Theme
5:08pm
July 13, 2015
“
The hills are alive
With the sound of music
With songs they have sung
For a thousand years
The hills fill my heart
With the sound of music
My heart wants to sing
Every song it hears
[…]
I go to the hills
When my heart is lonely
I know I will hear
What I’ve heard before
My heart will be blessed
With the sound of music
And I’ll sing once more
9 notes
11:21pm
June 17, 2015
Moth in my screen.
Computer screen shows
Moths flitting through air currents
Halfway cross the world
4:34am
February 28, 2015
“At Tara today in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And fire with all the strength it hath,
And lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness
All these I place,
By God’s almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.”
— The Rune of St. Patrick", derived from “The Lorica”, both traditionally attributed to St. Patrick, published in Lyrica Celtica (1896); also in Celtic Christianity : Ecology and Holiness (1987) by Christopher Bamford and William Parker Marsh, p. 54
I was just looking up some stuff from A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle (warning: I love most of the story, but there’s some serious racism in that book and all the other ones where she gets obsessed with “blue-eyed Indians” and the like), and I came across St. Patrick’s Rune, which was used repeatedly in that book. Whatever my own religious and spiritual views, or my complicated view of St. Patrick, along with not knowing whether he really wrote it or not…
…I still think this is a beautiful and powerful prayer for protection. It’s uncommon that I find a Christian prayer that so heavily invokes the powers of nature as protective forces. And I love it. I think this may be my favorite Christian prayer. I could just as well see a nature-worshipper (1) using it.
[Footnotes under cut.]
9:45pm
November 16, 2014
➸ When I say Love (I mean)...
This is a response to this poem by Mel Baggs ( withasmoothroundstone )
When I say love
I mean the way the resurrection moss
Carpets the granite
Feeling the sun on it’s fronds
When I say love
I mean the roots of palo verde
Curling into every granite crack
Gathering hidden cups of…
Thank you so much for writing such a beautiful response to my poem. I may be from the redwoods, and you from the desert, but we are doing the same thing, and that is very powerful and amazing and beautiful to see when it happens. Everyone should read your poem. You’re talking about desert Marona while I talk about redwood Marona but it’s all Marona deep down.
2:53am
November 13, 2014
Redwood Sorrel And Baby Redwood
(Big Basin, California - 2/2014)
10:00pm
October 25, 2014
Haiku #3: Budgies in Outdoor Cage
singing in sunlight
budgies in outdoor cage
wild birds visit
[Also published on my main poetry blog, which has a comments section.]
9:50pm
October 25, 2014
Haiku #2: Reluctant Squirrel
baby squirrel won’t jump
from redwood branch to roof
ma squirrel throws him
[Also posted to my main poetry blog, which has a comment section.]
2:47pm
October 4, 2014
Hiker Discovers Abandoned Town in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee
From the Website of Jordan Liles:
“About a mile up an unnamed gravel road inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the back way into an abandoned neighborhood and hotel, some of which was originally constructed more than 100 years ago.”
In a film titled Tennessee Wonderland (click here for link), Liles explores the town and houses of this long forgotten but newly discovered ghost town.
9:09pm
September 24, 2014
Visiting Your Grave
I may never see your grave in person
But I will be there every day
That’s a promise I can keep
Every night before I sleep
As I travel to the place where you’ll lay
I will be the rain that falls on your grave
I will be the wind in the trees in the graveyard
I will be the soil that grows the plants
I will be the plants that grow from you
I will be the sky that shelters the earth
I will be the earth lying under the sky
I will be the sun shining down on the trees
I will be the trees growing over the graves
I will be the needles and leaves that fall from the trees
And carpet the ground where you lay
So don’t fear that I will never visit
I will be with you every day
I’ll be the rain and the wind
And the sun and the stars
And the earth made into clay
I will see you from above
I will see you from below
I will see you from without
I will see you from within
And if you want my flowers
Just look for the weeds
Growing at the base of your grave
The graveyard in the woods.
The graveyard in the woods.
The graveyard in the woods.
[Also posted at my main poetry blog. The post on the other blog has pictures of the graveyard in question, where my dad has already picked out his grave site and his plain pine coffin. This is not the poem I’ve been working on writing, it just came out rather quickly on its own, almost too fast to write down.]
12:19pm
September 14, 2014
I walk down the hall where the woods used to stand,
Concrete at my feet, brick walls at every hand.
And over my head, steel girders so strong
Where I first felt the thrill of the wood thrush’s song
Now the wood thrush has vanished, seeking the place
That’s not felt the crush of man’s embrace
The steep woods are gone now and oh how I long
To again feel the spell of the wood thrush’s song
Over my head, just a few years ago
The poplar leaves shivered when the breezes did blow
Now the deep hum of engines drowns the soft sighs
Of the wind and the leaves of the few trees nearby
And the wood thrush has vanished, seeking the place
That’s not felt the crush of man’s embrace
The steep woods are gone now, and oh how I long
To again feel the spell of the wood thrush’s song
Man is the inventor, the builder, the sage
The writer and seeker of truth by the page
But all of his knowledge can never explain
The deep mystery of the wood thrush refrain
And the wood thrush has vanished, seeking the place
That’s not felt the crush of man’s embrace
Steep woods are gone now, and oh how I long
To again feel the spell of the wood thrush’s song
Steep woods are gone now and oh how I long
To again feel the spell of the wood thrush’s song