CODYARTS
Midwestern Mythologies
work by
Steve Nelson-Raney
WINTER RISING
Early December. Another night of bad sleep. Awake for good at three thirty AM. A light snow fell last night, the first of the season. There's little accumulation, but now the temperatures drop and wind is starting.
·
How odd this light, coming in through the south window, projecting on to a wall in this room. One white wall of many in a monocolored house. The light is like a guardian that does not speak.
·
A once candlelit trinity as
holy aggregate against the
cold nights that now but
memory such the hymns sung
as one they continue still heard
in tonight's growing solitude
·
Last day for
classes I take the long way for walking
home tonight in
the cold
·
Strings of small lights hang like fringe above the windows and doors of the cafe. There's a Christmas tree in the center window with golden bows and a few other decorations. We sit with our soup among others gathered here, everyone so perfect, everyone so imperfect. All of us huddled against the cold December day and winter's presence.
·
A fool's determination
same attractions return the
impossible adventures of bright bell's
flare in incubation fury
to hold this chalice see
blood flow
through piston valves
its pursuit
appears again as magnet
·
An afternoon of pre-holiday errands. Bach's D minor Partita for violin, its movements interrupted by some of the chorales, is playing in the car. Driving north through Estabrook Park, the scent of evergreen boughs comes from the trunk and mingles with the sound of Christoph Poppens' baroque violin. The music is beautiful beyond imagination. The violin pieces are perfect: melody and harmony functioning as a single line of music (this is what a good improvised jazz solo should do but seldom does). The chorale's voices are calm resignations between the movements of violin music. The park's road is dry but covered with salt after freezing rain earlier in the week. A vague frozen layer of snow covers most of the park's grass. In the past I've seen various animals in the park: a fox, a woodchuck, a deer, geese; once a coyote appeared and raced next to the car for a few minutes. Today only squirrels are here. Dreamlike/mystical states (induced by the Bach and the evergreen's scent) alternate with reality as I'm in and out of the car for the errand stops.
·
Still so attracted to night's
beginning here day giving
its last minutes of light so desirous
to return to house's quiet wealth walk
through unlit rooms look
into dark world beyond window dots
of light appearing
in houses close by as others end
this day begin another night
·
Awake early down
stairs into house's darkness the narcissus from bulb to
now nearly twenty inches with
its fragrance
·
Incessant noise a background
always everywhere when waiting
did we
ask this onslaught
how to move
away from such sustained
oppression
how to find some
where a silence
·
A gray morning. Winter officially begins today. The year's longest night bringing a longer day. The bleak wintered ground begins its sleep. There never seems to be a controlled resolution to these final days of school; instead, there are only frantic rushes toward whatever kind of completion or finality seems possible. The push of energy pulls to this point for months; it crests for a few days and is then followed by an immediate drop into what seems like an abyss. A few flakes of snow drift before a tree's skeleton beyond the steel framed windows.
·
To think of that presence
here for such a duration waiting
perhaps in anticipation of
these fragrant gatherings
·
Small noises in the house
still after numbered days
of absence sound
suggestions will not
disburse from where tiny
breath was once and we
welcome this continuing company
·
Vibrant scented stations visited
in morning hours stop
at each while house is still
dark consume
air of aura refusing exit
·
Present and settled in with
a vengeance mystery volts
continue rampant
surge through body's lingering frame
what was called upon cannot
desist it will not subside flailing
as visible spasm
some determined
current flows the uncontrolled
sparks into flesh
cartilage as horror tremor
·
Through the park
again today with Bach
·
This flow out into
aether particles
as excess and
realized in
futile encodings
·
Light snow appearing over night. The final day for exams, this morning is filled with drawn out keyboard appointments. Evergreen branches tied together hang from doors (three upstairs, one downstairs) in the house; I never pass by one without stopping to take in its fragrance. In the upstairs east window our small tree is wound only with tiny white lights. Awake at four AM with energy pulsing. Last night, seated around a table with food and lit candles, there was a communion with new companions. All present were there in deference to and in acknowledgement of gathered wounds, but also there was a hope for some new kind of survival. That rises against the cold of winter and these temporal days, each one now increasing in length.
