Saturday, October 6, 2018

Morning Poems

Boy, the morning pages do pile up!  I spent some time this morning going through the ones I flagged to revisit, this batch mostly being poems.  I put post-its on pages I think are worth keeping because I toss everything else after a few months (not wanting my kids having to go through the volumes of it after I'm gone).   It's funny - so much of the time I think of my morning pages as just a bunch of garbage writing, just a string of blah-blah-blah. But then, like today, I see how much I'd thought was worth keeping, and I'm surprised at how much there is.  It reminds me of the stories of the women like Psyche and Vasilisa having to sort piles of seeds.

 So, here are some of the rescued morning poems (fresh and only briefly edited).




Morning Pages
  
The studio is filled with
Hawaiian slack key music.
The last cut on the CD
cues up.
I am trying to complete
three long-hand pages
of morning writing.
There is no inspiration 
arising.
What is here? 
An empty mug, 
now drained 
of cinnamon tea,


flickering candles on my
writing table, 
a fully overcast sky
outside the window.
Another morning.
Another chance.
What feels so old and rote
might feel like a gift, a blessing.
Ah, the things we take for granted
before they disappear
forever.


Contradictions



I am spinning in
the contradictions
of this world of
blood and bile,
pus and decay,
of violence and war
and the greed
of the elites.
And yet,
and yet,
this Spring morning
dawns with sunlight
pouring down the avenue below,
lifting the mist from the hills, and
brightening all the greens of
the redwoods, pines and maples,
the vines twining around my deck.
It is still, then the
breeze arises in
the cloudless blue.
Suddenly there is  
a burst of bird flight,
circling, circling, circling,
lifting up the morning.


A New Day


Because you are old,
            you easily fall
            into stale thoughts and habits.

But this day is opening to you –
            the sun washes down the avenue below this hill,
            the cloudless sky and cool air cover the city,
            the chickens are clucking in the pen,
            the vine’s new green growth is waving
            in the breeze right outside the window.

You are alive, alive, alive.

At any moment, the little birds nestled
            in the pine trees on the avenue
            will take off and circle
            in a tiny murmuration,
            marking the morning’s arrival.





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