Alexandersmap

    Category: Poetry

    • Just Passing By

      “Hoping to live days of greater happiness, I forget that days of less happiness are passing by.” — Elizabeth Bishop

      The lilacs are almost past. A couple of unusually hot days sent them on their way. They’re on the path to just a memory, like all of us, really. Were it only possible that we all smelled as good in our dance with daylight. Alas, we each bloom in our own way.

      Every word I type delays the inevitable. There’s yard work to be done, and looking around, there aren’t a lot of volunteers lined up for it. It looks like I’m at the front of the line. In fact, I am the line. The fact of the matter is, I like to work even as I grumble about it sometimes.

      It’s not just the work—there’s living to be done while doing it. Dreams of a better tomorrow waste the ripe potential of today. We’re all just passing by the moments one after the other. So have a look around, and don’t forget to smell the lilacs.

    • Everything, Forever

      Turn, turn, my wheel! All things must change
      To something new, to something strange;
      Nothing that is can pause or stay;
      The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
      The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
      The rain to mist and cloud again,
      To-morrow be to-day.
      — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kéramos

      I considered yesterday an ending of sorts, which infers that today would be a beginning. But it feels like more of the same. Life is change, but that change is so constant and incremental that it feels like every day is the just like the one before. Have a look around and we know the truth. Nothing is the same. Beginning with our perspective. We’ve simply moved to a newer place from which to assess our perch.

      Still, nothing is the same, nor will be again. We live and learn and grow, and tomorrow will be today, and then it will be no more but a memory of yesterday. The lesson? Our opportunity is always at hand. Don’t look so far ahead. We are where we are, and everything forever is right here awaiting our attention.

      All things must change. Beginning with us. Rise to meet it.

    • Full of Firsts

      We shall not cease from exploration
      And the end of all our exploring
      Will be to arrive where we started
      And know the place for the first time.
      — T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding      “, Four Quartets

      There’s something in the air again (besides pollen). It stirs about and stirs within. The inclination to wander and discover what has not been experienced before grows. Spring is leading us to summer. Summer leads us to look beyond the familiar garden to the world beyond.

      This time of year has long carried the feeling of change in the air. School years are ending. University students are wrapping up finals and fleeing for faraway places schemed up in study halls. We may never pass this way again, but we surely won’t pass those other ways until we go there. Do go there—while we are young… or young enough.

      Looking back on previous adventures, we know we returned transformed. Go to Vienna or Rome or Edinburgh you cannot help but change. I listen to family and friends talk of adventures they’ve had on their own travels and see the place bubble up in their memories, energizing and provoking passion. I feel it within myself when I reflect on places I’ve been. The world is out there, ready to dance with us in our time. If we crawl out of our shell and get moving.

      Just what are we going to do with this opportunity to roam? Just what are we waiting for anyway? The world is full of firsts awaiting our arrival. This season, be bold and go to meet them.

    • Nobody but Yourself

      A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.

      This may sound easy. It isn’t.

      A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.

      Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

      To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
      — e.e. cummings, “A Poet’s Advice to Students”

      To be ourself in a world that wants us to fall in line isn’t easy. After all, we are part of the tribe, the community, and the history of humanity. All that we see and encounter draws something out of us that we may not have felt otherwise. Just where is that line where the average of everyone else get crossed to simply, “ourself”? Remember in such moments this line in the quote above, “whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.”

      To feel is the thing. Nobody else feels what we feel. Nobody else brings the whole of their experience together, stirs it about in their soul and exudes the identity that is us. Nobody but us. So it follows that we ought to be aware of what we’re feeling, not just what we’re hearing and seeing and reading. What we feel hints at who we are. Give that room to breathe and grow.

      Most of us don’t fancy ourselves poets. Yet we may live a poetic life full of heightened awareness of the self and all that surrounds and influences us. Poetry is feeling. To “squeeze the marrow out of life” as Henry David Thoreau put it, we must be fully aware and alive. Give life a squeeze. See how it feels. Learn and grow and become nobody else but yourself.