·
Remember every stride with
straightness as addition to
counted inheritance today's summation
surfaces in totality manifest each moment
each day strives
toward some new envisioned form
·
Days lengthen now toward
blossom's bloom the
long warm sun hours
·
Grateful such these
reinforcements a sum
arrives its hour of need
·
Several inches of snow fell last night. The plow went through the alley just before seven this morning. I need to buy the last of the groceries for the coming few days (pizza dough, halibut, cider, chestnuts) then meet Mary Ellen for lunch. Coffee with a friend yesterday with much talk about Samuel Beckett, a figure like Thelonious Monk: both are referred to often but, I'd guess, seldom understood. References to beauty appear little in Beckett's work; if one really believed what Beckett wrote there would seem to be little reason not to end one's life.
·
An edge here perhaps some
new map a starting point
the pulse from that with
all its unknowing
just a blank
depth to be filled
with new content forging (through this
new snow) as search
party after losing
that held so dear and essential
·
Christmas. Rain all day. Most of the snow disappeared as our gifts were gratefully given and accepted. Last night in the garden outside of the back (west) window, a rabbit stood on its hind legs and stared into the house. Now it's nearly five in the afternoon. We've had virtually no contact with anyone all day. The rain is starting to freeze, then it's to become snow.
·
There is sometimes somehow
enough to fill this cavity the
fleeting tenuous gifts allocations
from dedication's effort to
stare into this wet December
winter night with
little but these companions
·
Dinner here last night with four friends and the first fire of the year in the fireplace. Stuffed squash, cranberries and pumpkin pie, then some Christmas carols sung at the piano suggested an earlier time when people actually did such things frequently - and had pianos in their homes. Those times seem lost with few equally rich replacements to be found.
·
Appearing on schedule
the mandatory
solitary silences
·
Approaching midpoint this
star that ends the year with
time still I rush to make light
·
Now this winter in its
full dark bloom
·
Cold but warmth from bright
afternoon sun into west
window across the bed back
from errands Bach
motets downstairs
·
Blood flows again as
digit's aggressive communion
hold to this for
sustaining life
an old history
contains its heat
·
In Madison today. It's very cold. Snow is frozen in high mounds along all the streets. Through the Capitol building to lunch, past the big gauge electric train running around the large tree decorated with children's ornaments. The restaurant has a collection of old fishing lures on display, many identical to my father's. Then out into the cold Madison streets and the Cage/Cunningham exhibit at the art museum (with a fantastic Wolfgang Laib piece). The usual familiar bookstore stops for us with several finds: a new Bernadette Mayer book of poems, a Lucien Freud monograph and an out of print Jim Dine monograph. As we leave the museum, a phone call from Mary Ellen's sister: their mother has fallen in the assisted living facility and needs to go to a nursing home. A dark end to a dark year. We stop for hot chocolate with solemn talk before driving home as the winter afternoon grows more lightless and turns to another winter night in a year that's soon to end. This is my favorite time of the day. There is almost a full moon. At home we find a note that two more squirrels have been removed from our attic and relocated.
·
Utility depiction puer's
boy vision as flyer then
affix waxed cane to heart
·
Cold by east front
window where fingers dance
post Tristano madness
ballet as necessary and
continuing athleticism so
long this line the holy orders
taken as host it produces now
this blood it has to be enough
·
New tracks in
the snow on front
walk (raccoon)
·
The second day of January and the new year. Down into the dark core of winter. Only single digits for high temperatures all day.
·
Winter lights
on in the house stations
as reference for all
that lives within these are
beacons navigate here
·
Only a memento
asked of these days this
perhaps only reminder from
such an unmarked calendar
·
Straight arrow flight minute
song vessel sings
into winter afternoon aether and long
needed digit coordinates
produce vertical maps their
songs as disappearing mementos
·
January third. Lunch with Mary Ellen. The café's Christmas lights and decorations are still up. Everyone here is huddled over warm meals and conversation and seems oblivious to the bitter cold outside. I recall coming here on Christmas Eve a year ago to get bread and dessert for Christmas day - coming by bus due to the heavy, high snow, then carrying everything home on the bus in my backpack. It was very quiet to and from the bus in the snow, walking down the middle of the narrow, barely plowed streets, hardly anyone to be seen. An extraordinary memory sustained and now recalled a year later.
