I have regained 

my love of

sleeping,

and my head is oh so clear.

But, my dear,

ataraxia

has its limits.

prescience

 (undated 2017)

pour  place  pathos  pursuit  plague

 

plague.

 die ewige Wiederkehr (des Gleichen) [Nietzsche]

the endless return of the same

ataraxia - a state of serene (inner) calmness [Epictitus]

 
καταστηματικός - (katastēmatikós)

The term 'ataraxia' is used in Epicurean philosophy to refer to a type of katastematic pleasure that is engendered by a complete freedom from mental disturbances and worries.

the pleasure of equilibrium and balance

_______________________________

ancient thought on conservation or matter [Epicurus. Lucretius]

"seeds" generate things, things are composed of invisibly small particles which

seemed to argue against Zeno's paradox that "you cannot deconstruct anything

beyond a certain point"

modus tollens

the rule of logic stating that if a conditional statement (“if p then q ”) is accepted, and the consequent does not hold ( not-q ), then the negation of the antecedent ( not-p ) can be inferred. 

if P, then Q, But not -Q,  therefore not -P 

are the number of atomic shapes infinite?

review Epicurean 

 

 

numbers poem (undated winter 2013- 2014)

12  26

There is no reason to fear what isn't

or what is going to happen

13  25

is there?

14  24

light is so many darks

is

infinite

is, is

15  23

there is no formula for happiness

16  22

carving out a niche

a channel

a cove

17  21

illum...

an unintellig...

wor...

is

18  20

light came from the horizon I knew

19  19

the direction was up

20  18

eyes dim as the illness progresses

21  17 

death is not an illness

22  16

terminus

that mysterious illuminata that

23  15

survivor of myth

24  14

my daughter my son

and their children's children

have eyes

25  13

what will they see?

26  12

thirty-four generations ago

you placed a mirror

27  11

in my grave

and it's still there

28  10

shooting stars showers and 

twenty-eight

29  9

even the first lens was lit here

30  8

distance?

forward

backward

an illusion 

31  7

evolving around a fiery star

32  6

in the distance?

surely you see

33  5

lights don't clock

but age

34  4

age ago

and again

and afterward

often all at once

35  3 you

too

you too!

36  2

read

forward backward

up and down

37  1 

direct your gaze to the stars

 

observation poems and prose 1986 - 2014

12.4.86

     to remember: the idea of place:

the twilight landscape w/ dreams/ experiences

I think my heart is in the art of painting "lies',

in mingling myths and real events with

the sky and the land.

     Stars as moving spirits in the sky,

Ingrid Washinawatoc's red sign

in the sky, twins the fog over

the wall, the white blurred sun in the sky.

     You must keep the painting fresh, 

learn the way to stow and return, start fresh

each thing. many moments paintings 

seem to have lives of their own. 

12.9.86

sometimes you need the cool greenness of this land

as surely as you need bread and water. you need to

hear the land, no matter the muffling it takes in a city park.

sometimes I want to cry out loud, curse my foggy brain.

I've tried too hard to fit in, not take life seriously,

but life is a beautiful, serious to me. I want to

live awake, not in this dulled state where true things slip

slowly and quietly away. There is a fencing feeling.a pent up sorrow 

for lost things too early,  far too early in life. What good is health

if your heart is not in living?

Have to pray a long, long way to hear my voice clear again.

 

4.30. 87

THE FIRES OF BELTANE - green, purple, red in the night sky

BADLANDS - S. Dak. fossils of 3-toed horses, saber-toothed cats, a type of camel no larger than a dog

in a land now sparsely populated by rock wrens and coyotes.

MYTH

To the Yuki  (N. Cal tribe), the creator was Taikómol, the solitude walker

The Plains   view of the buffalo reminds me of Aaron and Moses and the Mt. of God.

 

5.5.87

I feel as if  was caught up in a tangled net, the sum of my mixed emotions for those I loved.

(childhood)

green things making food by eating the sun 

Seek a philosophy that grows out of the lives of......

8.29.87

things to remember:

 the small orange butterfly in the green, green grass 

sound of raking leaves

the trees

3:00 and fog is coming in, greying (above).

The lower things still very bright and clear.

-fog-

- yellow light, clear blue sky, earlier 2 kinds of cloud

- saw a striped cat in the middle of Laguna Honda lawn

pounce on s/t unseen.

- remembrance and the eye - vision w/ spirit

 

8.31.87

3   -  a sphere  the wind  a wave

Q: Does this recurrent preoccupation w/ a 

spiritual significance in nos. bespeak

my Catholic background? Or is it

s/t found in most religions, a basic desire

to join 2 disparate mental processes?

9.14.87

the trees remember

Bonaventure  

1 LUX: "light in itself"

motion and inner earth energy =

"minerals" (genes) + "seeds" of life

2 LUMEN: "light that travels through

space, borne by a transparent medium"

3 COLOR + 4 SPLENDOR: c = "light

of terrestial bodies", s = "luminous bodies"

both reflective light

idea of "deeper significance in ordinary things...AN

INDEFINITE FEELING WHICH MAY BE CALLED UP
AT ANY MOMENT."

Saint Paul

VIDEMUS NUNC PER SPECULUM IN AENIGMATE, TUNC AUTEM FACIE
AD FACIEM. 

We see through a glass darkly, but then face to the face.

theophany - a visible manifestation to humankind of God or a god 

hylomorphism - the doctrine that physical objects result from the combination of matter and form.

undated 1987, 1988

My dad, he wanted to sing beautiful songs for a living, he wanted to dream.

Instead he helped Grandpa, a mean man, and often groaned in his sleep. 

