gathering stones

 

gathering stones

my attention drawn away

cinders in my shoe

 

 

Or questions. Stones fascinate me. In Ireland I begin to wonder if each county has its own special stone. Donegal has the bleach-white round eggs called durlings,  In  County Clare, there is the smooth slate that looks like books lined on a shelf and Tipperary has  rose-hued clay pebbles along the cow paths  through the Galtee Vee. In Glashú, Gaoth Dobhair, I see how the stones are piled to make strong fences along the water where winds rip and tear.  I hear in that wind one generation teaching another:  you may think the wall is strong by making the fence tight with stones, but no. It is allowing spaces for wind to come through that diffuse its fury. This is what preserves the fence. A simple wisdom of design. A way to live as well.

 

This May in El Salvador, I see stones here, too—red bricks as familiar to me as the walls of  Newark tenements, fading slogans seeping into the bricks.. Some walls, scarred, chipped-off stucco revealing deeper older walls, wounds High walls in rich neighborhoods where the grandchildren of the “13 Families” live their quiet protected lives. At the top of these walls embedded in the cement are pieces of sharp glass. In Suchitoto, named the cultural capital of the country, cobblestone roads appear as charming as the plaza, the cathedral, the art galleries and outdoor Sunday morning market.  I learn that the cobblestones functions to slow down the military when they invade. Visitors might hear, be tempted to  believe that the civil war ended in 1992,  but peaceful demonstrators against the privatization of water were jailed as terrorists in July 2007. The Suchitoto 14. The charges are dropped by the Salvadoran court in April. In May, the youngest of the group, Hector Antonio Ventura, is murdered  here in Valle Verde.

 

 

 mosaics of stone

art you can walk on, reflect
dulce et util

The Journey to the Beginning

Heliconia: Las Marias, Puerto Rico

native flower
braids of desire, come enter
into the deep 

 

flor indígena
trenzas de deseo, ven
al profundo 

 

bláth dhúchasach
trilséan na ndúil. tar amach
sa domhan thíos 

           

            Invitation. Seduction. Command.  The knotted chord of the Angelus bell in the chapel. The pull of the shiny image onto the blank page. The whisper of the ancestors.

The challenge of the Spirit in the face of wind. Vocation. At the beginning of the semester I see a path—point to point, sense forward direction. Soon after, the road turns spiral and spinning. Vocation. Dare. I follow my Dingle down the hedgehog hole of poetry into the underworld (an domhan thíos). I am more curious than committed.

       

within sight, a world

perfect, green. not ready

to be split open

            Patience has never been my strong suit, especially in the novitiate. I was always just holding on to the edges back then, the margins  Boricua lizard keeps its vigil for the August season of quenepas, those bitter-sweet Ponce limes pink flesh and its seed  I decide in those moments to use my time—historian/scribe—hopeful as the swan-children of Lir waiting 300 years for the return of the Promise that remains yet a promise.

       

hungry mouths, each tongue

grows longer, their stories

of thirst

            The work of the poet is hard as much for its consequences as for its craft. Scratch a true poet and you will find a “not me, Lord, send my brother Aaron” prophet. Poets carry the history of  peoples in their satchels, stuffed in notebooks, in the piles of books stacked and falling about them and under the words that are torn from their hearts in the course of their uneasy visions. Along the way I have found the company of wordsmiths who have devised ways to teach us myth by myth, Adonis and Venus, Diamaid and Grainne, story by story, Dermot and Grace, that we must look at Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Iraq. We must “study war” to avoid it. And we learn that we have not learned, but for the finely-honed institutional oppressions that are so deeply imbedded within in us and our daily living that we have accommodated them.

         

a single oak

gnarled, stripped, still standing

is recognized

           

  

           

           

  

a ribbon of road

brushstrokes, footsteps paint

our story

            What would a road trip be without music to move us sojourners along. The asphalt road. the rice paper canvas, the goat skin stretched over the frame circle. The cipín, the beater, an available stick or knuckle. The bamboo fude with the teardrop tip soaked in pine soot. We find what is available to us. Simple things. We ask them to accompany us. The fluid movements of the brush, held straight and decisive like a baton, the motion of the beater (lever and fulcrum) frenzied dancing across the skin. We do not/can not retrace our steps, but we practice on the next sheet, in the retellings. The repetition of symbols for eternity and valor, the following of the beat ríl agus port, reel and jig—we seek ways into the interior for poems that have stood for 1200 years. Finding as Fionn MacCumhail tells his band, “the music of what happens.”

haze like a curtain

lifts. a gift

of orange

     

 

adventures in snow and shades of gray

adventures in snow and shades of gray: a haibun

sleepy day

cool thin sheet

thrown over us

unexpected

but welcome

The day begins, a tangled skein of promise and obligation, expectation and dread. Six supervisions in two sites a circuitous route between Newark zip codes. Snow loosens a sense of urgency. Staff call in “sick,” unable to brave the elements. The workday that seems endless, concludes at noon. I don’t even mind traveling across town to find I have earned an early release. I feel virtuous for having made the effort, guiltless for not blinking. The ground is cloud under my feet.  Gifts come in many kinds of wrapping. I take this one fallen out of the heavens.

      

As Fionn MacCumhail cherishes his hound, Bran, a sturdy terrier who leads me on this last great adventure before winter is out and gone. A slice of day so bright one squints at its sheen, a day of brilliance against stark contrasts. This companion is a mhadaigh bháin, (pronounced wady wan) as Fionn might say he has the sweet life, the life of a pampered dog. No wonder at all when the route leads to the gates and cages of his canine companions. They, of course, are inside with their owners. This pooch has ideas and plans andthey do not include the appliance I carry along to take record our journey. Griangraf, I say to this mhadaigh bháin, you know photographs—sun-writing. Alright I know  Fionn would have been unfamiliar that word in his time.

 

 to a mhadaigh bháin
the best walk
is the next walk

  

branches reach upward

fists clench tight in gloves

spring impaciens

Mixed messages. The sky has the feel of more snow, but the air is beginning to warm. Potholes remain unfilled, yet the orange snowfences along the park border were taken down last week. A warm January brought out a few cherry blossom buds before the groundhog could make up his mind.

 

 

 

 

A curious tease

for city dwellers—cattails like popsicles dipped in white

    

 

At last the spot I always have in mind when we walk this route The cherry blossom tree, its seven decades worth of branches, admired since my arrival in Newark only thirty five years ago when the tree was half its current age.  All around new trees are being planted, circling these oldest trees. Gnarled joints and awkward reach of limbs, these oldest trees still give tender white blooms that last a week then fall away. The dog mistakes that slick white cover for snow, rolls with abandon.

 

 

you rise up each year

hair like medusa

april flowers

 

       

Postscript

Inspired by the brush painting of Sungsook, I made an attempt in my acrylic painting class to experiment with this image in the spirit of the exquisite corpse.