·
Tiny vague jubilees of
joy before window's frozen
glass they beam outward
final few nights in winter's
accumulation before them
in gratitude for small
quiet mercies we so are
in comfort from whatever
tenure will be here
·
Perhaps a few strands of labored for
truth floated
beyond house's walls to immediate world
as if a difference to any
·
Antennae up primed
for reception
any signals accepted
with much gratitude
even small particles
to be called wisdom
·
Light leaves this
another day new year
inches forward time when sky
grays with less darkness there
are small life signs
near by windows
·
The Christmas ornaments bought by my father in the 1940's radiate their age and a presence of him. These objects transcend time, all of their years to the present, remaining powerful and a small connection with history - mine and a larger one.
·
Not a meteor chunk's heavy weight given as
an existence then jettisoned out into bleak black night
of world to breathe invitations
vary but still myriad possibles the limitless
wonders sit as stars their constellations beyond
day's sight to continue feeling way forward in prescribed
path with wide eyed amazement remaining even as trek's life
ages still with clay soft center willing
to be molded by unknowns the multiples of
circumstance of each day still the constant foraging forging
forward as beneath tonight's cold star sky one
as one only looking up for bright guides walking further find some
how time to know that given in ample
grace it to become its self
·
History box its heavy
weight of decades and memory
portage born yearly
always a bright
joy reappearing
at winter's birth always
as a first time
·
Translucent piano filters as
late garlands into afternoon's
vague gray light becoming less
until nearly winter night's black
these hoarfrost sound suspensions
hang in air this day's reward
·
Volumes of light snow
become comforter about
contours of all things
venture here for errand
needs and wheels sliding
·
Death visits again leaves
its forever mark how to
close such a hole made
in heart's membrane how
to continue without who
was just present
·
Temporary removal to all
this flatness intense
relentless light it does not
spare this intense life it
does not spare a new
year's place as unchosen
habitat there is no rest no comfort
when breath tries to arrive here
·
Numerous stares from photo's
gloss from one not known
bright better days certainly as love's
bloom is met
at full blossom
then how
does progression mutate alter
after the possibly deep
severities
all leads here and not one
really can read this story then
know how to say goodbye
·
Wildness in this place still
even as peoples continue
encroachment slim safe
parameter of once open
vastness today quail's speech dance
is joyful wonder
midst quiet ponder moments beneath
sun glaring relentlessness
·
Away so long from
these gestures their sonorous
evidence muscles tight
as record this absence only
such the impoverished
encrypted encodings spill
from past days as intimate
travel companion and
story's enduring cipher
·
Return to house's welcome
familiar corners windows places
of rest after cycle days of brutal
mortality registration so
desirous tonight to sit before
tempered landscape send its
stars out into bleak winter sky
·
Well above normal temperatures but a bone-chilling dampness. The snow slowly disappears. Returning to a routine and a normalcy known. Such this path worn deep.
·
Extended time for its
appearance station wound with tiny
celebrants continues
to radiate eastward hoping
for observers
·
Celebration's rations annual portions
finally disbursed to birds other
needy mammals
never internal means
for consumption of such a totality too
much for house's duo
inhabitants it is
always this sad overflow
we offer nutrient discards to
what accepts these rejoicings
left past calendar period
·
Distant voice heard after the
such long absence puzzle piece
does not fit as understood component
here what was the past what
has been unknowingly done
·
Warm pile reinforcements
stacked as possible belief this world
is a strong lung's force
living to be discovered so
the moments spent making
odd parallels as can and these days draw
from that reservoir
·
Remnant blaze from
passed holy day
appears in current
black night sky
·
A friend here all day with much talk - mainly about music. Our monthly meetings continue after two lives intersected many years ago, separated, and then rejoined. Later, a few moments at the piano, then sitting beside to the still lingering manger scene, writing. Mysteriously, I remain excited about my work despite the absence of attention or interest elsewhere.
