Plot of Origin

If you were to ask me where I come from
I would say without hesitation it’s not a story of birds and bees,
mothers and fathers, even seeds and soil.
I come from the time before time, when the nascent elements
were chemical fire dust of minerals molecules
and love. This is the primal answer, the truth.

But today, for a more immediate frame of reference
I come from the garden,
where my tomatoes have been rendered inert;
dozens of ghostly green fruit frozen in time.
As gardener, midwife to the plants, I withdraw my shears
and begin cutting away the abundance of lush green foliage;
sacrificing the fragrant leaves and doomed yellow blossoms.
As I sever the tough, gristly stalks the iron sky drops rain
dappling my bare feet, my blades, my plants cut down in their prime.
And I see then it’s of no use, an insulating membrane of plastic;
my tomatoes are destined for an unconventional recipe.

Ransom Poem

From my notebook

I go through periods of time when poetry or its seeds rise brilliantly from the mud and I begin to write spontaneously. But when I sit down with an intent write poetry - inspired by some inner tickle to say something- and the images and ideas don't coalesce into words I stop trying and take a more playful approach. Lately I've been coming up with little assignments and prompts for myself. One of my favorites involves flipping through a dictionary and writing down the last word on the page it opens to and doing a quick stream-of-consciousness writing using these words. This afternoon I flipped up a couple of really interesting lists. The first one:

bludgeon
eat
heresy
heart
locks
nostalgia
peek
rumba
superstition

And here's my free write: 
 

                   I turn to any page and my word is
                    bludgeon, something heavy and unforgiving
                    too much to eat.
                    My heresy is a heart that locks,
                    a caution my friend
                    against nostalgia, though I invite you
                    to peek as my satin hips rumba,
                    cross yourself in superstition
                    against the sin you cannot erase.

The next series of words was:

bourbon
dreadful
drama
fornicate
joker
magnify
odious
shade
spasmodic
temporal
virus

Love this list! And the free write:


            bourbon spills down to the floor
            covering ground like this dreadful drama.
            garish darkness hyenas fornicate
            and a joker howls to the moon whose light will
            magnify the odious shade of evil
            glowing in spasmodic delight,
            a temporal virus eating us alive.

Poems from the forest

Two weekends ago I had an amazing experience at Opal Creek in the Oregon wilderness. With a group of 7 other women I set off into the woods for 3 days of yoga, writing and simply being in nature. The workshop was offered by Becca Deysach's Ibex Studios and was rejuvenating and magical beyond my wildest dreams. An orange butterfly walked calmly onto my finger and sat with me until our hike continued away from one glimmering opal pool to the next. If that's not an auspicious omen or creative blessing I don't know what is. Also with all the gifts of the experience, I busted through a persistent creative block I've been carrying around for a long time. Gillian's opening, grounding and strengthening yoga classes, Becca's intelligent writing prompts, and the experience of sharing writing with a group, was the holistic medicine I needed. The majesty and peacefulness of our surroundings, the easy friendship and natural pace of living were also profoundly healing and inspiring. I wrote more on the experience in a blog post titled "Retreat", for Touchstones of the Sacred.

Anyway, on Skull & Quill I want to share some of the writing that came out of the workshop. Both of the following poems were culled from the writing that came out in free writes after Becca's prompts on the second afternoon of the retreat. After a blissfully slow morning of tea, sitting in the sun and yoga, we hiked through the forest and sat in a circle on the earth. The ground was unbelievably spongy - thousands of years of fallen trees accumulating moisture, moss and vast cities of minute creatures. A perfect nest for the 8 of us, within earshot of the creek.

Normally I don't share my poetry until I've gone over it with ever-finer toothed combs (about 25 times). Here I'm going to share both the stuff that came out of the free write and these first draft poems. I suppose I am cultivating openness with process. Friends and strangers, I welcome your feedback on the poems and will share future revisions here.

Free write prompt: we were asked to find a place alone in the forest and looking through a lens no larger than our two hands held in a spyglass circle, find a place that spoke to us. After some time alone with our place, we began writing by describing what we saw through our lens. 
This hollow goes deep beneath an ancient tree. Deep to the center of the earth. If I were an inch tall this hollow would take me into a dark, mysterious cavern. Spiderwebs with lacy patterns glisten in the sun - angelic stained glass. This hollow is gilded with light, death, decay and new growth. Draped across the silent hollow the webs of light catch what drops down, returning to the earth. If I could put my heart in this hollow it would rest in the cool silent dark, until the steady infinite pulse of life seized my weariness, my fear, my hope. Beating now with a simple, timeless rhythm. Have I ever sat still before? Time passes, water flows, the forest decays and is reborn, and now my heart rests at peace with time, decay and rebirth. But the buzzing of yellow jackets, flies chase me from my peaceful retreat. So what is this hollow? A space big enough for my whole heart. And the ceaseless buzzing of thought comes upon me in massive waves flooding the cavern with noise, energy, darkness.

