the planets are lining up and we're all excited

well, okay, i'm excited. i've been checking 'em out every night that it is clear, trying to figure out which one is saturn, which one is jupiter. (venus is easy -- it's the brightest). but, after the last few days i wonder if they are stacking up against us. my co-op mate ryan smashed his hand into the rocks while surfing on sunday, fracturing his hand. i've tweeked my neck and cannot beat a funk that has seemed to envelop me. *everyone* at work is grumpy.

last night six of us ventured out to the performing arts center to see lucinda williams. i'd been so excited. and despite my funk i really put effort into pulling myself out of the doldrums for the show. lucinda has been a downright inspiration to me... to write and sing. and not worry about the complexity of the song or how my voice sounds. (don't read that wrong: lucinda sings with amazing emotion and her song lyrics are stellar.... it's just that she can take an everyday thing and turn it into the everyman's anthem and that is amazing).

anyhow, the concert almost sucked. she hated us. the crowd. it wasn't really our fault. she'd spent the last three nights playing the filmore in the city. how can my little whiteybread squeekyclean town compete with that? we all heard her from the stage, her back turned to us, away from the mic, drinking something from a red plastic fratparty cup say to one of the guitarists "no alcohol, no cigarettes...." then, after an hour of playing she finally talked to the audience saying "i don't know what it is, but this is the lowest energy; i feel like i'm up here just going [mimes guitar strumm movement]. i hope you come and see us sometime in a bar."

we rallied. the whole place. jumped to its feet. wanting to please her. but, truly it was too late. she didn't put the effort in to get us going in the beginning, we didn't have the momentum to pick it up on our own. too bad.

meanwhile, it was still great to see her live. her two guitarists were a.ma.zing. they are guitar gods. and i don't even know what their names are. one played lowslung and bittersweet. his solos broke my heart. the other played regular electric guitar and the pedal steel and seemed to want to address the crowd. he was more of the heart of the show than lucinda. my favorite is when they played to each other. i think i got a little weak-kneed on that one.

i'm behind on my poem for each april day. can i blame those line-dancing planets? rzzl frzzl.

m.

Dream Variations

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me—
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

— Langston Hughes

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

— William Butler Yeats

Reconciliation

Today's poem comes from the W.A.. . .

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again, and ever
again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin — I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

— Walt Whitman.

Halfway Down

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
it isn't in the nursery,
it isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

— A. A. Milne from When We Were Very Young.

Conversation

Four talked about the pine tree. One defined it by genus, species, and variety. One assessed its disadvantages for the lumber industry. One quoted poems about pine trees in many languages. One took root, stretched out branches, and rustled.

— Dan Pagis

Two New Sites

Craig Ruiz. Talented web designer and painter.
Check out Craig's paintings. He's having a show in June at Big Sky. Craig's pictures have appeared in emdot.com or often go out to my friends as beautiful examples of where I live. He has the cutest cat ever called Che.

Nigel Cambell. Talented web designer and photographer.
Nigel's newest site is called Decisions Revisions. Nigel'll give you a picture a day. Or thereabouts. A long-time web journaler, N lives in England. He's got a sexy voice. ;)

Distance

Now that all your distance surrounds me
I stand unarmed inside a lone evening

The honey is fragrant on the table
and there is thunder in the valley,
much anxiety between the one and the other

I am frequented space
deserted by your sun.

Come. Ask me where
shout solitude at me

And this sky tainted with dismay
with mountain lights
has learned me by heart forever.

— Andrea Zanzotto

Too Many Names

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day
are washed out by the waters of night.

No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
Of Chiles and Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of ht earth
and I know it is without a name.

When Ilived amongst the roots
they pleased me more than flowers did,
and when I spoke to a stone
it rang like a bell.

It is so long, the spring
which goes on all winter.
Time lost its shoes.
A year is four centuries.

When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not I while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely
have we landed into life
than we come as if new-born;
let us not fill our mouths
with so many faltering names
with so much sad formalities
with so much pompous letters,
with so much of yours and mine,
with so much signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a crepitant fragrance.

— Pablo Neruda

the irony never ends

did you know that all those flags flapping on everyone's cars after
Sept 11 actually decreased gas mileage, therefore creating a greater
need for oil?

and on that vein... two new ones from Lynda Barry: "in tribute" to the S.U.V. woman and Middle East Crisis.

overheards

marya: john would've been a good journalist because he's a skeptic.
rem: really? i'm not convinced.

today's poem (which is in the previous entry) is from the same author from yesterday. only i am behind in my daily poems. when i asked mike if i could publish the first he sent this as well, and i am very happy to share it.

****

tonight my mom, sister and i ventured to the performing arts center to catch the vagina monologues. i thought it was perfect to watch that with your mom and your sister. it's good to belly laugh all together. it was nice to see so many women show up in the packed house, but nicer to see the men. and i wondered, who got dragged here? who was appeasing? who suggested? at one point a man towards the front let out a great laugh and the three women on stage grinned at him.

i had my mom on one side and two seventy year old grannies on the other. seventy doesn't seem very old to me anymore. and i know my own gram would've howled with the rest of us. but they sat very quietly and didn't clap between vignettes. i know i shouldn't try to read anything into that.

****

i'm moving. temporarily moving. my place is getting painted. and it will take a week to prep and a week to paint. i'm in a temporary spot and i love it. so nice to have new surroundings, a new environment, a new way the light looks in the morning, coming through different windows pointing in different directions. the change is so good, i'm having second thoughts about moving back in....