·
Strange comfort this irregular
stack books papers the
obligation notices let them sit here
before their
slow attendance cleans desk
again makes order as
remembered the custom as
before previous days onslaught
·
Sullen series of sunless
days a new line from
a new calendar
afternoon hours diminish give
up light time as container to
be filled asking for purpose
about this cavern its
beauty as
solitary wanderer
late Beethoven
quartet downstairs
·
The inventory still throughout house's
second floor once more make
rounds bring it to life with its lights
·
Finally time
directed toward this body of beauty architecture it
takes first steps into
dense pitch web to follow and
points at century end
·
Winter rising to
its peak shows
unforgiving muscle
·
Some heroic galloping in
cold lightless
morning Diabelli the sheets strung from cord chair to chair for
young winter fort
·
Attempts to salvage remains
even into winter's peak as
days dwindle toward a
finish from such this rarified
allocation this odd gift look see
what pulses hear what sings here
·
Drawn to window that
beyond glass the small
feet that scurry here to
food over light snow knowing
so immediate this
dark the searching
before then able to rest
·
Fog last night with rain. Today it's warm - nearly forty degrees. The rain is to continue much of the day; the remaining snow will disappear slowly. Out to the garage this morning to the unused third stall to begin clearing out old firewood and other accumulated debris: things collected over time and now obviously never to be used: things anticipating what never occurred as life changed in ways unimaginable and uncontrollable. Strange to realize that it is only January. It's easy to imagine that winter is beyond its peak and spring has begun. The seasons change as they wish, often without dispensing much additional wisdom. Another day with little light. School begins tomorrow, exactly one month after Christmas.
·
Tiny gifts from
ethereal caregivers help the
move through these days a
thanksgiving before
such these warm mementos and
obsessive attendance toward
that sustenance
·
The cluster of evergreen branches that hangs on the back gate by the garage still retains its fragrant scent - as if it had just been cut. A few moments of sun today, then it disappears.
·
Failure to engage with world
as presented left then
with this accumulation of gestures these
ways of operation that somehow verify
an existence and how
to redefine on desire's dime reconsider
affirmation shadowing the present all that
glows as noble also looms with
impossibles so far from horizon
edge in winter sky night
·
Rubric of supposed festive
hours framed square in
display glass panes protect back front this observed
en route the stroll
through hallway's dark preceding
needed slumber before
coming reengagement with young aggregate
its various sparks this as
all other ornamentation disappears
·
Within some zone beyond tangible
floating at control
of material's application moments continue
to linger longer body taken toward another locate this
inheritance of small rewards earned
fought for sad prize transcends all things
known pulls humbled
practitioner out of day's dimness
·
Gaze through secluded partitions all
things squared to obsessive conforms
as plan and neat as to be when
no call for rounded corner easing
is required in name of needed care
·
Crawl back here to populated
retreat barely under wire's
clock to allocated
provisions join these
as desperate immigrant
·
Much colder today. The walk to school this morning is the coldest of the year. Everyone's face is red as they come in the door. It's nice to be drawn back into teaching, working with young people who are trying to find their path - in music, or sometimes finding they want something else. The endeavor is one to be respected, with teachers not just teaching skills but also supporting and directing each student's quest as possible. I am frequently overwhelmed by the intimacy and honor of this relationship. Home at noon to the silent, empty house. Later, the orchestral colors of Vaughn Williams' Fifth Symphony, not heard since last year, are strongly evocative; memories of listening to this music, as last year began and its winter continued, flood my consciousness. Such is one of the strengths of music - to be this evocative. Sun from the west window splays across the bed, bringing in much warmth in spite of the wind and low temperatures outside. A cardinal appears for the first time this year at the bird feeder.
·
Beauty of the week Tom
Clark and wife as time capsule and
forward to present
lineup photo before
Berkeley back yard fence oh to
just continue all of this
·
Wind catch
up after
prolonged nap (these
thoughts for Larry E.)
·
All accumulation packed
into frigid car tonight let
us see what can rise to
a surface regardless these
various punitive colds
·
Unusual this crowd
gathered in day's cold
hours imagination of such
a continuation sustain this
level the mutual discourse
as a regular custom
·
Rude grim glimpse into present
state of success this haggard
furniture grants the only availability all
inertia pours inside to make
assembledge flex as can speak as
capable in clearly late hour after repeated
strivings here is reject as prize use
for interconversing as
possible it the best offered
·
Arrangement of accumulated
associated remains small things left are
tangibles clumped
before door as if grasping
to a presence no longer here stay
as memorial and memory and as
best now to be done
·
Emerging from candle lit
deep sleep's dream into cold
winter pathway the struggle
through this immense unmapped
distance this lifetime
length repeated as allowed with
frail one at journey's end
wanting so to see tiny life smell
new raw crocus in its opening
·
How odd this light, coming in through the south window, projecting on to a wall in this room. One white wall of many in a monocolored house. The light is like a guardian that does not speak.
