My hands the Hook thunder hangs its hat on,
My breast the Arroyo storms fill with water,
My brow the Horizon sunrise fills,
My heart the Dawn weaving blue threads of day,
My soul the Song of all life...
Jimmy Santiago Baca
*Shidoni—A Navajo Greeting for a Friend
BY JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,
I love you,
I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,
I love you,
Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe
I love you,
It’s all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,
I love you.
Jimmy Santiago Baca, “I Am Offering this Poem” from Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems. Copyright © 1990 by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1990)
Born in 1952 in Santa Fe of Chicano and Apache descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was abandoned by his parents and at 13 ran away from the orphanage where his grandmother had placed him. He was convicted on drug charges in 1973 and spent five years in prison. There he learned to read and began writing poetry. His semiautobiographical novel in verse, Martin and Meditations on the South Valley (1987), received the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 1989. In addition to over a dozen books of poetry, he has published memoirs, essays, stories, and a screenplay, Bound by Honor (1993), which was made into a feature-length film directed by Taylor Hackford.
Baca’s work is concerned with social justice and revolves around the marginalized and disenfranchised, treating themes of addiction, community, and the American Southwest barrios. In a Callaloo interview with John Keene, Baca claims, “I approach language as if it will contain who I am as a person”—a statement that reflects the poet’s interest in the transformative and generative power of language. Immigrants in Our Own Land (1979, 1991) was Baca’s first significant collection, one based on his imprisonment. In the Encyclopedia of American Literature, Catherine Hardy wrote that the poems in the volume “reveal an honest, passionate voice and powerful imagery full of the dark jewels of the American Southwest landscape (llanos, mesas, and chiles) and the chaotic urban landscape (nightclubs, rusty motors, and bricks) woven into a rich lyricism sprinkled with Spanish.”
Baca’s other poetry titles include Healing Earthquakes (2001), C-Train & 13 Mexicans (2002), Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande (2004), and Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande (2007). In addition to the American Book Award, Baca has received a Pushcart Prize and the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature. His memoir, A Place to Stand(2001), garnered the International Prize. In 2006, Baca was awarded the Cornelius P. Turner Award, which honors GED graduates who have made “outstanding contributions” in areas such as education, justice, and social welfare.
Baca has conducted writing workshops in prisons, libraries, and universities across the country for more than 30 years. In 2004 he launched Cedar Tree, a literary nonprofit designed to provide writing workshops, training, and outreach programs for at-risk youth, prisoners and ex-prisoners, and disadvantaged communities. Baca holds a BA in English and an honorary PhD in literature from the University of New Mexico.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238134
* I dedicate this blogpost to all people who feel that they are alone—even when they are among others. Never forget your own weight and value in the world. You are and always will be worthy of love.
--Noelle Renee
I Sang A New Song
With Leafy Notes Gold-Orange
--Noelle Clearwater October 2010
Photos by Noelle Clearwater,
taken in Aspen Vista, Santa Fe, New Mexico
For More Haiku My Heart Please Enjoy Recuerda Mi Corazon
Ducks
From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
- Left! Right! - with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway…
(Excerpt)
Frank W. Harvey
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/6390-Frank-W-Harvey-Ducks
My thanks to Rebecca from recuerda mi corazon for showing me how to do this fun animation!
Morning Prayers
I have missed the guardian spirit
of the Sangre de Cristos,
those mountains
against which I destroyed myself
every morning I was sick
with loving and fighting
in those small years.
In that season I looked up
to a blue conception of faith
a notion of the sacred in
the elegant border of cedar trees
becoming mountain and sky.
This is how we were born into the world:
Sky fell in love with earth, wore turquoise,
cantered in on a black horse.
Earth dressed herself fragrantly,
with regard for the aesthetics of holy romance.
Their love decorated the mountains with sunrise,
weaved valleys delicate with the edging of sunset.
This morning I look toward the east
and I am lonely for those mountains
though I've said good-bye to the girl
with her urgent prayers for redemption.
I used to believe in a vision
that would save the people
carry us all to the top of the mountain
during the flood
of human destruction.
I know nothing anymore
as I place my feet into the next world
except this:
the nothingness
is vast and stunning,
brims with details
of steaming, dark coffee
ashes of campfires
the bells on yaks or sheep
sirens careening through a deluge
of humans
or the dead carried through fire,
through the mist of baking sweet
bread and breathing.
This is how we will leave this world:
on horses of sunrise and sunset
from the shadow of the mountains
who witnessed every battle
every small struggle.
Joy Harjo
Fatima Abu Hashem, one of the participating children said that she sent several messages to the world through her floating little cork boat, adding "these messages included my dreams to live in peace and in freedom and practice a normal life like the world's children."
Abu Hashem, who is a member of an acting troupe on the stage of Ishtar, added that she dreams of becoming a famous actress, " but my dream began to vanish because of the hard situation we are living in the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli siege."
On September 28, the Israeli naval forces intercepted an aid boat organized by Jewish organizations that was sailing to the shores of the Gaza Strip and prevented it from reaching the enclave. http://972mag.com/the-jewish-flotilla-israel-should-listen/. (Url reference is not from this source.)
Source: Xinhua and url is below http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/7168739.html
Warm and still is the summer night,
As here by the river's brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.
Silent are all the sounds of day;
Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.
Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass
To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green morass;
And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.
Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern,
And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.
Sing of the air, and the wild delight
Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you,
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight
Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.
