Alexandersmap

    Category: Poetry

    • Surf Meditation

      “I steal swiftly from behind the blue horizon, To cast the silver of my foam upon the gold of his sand, And we blend in melted brilliance.”

      People are quick to condemn those who crowd the beaches as they re-open, but I understand the lure of the surf.  I feel it too, and I’m eager to get back to the surf line once again.  But not in the company of hundreds.  That’s people watching, not surf meditation.  I seek the quiet beach at dawn, when the world is sleeping off the frenzy of the night.  The quiet whisper of frothy ocean meeting shifting sand.  Of footprints washed away like yesterdays.

      “Many times have I danced around mermaids As they rose from the depths And rested upon my crest to watch the stars; Many times have I heard lovers complain of their smallness, And I helped them to sigh.”

      I need to wrestle with the surf again soon.  To dive into a crashing wave and let it sweep over me to the waiting sands in their infinite dance.  To hear again the music of the surf and to dance in the foam and churn of sand and salt water.  I was born an amphibian, no matter what the birth certificate noted.  I’m closer to the truth between the water and land.

      “In the heaviness of night, When all creatures seek the ghost of slumber, I sit up, singing at one time and sighing at another. I am awake always.”
      – Khalil Gibran, Song of the Wave

      There’s magic in this poem, and I fought the urge to just post the entire work here (Google it and you’ll see a wealth of tributes).  Gibran knew the song of the surf too.  He grew up in Lebanon, moved to Boston at 12 and skipped back and forth across the ocean during his education.  He knew the surf and what was beyond the surf line and over the horizon.  He knew the fragility of life at a young age, losing siblings and his mother while he was still a teenager.  He died too young at 48 and sailed one last time from New England to Lebanon, where he remains to this day, as he wished.  But I wonder if secretly he planned it that way, for one last sail before he was buried.  I’d like to think so anyway.

       

    • A Rainy Day Soundtrack in Five Jackson Browne Songs

      It’s raining today.  It’s April in New England and such things are to be expected.  I set my alarm every night for 6:30 AM, and I’m usually up well before it ever goes off.  This morning I was finishing a dream I don’t recall except that someone was about to speak and as they opened their mouth the alarm went off and it all went away.  Feel free to analyze that if you wish, I’m moving on to other things.  6:30 is sleeping in for me, and I found myself behind the eight ball on my morning routine.

      But back to that rain.  It reminded me of this collection of Jackson Browne songs I’ve been collecting in my drafts waiting patiently to fly.  So why not now?  It’s not easy to create a list of only five songs from a writer as prolific as Jackson Browne, I mean, I played the Running on Empty album on repeat for months when I was 17 or so.  That one would be a favorite album, but only one of the songs on it made it onto this list.  I think the rain also impacted my choice of songs, all of which are introspective, forgoing classic hits like Running On Empty, Doctor My Eyes and Somebody’s Baby in favor of deeper water.  Anyway, here are five Jackson Browne songs that are particularly meaningful for me:

      You Love The Thunder
      “When you look over your shoulder
      And you see the life that you’ve left behind
      When you think it over, do you ever wonder?
      What it is that holds your life so close to mine”
      This song, along with The Road and The Load-Out, was a highlight and the one I play frequently from this album.

      For A Dancer
      “Into a dancer you have grown
      From a seed somebody else has thrown
      Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
      And somewhere between the time you arrive
      And the time you go
      May lie a reason you were alive
      That you’ll never know”
      Jackson wrote this for a friend who died in a fire, and it’s one of those songs I return to when I think about people full of life taken too soon from this world.

      The Pretender
      “I want to know what became of the changes
      We waited for love to bring
      Were they only the fitful dreams
      Of some greater awakening?
      I’ve been aware of the time going by
      They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye
      When the morning light comes streaming in
      You’ll get up and do it again
      Amen.”
      If the pandemic is doing anything, it’s pushing people to question the endless cycle of mindless work they do.  If you don’t love your life, change it.  This song is the great reminder of the unfulfilled potential in all of us bursting to get out, if you’ll just stop doing what you think you have to do.

      Your Bright Baby Blues
      “Baby if you can hear me
      Turn down your radio
      There’s just one thing
      I want you to know
      When you’ve been near me
      I’ve felt the love
      Stirring in my soul”
      The link above is a Don Kirchner performance in 1976 where Jackson’s backing band was The Eagles.  I’m old enough to remember a lot about the 70’s, but young enough to have missed most of the craziness happening at the time.  I imagine there was a hell of a party after these guys played this song.