    • Roll Clear

      People are worn away with
      striving,
      they hide in common
      habits.
      their concerns are herd
      concerns.

      Few have the ability to stare
      at an old shoe for
      ten minutes
      or to think of odd things
      like who invented the
      doorknob?

      they become unalive
      because they are unable to
      pause
      undo themselves
      unkink
      unsee
      unlearn
      roll clear.
      listen to their untrue
      laughter, then
      walk
      away.
      — Charles Bukowski, the area of pause

      I haven’t quoted the entire poem, just the part that jumped out at me today. Today is the tomorrow of yesterday, which was full of business talk and bold declarations of working to the last. I grow silent in such moments. Listening? Respectfully, but already turning away from the conversation in my mind.

      We all know that old expression, “If you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life”. I view work as a transactional relationship. I’m all in when I’m in it, and I keep it at arm’s length when I’m not. Wherever I am, I strive to be aware and alive. I believe that this will apply equally well in retirement one day.

      One old industry friend is counting down his final 40 days to retirement. Another was beginning a new job, hungry for the adrenaline hit of being the new guy once again. Both are older than me, looking at their careers in entirely different ways from each other. And maybe from me too. I don’t aspire to longevity in my tenure, I aspire to breadth and depth in a life well-lived. If that betrays me as something other than fully-committed, then so be it. I view that as fog of war stuff, for those who drink too much Kool-Aid.

      Every day offers a retirement of sorts. We leave work behind or we don’t. We may walk away, I say! Roll clear of all that has a hold of us and breathe in the fresh air of a new perspective. Life is change, and our next chapter awaits. Rester soi-même—be yourself. Wherever we may be on this journey through time.

    • More Hit Than Miss

      “Too much work, and no vacation, Deserves at least a small libation. So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses, Work’s the curse of the drinking classes.” — Oscar Wilde

      Have you been waiting for this blog to be published? I’m not so self-absorbed to believe it so. But I know there are a few folks who confirm I’m still among the living by registering when the blog is released. So here it is, better late than never.

      The day will end, that’s for sure
      I wonder, how do we keep score?
      through projects completed and bonuses racked
      or magic acquired in this time stacked?

      This blog leans more towards poetry the later in the day I begin writing it. Perhaps a sign to keep writing in the earliest hours of the day. Whatever the consensus, I’ve posted one more, such that it is. Perhaps tomorrow will be more hit than miss?

      Cheers.

    • Evidence of Action

      Success is failure turned inside out –
      The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
      And you never can tell how close you are,
      It might be near when it seems afar;
      So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
      It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
      — John Greenleaf Whittier, Don’t Quit

      There are weeks when everything is asked of us, and when we feel we are completely maxed out, we are asked for a little more still. As the old expression goes, when you want something done, ask a busy person. And so it is that life offers a state of busier. We must never aspire to busy. We should aspire to productive, and efficient, and thorough in our quest to get things done. Life is full of choices for how to live.

      Busy doesn’t really matter. All that matters is what we do with our time. To quit anything is to concede that the time spent led us to a dead end. A dead end isn’t the end, it’s simply a lesson that is ours to learn if we choose to. We go on for ourselves—to validate the passage we have embarked upon, to honor our future self with the work we do today, to write our verse, such that it is.

      There simply isn’t enough time to do it all. There will be more no’s than yeses in this lifetime. Yet we may do what needs to be done. We are creating evidence of action with everything we do. That which we publish, that which we produce, those that rely upon us to follow through on what we’ve promised? It’s all evidence of a full life. One at a time, whether we’re busy or not. What’s done is done, what’s not is not. So don’t quit just yet.

