NEVER-FAIL TIP

I don't even want to acknowledge
this photo.

While going through the files of my
recent trip's digital images, I came
across this wonderful shot. Here I am
shooting some of the world's most
magnificent scenery, and oops...

Then, while further meditating on my
stalled writing muse, of whom I'm
expecting great things, all I can think
of is feet--toes in particular. This, of
course, leads me to the thought of Kevin
Costner painting Susan Sarandon's toes
in Bull Durham, one of the sexiest movie
scenes ever. So, I'm here to tell you, MEN:

to absolutely and totally melt your woman's
heart--paint her toenails! (You might want
to rent the movie first, just to see how it's
done.) I promise you, she will adore you
forever. I might also suggest a glass of wine,
a little Sinatra, Hartman, etc., well you get
the picture...

cheers,
-mimi

SPIRIT

Photo/collage by S. Auberle

Only images, not words are coming
from my Alaskan trip, so I use others'
words which convey so beautifully what
I want to say:

A land not mine, still
forever memorable,
the waters of its ocean
chill and fresh.

Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk,
and the air drunk, like wine,
late sun lays bare
the rosy limbs of the pinetrees.

Sunset in the ethereal waves:
I cannot tell if the day
is ending, or the world, or if
the secret of secrets
is inside me again.

- Anna Akhmatova

WHERE I'VE BEEN

photo by S. Auberle

No place like it--for mountains, glaciers, reindeer;
the ever-present bush planes, bears, (didn't see
a one) moose (saw one from the train, near a
mall in Anchorage) eagles (an abundance of
them) though, as someone said: you can never
see enough eagles and whales; humpbacks;
orcas; native art; seals; and the light, the incredible
midnight sun...

to see an eagle flying across the face of a blue glacier
changes a person...

The great sea
has sent me adrift
it moves me
as the weed in a great river
Earth and the great weather
move me
have carried me away
and move my inward parts with joy

- Uvavnuk, an Eskimo woman shaman
celebrating the joy of nature

Poems will come, I hope, for now this
woman's words says it all.
- mimi

LIGHT II

photo by S. Auberle

Been off the blog exactly five minutes,
in my two week sabbatical (see below
post) and this story came to me which I
had to share:

THE WHALE

If you read the front page story of the
San Francisco Chronicle, you would have
read about a female humpback whale who
had become entangled in a spider web of
crab traps and lines.

She was weighted down by hundreds of
pounds of traps that caused her to struggle
to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards
of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail,
her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone
Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed
an environmental group for help. Within a few
hours, the rescue team arrived and determined
that she was so bad off, the only way to save her
was to dive in and untangle her, a very dangerous
proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a
rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and
eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers
say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.

She them came back to each and every diver, one at
a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around,
she thanked them. Some said it was the most beautiful
experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out
of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole
time, and he will never be the same.

I don't know the author of this story, but the article
came with photos, so I believe it to be true. There is
a postcript to the piece which says:

May you, and all those you love
be so blessed and fortunate
to be surrounded by people
who will help you get untangled
from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy
of giving and receiving gratitude.

yes...

- mimi

LIGHT

digitally altered photo by S. Auberle

LIGHT

sometimes
there is a need
to return
back to where
we all begin:
touch
breath
a voice, beloved
light and light and light

- mimi

Off the blog for awhile...a retreat,
a sabbatical from the blessing/curse
of computers, as a friend recently
called it. May write, if there's
something important to say. Or not.
May just be. See you in two weeks.

BIRTH

Photos by S. Auberle

(Scroll down.)

- mimi

WHAT IS LIFE?

photo by S. Auberle

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the Sunset."

These are the dying words of a Blackfoot Indian
named Crowfoot. He was born in 1821 in the
province of Alberta, Canada and became the
orator for the Blackfoot Confederacy.

- mimi

FRIENDLY SKIES

photo by S. Auberle

One more flying post--though planes are not my
favorite form of transportation, I have found
myself getting more okay with them, especially
after dreams like this one. No doubt about it,
definitely a prime contender for my Dream
Academy Awards Oscar:

THE OH-SO-FRIENDLY SKIES

And serving you in the main cabin will be Cindy and Luke.
The words buzz through the air and I, reclining on a couch
like some Roman empress with wine and grapes at my side,
watch out a small porthole as earth drops away. Oh Cindy,
I call, am I paying extra for this couch? Oh no, ma'am,
she replies, this is economy class, whereupon I settle back,
on the advice of my attendant, Luke, to relax and enjoy
the flight while three priests in Advent vestments begin
playing in their rock band and Papa Was a Rolling Stone
zings through the cabin, the plane bouncing to the beat.
Oops, turbulence, but the band plays on, priestly robes
flashing, the drummer's mitred hat tossed aside, and
though it occurs to me to question my destination,
(have I died?), Luke soothes my fears, neatly slipping
beneath the silken covers of my couch...

honestly, I had only ONE glass of wine before bed.

