Monday, September 24, 2007

BACK IN A JIF

























Photo by S. Auberle
Except for the point,
the still point,
there would be no dance,
and there is only the dance."
- T. S. Eliot
Off the blogwaves for ten days...
See you in October...
- mimi

Sunday, September 23, 2007

EQUINOX




















Photo by S. Auberle

aspen leaves
in morning light
giving birth
to yellow
-mimi

Saturday, September 22, 2007

DEERNESS


Photo by S. Auberle
"Last evening, when the moon was rising, saw the warm, burning soft red of a doe in the field. It was still light enough, so I got the field glasses and watched her. Presently, a stag came out, then I saw a second doe, then, briefly, another stag. They were not afraid. Looked at me from time to time. I watched their beautiful running, grazing. Everything, every movement, was completely lovely, but there is a kind of gaucheness about them sometimes that makes them even lovelier. The thing that struck me most: one sees, looking at them directly in movement, just what the cave painters saw--something I've never seen in a photograph. It is an awe-inspiring thing--the Mantu or "spirit" shown in the running of the deer, the "deerness" that sums up everything and is saved and marvelous."
- Thomas Merton
Daily Meditations from His Journals

Friday, September 21, 2007

BORN AGAIN

























Photo by S. Auberle

"Poets are born old;
with the passing of the years
we make ourselves into children."
- Humberto Ak'Abal

Thursday, September 20, 2007

BE WHO YOU ARE

























Seattle Public Library - S. Auberle

"Be who you are
and say what you feel,
because those who mind
don't matter
and those who matter
don't mind."
The above quote comes to you courtesy of Dr. Seuss and Emily Rose, a fine Chicago poet and acquaintance. She may be reached at her website:

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

HARVEST




















Digital Photo-Painting by S. Auberle

spring's sweet blossoms gone
all that was promised fulfilled
cherish what remains
-mimi

Monday, September 17, 2007

RAINY DAY ON I-40

























Photo by S. Auberle

Home again, and now:
"Until something transcendent turns up
I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused."
- James Broughton

Friday, September 14, 2007

YET AGAIN

























Photo by S. Auberle

As my man Willie Nelson says, On the Road Again...
Heading back to the Southwest---in Abilene, Kansas tonight.
Four states today--Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas, the Sunflower state.
Astonished, as always, by beauty:
the great fields of sunflowers,
the golden light of autumn shining on horses
and pumpkins and old, abandoned homesteads,
the road, always the open road...
"For man's half dream;
man, you might say,
is nature dreaming..."
- Robinson Jeffers

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

DRAGONFLY DAYS

























Photo by S. Auberle

DRAGONFLY DAYS
I love these glittery-winged days
of early autumn,
the bejeweled dragonflies
that sometimes grace my hand.
I love the lake's ripening scent
of marsh reeds and mud
the egrets--and the kingfisher
twirling over the lake.
I could worship, I think,
this stern god carved long ago
in the dead tree snag
and if he might speak
I would wish him to say:
do not come to this place
unless
you are prepared
to do nothing
but breathe...
- mimi

Sunday, September 09, 2007

TWO THINGS


Photo by S. Auberle
Two things to make you crazy:
1) Summer's over...
2) This, from a book I'm reading:
"The following sentence is false."
"The preceding sentence is true."
- Godel, Escher, Bach:
an Eternal Golden Braid
-Douglas R. Hofstadter

Saturday, September 08, 2007

EPITAPH

























Photo by S. Auberle

EPITAPH FOR LUCIANO
Annie, my ninety-two year old friend,
calls today to tell me she is sad:
Pavarotti died, she says,
I heard him sing, once, at the Lyric
and nearly collapsed...
What better epitaph
could one hope for--we--who write
and paint, dance, make music,
grapple with our small creations
in the shadow of giants like him?
The pure notes of Nessum Dorma
float out my back door
as I water a fledgling rowan tree
struggling to hold on in this dry season.
No more dazzling berries
adorn the great parent tree,
another of its limbs has died this year.
It hurts to think of taking it down
but I would leave the massive trunk
standing, rooted among stones,
so as not to forget--ever--its grace,
its abundant giving,
the towering, gentle strength.
- mimi

Friday, September 07, 2007

POETRY IN MOTION

























Photo by S. Auberle

So often I'm asked what is poetry? How do you define it? This may be the best definition I've come across so far:

"...poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment."
-Galway Kinnell

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

SEPTEMBER MORNING

























Photo by S. Auberle

September morning
autumn on the wing...so soon
all this golden light
-mimi