Object

Only a thing, but in space a king

That holds a place in time; a being

For when the arc of time will bend

This thing will profer us an end.

in imitation of:

Only a thought but the work it wrought

Cannot be pen nor tongue be taught

For it ran through life like a thread of gold

And the life bore fruit one hundred fold

Reflections of the Chesapeake, 1608
July 24, 2009

O Mother River
who has carried me
so long

O Father Tree
who has long pointed
the way

O Brother Grass
who has given me place
to lie

O Sister Wind
who makes the earth
to sing

I hold Thee
like warm sunshine
in my heart

You fly from me
on the wings
of an eagle

And echo long
in River, Tree, Grass, and Wind
my Home

when all the earth was clean it was most alive
all she had to offer was evidence of this
the birds songs were long and happy in the trees
the trees sent roots down and long branches up
they moved only with the wind
they lived and died just as long as they should
they gave back all they took and more
leaving the earth richer, open for new growth
scented sweetly with green and brown mineral
and the rains fell in pure color then
speeding from cloud to earth in pure light
saturating earth
bubbling in the pond
pooling in the stream
flowing in the river
crashing in the ocean
dissolving in the sky
falling again in clear light
each time the earth celebrated with motion
the things the water moved in its force and before that
the woods creatures all moved at the coming
the leaves and blades of grass trembled
the birds went mute and turned their song to diving
like pools of black and fluid light in the sky
revel in the rain
the rolling cloud silver at their backs
the lightning glinting off their wings
the thunderous motion of the wind
making them light up the sky
seldom so free as when the rains come
but all this is forgotten
when the lifting clouds part like a curtain
and the face of everything shines
in yellow sunlight
then for moments all the surface of things sigh
caught in transition
happy to be wet and drying
thankful for warmth
for light cutting down in strands
through the grass and leaves
water lilting at its surface
fish quiet in their frenzy
begin to nap in cool shaded banks
the birds take to singing again
a prayer for rain
the earth is clean
it is most alive

Response to Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Reflections on Chauvet Cave

When first he saw his hand

Then he became a man

First laping water like a dog

At midnight

At a stream

With and hiding from

Other animals

His eyes only for them

His ears only for them

See how they move

Shoulder blade punching through

Paws flaired

Hungry to eat flesh

Hungry to make flesh

Hungry to rest a while by the water

He saw emotive animals

Lapping water at midnight

They took refuge in a cave

Bones of prehistoric bears

Cast eternally in cave drip

Saved for all time

In the belly of their mother

Smears of smoke

Dressing the walls

30,000 years ago

He pressed his hand here

His first signature

Pressed indelibly by his own fear

Of the unknown

Of death;

He made life

He pressed a rock to the wall

And gave birth to a lion

A lionness—troubled by the lion

A heartsick lionness

Flairing paw for food

Flooding a glacial plane

With tears of frustration

Oh how they move!

Oh how he knew!

And then he saw his hand

This one we call Adam. 

TNT_2

Week 1 Observations:
1. tendency to raise shoulders, draw neck forward, and clench right hand, including tension prior to beginning in anticipation
2. in response to a clenching right hand, I removed right hand from notebook: right hand still unconsciously tense, pacing is slower, left hand more deliberate
3. success with 'reversibility' early during one day while listening to the news. Thought: "maybe I don't know"
4. improved legibility with a change in medium from pen to pencil
5. most legible when writing unconsciously

TNT_1

observations:
 1. tendency to clench paper with right thumb
 2. clumsy left to right movement, regular adjustment of left hand on page
 3. tendency to draw neck forward towards page
 4. spell 'tongue' wrong repeatedly when typing, not so when writing

time: 10 mins
words: 160

Project TNT, part I, Introduction

Introduction: Project TNT

This project started in 2010, fizzled in 2011, died in 2012, and is being resurrected in 2013.

A week ago a family member directed me to an obscure web-page hosted by a Korean star-gazer who told me that in 2013 I would be, "like a dragon without teeth",--not a good omen in context of the last three years of semi-un employment. I have decided that I need a shot of potency in the arm. I therefore return to project TNT.

 This project has five elements. The first of these is a goal to write left handed everyday for ten minutes. The long term objective is to become as comfortable writing left as right. To undo, is as much as I can, what my mother did when at three years old, she shifted the paint brush from my left hand to my right. This part of the project has a very experimental aspect--in that I am interested in learning how this shift can improve plasticity, reversibility (in a feldenkrais context), creativity, and spontaneity.

In 2010, I completed a full left-handed transcription of 3,933 words of Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner . In 2013 I will begin with one month of an anonymous four line poem:

 Only a thought but the work it wrought
 Cannot by pen nor tongue be taught
 For it ran through life like a thread of gold
 And the life bore fruit one-hundred fold.

This will be documented with a photographed index of the writings over time as a means of observing changes, improvements, anomalies etc. in the writing style itself. At the end of one month, a new work of text will be selected.

The Alma Sonnets

Alma 5:38
Behold, I say unto you, that the shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd.

The shepherd calls his bleating lambs to keep
Within the well-spring of His voice to hear
A whispering that wakes the lambs from sleep
And in the hollows of their hearts will sear
His name, his name that echos like a drum
Reverberating kind benevolence
Ears once stopped once stupefied once dumb
Must shed the mufflers of insolence
And sear upon the ear’s own sounding board
The holy name Christ the shepherd good
And train the ear to grasp His voice and score
These whisperings stored up as heavenly food
Then deep within they hear the Shepherds call
Or else be left to wander, wither, fall.

Alma 5:15

Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

Can you with honesty recount this day
In which your itching flesh did steal about
The carnal streets of life in which you play?
And in that frenzied dancing find but doubt
In He who made thy form to slither through
These littered streets of opportunity
To shed these weighty scales and doubt eschew
To trust in His redemption coming free?
Can you then with scale-less eye more clear
Perceive the deeper meaning of the itch?
Feel it soothed abetted in a smear
Of the Creator’s healing balmy pitch?
Can this same eye now see that frenzied dance
When hammer falls like you beneath His glance?





Alma 5:52
And again I say unto you, the Spirit saith: Behold, the is laid at the root of the tree; therefore every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be down and cast into the fire, yea, a fire which cannot be consumed, even an unquenchable fire. Behold, and remember, the Holy One hath spoken it.

Mark it that a voice from heaven warns
The ax the tree the image to inflame
The fruitless mind the fruitless life to shame
Reveal the barren soul but food for worms
Now see the flame with fangs bared out to feast
Now see that wooded though not fruited tree
An everlasting scorched sterility
Made house for seed again in flames that cease
Not even in the end. When time roles out
His parched and leathery tongue like carpet bags
Long stayed long baked beneath the long day’s sun
Not setting though the day is done. A sprout
May spring from heated charcoal then these fags
Mark the heavenly voice that says ‘it’s done’!


Alma 5:26
And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the of redeeming love, I would ask, ye feel so now?

There was a song that once upon a day
Sang out a lovely tune upon your heart
A heart that felt vibrations pulse and sway
Resounding in its caverns every part
Beating out that chamber’s sour dis-chord
Beating in a kinder harmony
Setting free the chambers gated hoard
Of humming, purring, sweet felicity
That then within the violin did ring
That then within the piper’s pipe did tweet
That then within an angels’ chorus sing
Within these beating chamber walls so sweet
Has that sweet song now faded to a din?
A droning pandemonium within?