****

enough chit chat. remember to read today's poem. and yesterday's.

m. <-- emdot

Warrior Heart

She knows fear
she's touched it
and it's touched her
it is not that she is unafraid

Her fearful heart
is even familiar
a common experience
in her daily life

It's not just the big fear
it's almost never that
though she's been there as well
she's seen the face of terror

But right now it's not some mortal danger
it's more just getting through today
or even the next minute
it's just staying — again — and again

That subtle edge that presses her heart
the little threat that sinks her stomach
that makes her want to turn away
that makes it easy just to go

Yet she doesn't turn away
she opens up and lets it in
and it hurts but she stays
and shares the pain with tenderness

Though she may be afraid
because there is no end to fear
still - she walks into that uncertainty
she can't help it any longer

The fear of what’s to come
the fear of what has been
the fear of feeling anything
the fear of being alive

If you were to know her
"fearlessness" may never cross your mind
but you might just perceive
how she is touched by life

How she lingers in the flowers
How a bird’s song brings a tear
how she is there – for anyone
simple — ordinary — straightforward

The tender open heart
vulnerable to the depth
with nothing to defend
undaunted

— Mike Rubey

Subj: The Promise Land

i'm on a new (for me) list serv and the thread's headed towards the middle-east. i'm right, no i'm right, no i'm right, etc. lots of emotion. lots of opinion. and all i know is that it is very complicated and even though i semi-keep up with the news, i'm no scholar and i'm no expert. i just wish there was peace and some kindness. and that sounds trite, but i don't mean it that way.

the below poem was a response to the thread. i don't think the author meant it as a poem, but i liked it very much and he gave permission for it to appear here. and here you are.

(Subj: The Promise Land)

The promised land is everywhere, and nowhere.
It is in the heart of those who hold it.
It is not real estate.
It has never been real estate.
To hold the view that it is any certain place is an error.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding,
a confusion of the wisdom-
which issues from ethnic creation myths,
the world around.
The chosen people...and their promised land.

Here where I am, the promised land where sits this house.
Was once the Comanchera...
those beautiful human beings, and others
who lived on this land....(noone knows how long)
given them by their creator (in the beginning)
are gone.
They fought like noone ever fought
making fools of the pony soldiers
until they were so few (the blue soldiers came like winter snow)
so few that they quit
and said enough,
though they were never defeated.

Sometimes you just say enough.

— Mike Rubey

overheards

marya [with mouth full of candy]: i know, i know, i've been laggin'.
jaxon: who's that? the brother of bin ladin? bin laggin?

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

poem for sunday, april 13

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

— William Stafford from Stories That Could Be True


poem for saturday, april 13

The Meandering Sky

And I'll look at the sky if I can see
and think why didn't I stay longer
why did i stop gazing how could I
not recognize the grain and linking
and the blue nap going to the edge
the long wave of silk that covers me
the faces and animals and all colors
which are the texture and the depth
of that great fabric enfolding treetops
softly not to bruise the apple buds
not to be sullen or pale for long
but to carry my hands to breathe
on my forehead and comfort my temples
and wait for me not even wanting to wait
but dawdling like a child among flowers

— Benjamin Saltman from The Book of Moss

To Make a Prairie

today's poem...

To Make a Prairie

To make a prairie it takes clover
and one bee, -
And revery.
The revery alone will do
If bees are few.

— Emily Dickinson

overheards, in four parts

un.
stephen: i like all kinds of music too.... except for country
marya: really? i like alternative country a lot like lyle and lucinda...
jaxon: yeah i like the alternative to country as well which is not to listen to it

deux.
jim mcd: that seven sure is an odd number

trois.
marya: you're grumpy
jaxon: what? me grumpy? i'm not grumpy. i'm sexy-smart.

marya: i love sitting next to jaxon he makes me laugh
marya: (relates above story to kristin)
jaxon: smart? i said *smurf*. i'm sexy smurf.

quatre.
later in the evening i was showing off my new strappy white slingbacky sandals.

marya:they're white
shane: they're sexy. now you need a gold tooth
marya gives quizzical look
shane: cuz you know you're hard core

Daffodils

I heard this this morning on NPR. And thought, perfect timing for my poem-a-day habit. I am the poet pusher. In college I had great resistance to Wordsworth at first... I tend to not like the traditional stuff. But I ended up really liking him (and Blake). So for today in honor of spring and National Poetry Month (and NPR), I offer Wordsworth.

Daffodils

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

— William Wordsworth

no no, part II

sidenote to dream: in interpretting this dream i've decided it is yet another manifestation of my religious anxieties/apathies. "god"zilla, sealing fate, trying to figure out the future through glimpses of a trailer....

okay, or maybe that is a stretch.

no no

okay, i realize that talking about one's dreams is supposed to be a no-no. but this morning, i was dreaming that i was actually living the godzilla movie. i was of course bummed because i had never actually seen the godzilla movie -- only the trailer. so from the trailer i was trying to deduce the safest possible place to be and/or how to save more people, knowing that of course their fate was sealed in the movie. sidenote: godzilla movie (in dream) supposedly ends with godzilla eating a kitten, after crashing through a huge parking complex at the edge of town onto a peaceful pastural landscape where you can watch drive-in movies in lawn chairs.