·
A once candlelit trinity as
holy aggregate against the
cold nights that now but
memory such the hymns sung
as one they continue still heard
in tonight's growing solitude
·
Last day for
classes I take the long way for walking
home tonight in
the cold
·
Strings of small lights hang like fringe above the windows and doors of the cafe. There's a Christmas tree in the center window with golden bows and a few other decorations. We sit with our soup among others gathered here, everyone so perfect, everyone so imperfect. All of us huddled against the cold December day and winter's presence.
·
A fool's determination
same attractions return the
impossible adventures of bright bell's
flare in incubation fury
to hold this chalice see
blood flow
through piston valves
its pursuit
appears again as magnet
·
An afternoon of pre-holiday errands. Bach's D minor Partita for violin, its movements interrupted by some of the chorales, is playing in the car. Driving north through Estabrook Park, the scent of evergreen boughs comes from the trunk and mingles with the sound of Christoph Poppens' baroque violin. The music is beautiful beyond imagination. The violin pieces are perfect: melody and harmony functioning as a single line of music (this is what a good improvised jazz solo should do but seldom does). The chorale's voices are calm resignations between the movements of violin music. The park's road is dry but covered with salt after freezing rain earlier in the week. A vague frozen layer of snow covers most of the park's grass. In the past I've seen various animals in the park: a fox, a woodchuck, a deer, geese; once a coyote appeared and raced next to the car for a few minutes. Today only squirrels are here. Dreamlike/mystical states (induced by the Bach and the evergreen's scent) alternate with reality as I'm in and out of the car for the errand stops.
·
Still so attracted to night's
beginning here day giving
its last minutes of light so desirous
to return to house's quiet wealth walk
through unlit rooms look
into dark world beyond window dots
of light appearing
in houses close by as others end
this day begin another night
·
Awake early down
stairs into house's darkness the narcissus from bulb to
now nearly twenty inches with
its fragrance
·
Incessant noise a background
always everywhere when waiting
did we
ask this onslaught
how to move
away from such sustained
oppression
how to find some
where a silence
·
A gray morning. Winter officially begins today. The year's longest night bringing a longer day. The bleak wintered ground begins its sleep. There never seems to be a controlled resolution to these final days of school; instead, there are only frantic rushes toward whatever kind of completion or finality seems possible. The push of energy pulls to this point for months; it crests for a few days and is then followed by an immediate drop into what seems like an abyss. A few flakes of snow drift before a tree's skeleton beyond the steel framed windows.
·
To think of that presence
here for such a duration waiting
perhaps in anticipation of
these fragrant gatherings
·
Small noises in the house
still after numbered days
of absence sound
suggestions will not
disburse from where tiny
breath was once and we
welcome this continuing company
·
Vibrant scented stations visited
in morning hours stop
at each while house is still
dark consume
air of aura refusing exit
·
Present and settled in with
a vengeance mystery volts
continue rampant
surge through body's lingering frame
what was called upon cannot
desist it will not subside flailing
as visible spasm
some determined
current flows the uncontrolled
sparks into flesh
cartilage as horror tremor
·
Through the park
again today with Bach
·
This flow out into
aether particles
as excess and
realized in
futile encodings
·
Light snow appearing over night. The final day for exams, this morning is filled with drawn out keyboard appointments. Evergreen branches tied together hang from doors (three upstairs, one downstairs) in the house; I never pass by one without stopping to take in its fragrance. In the upstairs east window our small tree is wound only with tiny white lights. Awake at four AM with energy pulsing. Last night, seated around a table with food and lit candles, there was a communion with new companions. All present were there in deference to and in acknowledgement of gathered wounds, but also there was a hope for some new kind of survival. That rises against the cold of winter and these temporal days, each one now increasing in length.