LOVE STORY

photo/collage by S. Auberle

LOVE STORY

The woman sat in the seat by the window.
I noticed her dark eyes right away. So much emotion
in them--what it was, I couldn't yet tell. Ordinarily
I don't talk much on planes, preferring my own
thoughts to chatter, but she looked lonely. The plane
was very cold, and she was trying to turn off the air
blowing over her from above. I reached up and closed
the vents.

We began to talk. Her English was difficult to
understand, though after several conversations, I
began to get it. The plane was already an hour late in
taking off, and she wanted to know the time now, being
concerned about the person meeting her. She apologized
for her English, and I asked her where she was from.
Yugoslavia, she said, but I live here, in this country
forty-five years now, though my English, it still isn't so good.

I asked who was meeting her in Phoenix, and she smiled
shyly, and almost blushing, said my new husband. He is just
one year older than me, seventy two. We are married now,
for only ten months. His wife, she died a while ago--cancer,
you know? And my neighbor, his sister, she brought us
together. Her eyes, face, her entire body lifted up, almost
shining in the light of that darkened plane. After I
congratulated her, it seemed like she needed to explain to
me that it was alright. For forty-five years I am alone,
first for my children, then my grandchildren. Now is time
for me? Of course, my ok wasn't needed, but she needed
her own ok, that was clear.

We sat then, most of the three hour flight, wrapped in blankets
and our own thoughts. The woman waiting, like an eager bride,
for her love to meet her. Me, the writer, thinking of the pure
poetry in those eyes.

This story is for old lovers, middle-aged ones, and especially
young ones, who think love ends at thirty, forty, whatever
age you fear. For those who believe a time alone will be
forever. It just ain't so. If you could look in this woman's
beautiful face, you would see a fire burning just as hot
as any young lovers. Love is for anyone, any age, with the
fierce courage it takes to listen to our ageless hearts and
then, with even more courage, to open them...

- mimi

NIGHT FLYING

photo by S. Auberle

silver drops of moon

on summer blossoms and wings

we fly, Basho and I

- mimi

SOMEWHERE OVER THERE

FOX

Have you seen
the fox at sunset?
Watch for him.
He is practical and elegant
in his fine, red fur.
The path brightens
as he flashes by,
then melts
into evening shadows
beckoning
like half-remembered dreams.

Was he an illusion
or a poem
I dreamed about desire?
I watch for the fox
every night now
to teach me
how to be a poem,
a red whip of joy
in the dark, a brightness
before I vanish.

- mimi

SUMMER ABSTRACT

digitally-altered photo by S. Auberle

"A person's life purpose is nothing more than
to rediscover, through the detours of art, or love,
or passionate work, those one or two images in the
presence of which his heart first opened."
- Albert Camus

Back from evening bike ride under a sky filled with circling
gulls, beneath the new crescent moon. Glass of wine
for sunset-watching through my peephole of trees. Music
from Zorba the Greek--passionate and tender enough for
this drama of colors turning from lemon to old gold to
orange to red to rose to pink. Exquisite sadness--the good
kind that aches, all down your body, at the joy and brevity
of it all. A friend asked me today--how the hell do I find
it when I don't even know what it is?

She knows I've found it here, in this place, at least a part.
Maybe all, I don't know. Maybe it will change. Maybe life
is just an abstract painting. We see different things
everytime we look. Maybe there really is no it. Just these
tender, exquisite moments that float into our lives when
we're really being blessed.

One of my first poems, written when I was young and had
not done much living, was about happiness being a butterfly
that we mostly see floating ahead, above, just out of reach,
but then, all of a sudden it lands on you and you don't
breathe, and you don't move and you think you can keep
it like this, and then off it goes and you're left, breathless.

I saw a small butterfly today, floating dreamlike, just ahead
of me. and then it did something I've never seen a butterfly
do--it landed in old, brown grasses just at my feet. Folded
bright wings and disappeared. The outside of its wings were
a perfect pattern of the grasses where it rested. And, though
I'd seen the butterfly perfectly an instant ago, now it had
disappeared. I knelt to watch. It felt like praying--for
happiness, maybe this time to last. But then dull, brown
wings flickered into orange and it lifted, once again,
just above and beyond my reach.

For this moment, it was enough, will always be enough,
because these moments are all--and everything,
we'll ever have.

- mimi