Why so hard to follow your calling and still love your family?

My friend Julie used to drive out to meadows and run naked, alone, through them.

I used to think it mad but now no more mad than seeking special hills 

or seeing a bird in a man, as other friends do. We each need to plant our peace

in a part of the land, a reassurance of our mutual wonder and respect.

There is a kind of resistance, a wrestling that thanklessly conspires 

to create you in a different way. 

1.21.88

Last night (beach)

early eve - 121.88 (1.22.88)

exceptional mils weather,

warm, lite wind.    (sand bar)

 

Twilight. clds [clouds], rooftop

reflected in dark pool, trees

 

8.8.89

light coming out of the darkeness - an idea of "touch"

(please touch) of an art that reaches yet remains at rest 

(solitude) quietly accessible, truthful.

Language of the interior (the eye) is moved by thought,

thought is the form of thing removed from sight

and remembered.

This is a way to cull s/t essential in painting.

This is a partial path. Always the sense of the nature

of the object remains, reminding the painter of her role. 

 

10.8.92

On rocks:

in them, traces of exhilaration,

movements betraying their glacial origin. 

Standing stones, human-laid, are also

marked by arrested movement.

The "stillness" of stone:

a kind of necessary touch,

we humans need to place things w/in 

the impermanence that surrounds us. 

November 17 1996

what she wishes for is a prayer 

that hasn not lost its power to

consume the spiritin god's fire-

she longs for the separation to end

but realizes the futility of her dream. 

 

I had a dream last night.

Looking down and across a white-capped sea, I saw a pod of whales 

ALL OF A DIFFERENCE

belugas, great blue, barnacled, humpback, 

breaching, spouting, singing.

 

Today I saw a stuccoed wall that appeared to show the worn

labor of a thousand handprints.

 

compassion for all living things

suffering is real and ever-present

life is

(whether or not we are aware of it)

following a course through life that is full and right...

How small I seem when I read the poets and naturalists, 

and yet as vital to all as the smallest creature....

 

2004

Die Prinzen

Hamlet

Medina Azahara

Einstürzende Neubauten

Collapsing new buildings

 

we are inundated

you call out but the waters have stilled your voice

you are between flood and sky, and your world sinks around you

you climb to the highest place,

but nothing will save you from the rising waters

 

1 Dec 2007

entanglements

In my darker moments, there is no Holy Family of humanity,

only isolation, injury, insensitivity .

A lover's word, a husband's kiss, does not unite but accents

the loneliness of the soul. It's worse to anticipate,

then one excites one-sided expectations. better to

return to the slow painful practice of disallusion,

better to make the supreme effort to love all but not one better others.

Will detachment surrender to joy?   

 

21 March 2011

 

bright day, dry

when is being remembered, as dark and light...

it's so many things...

i n t e r f e r e n c e

ghosts  dirt  memory  the body

h o r i z o n          s h o r e (s e a)

                            s h i f t  to

                            b a n k (r i v e r)

                            g r a s s  l e d g e (c u l v e r t) 

l i n e s                w a v e

                            d i r e c t i o n  o f   f l o w

                            t i l l e d  e a r t h

what is this, stilled?

liquid  solid  air

an exercise in breath

breath: let go, distill

______________

enten glements (arrangements)

d i a m o n d   s u t r a

 

7. 24. 2017

as a child

afraid of the dark

 

Rikyu black

 

perhaps even blackness

or an extract of blackness

can survive the walls of our rooms

 

To witness blackness

my be the closest we can come to the preent,

that is

"to a pure limit between the past and the present"

 

わび -

"depth" of the object

the material it is made from becomes secondary

to the image the completed object presents to the eye"

(Lafayette DeMente)

tanka

poetry writing contributes to self-discipline...appreciation

of the beauty of nature and life... finally tranquility."

(ibid.)

 

Bear Butte 

cloth string tobacco prayer -

american windhorses

 

Deganahwida

the great white pine

a canoe of white stone

 

Gernika

lumo, oak

 

these trees  - oak  ash  pine  fig

5 pure lights

Yggdrasil

green ash tree - 9 worlds

the fates (Norns) place a rooster each morning atop Yggrasil.

It's bragging wakes humans and gods.

The Norns water Yggrasil daily.

An eagle and a dragon have their emnity enflamed by a

gossiping squirrel (sladder egern)

Lif a man and Liftraser a woman

will hide in the branches of Yggdrasil during Ragnarock.

emerging after to repopulate the world. 

Huginn and Munin - will they survive Ragnarock?

AHIMSA
SATYAGRAHA
ADUMBRATIVE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what

 what is sun, sky

but the present I sublimated?

Between us and them 

a light apparent

(non-binding, not blinding).

Life lived in gratitude isn't absolution.

Warm sun, wind - my graces.

Once wandress (wondrous),

the cypress, the funeral tree's

among the

first unfound.

Altered lives grounded in pilgrimage.

seis stemmed,

are that char, that chair outside, laid earth, dirt.

Of all dictions, the done one wins,

Bogged in, begin

by loving all who they were.

Sing among western mesas

among dry places.

Shout, we are here

to raze museums!

to praise libraries!

The libraries

That is where the there is, the theys are also,

the we, youse

and me.

 sit

mind unflitting

sits outside

as

heart

rests within

short poems for others

 1

I thought of your wax feet

while eating turmeric and cauliflower.

These hollow feet speak

as books, looking earthward,

then when placed upon a wall,

their golden hollows

whisper in mother tongues.

 

2

A legacy arrives -

you at 63,

and me, now 63 too.

It's taken 7 years

to draw this circle 

and close it, love.