·
Remember every stride with
straightness as addition to
counted inheritance today's summation
surfaces in totality manifest each moment
each day strives
toward some new envisioned form
·
Days lengthen now toward
blossom's bloom the
long warm sun hours
·
Grateful such these
reinforcements a sum
arrives its hour of need
·
Several inches of snow fell last night. The plow went through the alley just before seven this morning. I need to buy the last of the groceries for the coming few days (pizza dough, halibut, cider, chestnuts) then meet Mary Ellen for lunch. Coffee with a friend yesterday with much talk about Samuel Beckett, a figure like Thelonious Monk: both are referred to often but, I'd guess, seldom understood. References to beauty appear little in Beckett's work; if one really believed what Beckett wrote there would seem to be little reason not to end one's life.
·
An edge here perhaps some
new map a starting point
the pulse from that with
all its unknowing
just a blank
depth to be filled
with new content forging (through this
new snow) as search
party after losing
that held so dear and essential
·
Christmas. Rain all day. Most of the snow disappeared as our gifts were gratefully given and accepted. Last night in the garden outside of the back (west) window, a rabbit stood on its hind legs and stared into the house. Now it's nearly five in the afternoon. We've had virtually no contact with anyone all day. The rain is starting to freeze, then it's to become snow.
·
There is sometimes somehow
enough to fill this cavity the
fleeting tenuous gifts allocations
from dedication's effort to
stare into this wet December
winter night with
little but these companions
·
Dinner here last night with four friends and the first fire of the year in the fireplace. Stuffed squash, cranberries and pumpkin pie, then some Christmas carols sung at the piano suggested an earlier time when people actually did such things frequently - and had pianos in their homes. Those times seem lost with few equally rich replacements to be found.
·
Appearing on schedule
the mandatory
solitary silences
·
Approaching midpoint this
star that ends the year with
time still I rush to make light
·
Now this winter in its
full dark bloom
·
Cold but warmth from bright
afternoon sun into west
window across the bed back
from errands Bach
motets downstairs
·
Blood flows again as
digit's aggressive communion
hold to this for
sustaining life
an old history
contains its heat
·
In Madison today. It's very cold. Snow is frozen in high mounds along all the streets. Through the Capitol building to lunch, past the big gauge electric train running around the large tree decorated with children's ornaments. The restaurant has a collection of old fishing lures on display, many identical to my father's. Then out into the cold Madison streets and the Cage/Cunningham exhibit at the art museum (with a fantastic Wolfgang Laib piece). The usual familiar bookstore stops for us with several finds: a new Bernadette Mayer book of poems, a Lucien Freud monograph and an out of print Jim Dine monograph. As we leave the museum, a phone call from Mary Ellen's sister: their mother has fallen in the assisted living facility and needs to go to a nursing home. A dark end to a dark year. We stop for hot chocolate with solemn talk before driving home as the winter afternoon grows more lightless and turns to another winter night in a year that's soon to end. This is my favorite time of the day. There is almost a full moon. At home we find a note that two more squirrels have been removed from our attic and relocated.
·
Utility depiction puer's
boy vision as flyer then
affix waxed cane to heart
·
Cold by east front
window where fingers dance
post Tristano madness
ballet as necessary and
continuing athleticism so
long this line the holy orders
taken as host it produces now
this blood it has to be enough
·
New tracks in
the snow on front
walk (raccoon)
·
The second day of January and the new year. Down into the dark core of winter. Only single digits for high temperatures all day.
·
Winter lights
on in the house stations
as reference for all
that lives within these are
beacons navigate here
·
Only a memento
asked of these days this
perhaps only reminder from
such an unmarked calendar
·
Straight arrow flight minute
song vessel sings
into winter afternoon aether and long
needed digit coordinates
produce vertical maps their
songs as disappearing mementos
·
January third. Lunch with Mary Ellen. The café's Christmas lights and decorations are still up. Everyone here is huddled over warm meals and conversation and seems oblivious to the bitter cold outside. I recall coming here on Christmas Eve a year ago to get bread and dessert for Christmas day - coming by bus due to the heavy, high snow, then carrying everything home on the bus in my backpack. It was very quiet to and from the bus in the snow, walking down the middle of the narrow, barely plowed streets, hardly anyone to be seen. An extraordinary memory sustained and now recalled a year later.
