Tag Archives: Beloved

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Comfortable with angles

I am thinking about monsters
That I am comfortable with the monsters
in my dreams
but terrified by the angels.
Though I type angles.

But I also dream that all the angels fall
all are made to fall
they fall down then back up
when they fall down they burn
if they fall here
burn in the atmosphere
then they are red or black and burnt
and we think they are devils: monsters.

If angels are monsters
and monsters are angels
and they go back and forth
and I type angles
because everyone makes mistakes
even angels
and to make something perfect
is an offense to the Beloved
because only the Beloved is perfect
and ineffable.

Still the angels.
I am afraid.
So was Mary, sore afraid.
Monsters are easy: at worst they can kill me
and they never have
in my dreams.
And they are sad and alone and weep.
I comfort them. Which makes them afraid,
because they are not used to being loved.
I wonder if I frighten them
like the angels frighten me.

And then I can understand
a little
of why the angels frighten me so much.
I too am not used
to feeling loved.

written September 13, 2023

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bread winner. But I can’t eat gluten any more and my lungs are too vulnerable for the work I love. So how bread and how winner? Maybe the angels and angles and monsters will tell me.

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Wing brush

I fly home tomorrow. Meanwhile we have split up and I wandered around Venice much of today. I caught the pigeon in flight in this street. If I stretch out my arms I can brush both sides.

Baggage reorganized and no souvenirs except photographs and memories. Food to get me through flights, too! It has been a delight to travel with family and without oxygen.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: brush.

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Comfortable with monsters

I am comfortable with the monsters in my dreams.

I dream of monsters howling and I go to them. They could be sick or hurt or need help! I must go to them! And the monsters are very noisy but they are babies. Abandoned and dirty and dark and hungry and cold.

This has nothing to do with my childhood. Do you believe me?

I have a pack and supplies in the dream. I carry the monsters up up into the light. I feed them and bathe them and diaper them and wrap each one in a blanket and hold them. They howl until they are too tired to howl and then they sulk. At first they do not know how to respond to kindness and love. But they learn and grow and are beautiful.

I am not comfortable with the angels.

I dream that all the stars start falling and then I see that they are angels. I am so frightened, why must they fall? I don’t want to be an angel and then I am falling and crying. The angels are at perfect peace with falling but I am not. I don’t understand, Beloved. Why do the angels fall?

I ask the Beloved over and over. My poems are questions. Why, Beloved, why?

The angels fall down and up, over and over. They are good then bad, or labeled bad, then labeled good.

Just like people.

The angels are seen as black or white. But I see them as black on white heaven or white on black heaven, it doesn’t matter. Do not let the color be a label. And after someone falls, they are burnt in the sky. They are seen as a devil or a monster!

Angels falling, fallen, monsters.

And I am here for the monsters. Who are angels, in disguise.

_______________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: disguise.

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Hostels

I joined my daughter in Venice at a hostel two nights ago. I arrived at about 11:30 pm after about 32 hours of travel. Bus, bus, ferry, taxi, plane, plane, plane, bus, walk. At that time of night, karaoke was going strong at the hostel and I felt fairly ridiculous as the lone grey haired person. The next morning revealed I am not the only one.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ridiculous.

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Chalcedony

Many of my trinkets are rocks. Agates or calcedny nodules or lots of others. Fossil snails and fossil clams.

This agate initially looks better on the ground.

But wait, let’s turn it.

Half clear and half clouded. I found this one on Marrowstone Island.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: trinket.

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Rock rasp

There is a raspy sound when the beach is pebbles and the waves wash in and they rasp together. It is a singing clicking rasp. Beautiful!

I walk Marrowstone Island early yesterday, since there is a very low tide in the morning and it was sunny and gorgeous. The clear agates light up.

This one is clear in the center. I have to dig it out of the mud flat with another rock.

Turn again.

There, isn’t it beautiful with the light shining through?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: raspy.

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Nature Song

This is the first song I think of with today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: onomatopoeia. This song sounds like kids playing and speeds up like kids do and all the laughter, about being outside. Wonderful! I love the Sweet Honey in the Rock kids’ records as well as adult records and my kids did too.

Here is an adult song followed by the kids’ song and circling back to the difficult adult part.

I took the photograph at the Centrum Jazz Port Townsend Concert, the Matthew Whittaker Quintet. Wow, wonderful.

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Bucking trends

Terrible photograph, right? But look for the deer. Two can be seen, and there was a third, another fawn.

First I see the buck in my yard.

Buck eating apples in a driveway.

Then I see him across the street with two fawns. I didn’t get a good picture of all three. But he did that deer thing where they tell the fawns to stay put. I go over to that neighbor’s house for coffee and here are the fawns.

Fawn lying under an apple tree on a lawn.

This is the second year that I have seen a buck with fawns. This time two fawns. The fawns are still spotted but about twice the size of newborns.

I don’t know if the buck is babysitting for the day or if something happened to mom. The fawns don’t move when I walk past and go in the house. I only see the second one because I am looking for it. This is a busy street, but the deer are pretty safe as long as they don’t get hit by a car. We have to pay attention in the early morning and twilight. The deer do teach the fawns to cross at crosswalks too, at least, the moms with fawns are. I think the big bucks have decided they can cross where ever they want.

“White-tailed deer mate in the fall (October – December). The male deer (buck) plays no role in raising fawns.” from here: https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/plants_wildlife/Deer_Fawn_FAQ.aspx. That is a different species. Ok, try information on Washington deer: “Adult bucks take no part in raising fawns, and generally remain solitary or form bachelor groups throughout the summer.” from here: https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/living/species-facts/deer#. Apparently our deer have not read the manual. Or maybe those two spotted ones are males, but I can’t really tell yet.

Our deer are bucking the trend, aren’t they? Deershines instead of monkeyshines?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: monkeyshines.

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Enemy

A friend and I are talking this morning and he is talking about praying daily. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. That turns into a discussion of enemies and ourselves. It’s easier to have an external enemy identified than to deal with ourselves, isn’t it? Here is today’s poem.

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Enemy

Do you have an enemy?

Do I have an enemy?

maybe I have no enemy
I have people I have forgiven
I have people who I have asked to forgive me
I have people I have forgiven
but keep distanced
no reconciliation
possible if they continue abuse
blind and deaf
saying “We are righteous!”
over and over to each other

A book teaches me
asks what are you most proud of
in yourself?
Three things:
strong, smart, tough.
The mirror is what you fear the most
weak, foolish, vulnerable
I shy back, hate the author
and he is correct
at least for me

Like the sutra
sometimes I am weak
sometimes I am foolish
sometimes I am vulnerable

When there is a person
or people
I want to hate
What aspect of myself
of my past
of my psyche
are they bringing up?
Are they stronger, smarter, tougher?
Are they weaker, foolish, more vulnerable?
Why do I want to hate them?

It’s easier, I see
to hate another person
and cast them out like a demon
then to look in the mirror
and see the aspect of myself
that I long so much
to hate

That demon
once cast out
will return with seven more

Mirror mirror
on the wall
tell my why
the angels fall

if an angel gets it’s wings
every time a bell rings
each time we hate another, as well
an angel falls heaven to hell