      These Days
      “These days I’ll sit on corner stones
      And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
      Don’t confront me with my failures
      I had not forgotten them”
      I understand that Jackson wrote this when he was 16.  Talk about being an old soul at a young age.  I’m a long way from what the lyrics express at the moment, but haven’t we all been here?

       

    • Grateful For The Connection

      They say the Striper return to New Hampshire waters when the lilacs bloom. By “they” I mean a guy standing in front of me talking to another guy six feet in front of him. That the statement was overheard in a COVID-19 mandated line to get into a store is a curiosity of our times, but interesting to me if only because I don’t generally participate in fishing talk. I’m not much of a fisherman, more a fish eater, but I instinctively heard the truth in that statement.

      I’ve been in the woods of New Hampshire for a month now, and other than two trips to visit the in-laws from afar I haven’t strayed out of the 603. I’m plotting covert salt water visits in my mind. I scroll through old photos on my phone and think about excuses to visit Cape Cod once again. Salt water is just out of reach… damn. I’m told that social isolation helps flatten the curve and like most people in the world I hear the truth in that statement. I’ll remain here in the woods for now.

      “Sometimes we are starving to see every bit of what is right in front of us.” – Brian Doyle, The Shrew

      I’ve learned the truth about myself over the years. Especially now I suppose. I’ve learned that it’s easier to listen when you turn off the flow of distraction the world offers. I suppose that’s why people turn on the flow; for distraction. Or to feel connected to the world. We all do, in some measure. The truth about me is I don’t need much distraction. But I do need connection. I learned long ago to have connection you need to reach out for it, because most people are dancing with their own distraction. I turned to the poets and songwriters because they offer connection in spades, even when they’re long gone from this world. If they are so bold as to reach out to me I ought to listen to what they have to say.

      As I stood in that line waiting for enough people to exit that I might enter the store, I found silent connection with a couple of fishermen. It was a bit like stealing because I picked up pieces from them but didn’t give anything back in return. So instead I paid it forward with others I’ve spoken with since, and now with you. Connection is a chain, and we are the links. Distraction weakens the link, attention strengthens it. It doesn’t always seem like it, but I do try to pay attention. And since I have yours, let me say I’m grateful for the connection.

    • We Are Stardust

      Serendipity lately seems to be taking me to the stars.  I dance with the stars often, as anyone who follows me can attest.  But the stars seem aligned (sorry) for me to write about them once again today.  It began with Ryan Holiday quoting the familiar phrase “we are stardust” in his exceptional book Stillness Is The Key.  That got me thinking about the Joni Mitchell song Woodstock (with apologies to Joni and CSNY, my favorite version is James Taylor singing it on the Howard Stern Show or if you prefer, in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony for Joni Mitchell)

      “We are stardust
      Billion year old carbon
      We are golden
      Caught in the devil’s bargain
      And we’ve got to get ourselves
      Back to the garden”
      – Joni Mitchell, Woodstock

      Heavy stuff when you think about it; we’re made up of stardust; billion year old carbon recycled into our present form.  Our bodies are made up of the timeless material of infinity.  And our thoughts are built on the timeless wisdom of the ages.  That makes us… timeless in a way, doesn’t it?  And one with the very universe around us.  Whoah.  But could this be true?  I believe so, but sought out validation with a Google search nonetheless (because isn’t that where the truth is?)  And I came across a Carl Sagan quote confirming that yes, we are indeed made up of star stuff:

      “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff,” – Carl Sagan

      So this fascination with the stars is a longing to return? Maybe, but I think it’s more a feeling of solidarity with the infinite universe around me. A way for the universe to know itself… From the daffodils patiently biding their time in the sun to the stars I gaze up at light years away from that sun. To infinity and beyond, if you will. My reading finally brought me this morning to W.D. Auden (via Brain Pickings) and this stunning poem, included in its entirety because I just couldn’t help myself:

      “Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
      That, for all I care, I can go to hell,
      But on earth is the least
      We have to dread from man or beast.

      How should we like it were stars to burn
      With a passion for us, we could not return?
      If equal affection cannot be,
      Let the more loving one be me.

      Admirer as I think I am
      Of stars that do not give a damn,
      I cannot, now I see them, say
      I missed one terribly all day.

