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Jun. 13th, 2022
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Jun. 13th, 2022 10:13 amIt may be ok.
Outside is calling me really hard right now. There's a perfect wind, the lake right outside my office window is full of little wavelets, the sky is true sky blue with just enough fluffy white clouds to add interest, every leaf is just out with that new-leaf bright green and no silvering from pest damage or yellowing from drought yet. Half the dandelions are in seed and half are still invitingly yellow, just asking to be made into fritters.
I need to sleep out there, I think. You'd think 7 acres would be a lot but my forested parts are right up against the highway and everything else is visible to a neighbour. I'm working on planting myself barriers but I need to clear, then plant, then everything needs to grow.
Last weekend, to celebrate new ducklings and to celebrate having someone to share food with, I brought out a duck. Normally that's 5 days of food: a seared breast two days in a row, then legs and picked-off bits and gorgeous crackling skin two days in a row, then soup one day. Because I shared it's 4 days: I get to go home to duck cracklins and stinging nettles creamed in duck fat, then figure out which direction I want to take the soup tomorrow (pho flavourings, maybe? With starch noodles?). It makes such a difference to me having someone appreciative to share with, not an anonymous person to sell to but just a place where bounty can flow over and be enjoyed.
It's turning into summer. The seeds are in the ground. We need rain, and I should run irrigation. Things will grow without me for a bit. The time for heavy work turns into the time to relax, observe, and enjoy; the time for giving labour to the soil turns into the time to receive my body back bite by bite.
I've been wearing my ring, scythe and wheat, ebb and flow. It's been so hard to ride everything that's been happening with any sort of grace. Today I remember that the wheel will turn anyhow, it will turn and turn and turn and there will always be change. When I lose my grace, when I get thrown off and need to climb back on, there's always another turn ahead to handle more smoothly. Acceptance is not an end state; it's a practice.
Outside is calling me really hard right now. There's a perfect wind, the lake right outside my office window is full of little wavelets, the sky is true sky blue with just enough fluffy white clouds to add interest, every leaf is just out with that new-leaf bright green and no silvering from pest damage or yellowing from drought yet. Half the dandelions are in seed and half are still invitingly yellow, just asking to be made into fritters.
I need to sleep out there, I think. You'd think 7 acres would be a lot but my forested parts are right up against the highway and everything else is visible to a neighbour. I'm working on planting myself barriers but I need to clear, then plant, then everything needs to grow.
Last weekend, to celebrate new ducklings and to celebrate having someone to share food with, I brought out a duck. Normally that's 5 days of food: a seared breast two days in a row, then legs and picked-off bits and gorgeous crackling skin two days in a row, then soup one day. Because I shared it's 4 days: I get to go home to duck cracklins and stinging nettles creamed in duck fat, then figure out which direction I want to take the soup tomorrow (pho flavourings, maybe? With starch noodles?). It makes such a difference to me having someone appreciative to share with, not an anonymous person to sell to but just a place where bounty can flow over and be enjoyed.
It's turning into summer. The seeds are in the ground. We need rain, and I should run irrigation. Things will grow without me for a bit. The time for heavy work turns into the time to relax, observe, and enjoy; the time for giving labour to the soil turns into the time to receive my body back bite by bite.
I've been wearing my ring, scythe and wheat, ebb and flow. It's been so hard to ride everything that's been happening with any sort of grace. Today I remember that the wheel will turn anyhow, it will turn and turn and turn and there will always be change. When I lose my grace, when I get thrown off and need to climb back on, there's always another turn ahead to handle more smoothly. Acceptance is not an end state; it's a practice.
Ok, it's time
Jun. 13th, 2022 06:06 pmThere are two best poems. They resurface periodically. As solstice nears and the whole world crackles it's time for this one with its dual energies. I captured it years ago and have not been able to find it since; I've only seen an abridged version of one part. It belongs whole. It belongs read aloud, stirring the air and your vocal cords.