·
Tiny vague jubilees of
joy before window's frozen
glass they beam outward
final few nights in winter's
accumulation before them
in gratitude for small
quiet mercies we so are
in comfort from whatever
tenure will be here
·
Perhaps a few strands of labored for
truth floated
beyond house's walls to immediate world
as if a difference to any
·
Antennae up primed
for reception
any signals accepted
with much gratitude
even small particles
to be called wisdom
·
Light leaves this
another day new year
inches forward time when sky
grays with less darkness there
are small life signs
near by windows
·
The Christmas ornaments bought by my father in the 1940's radiate their age and a presence of him. These objects transcend time, all of their years to the present, remaining powerful and a small connection with history - mine and a larger one.
·
Not a meteor chunk's heavy weight given as
an existence then jettisoned out into bleak black night
of world to breathe invitations
vary but still myriad possibles the limitless
wonders sit as stars their constellations beyond
day's sight to continue feeling way forward in prescribed
path with wide eyed amazement remaining even as trek's life
ages still with clay soft center willing
to be molded by unknowns the multiples of
circumstance of each day still the constant foraging forging
forward as beneath tonight's cold star sky one
as one only looking up for bright guides walking further find some
how time to know that given in ample
grace it to become its self
·
History box its heavy
weight of decades and memory
portage born yearly
always a bright
joy reappearing
at winter's birth always
as a first time
·
Translucent piano filters as
late garlands into afternoon's
vague gray light becoming less
until nearly winter night's black
these hoarfrost sound suspensions
hang in air this day's reward
·
Volumes of light snow
become comforter about
contours of all things
venture here for errand
needs and wheels sliding
·
Death visits again leaves
its forever mark how to
close such a hole made
in heart's membrane how
to continue without who
was just present
·
Temporary removal to all
this flatness intense
relentless light it does not
spare this intense life it
does not spare a new
year's place as unchosen
habitat there is no rest no comfort
when breath tries to arrive here
·
Numerous stares from photo's
gloss from one not known
bright better days certainly as love's
bloom is met
at full blossom
then how
does progression mutate alter
after the possibly deep
severities
all leads here and not one
really can read this story then
know how to say goodbye
·
Wildness in this place still
even as peoples continue
encroachment slim safe
parameter of once open
vastness today quail's speech dance
is joyful wonder
midst quiet ponder moments beneath
sun glaring relentlessness
·
Away so long from
these gestures their sonorous
evidence muscles tight
as record this absence only
such the impoverished
encrypted encodings spill
from past days as intimate
travel companion and
story's enduring cipher
·
Return to house's welcome
familiar corners windows places
of rest after cycle days of brutal
mortality registration so
desirous tonight to sit before
tempered landscape send its
stars out into bleak winter sky
·
Well above normal temperatures but a bone-chilling dampness. The snow slowly disappears. Returning to a routine and a normalcy known. Such this path worn deep.
·
Extended time for its
appearance station wound with tiny
celebrants continues
to radiate eastward hoping
for observers
·
Celebration's rations annual portions
finally disbursed to birds other
needy mammals
never internal means
for consumption of such a totality too
much for house's duo
inhabitants it is
always this sad overflow
we offer nutrient discards to
what accepts these rejoicings
left past calendar period
·
Distant voice heard after the
such long absence puzzle piece
does not fit as understood component
here what was the past what
has been unknowingly done
·
Warm pile reinforcements
stacked as possible belief this world
is a strong lung's force
living to be discovered so
the moments spent making
odd parallels as can and these days draw
from that reservoir
·
Remnant blaze from
passed holy day
appears in current
black night sky
·
A friend here all day with much talk - mainly about music. Our monthly meetings continue after two lives intersected many years ago, separated, and then rejoined. Later, a few moments at the piano, then sitting beside to the still lingering manger scene, writing. Mysteriously, I remain excited about my work despite the absence of attention or interest elsewhere.