Of the landscape lying so far below,
With its towns and rivers and desert places;
And the splendor of light above, and the glow
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.
Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,
And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.
Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,
Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting,
Some one hath lingered to meditate,
And send him unseen this friendly greeting;
That many another hath done the same,
Though not by a sound was the silence broken;
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
*Guest photo from Pixdaus.com. Please click on title link at bottom of photo to go to original site.
“Aged” by Ursula I Abresch posted with kind permission of the artist----N.R.ClearwaterFor more Haiku My Heart See Recuerda mi Corazon
About The Photographer:
Ursula is a photographer in the West Kootenays, in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. She was born in Argentina, raised in both Argentina and Chile. She moved to the USA to attend university, and eventually moved permanently to Canada. Ursula is married. She and her husband have five children. She has a degree in Education with a concentration in Art and History. She now dedicates most of her time to photography. (information taken from her website directly).
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.
In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.
That our thoughts may be true light,
Finding their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.
That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.
When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.
That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
Glimmering in fugitive light.
When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.
When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.
When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.
As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.
And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found word.
~ John O'Donohue ~
(To Bless the Space Between Us)
You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.
Paulo Coelho
Soft Moonlit Descent
Of Cranes Near the Water’s Edge;
Webbed Feet Skim the Stars.
--N. R. Clearwater Oct. 14, 2010
To Enjoy more Haiku My Heart, visit Recuerda mi Corazon
“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
I learned the most important lesson of my life: that the extraordinary is not the birthright of a chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even the humblest. That is my one certainty: we are all the manifestation of the divinity of God.
--Paulo Coelho
Confessions of a Pilgrim, by Juan Arias.
The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature's cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: "Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster."
— Loren Eiseley (The Unexpected Universe)
Please see the two links below for a brief explanation of Argos and Odysseus if you are not familiar with these names.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/o/odysseus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(dog)
A link to a brief bio on Loren Eiseley:
When you want something, all the universe
conspires in helping you to achieve it.
--Paulo Coelho
Ruby Mandala
Compassionately Unfolds
Healing, Golden Light.
--N.R.Clearwater October 2010
For more wonderful haiku fun visit Recuerda mi Corazon
“To these sentient beings I shall reveal
This sutra called Sublime Golden Light,
Which rids one of every harmful misdeed
And expounds upon the profound.”
http://www.fpmt.org/golden_light_sutra/
Note: I have revised my haiku to use the phrase “golden light” after researching the sutra called Sublime Golden Light. Yellow, although beautiful, is not a healing color.
N.C.
At Earth’s Quiet Edge—
Embraced by the World’s Great Heart,
I set my Bow toward the Open Sea
And Sing My Soul into Belonging.
--Noelle Renee Clearwater October 2010
The tempest calmed after bending the branches of the trees and leaning heavily upon the grain in the field. The stars appeared as broken remnants of lightning, but now silence prevailed over all, as if Nature's war had never been fought.
At that hour a young woman entered her chamber and knelt by her bed sobbing bitterly. Her heart flamed with agony but she could finally open her lips and say, "Oh Lord, bring him home safely to me. I have exhausted my tears and can offer no more, oh Lord, full of love and mercy. My patience is drained and calamity is seeking possession of my heart. Save him, oh Lord, from the iron paws of War; deliver him from such unmerciful Death, for he is weak, governed by the strong. Oh Lord, save my beloved, who is Thine own son, from the foe, who is Thy foe. Keep him from the forced pathway to Death's door; let him see me, or come and take me to him."Quietly a young man entered. His head was wrapped in a bandage soaked with escaping life.
Ernest Hemingway as a young soldier WWI
He approached her with a greeting of tears and laughter, then took her hand and placed against it his flaming lips. And with a voice which bespoke past sorrow, and joy of union, and uncertainty of her reaction, he said, "Fear me not, for I am the object of your plea. Be glad, for Peace has carried me back safely to you, and humanity has restored what greed essayed to take from us. Be not sad, but smile, my beloved. Do not express bewilderment, for Love has power that dispels Death; charm that conquers the enemy. I am your one. Think me not a specter emerging from the House of Death to visit your Home of Beauty.
"Do not be frightened, for I am now Truth, spared from swords and fire to reveal to the people the triumph of Love over War. I am Word uttering introduction to the play of happiness and peace."
Then the young man became speechless and his tears spoke the language of the heart; and the angels of Joy hovered about that dwelling, and the two hearts restored the singleness which had been taken from them.
At dawn the two stood in the middle of the field contemplating the beauty of Nature injured by the tempest. After a deep and comforting silence, the soldier said to his sweetheart, "Look at the Darkness, giving birth to the Sun."
Grainfields by Danis
(Taken from Chapter 18 of "Tears and Laughter" by Kahlil Gibran, written in 1914) oldpoetry.com/opoem/18043-Khalil-Gibran-Peace----XVIII
This excerpt can be found at the link listed here. This site seems to be devoted to Gibran’s poems. I am very appreciative.
 |
| Landscape at Le Pouldu--The Isolated House by Paul Gauguin |
THE HOUSE OF BELONGING
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
--David Whyte
From The House of Belonging 1992
Forgive me if this is a Redux of one of my favorite David Whyte Video, but as Pat Conroy once said, “David Whyte makes the reading of poetry a matter of life and death. His writings have moved me and changed me.” –Pat Conroy, author of The Prince of Tides.
Red Peonies by StadnikT@photosight.ru
