifted.  As Mako states: 

“Often, I am simply showing up to be in a regular rhythm of being available to create, and I may not feel creative at all. But my second wind kicks in to provide surprising moments of creative bursts.  I value these moments, allowing me clarity and focus even in the midst of a stressful day.” (pg 16)

And the creative bursts emerged.  Along with them, some joy in the words that pull together, and a confidence that there is more to come.

click image to enlarge

wind

(outside my window polar
tempest you beat
against the pane
while i in comfort
and coze need only to
shift layers of 
blankets to insulate
against the bitter
night chill)

i drift off loving the howl
     that shakes the holding-on dead leaves free
     that unearths roots not too-deeply rooted
     that karate-chop pummels whole limbs from trunks

oh my heart do not hide safe when
the wild wind beckons

meet its power
     be uprooted and
     blown naked
     welcoming newness as
     it is released

guess

i slide my palm
(unaware but not
disinterested)
into the slit of
threadbare denim
over a smooth
angle of hipbone
toward the deep
corner of pocket
where you  (a foreign
coin gathering
my heat) nestle

my fingers seek
your contour and
edges (my heart 
needs refuge far
away from here)

i settle and 
retract my hand
but you (unsettled)
you flee and 
flip through the
air

(no matter how familiar
the edges i never can
guess which side will
land upright to the sky)

heads or tails is
anyones guess

one word 2014: joy

the drama of bearing
such a gift as joy is first
when it sprung from my heart
and out of my lips i could
not believe it was true

then i realized that the
gift was not in the holding of
joy in my hands but in
the emptying of those hands of
things that drown out joy

     (things that prevent joy from
      penetrating this intensity of
      life i have been living)

joy comes from the remembrance of
past goodness surviving and made
true made right made whole even if
it still seems broken on the outside
to those who dont really know
what they are looking at

joy is learning to look
deep into the sense of peace and
belonging that only comes with 
healing that is according to the
truth and peace that surpasses
understanding

when joy is sparked the gift
is in the taking off of
the mask so that it will
flow through me and to you
and to whomever else is longing
for it too

poetry at work

I love words.  I love writing and singing and conversation.  I love my vocation as a speech-language pathologist, and I really love poetry.  Reading AND writing it. Books all over my house and blue roller pens and pads of words scattered all over the place.

I love working with the bodies of the children in my care, and coaxing, shaping, weaving and listening to sound and thought as it emerges from very very deep places.  Places of great suffering but also places of great joy.  Places of great challenge but also places of great wisdom.

On behalf of the work done here today by ALL of the children who came through the doors, and the moms, dads the therapists who stood with them, ENJOY!

ysa so pretty you are my
poetry at work

you sing a sonnet
a love song
through the stars 
in your eyes the same
as the sky at night
and its song of heaven

you shake up some free verse
a radical rant
with brain waves seizing

      we dont understand the colors or
      the way you 
             s  p a    ce   y  o u   r  b  rea  t  h
      (we wish it metered and
       regular but you always come back)

you giggle a couplet
a sweet and rhyming banter
in your hugs and 
great big kisses

our words daily thunder 
around and over and past you
too quickly for response but
the a surprise
an anthem in your YES
      (or maybe a funny GAH
                  a silly cat in the
       restaurant where you had lunch)

without the boundaries of words
every day ysa you are my
poetry at work

To learn more about Ysa and her family's journey with Rett Syndrome, click on the link below:

http://girls.girlpower2cure.org/ysa