·
Strange comfort this irregular
stack books papers the
obligation notices let them sit here
before their
slow attendance cleans desk
again makes order as
remembered the custom as
before previous days onslaught
·
Sullen series of sunless
days a new line from
a new calendar
afternoon hours diminish give
up light time as container to
be filled asking for purpose
about this cavern its
beauty as
solitary wanderer
late Beethoven
quartet downstairs
·
The inventory still throughout house's
second floor once more make
rounds bring it to life with its lights
·
Finally time
directed toward this body of beauty architecture it
takes first steps into
dense pitch web to follow and
points at century end
·
Winter rising to
its peak shows
unforgiving muscle
·
Some heroic galloping in
cold lightless
morning Diabelli the sheets strung from cord chair to chair for
young winter fort
·
Attempts to salvage remains
even into winter's peak as
days dwindle toward a
finish from such this rarified
allocation this odd gift look see
what pulses hear what sings here
·
Drawn to window that
beyond glass the small
feet that scurry here to
food over light snow knowing
so immediate this
dark the searching
before then able to rest
·
Fog last night with rain. Today it's warm - nearly forty degrees. The rain is to continue much of the day; the remaining snow will disappear slowly. Out to the garage this morning to the unused third stall to begin clearing out old firewood and other accumulated debris: things collected over time and now obviously never to be used: things anticipating what never occurred as life changed in ways unimaginable and uncontrollable. Strange to realize that it is only January. It's easy to imagine that winter is beyond its peak and spring has begun. The seasons change as they wish, often without dispensing much additional wisdom. Another day with little light. School begins tomorrow, exactly one month after Christmas.
·
Tiny gifts from
ethereal caregivers help the
move through these days a
thanksgiving before
such these warm mementos and
obsessive attendance toward
that sustenance
·
The cluster of evergreen branches that hangs on the back gate by the garage still retains its fragrant scent - as if it had just been cut. A few moments of sun today, then it disappears.
·
Failure to engage with world
as presented left then
with this accumulation of gestures these
ways of operation that somehow verify
an existence and how
to redefine on desire's dime reconsider
affirmation shadowing the present all that
glows as noble also looms with
impossibles so far from horizon
edge in winter sky night
·
Rubric of supposed festive
hours framed square in
display glass panes protect back front this observed
en route the stroll
through hallway's dark preceding
needed slumber before
coming reengagement with young aggregate
its various sparks this as
all other ornamentation disappears
·
Within some zone beyond tangible
floating at control
of material's application moments continue
to linger longer body taken toward another locate this
inheritance of small rewards earned
fought for sad prize transcends all things
known pulls humbled
practitioner out of day's dimness
·
Gaze through secluded partitions all
things squared to obsessive conforms
as plan and neat as to be when
no call for rounded corner easing
is required in name of needed care
·
Crawl back here to populated
retreat barely under wire's
clock to allocated
provisions join these
as desperate immigrant
·
Much colder today. The walk to school this morning is the coldest of the year. Everyone's face is red as they come in the door. It's nice to be drawn back into teaching, working with young people who are trying to find their path - in music, or sometimes finding they want something else. The endeavor is one to be respected, with teachers not just teaching skills but also supporting and directing each student's quest as possible. I am frequently overwhelmed by the intimacy and honor of this relationship. Home at noon to the silent, empty house. Later, the orchestral colors of Vaughn Williams' Fifth Symphony, not heard since last year, are strongly evocative; memories of listening to this music, as last year began and its winter continued, flood my consciousness. Such is one of the strengths of music - to be this evocative. Sun from the west window splays across the bed, bringing in much warmth in spite of the wind and low temperatures outside. A cardinal appears for the first time this year at the bird feeder.
·
Beauty of the week Tom
Clark and wife as time capsule and
forward to present
lineup photo before
Berkeley back yard fence oh to
just continue all of this
·
Wind catch
up after
prolonged nap (these
thoughts for Larry E.)
·
All accumulation packed
into frigid car tonight let
us see what can rise to
a surface regardless these
various punitive colds
·
Unusual this crowd
gathered in day's cold
hours imagination of such
a continuation sustain this
level the mutual discourse
as a regular custom
·
Rude grim glimpse into present
state of success this haggard
furniture grants the only availability all
inertia pours inside to make
assembledge flex as can speak as
capable in clearly late hour after repeated
strivings here is reject as prize use
for interconversing as
possible it the best offered
·
Arrangement of accumulated
associated remains small things left are
tangibles clumped
before door as if grasping
to a presence no longer here stay
as memorial and memory and as
best now to be done
·
Emerging from candle lit
deep sleep's dream into cold
winter pathway the struggle
through this immense unmapped
distance this lifetime
length repeated as allowed with
frail one at journey's end
wanting so to see tiny life smell
new raw crocus in its opening
8 December 2009 to 29 January 2010 (5:45 PM)
© Steve Nelson-Raney 2012