      Were all stars to disappear or die,
      I should learn to look at an empty sky
      And feel its total dark sublime,
      Though this may take me a little time.”
      – W.H. Auden, The More Loving One

      When the student is ready the teacher will appear.  I’m a ready student, looking up at the universe in wonder, and marveling at the bounty being returned to me by timeless teachers.  And isn’t that being truly alive, getting out of our own heads and dancing with this timeless wisdom?  We’re all stars dancing in the universe. Some brighter than others. Personally, I strive to be brighter still that I might offer more. If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

    • No Regrets

      “One regret, dear world,
      That I am determined not to have
      When I am lying on my deathbed
      Is that
      I did not kiss you enough.”
      – Hafiz, I Am Determined

      I read this Hafiz poem two ways. On the one hand is traditional love between two people and the lovely sentiment of wishing we’d had more time, love and kisses together. Invest in those you love now for its all impossibly brief. Time is relentlessly pulling us away from one another. What will you wish you’d done or said with your loved ones? There’s only today…

      Another way to read this poem is through the eyes of a traveler. Wanderlust draws me to faraway places. Will the world return to a state of relative normalcy that allows free travel? Will our lives as built offer future opportunities to explore the world? Will I lose the vigor necessary for the travel I seek before I’ve seen the world and all it offers? Time – again – is relentlessly pulling us away from one another. What will you wish you’d done or seen? Perhaps we don’t have today for travel but use this pandemic as a reminder that you may not get another chance and seize the opportunities that come your way.

      If we’re lucky we are sharing this time with our loved ones, if we invest it in them in between Zoom webinars and Microsoft Teams collaborations. Why waste this unique shared experience worrying about places you aren’t seeing in the world? Every day together is a gift, even when we’re all bursting to get outside again. Someday, maybe, we’ll be marveling at these days and how we got through it despite everything. Let us be in some faraway place together, laughing at the wonder of it all, and perhaps steal a kiss. Or maybe two?

    • Living Heartily

      “I’m not the river
      that powerful presence.
      And I’m not the black oak tree
      which is patience personified.
      And I’m not redbird
      who is a brief life heartily enjoyed.
      Nor am I mud nor rock nor sand
      which is holding everything together.
      No, I am none of these meaningful things, not yet.      ”
      – Mary Oliver, I’m Not The River

      I walked outside barefoot to a chorus of woodland song early this morning. Robins and cardinals and even those clever rascals the crows were all singing to each other at the edge of the woods where humans begin. Birds don’t give a thought to human worries about COVID-19 or mortgage payments or how many steps show up on your watch. No, they go on living heartily, not thinking about the briefness of the duration but working hard to ensure this particular moment isn’t their last.

      It’s Spring in New England. The world wakes up similarly to the way it woke up yesterday, but there’s a slight shift in attitude. The mild winter and a pandemic cancelling everything normal in life and Mookie Betts dumped for money and Tom Brady moving on all make this Spring feel different from any other in my memory, but walking out into the morning chorus you see it’s all the stories we tell ourselves. We’re all just living this brief moment and trying to live another day. Stoicism offers a guide to living more powerfully.  To accept fate (Amor Fati) and our ultimate fate (Memento Mori), and to apply this knowledge, this understanding of the world, to embrace every moment.

      “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      I’m working on things just as we all are. Holding things and people together, working to be patient with this world around me, working on small, daily improvement. Living heartily might seem a challenge right now, but it’s more important than ever. I’d think it was a lot more challenging a hundred or a thousand years ago. No, we live in relative comfort compared to those before us. They’d surely laugh at the things we call hardship. We can hold it all together and get beyond this too. Walking barefoot out to greet this first day of Spring and embrace the chorus seems a good first step. But there’s so much more to do with this day, isn’t there?

    • Dancing With Perhaps

      “I have a lot of edges called Perhaps and almost nothing you can call Certainty.” – Mary Oliver, Angels

      I’m a big believer in Perhaps, though I know Certainty has its place in this world. Certainty dances in the world of STEM. I’m grateful for Certainty and those who pursue it, but I like where Perhaps dances. Those who know me know that I use the word often, and likely too much. So be it, I find Certainty less… fascinating. So it was a delight to read Mary Oliver’s poem and read that line. Why did it take me so long to get around to it, I wonder? Dabbling too much in the world of Certainty I suppose.