    • Poets and Paw Prints

      Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
      the perfection of the morning star
      above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
      blue in the first light?
      — Mary Oliver, Am I Not Among The Early Risers

      When you hit a certain age we all ought to settle down a bit, right? I’ll let you know when I feel I’ve arrived at that certain age. Not just yet, thank you, I’ll say if you were to ask.

      Admittedly, I’ve settled into an increasingly quiet life, full of dog walks, quiet talks and thoughts of the garden. Is that bold? On the face of it, not really. We reach bold by reaching beyond the ordinary. And life can be pretty ordinary most days.

      I remind myself that the trick to living an interesting life is to be interested in life. To see the world as a poet does. To be aware is to be alive! Life isn’t meant to be one distraction after another to the end, but fully immersed in this moment.

      Even as I wrote these words, a gnawing feeling rose within. Just what is the dog up to, anyway? Why, she’s bouncing boldly back and forth across the yard, chasing prey I cannot see, leaping over garden fences and digging muddy holes. She’s shrugged off her grooming this week and the quiet contempt of the indoor cat for glory and a frothy frenzy of fun. All while I silently wrestle with words.

      The lesson? Certainly to be young and alive while there’s time for such things. We’ll never be younger than we are right now. But we may increase our awareness today and for all our days. To be aware and intent on capturing all that we can in the amber of the moment. Even those muddy paw prints, captured like ink blots on a towel hanging just outside the door, offer a reminder to get out and live already.

    • Difference Awaits

      “Normality is a paved road: it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” — Vincent Van Gogh

      What do you dream about? Who knows? Some people seem to remember all of their dreams. For some of us, the world of dreams is slammed shut upon waking. Is there a metaphor in there somewhere about waking up to finally begin living one’s dreams? Wouldn’t that be the obvious path to take right about now?

      My own dreams, such that they are, usually end with me waking up trying to figure a way out of some maze I’d wandered into, or to find a solution to some problem that doesn’t exist in reality. Ah, you dream interpreters, there’s nothing to see here! We’re all figuring things out as we go. Every day is a winding road.

      We may choose to wander off the beaten path any time we want to, for it’s our story to write. That beaten path laying up ahead is beaten for a reason. It’s tried and true, and won’t make our mothers lie awake at night in worry. Taking the road less traveled makes all the difference, right? Ask a poet:

      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
      I took the one less traveled by,
      And that has made all the difference.
      — Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

      The thing is, most of us aren’t choosing poetry or painting as a career path. We’re figuring things out as we go, not wandering off into the wilderness. Maybe that means fewer flowers, but it also helps pay the mortgage. And so paths less traveled by remain in our dreams.

      Then again, we may opt to stray further and further from the beaten path each day, returning to pay the bills and such, but building those wandering muscles and stretching our inclinations in new directions. Our path is simply where we are heading at the moment. Perhaps it’s paved, perhaps it’s full of wildflowers or thistle or perilous beasts that make us break into a cold sweat for the terror of it all.

      Fear not! Our path is meant to be figured out. Like an Andy Weir novel, there’s always a way out of the maze. We just need to wake up to see it. And having seen it, to take that path to where difference awaits.

    • All We Have

      What if you suddenly saw that the silver of water was brighter than the silver of money?
      —Mary Oliver, How Would You Live Then?

      The time does fly by, doesn’t it? Tempus fugit. Does our time grow shorter, or does our experience grows greater with the years? Isn’t it in how we look at things? It always was and always will be about what we focus on. Are we living in a time of scarcity or abundance? We have as much of each as we wish to see.

      The answer may be to stop listening to those who would tell us otherwise. Knowing that sometimes we are our own worst false prophet—sowing discontent with the status quo for the love of more. Never grow blind to all that is and will be if we just stay the course with all we have.

      We are blessed in life when we are finally aware of all that surrounds us. We find that we don’t want to miss this opportunity at hand chasing dreams of better all the time. What’s better than the dreams we are realizing now? If we wish to savor time, we ought to stop throwing it away chasing better. Better isn’t discovered by chasing it—better is something we grow into with time.