What Would Rumi Say
What would Rumi say if he saw me?
Panting like a dog, barking at heaven,
aching to nuzzle my lover’s face.
It’s simple!
Get drunk and climb the nearest mountain.
Howl at the moon.
Pour out your heart like wine into that absolute longing.
Turn in place and skip sleep.
Fly straight into dreaming of your lover’s hand,
warm upon your neck.
Girding Her Loins
Fortitude,
you know—the real stuff,
like the he-man stories,
the heroes girding their loins
and going in guns blazing,
like Butch and Sundance,
Maverick in Top Gun,
and Henry at Agincourt.
Like Samson at the temple,
or better yet, Moses,
whose awful miracles struck an empire helpless.
* * *
What else can a mother say to her first born, but
“Sleep—don’t mind the frogs,
they’ve come from the river to sing your rest.
Let go—the darkness is meant for dreaming,
and as for the other tests,
you’ve passed them all, my darling boy.”
* * *
What is fortitude if not this?
The willingness to trust our children
to the maw of blind, uncertain faith;
the belief in something ridiculous,
like shrubbery ablaze.
The moon glimpsed through a tumult
of clouds and night—that is the light
in darkness; our hope set on a river
to be found by the enemy,
a daughter of the pharaoh,
who will pick a babe out of the water
and nourish him.
Remember Jesus in the desert?
He found the secret of his longing
in the realization of his incompleteness.
While his brothers sat in their caves,
hearts mildewing in the dampness,
he learned that fire saves
as well as burns.
Or better yet, Eve,
without whom we would be
as beautiful and empty as butterflies.
She who girded her loins
and took up the burden offered her,
trusting her children to the fruit,
opening the secret heart,
and in so doing,
created everything.
It’s been a long month, with not much time nor energy to spare for anything beyond the essentials. The reason? Work’s been extremely busy, and will likely to continue that way at least through the election. Things will still be busy after the election, but the pace should slow down to more tolerable levels. The mad dash till November 4th will transform into a quick march till Christmas and the holiday giving season.
As a result, the writing has been all over the place, with lots of first drafts. I think there are some good ideas buried in a couple of them, but I haven’t had the internal resources to go digging for them. That’s why I’m posting another poem that was completed earlier this year — a poem that was hard to write, but one that I’m very proud of.
I hope you enjoy this Poetry Monday’s submission: Girding Her Loins.
Artemis
Artemis,
wolves pad softly at your heels
leaving behind warm, dark dens.
Owls, mystery in their talons,
follow in the sky.
Even the heavens look on this night,
their thousand eyes unblinking.
Hunter,
the luminous moon, twin to your soul,
marks spoor and trail,
lighting the way into a forest
beckoning like a lover
ready with a serene and chill embrace.
The hart in darkness rests
wrapped in the soft folds of evening.
His sides quiver, sensing the quiet
spear’s red-tipped approach.
Goddess mantled in silver and shadow,
the slaughter of musk and iron carries on the wind,
the scent of earth made fertile,
and as your children gather, their eyes silent with bliss,
the stag’s head rises,
exultant.
All the poetry out on submission has come back stickered with rejection slips. Of course I’m disappointed, but now I definitely feel like a writer. It’s part of the path, ne? *grin*
I suppose I could hoard the pieces and continue looking for suitable venues, but that doesn’t sound very appealing. I’d rather post them here and have them live a little.
And on that note, I’m posting one of my favorite poems for this Poetry Monday.
___________
P.S. Note that I’m not giving up on being published. Instead I’d rather share the poems here and focus on learning and improving the craft of fiction.
I took some time over the weekend to update the Journal, and break out my travels to Cambodia, Japan, Thailand, and the U.S. into their own categories. I still have more to do, namely filling out the writer resources page, but that’ll have to wait till another time.
It seems that world opinion is firmly against John McCain. According to a poll at The Economist, if the whole world were voting, there’d only be two red states. Click through to see the map:
Vote Obama or McCain: Global Electoral College
I’m not surprised by Georgia. I imagine they’d rather see a hawkish American president to side with them against Russia. As for Macedonia, the voting looks close.
And the funny thing is, The Economist’s readership isn’t exactly liberal. The world is just fed up with U.S. politics and foreign policy.
I love this video! I’ve already watched it five times straight. It’s an affirmation of what humanity is capable of—that we can create something simple, happy, playful, beautiful, and cool for the love of it, of creating, of doing.
Many thanks to Emily for introducing me to Lykke Li and Bon Iver. If I ever take over the world, she’s definitely my top pick for Minister of Cool.
The Story of the Blue Flamingo
Somebody once told me, “Hey, you’re funny. F-U-N-N-Y. Funny.” There’s a blue flamingo in the story too, but I forget that part.
My apologies for the lack of updates, but I came down with a rather nasty bug last week. There was also a dramatic increase in new clients. Fortunately, my workplace is rather progressive, which is what you’d probably expect, and I was able to work from home for the week. That said, I had to prioritize work over everything else, as I was operating on very little brain juice the entire time.
Which also means, unfortunately, that I don’t have a new poem to share with you. There are two new poems that have potential, but they’re both still in the very early pupae stage.
Instead, I’ll just share one of my older poems, one that makes me smile (if I can say that as the author). And this might also be a good time to mention that my poetry is not autobiographical. *grin*