      You want Certainty? Certainty is a kettle whistling when the water boils enough that steam trapped inside screams to get out, now! How many mornings have I been quietly lost in thought, reading or writing when that kettle calls for my immediate attention? Countless. And I appreciate Certainty knocking on my forehead now and then, prodding me back to reality. I don’t especially like to linger in Certainty but I find it comforting to visit once in awhile.

      Mary’s famous line from “Angels” is this:

      “I don’t care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It’s enough to know that for some people they exist, and that they dance.” – Mary Oliver, Angels

      I don’t think all that much of angels dancing on pins either, but do I think of ghosts whispering history when I arrive at places of significance and listen raptly as the oaks welcome me back to their woods. Places speak, if you’ll listen and observe. There is no better practitioner of observation than the poet. Sure, scientists do pretty well too, but I’d contend that they’re secretly poets with a formal education. But what of religion? Isn’t that Certain? Believers might tell you there’s Certainty in the Bible. I’d contend that there’s far more Perhaps in the Bible than Certainty. Zealots arrive at Certainty about their religious views or their political views or their social views and work to impose Certainty on others. We get in trouble when too many people arrive at a Certainty that conflicts with the other guy’s Certainty. Leave room for Perhaps.

      So we’ve entered a strange new world, stranger than the world we’ve been living in for some time now (and that was pretty strange indeed). It seems a good time to look inward, to turn off the panic news and read the works of those who came before us. The poets and Stoics and Transcendentalists and philosophers. They dealt with far more uncertainty and death than we have (they’re all dead after all). Shouldn’t we learn more from them?

      Whatever you believe, leave a little room for Perhaps. That’s where you’ll find me most of the time. Come visit now and then if you like. I’d certainly like that.

    • Breaking Ropes

      “If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive
      do you think
      ghosts will do it after?”
      – Kabir

      When the world is upside down and stress boils up inside you, how do you set it free? I release it slowly on long walks, or feel it melt away listening to immersive music like the album Beyond The Missouri Sky (Short Stories) by Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny, or reading some Mary Oliver poetry (Thanks, Mary for the Kabir quote). I don’t often get stressed out, but the world can creep up on you sometimes. Tonight after a day of work and a few home renovation hurdles I was about at my limit. So I made mine a double: poetry and music. I listened to Missouri Sky twice before I forgot what I was stressed about. Turns out it wasn’t anything all that important.

      So back to Kabir; Part of my stress is a desire to get out and see the world, but blocked by ropes of my own making and a few that fate threw at us all. Seeing the world shut down in profound, unprecedented ways is a bit of a curveball, isn’t it? London, Scotland and even Nashville seem a long time ago. But this is no time for casual travel. No, not right now. Now we collectively try to flatten the damned curve. But there are other ropes to break besides travel. And it turns out those ropes are best broken with time and effort and isolation and thought.

      Life is short and unpredictable, and who can’t see that now? Given that, when else are you going to step up and break a few ropes that are holding you back? Seems now is really the only time to do it. Those Northern Lights and the Southern Cross will have to wait for healthier days. And my God I hope they return soon, I won’t waste a moment getting to them given the opportunity. Until then, break those writing ropes. Break those learning ropes. And let yourself free.

    • Five Mornings of Watching the World Go Mad

      “I live
      in the open mindedness
      of not knowing enough
      about anything.”
      – Mary Oliver, Luna

      I woke up early, restless and ready to move on from this place at 4:30 AM.  I get like this sometimes.  It’s the fifth morning I’ve woken up in a different place, this time I slept in Poughkeepsie, New York.  This town has meaning for me; I once slept in my car near the boathouse at Marist College back when it didn’t seem like a big thing to do such things.  I’d taken one look around the full boathouse we were all going to sleep in and opted for quiet over shared suffering.  Come to think of it, I still steer in that direction.

      In a week of accelerating news stories about Presidential campaigns and Coronavirus, I’ve been operating under the cloak of business travel.  I gave up on trying to find a bottle of hand sanitizer after the fourth store clerk shrugged and talked of orders pending.  A woman in Glens Falls told me “the virus is close now, with confirmed cases in New York City and Albany”.  It feels too much like a scene in a movie for me.  I just want to have my hands not smell like gasoline after I fill up the car, but I guess I’ll need to ration what I have left in my travel bottle.  The world goes mad sometimes, and Coronovirus has kicked the hoarder’s nest.