Poem draft
Contemplation in the forest, Opal Creek OR
This hollow goes deep beneath an ancient tree
to the center of the earth.
Draped across its silent mouth spiderwebs glisten in the sun
like angelic stained glass. The luminescent strands
catch what drops down, the returning descent to the earth
interrupted.

If I were an inch tall
this hollow could take me whole,
into a dark mysterious cavern
where I could live in quiet refuge,
a solitary Thumbelina. Instead I sit beside this hollow,
gilded with light and death and decay, my warm hand pressed
into the textures of the tree,
spongy moss, rough lichen, damp powdery bark - united.

Ignoring the frantic buzzing insects, anxious
that I might take from them
their brief existence. Thoughts buzzing too, afraid
I may no longer need their hollow sustenance.

Time passes, water flows, the forest decays and is reborn, nursed by its own fallen grandmothers.

If I could put my heart in this hollow, it would rest
in cool, silent dark
until the steady, infinite pulse at the center of life
seizes up my weariness, my fear, my hope
in a great resuscitating breath.

Then the beating of my heart would match
the simple infinite rhythm, at peace with timelessness
and continuum.

Free write prompt: after creating a (vexing) chart that depicted the poles in our life, and our current place of balance between them, we wrote about our experience of polarity.
What would it mean to surrender - to drop the tension between being and doing? And plunge face first, heart first running through the river running quietly through my life? I am tired of writing about it, tired of thinking about it. Can I just be with this question? I don’t have the answers and it makes my blood itch. I don’t have the time but the hour is here. A gentle rain gathering. I cannot remember the first great surrender when my mother’s womb quickened and the time for being became a life of doing, but I think this is where I must begin. At the beginning when all was unknown and my feet were bare, my trust infinite, my curiosity without purpose. Clouds becomes rain becomes river becomes ocean and this is my blood. Don’t tell me what I should do, must do, cannot do. Amid the chaos, a gentle intelligence emerges speaking another language entirely. The language of water, soil, blood. Let me carry you it whispers. Let me take you there. Where? Curiosity without purpose, mystery without knowing. Being. Forget what you know, swimming will not get you there.







 
Poem draft
Contemplation in the forest II, Opal Creek OR
What would it mean to surrender
and drop the tension between being and doing,
to plunge heart-first into the river that runs quietly
through the center of my life,
to embrace curiosity without purpose, mystery without knowing?
How would I release the confines of physics
and take the helm of my heart, and be carried safely
down this eternal waterway?

I cannot remember my first great surrender -
when my mother's womb contracted and no longer fit,
when my time for being grew to be a life of doing
but this is where I must begin.
A gentle rain is gathering, promising transformation
with the breaking of water.
Clouds become rain becomes river becomes ocean
and this is my blood.

Deep in the forest now, so far 
from the chaos of emerging on that first cold, bright, deafening day
there is a whisper that speaks another language entirely -
the language of water, soil and blood.
Let me carry you, it whispers.
Forget what you know, swimming will not get you there.

Poetry

Lately I've been thinking about poetry, what is it? why do I write it? and where does it go when I'm not writing it? It has been said that it is not so much what poets say, but their ability to tune into poetic language rhythms that makes their poetry great. In the case of Dr. Suess this is completely true.

About 16 years ago I began crafting and publishing poems, and for about 10 years poetry was within my grasp constantly. I wrote poems sitting on the floor of overcrowded buses, at my desk surrounded by candles and incense, curled into scratchy plaid chairs at the campus library, wandering lonely through parks; I even wrote poems in my dreams.

The word poetry is originally derived from the Greek poiein, to make or create. From agriculture to architechture humans are driven to create order. We make our world systematically, efficiently and beautifully. When we say something is poetic, it generally has an elegance (from the Latin root eligere, to choose out, select).

One reason I write poetry is for the satisfaction (or is it a need?) of creating an elegant structure for the raw, chaotic, fertile mud of existence. Indeed when I am in sync with the poetic energies of existence there is a rhythm, an orderliness to that feeling. The anxiety, existential quandries and whatever else climb out of the archetypal earth of my mind is soothed by the meaning and purpose of composition.

Here's a poem I wrote during that first prolific period of poetry -

A Half-Sleep Dream

Night, when it is still
The dark air offers its voice
And the house settles
~
As a man of soft
moldering bones eases in
to his rain-damp grave
~
Strong black boots echo
slow steps, sauntering to the
far end of the hall
~
The giant starfish
of his hand sliding along
the cool milk white wall
~
The wind stirs the chimes
their song, and the rains', distant
like him, at my door
~
I see this in my
head, as the clock ticks away
the silence of night

I wrote this poem in the Americanized haiku form of 3 lines, with 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Do you feel the rhythm? Footsteps, rain, chimes, a clock ticking. My heart beating.