Those of us cradled gently,
basking in the warm gaze of the universe,
who blossomed quietly,
opening in love
we have deep roots
and we carry light within us,
and the silence of the living forest.
For Day 22 of Jilly’s month of Unreason.
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
He was a man who gathered facts
what does moonlight taste like?
as if he could build a world from them,
who first fell in love? with whom?
snatched dates and data from the atmosphere,
what do flowers dream of?
cross-referenced, indexed, filed.
what colour are my eyes?
He questioned endlessly, collated
can you hear a sunbeam strike the ocean?
all the answers, in boxes first,
where did I leave my keys?
then just in piles, great tottering heaps
what noise do Saturn’s rings make?
that rose around him,
what’s the gestation period of the unicorn?
and still, the world eluded him.
where does love live?
For Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, where we are all Jim Harrison tribute acts. Today’s quotation is:
She’s not going to write about love –
because everyone writes about love,
and everyone knows
that love is a rose
and love is a thorn,
and love is a glistening
bead of blood on a fingertip.
There’s so much more to life
than love – there’s moonlight,
and reading, and bottomless coffees,
but everyone knows that
love is a warm jolt of caffeine,
and love is a poem,
and love is the moon,
and love is a lone wolf howling,
and even when she strips
the metaphors out of her work,
writing a forest – a real one –
she drove there, and pressed her hand
into the bark of a tree
’til her palm was marked,
still everyone knows
that love is a tree,
and love is a forest,
and love is the road
that carries you there.
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
Day 20 of this 28 day delve into the world of Jim Harrison. Jilly is hosting a month of Unreason. Check it out. There’s some great stuff being written there.
Did I babble? Did I spill the secrets
of my immediate desires, not deep,
not very deep, just basic stuff –
water.
Sleep.
Did I reveal myself, in my
vulnerability, my coming to,
my emerging from that hazing mist,
my brain stretching itself, releasing
small thought bubbles that had no
real life, just that primal craving –
water,
sleep.
“I’m quite tired of beating myself up to write. I think I’ll start letting the words slip out like a tired child. “Can I have a piece of pie” he asks, and then he’s asleep back on the cusp of the moon.”
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
Pedal as fast as you can –
you can’t out-cycle death –
she’s right behind you,
thighs pumping, –
hair flying
no helmet.
Hide in the peleton –
she’ll find you out –
make a break for it –
she’ll reel you in –
ride hard, ride fast,
death always wins.
Cycle is the keyword for tonight’s quadrille, courtesy of Kim at dVerse. This is for all those middle aged men in lycra.
Even inland children crave the sea –
these were my waters, cold Cornish coast, me
coming out shivering, blue-toed,
letting my crabline drop through
harbour water, long sunny days
sitting on hot stones, reading,
ice-creams and pasties, and all
the jolly little fishing smacks.
But sometimes, down there,
where the sun slants greenish
through the water,
I brushed against a myth.
Jilly’s keeping going, and so am I. Day 17 of 28 days of Unreason. Jim Harrison – the gift that keeps on giving.
Just to remind you that the anthology is now up there. https://www.wattpad.com/story/138596088-love-letters-to-selene-a-multi-author-anthology
The link for the newsletter is: https://dreamingspiritpress.wordpress.com/2018/06/02/love-letters-to-selene-anthology-newsletter/
The next “letters” anthology will be based on Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home, but there are other anthologies on the go. Maybe you would like to contribute? Check it out here:
https://dreamingspiritpress.wordpress.com/submissions/open-submissions/
There is wisdom in the mountains –
the wisdom of high and lonely places –
and the birds have wisdom,
the knowledge they carry
deep inside, unspoken,
of moving with and against the air.
The cat knows how to be still,
how to coil energy in muscle,
how to spring. The tree knows
how to grow, how to seek strength
in the soil.
She’s never trusted her body
to crave the right things. She’s
never stopped to listen – has
crammed her feet into the wrong shoes,
cinched her waist tightly,
read the labels on tins and packets
obsessively, counting numbers
that don’t count. She’s over-ridden
her own desires so often
she doesn’t know what she wants.
The bee knows how to dance.
Inside that bean there is a plant
that needs water, earth, light,
to grow tall. Touching something
with its twining tendrils, to cling
and coil, and seek support,
opening its flowers to the bee –
that dancing bee, that carries
sweetness and information in
equal quantities – always the mystery
of growth and flower and fruit and seed.
She sought wisdom in distant places,
danced under full moons,
read so many books that told her
who she was, as if some distant
writer knew her better than she did herself.
She listened to whalesong,
had her skin rubbed with oils,
cut out gluten, dairy, carbs,
ran so fast she met herself
coming back.
There is no wisdom in the soil,
but you can find it there, if you dig deep –
it’s in the digging. There’s no wisdom
in a loaf of bread, but you can find
a kind of wisdom in the making of it.
There is no wisdom in the ocean,
but if you sit there, reading it,
you’ll find the wisdom that you carry
deep inside,waiting for sun, and air,
water and food, waiting to blossom,
waiting to fruit. Be still.
There’s no real wisdom in a poem, but you can find your wisdom there.
This is for Day 17 of Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, poems springing from the diving board of Jim Harrison. Today’s quotation isn’t from a poem, but from an essay:
“Prolonged exposure to nature gives one a sort of grammatica pardo*, a wisdom of the soil.”
~ Jim Harrison, from A Really Big Lunch
*to be worldly-wise; know the ways of the world
Technically, A Really Big Lunch is not a book of poetry; it is a series of essays by Harrison. I am currently reading it. Warning: it is outlandish and best read with much wine and a propensity for laughter. I used this quote because, like much of his prose, it has the stuff of poetry and because his connection to nature is a big part of why I connect with the poetry.
As always, everyone is welcome to join in. Write a poem inspired by this quote, post it, credit Harrison, link back in the comments, stop back by and read other poets. Cheers! Jilly
Limestone doesn’t quite believe
that it’s a rock – all those shells
and bones still yearn for water –
dissolution, floating free.
Water carves
its spaces; dripping hollows
sheltering secret vegetation,
great halls and caverns full
of glistening columns –
that ancient geological dance
of rock and water, merging,
separating, weaving a strange world
of clints and grykes, and sudden
sink holes –
rivers dropping out of view
and running under rock –
leaving the sound of running water
in the empty air.
~Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
This is a very concrete response to the quotation. Or is it? You are the reader, you make the poem. This is for Jilly’s 28 days of unreason.
I woke up crying
in a hot and empty room –
I’d dreamed the pain
was something else,
but in that rising
out of sleep,
my body knew.
I woke up curled
in my own head,
hiding from lights –
too bright – and
clashing noises,
telling stories to myself
with different endings.
I woke up, and my face
was wet. My body knew
the truth before I did.
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
For Jilly’s month of Unreason. Day 13 – nearly half way through. It’s been a rollercoaster so far.
I’m also linking it in to the dVerse Open Link Night.