      I have more travel in the next couple of weeks, and candidly I thought about cancelling some of it.  Not because I’m an alarmist, but because I’m a pragmatist.  Who needs the drama of flights and edgy fellow travelers around you?  Who needs the potential lockdown of a city I happen to be in at the time?  I love the ocean but I’m just not hopping on a cruise ship right now, thank you.  I saw World War Z, I know what happens when the virus rips through a plane full of people.  I’m not Brad Pitt, there’s no way I’d survive that.

      All this comes up when you wake up at 4:30 on the fifth morning of business travel.  I didn’t feel this way Monday morning in Buffalo, or Tuesday in Rochester.  I had some trepidation in Syracuse on Wednesday but felt great about the world on Thursday in Saratoga Springs.  Then again, it’s hard not to feel like the world is a beautiful place when you spend a little time in Saratoga Springs.  Which brings me to Poughkeepsie, on the shores of the Hudson River.  I once jumped in the frigid Hudson right about this time in March back as a freshman in college too many years ago after we won a race.  At the time that seemed the logical thing to do.  Sort of like buying all the Purell at the local pharmacy just in case you need it when Coronavirus madness starts going down.  Sometimes we get inspired by the odd behavior of those around us.  And that’s why I don’t watch the news or hang out with large groups of angry people.

      Look, I don’t know enough about Coronavirus to know whether traveling the next two weeks is a good idea or not.  On the surface it seems better to just stay home and let things play out.  But I’m a traveler at heart, and if everyone else stays home I may just have a little more virus-free air to breath.  I do know I’ve really improved my hand-washing skills, and I try not to touch my face with my hands.  I don’t mind when someone doesn’t want to shake hands, but I don’t shrink back in horror when they offer their hand in greeting.  I mean, that’s what Purell is for…  if you can find any.

      This all seems a little smug, and I apologize for that.  I’m taking a potential pandemic very seriously, but I don’t watch the news and I don’t hoard dust masks, vodka and Purell (maybe a little rum).  I think the best thing we can do is be a little diligent with our personal hygiene, stay out of crowded indoor places, and give those who might be a little vulnerable a little distance in case you have the virus and don’t know it.  If things spiral into madness tap into your water heater for drinking water and carbo load on rice.  All that is unsolicited advice from someone figuring it out like you are.  The only thing I’m sure about is that you really should wash your hands better.

    • The Sometimes Saucy Pedantic Wretch

      I was presenting a PowerPoint slide translated from German to English Tuesday, wrapped up our meeting and was discussing a few key points when a woman next to me quietly yet publicly slid a piece of paper across the table to me. It seems there was a typo on one of the slides and she was helping me out by pointing out the incorrectly spelled word next to the correctly spelled word underlining the misplaced “a” in “intuitive” and the correct “i”. Yup, I saw it immediately, laughed and thanked her. Sometimes you see things that bug you so much that you won’t hear anything else in the entire meeting, and that happened to her.

      I understand where she’s coming from. I fight pedantic tendencies myself and understood her need to fix something that clearly needed fixing. That she did it in front of the group in the meeting might have angered some, but for me it was a chance to laugh about it. I stopped worrying about such things years ago, and I was presenting other people’s material so how could I take it personally? But I immediately corrected the slide so it wouldn’t happen again (Never allow distractions to linger in your presentations).

      I rarely use the word “pedantic” in a sentence. And I certainly wouldn’t ever combine words like “saucy pedantic wretch” into a phrase, but when I saw the three linked together in a poem I smiled. I mean, who does that? See there? My own pedantic tendencies flaring up. Anyway, I plucked these words out of a John Donne poem called The Sun Rising because they leap off the screen in a magical swirl just as they likely did for Donne as he put pen to paper writing them.

      When someone uses the word “pedantic” or “wretch” they’re flagged in some circles as aloof. In this world of hipster speak who uses old dead guy words? Then again, the person lacing their sentence with clever words may well pity us our grasp of the English language. But a firm grasp of vocabulary can be either a gift or a verbal Heisman pushing people away: it’s all in how you use it. As I clumsily stumble along learning a bit of the French language I’m reminded to be more humble with the English language. It was clever for the muse to slip that Donne poem into my reading this morning. It got me thinking that, sure, sometimes I might be a saucy pedantic wretch too. But I have a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor about it. Ever since I read that poem I find myself swirling those words together like a tropical drink. And so I offer a toast to wretches everywhere.