vesna prijshla! spring sprung!

A belated happy spring, with little beaky alien-tulips from the yard, pushing up their hungry waxy leaf-mouths to the sun.

I saw Paris to Kyiv perform at the Citadel last weekend. Alexis Kochan's voice was so gorgeous -- warm, with both kindness & urgency. Between songs, she read a little snippet of a poem by Oleh Lysheha, which made me very very happy, since I really love his work. She read an excerpt from Swan, which I found translated here (by Lysheha & James Bradfield):

...At last I entered your bright museum
Over the river channel
Just to get warm. The cold rain
Seemed not to stop,
And no one was there . .
But in the corner, under glass
A pair of tall boots was drying
After lying idle somewhere
In a peat bog or a swamp . .
The feet that owned them
Are stones now
Under rippled laces,
With sharpened toes . .
I couldn’t stop staring . .
[...]
Does anyone believe
I have been there? . .
That my feet felt so comfortable
In those shoes? . .

And Alexis said that's how she feels when she hears the old old songs, & I know exactly what she means. Especially when the seasons are changing, fall & very much the spring -- the dark crumbling earth & the shiny white bone-trees of the weeping birches, the wind tasting like dust & light.

hometown.

{budding poplar in the field near my old elementary school}

{dried-up rose hips in red willow park, by the river}

{half-frozen shopping carts abandoned in the river. somehow a sad summation of suburbia}

{self-portrait, red willow park. along the bike path where the trees grow over in flickery archways in the summer long & straight all the way to sturgeon road}

Some photos taken on a walk Friday afternoon, from the bus exchange to my parents' house, my old house. Not yet spring. That's all.

* * *

Also, The Mountain Goats. John Darnielle writes the simplest, most oddly compelling lyrics. & the way he sings them, he can get away with saying things like 'our love is like the border between Greece and Albania' & it sounds so very apt. & very true. & his words, they etch themselves on the tip of my brain -- 'new found rich brown deep wet ground' has been floating around in my mind & off my tongue since I first heard 'Going to Scotland'. Other times, his phrases are much more unassuming like 'wild sage growing in the weeds' or 'a tricky young southerly wind' yet they are are also evocative. & they all sound like they were created in a single moments, like the songs sprang fully formed into life, dropped onto his head like pinecones, little seed-note spilling out. Like they floated around until, shadowing him like birds soaring, then descended suddenly & overtook him & he simply had to pick up a guitar, press record & sing before they flew away again.

The Mountain Goats -- International Small Arms Traffic Blues [mp3] (from the album 'Tallahassee')
TMG -- Whole Wide World [mp3] (from 'Sweden')
TMG -- Going to Scotland [mp3] (from 'Nothing for Juice')

blood oranges, poem edit, etc.

{a very delicious organic Moro blood orange, my afternoon snack today.}

{Though I've been assured they do get regular oranges in Whitehorse, will I be able to eat blood oranges there next spring?}

{so tasty! so sweet & juicy! fruit of springtime}

Aside from gratuitous blood orange love, I have edited my ghazal poem slightly. Using an established form in a poem is still very novel to me. Other than experimenting with tanka, haiku, & sonnets (oh, junior high english class) it is something I just haven't done. I find some poetic forms ridiculously contrived, there is something so elegant & elegaic about the ghazal. Despite the second couplet's repeated phrase, there's something freeing about it.

* * *

of waxwings.

they come as a gift, this sudden crescendo of waxwings:
a blue sky shattered, feathered filaments of waxwings.

& when i dragged you outside, took you from your tea
it was just to share with you the gift of waxwings –

& they are darting so intricately, this ephemeral embroidery
edging our eyes, the clouds with ashy stitches of waxwings.

& from beak to beak they pass elm-bark and ash-berries,
your lips were red as the throat-flutes of waxwings –

& how they alight! then leave, reverberate urgency
surging through us softly a warm wind of waxwings –

& an echoing srreeeee leaves an ache so sharp, saddened
as grey wings sweep the air, the dissolving of waxwings.

& their migration: simplicity that deconstructs me,
leaves me earthbound & hungry for the flight of waxwings –

& would that i could hold you so tightly, though i see
we can’t be as whole as a flocking of waxwings –

our bright hearts lay on the snow, remnants of chokecherries
how graceful waves scatter us, trees dripping of waxwings –

o would that i could speak to you & ease you of grieving!
but my words flutter inchoate, distant keening of waxwings.

ghazal, ma belle

{a(nother) waxwing in the elm on my street}

Recently I've discovered the joy of writing ghazals; there's something ridiculously addictive about their little couplets, something giddy about creating their lilting rhythm. I'm working on one now that isn't very good, but it's the first I've ever tried. You should also read something ('Even the Rain') by Agha Shahid Ali; he definitely knows what he's doing, & his are delicious. I'm just playing right now.

"[In a ghazal] each couplet must be like a precious stone that can shine even when plucked from the necklace though it certainly has greater luster in its setting."

-- A. S. Ali

(for someone who loves to use enjambement, it was difficult to be so tight with every line)

anyway, this one is not done (it's still having metrical problems) but it was lovely to write. certainly much more enjoyable than homework.

* * *

of waxwings

i like to think they come as a gift, this sudden crescendo of waxwings:
a blue sky shattered with feathered filaments of waxwings.

& when i dragged you outside, took you from your tea
it was just to share with you the gift of waxwings –

& they are darting so intricately, an ephemeral embroidery
edging our eyes, clouds with ashy stitches of waxwings.

& from beak to beak they pass elm-bark and chokecherries,
your lips were red as the throat-flutes of waxwings –

& an echoing srreeeee leaves an ache so sharp, saddened
as grey wings sweep the air, the dissolving of waxwings.

& how they alight! then they leave, reverberate urgency
surging through us softly is a warm wind of waxwings –

& their migration: simplicity that deconstructs me,
leaves me earthbound & hungry for the flight of waxwings.

& would that i could hold you so tightly, though i see
nothing can keep us as whole as the flocking of waxwings –

& now our bright hearts lay on the ground, remnants of chokecherries
how graceful waves scatter us, trees dripping of waxwings –

o would that i could speak to you of all i am feeling!
but my words flutter inchoate, distant keening of waxwings.

some bright morning

{sunlight on the kitchen floor, tiptoe}

I am in love with Olena Kalytiak Davis's first book of poetry, And her soul out of nothing. She has another but I haven't read it yet. I especially like a poem called 'It was a coffin that sang' because it likens God to a gypsy:

"...And what a Gypsy
God was, stamping his boots
and tying his scarves
across one eye, like a lunatic crazed
by what he had set going:
each wild drunk
dancer, the heel-to-toe
of each reckless life...."

It makes me think of Emir Kusturica films, their chaos, everything so fierce & bleak. & how everytime I watch a film it destroys me, I get angry at him for making me cry, yet I keep wanting to see more of them because of the illumination, the truth that everything is all the same. & you can glean these moments of such calm in all the absurdity & something so joyous even in the despondency, grace stuck in there like that little sugar cubes that are shoved into the mouths of the bride & groom so that they might at least start their new life with a little sweetness, because who knows when the world will end --