The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One
The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (i)
I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible, blackbird over the dark field but I am invisible, what fills the balloon and what it moves through, knot without rope, bloom without flower, galloping without the horse, the spirit of the thing without the thing, location without dimension, without a within, song without throat, word without ink, wingless flight, dark boat in the dark night, shine without light, pure velocity, as the hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail and the nail is a nail when it meets the wood and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking, hand of the mind, hand of the emperor, arm of the empire, void and vessel, sheath and shear, and wider, and deeper, more vast, more sure, through silence, through darkness, a vector, a violence, and even farther, and even worse, between, before, behind, and under, and even stronger, and even further, beyond form, beyond number, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as winter, as water, a shift in the river, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to the task, a fountain of gravity, space curves around me, I thirst, I hunger, I spark, I burn, force and field, force and counterforce, agent and agency, push to your pull, parabola of will, massless mass and formless form, dreamless dream and nameless name, intent and rapturous, rare and inevitable, I am the thing that is hurtling towards you...
The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (ii)
I am the hand that lifts the rock, I am the eye that sees the worm, I am the mind that strings the worm and throws the line and feels the tug, the flex in the pole, the key in the lock, as the root breaks rock, as sunlight streams across the plain to make the world visible again, foot by foot, I find the groove, the trace in the thicket, seed to flower to fruit to seed, a holy pilgrim moving through the stations of the yardstick, I track, I follow, a flashlight, a crowbar, I find the fulcrum, I hinge and turn, a simple machine, frictionless and efficient as an equal sign, I manifest, votive and incandescent, shrinking the space between here and there I become the future, as drowsiness overcomes the dreamer, as the eye of the archer is the eye of the target, I flip and fold, I superimpose, the letter delivered, the year decembered, I become location, plum pit and apple core, I am motionless and you veer towards me, the eye to which you are relative, single point, silent witness, there to your here, I decide and calibrate, magnetized for your revelation, the doors burst open, I am your outcome, the verb in the sentence, intransitive, end of the road, hook and bait, polestar and checkmate, time and space as I observe them serve me like gravity, lamp to your moth, dot to your map, home and heart and hearth, a selfishness, submit, surrender, I am your arrival, there is no refusal, we are here, you see, together, we are already here...
Richard Siken
The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One
The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (i)
I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible, blackbird over the dark field but I am invisible, what fills the balloon and what it moves through, knot without rope, bloom without flower, galloping without the horse, the spirit of the thing without the thing, location without dimension, without a within, song without throat, word without ink, wingless flight, dark boat in the dark night, shine without light, pure velocity, as the hammer is a hammer when it hits the nail and the nail is a nail when it meets the wood and the invisible table begins to appear out of mind, pure mind, out of nothing, pure thinking, hand of the mind, hand of the emperor, arm of the empire, void and vessel, sheath and shear, and wider, and deeper, more vast, more sure, through silence, through darkness, a vector, a violence, and even farther, and even worse, between, before, behind, and under, and even stronger, and even further, beyond form, beyond number, I labor, I lumber, I fumble forward through the valley as winter, as water, a shift in the river, I mist and frost, flexible and elastic to the task, a fountain of gravity, space curves around me, I thirst, I hunger, I spark, I burn, force and field, force and counterforce, agent and agency, push to your pull, parabola of will, massless mass and formless form, dreamless dream and nameless name, intent and rapturous, rare and inevitable, I am the thing that is hurtling towards you...
The Love Song of the Square Root of Minus One (ii)
I am the hand that lifts the rock, I am the eye that sees the worm, I am the mind that strings the worm and throws the line and feels the tug, the flex in the pole, the key in the lock, as the root breaks rock, as sunlight streams across the plain to make the world visible again, foot by foot, I find the groove, the trace in the thicket, seed to flower to fruit to seed, a holy pilgrim moving through the stations of the yardstick, I track, I follow, a flashlight, a crowbar, I find the fulcrum, I hinge and turn, a simple machine, frictionless and efficient as an equal sign, I manifest, votive and incandescent, shrinking the space between here and there I become the future, as drowsiness overcomes the dreamer, as the eye of the archer is the eye of the target, I flip and fold, I superimpose, the letter delivered, the year decembered, I become location, plum pit and apple core, I am motionless and you veer towards me, the eye to which you are relative, single point, silent witness, there to your here, I decide and calibrate, magnetized for your revelation, the doors burst open, I am your outcome, the verb in the sentence, intransitive, end of the road, hook and bait, polestar and checkmate, time and space as I observe them serve me like gravity, lamp to your moth, dot to your map, home and heart and hearth, a selfishness, submit, surrender, I am your arrival, there is no refusal, we are here, you see, together, we are already here...
Richard Siken