Walking the dog on a Winter's night...

Hills of ice outside the indoor rink. I climb them, looking for your photograph. In the barkskin patterns of ice, soiled layers of sand, the rock-frozen display, I place my felt-thick feet, heavy-booted. The light from the ice centre's lamps thows a tungsten glow on the frozen rivulets and packed densities.

My dog runs over the mounds, compacted ice crystals, our breath steaming. I dig my head deeper into my upturned collar, the wind sub-zero, seeing you on the underside of the dark sky.

I am wearing deerskin gloves and merino wool tights and snowpants and a tight jacket pulled up high. Two layers of fleece insulate me underneath.

The frigid air catches my nostrils as I walk, white plume of breath, my thoughts composing the rigid ice hills where your image lies, fragile, fractals of millions of snowflakes, in crystalline rock.

Winnowing

We find ourselves in alleys,
the underpasses of our lives,
the places we cross through.

Where the cities don't reach.
Where the highrises and cultural centres
and shopping concourses aren't.
The backsides of houses,
in the litter that collects in the tunnels.
Scraps of memories, fragments of thoughts.

I thought I found you on Cherry Beach
in sand like a dune twisted with flecks,
the edge of the water littered with overflow,
scraps, what's thrown overboard,
what washes up on the shore from
other shores winnowed by the waves.

Did I romanticize you?

I don't think so.
I saw your depths,
the broken double helixes,
the places where you re-thread
your thoughts again and again.

Where we replay
what was, what never was.
I want to blank out the obsessional
complusive areas of my brain. To be
free.

We are incomprehensible to ourselves.

Beneath the flow of this constructed city,
soil, silt, rock, caverns of water,
the earth turning on its axis of magma,
the flow of a volatile consciousness.

Beneath the clutter, the mélange
the edges of our lives,
tumbling,
beneath.

Gloss

"What is sexual pleasure for?"
"To preserve the world's gloss."

When we make love, we "help
the world refresh its gloss."

But the "world is like the impression
left by the telling of a story."
...................Yogavasistha, 2.3.11

Perhaps it is a story of love.
.........Or war.
...............Or survival.
Or of us, who came into the world through
.........................its gloss.

___________
The first 4 lines found in Ka, pp.71-2.

Fragments...

Today, only this:

'To love.' The infinitive of an active transitive verb with an open-ended objet de l'amour...

Towards Spring...

I drag myself, weary and sun-deprived, towards Spring...

I wrote this at MB's site a moment ago, and wonder if it'll be one of those images that opens a whole cast of images; I miss the ease of writing prose poetry pieces, and am waiting for words that shape themselves to the metaphoric consciousness to return....

Those of you with feeds know that I'm an incessant editor; you shalln't then mind if I update this until a prose poetry piece has formed out of the initial image? (which is a bit melodramatic, I'll agree :)

Some good news...

My very good news is that my daughter made the honour role. It's official- the report card came. This may not seem a big deal, but it is. The last grade she actually completed was Grade 7. In Vancouver she dropped out of 3 schools, a traditional one, a tiny alternative school, and distance ed. It was a most difficult time, and I ended up homeschooling (I made her read books in my library and do internet research on them: we didn't get far, but she did start exploring the rise of the novel through women novelists, Shelley, Austen, Bronte, and read Sophie's World on the history of philosophy, and a fair bit of art history, etc.). Here in Toronto I managed to get her back into her grade level, Grade 10, and, while it was touch and go more than a few times, and I was very worried, her diligence with homework, completing all assignments and essays, and getting to school has paid off. Congratulations, honey! Now onto the 2nd semester...

What specifically is love?

I wrote: I must ask you to be more detailed about love, more specific. What is love? Exactly? Well, that's impossible, but the sense of love, feeling love has so many different forms and tones, I wonder if we can find metaphors to express what this quality of love is that we value so highly?

MB and Ken have begun to respond, though I hope to hear more!

As the day goes on, I will add more to this post. For now, I would say love is:

That sacred place of the heart where you care for another's happiness and well being with a sense of permanence. Love is the deep caring, no matter what the outcome, because there is a serious intent beneath the surfaces that is trustworthy, reliable, strong, withstanding. Love is letting someone love you. It is easy with our children, this deep committment to love through all the joys and all the trials. I would put the strength of the mother-child bond at the heart of what I understand about love, because it is resilient, never-ending, deep, caring, strong, rather than the model of romantic love; in other words, the deepest love for me is familial, and romantic love is most pure and strong when it approaches the lifelong trust and comfort of the familial.

12:03pm. Ah, now, no, that doesn't work either. See Adriana Bliss's post on the mother as couch.

Not to throw out lovemaking with the baby and the bathwater! Romantic love, with its roots in courtly love, the adoration of the beloved from afar, is based all too often on illusions. What I mean, I think, is if romantic love could have the depth and continuity of familial love then it would be invincible. When I see this with couples who are as in love with each other 20 or 30 years on, that's what I think the miracle is. There's no separation of the muse from your partner. Romantic and familial love converge and nourish each other in spectacular ways.