Night sky – night sky
Endless night sky.
Mountains and hills
Holding the glow of the sun
As it falls behind.
Earth that gives rise to life
Feild and sand
Bluff and slope.
Birth dies
Gives rise to life.
Category: Poetry
I’ve No Apologies to Make
I’ve done many things in this life, it’s been long. I may have hurt a person or two and maybe it was you,
But I’ve no apologies to make.
I’ve looked death in the face, and while others died, I’ve escaped,
But I’ve no apologies to make.
Lovers I have lost in a maelstrom of words,
But I’ve no apologies to make.
Friends and family left for a time, it was just to find some peace of mind,
But I’ve no apologies to make.
Memories fill my mind and searching my heart, no regret I find,
So, I’ve no apologies to make.
I Have Lost My Bearings
I have lost my bearings upon the sea,
I am carried out by salty lee.
I have no map to chart my way,
No moon, no stars, the winds at bay.
I try and try to find the course,
But find my map is old and worn.
So now I pass by shore and port,
And find no h[e]aven ~ and sail alone.
Reefs hidden, murmur in shallows,
So I make my offering ~ hard and cold.
But with warm and loving heart,
I will anchor here.
Soul at rest, home for now.
Written for birthday bliss 2012
Did I Expect You?
Did I expect you to come like lightning rays
When thunder rolls across the darkening sky?
Did I expect you to come like the imperceptible fall of padded cat’s feet
On dry leaves of late summer?
And how did I expect you to go?
Quietly like snow falling in my hair?
Did I expect you to go like a mad hatter
Wild hands tearing at the air?
I could never have known.
To the World
Roots of conscious thought,
Give rise to the world
And all its beauty.
Earth – valley, and mountain,
Water fresh and salty,
Giver of life as we know it.
Moon and sun – bestowers of light,
Fractals of color,
Rising and setting,
Masters of birth and death.
Night sky – infinite, expanding blackness,
Reflector of cosmos,
Inner and outer reaches,
Constellations of imaginings.
If I Were to Make God
If I were to make god, he would be terrifying, his eyes would be red and glowing like embers.
If I were to make god, his hands would be claws, his hair would be flowing out behind him against a rabid wind, his feet would be cloven, his teeth would be sharp and pointed and he would go after evil and evil doers in every corner of the universe.
If I were to make god, he would not be tolerant, would not be full of love and compassion or be patient with evil. No, not for a moment.
If I were to make god, he would tear faces, arms and legs off, he would create havoc, he would scare even the most callous of men.
If I were to make god, and he was all seeing, all knowing, all present, all powerful, he would not allow for children to be pent up in closets, shaken, slapped, burned, nor dogs to be on chains, people to be starving, and our species to be so hateful.
If I were to make god, he would be too busy cleaning out the temples, the churches, the synagogues to have time to count every hair on every person’s head.
If I were to make god, he would to be too busy getting rid of the money changers, the whoremongers, the warmongers to see every bird that fell from the sky.
If I were to make god, then you would know what love is.
Among the Young Bamboo
The night wind blows among a stand of young bamboo
At the edge of the garden,
Murmuring sadly a song of woeful grief.
Soughing a tale of love lost under a pale, fall moon,
The grass lies withered, the fault of the summer sun.
The nightingale silent as night tears seek my feet.
The Pure Beauty of Work Well-Loved
I just received my contract renewal for this year. As each new fiscal year approached, I always looked so forward to getting this small piece of confirmation that I will continue as the OHSU Archivist – Assistant Professor… a recognition of a job well done. I have never had to worry, but it just nails it to the wall for me. So please indulge me a bit of nostalgic reminiscing.
I started working at OHSU in 1998 as a student intern. Once I left for graduate school, I would return to Portland during holidays and summers from Florida and then California to keep working as a temporary part-time archive assistant. When I graduated in 2002 (after 11 years of schooling in 4 different universities), I was hired as the first professional OHSU Archivist. I was given the academic designation of Senior Reseach Assistant. In 2009 I was promoted to Assistant Professor.
I have many people to thank… first my family, who I would not have been able to get through life without my mom, my daughter, and son, Hannah and Jesse, my grandchildren, Ancel and Enora, my sister Kristi, my ex, Jack and Ramiro, and Dhillon. Those who gave me a job and kept me in a job: OHSU’s Carrie Willman Hunt, Janet Crum, Linda Weimer, Jim Morgen and Chris Shaffer and my colleague, Maija Anderson. And a person who knows me better than anyone and who has never abandoned me even when I was beyond sad, crazy and ecstatic, and helped me to hang on when I wanted to die, Tannis McKee Henry. There are so many more of you who have offered love, support, and understanding. Those of you who have cried and celebrated with me, you know who you are. I can only offer my great and undying gratitude for all that you have done for me. I will be your friend until the day that I die.
So, back to my contract. Reading it through, I come to the part that states that my contract is renewed up until September 30, 2014. I gasped as this message dropped like a small but heavy stone from the top of my head, where it first entered my consciousness, to the pit of my stomach. There it still sits.
It’s not that I didn’t know that I would be leaving. I have been planning this for the last three or so years. It’s not that I don’t want to go because I do. It’s that the realization is not just mine, it now belongs to the University. They are saying, “You are going”. I will not be turning back. My disembarkation is at hand and I will set out on a new shore. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.
I suppose that once the interviews for the new University Archivist commenced last week, I should have had a sense of my ending at OHSU… but it was my contract renewal that nailed it to the wall.
P.S. Occasionally I like to post a composition from a time in the past. This post is in remembrance of my career at OHSU as I was contemplating retirement, now 2 years and 8 months past. The artwork on party invitation by Hannah.
The Sinister Morning Glory
I see the clouds on the horizon and the sun setting lies below and its rays reach out to touch down on the earth one last time.
The morning glories are all that are prospering in my garden and they weave their web, laying out tendrils that threaten to devour and choke out all that is around them.
The garden is hopeless. It is nothing more than a bed of morning glories. A metaphor.
It will end up at the end of the season, laid over in a nasty wet, slimy black web that has stunted its growth and hindered anything else from growing.
It is only poison now that is the anecdote. I cannot plant anything new. It will rapidly be taken over. The morning glory is a sinister plant.
It reproduces prolifically and displays the most delicate of flowers that bloom in the early morning sun and sleep in the afternoon.
They shine as a soil stabilizer and erosion prevention but oh! the wickedness they birth.
It lies waiting in the cold wet earth all winter; it needs no sun to flourish and the more you break it and pull it, the more it grows.
When you till, it only groans in joy and ecstasy knowing that it will grow from the tiniest broken shred.
It cannot reach to heights except on the backs of others and everything in its path must lie prostrate or support its upward thrusts.
One has no choice. I feel its oppression even from the warm sheets of my bed; at night they even grow. The fragmented stems are growing, even in the wheelbarrow beneath my window.
I may stay for hours on my knees in front of them and pull at them if I wish.
I may rip them from the stems of all of my plants but they mock me from the far reaches of the garden. I will never be able to touch them with my scratched and bleeding fingers.
My hands are stained and torn from trying to grab at them and they twist and turn in one one another in a warp and weft and ropes of vines just under the surface of the soil.
They are peeking out through the garden wall. They hiss and twirl in their hideous dance.
I want to give them a surprise party and then shock them in their joyous glee and spray them in the nose, eyes and mouth with something toxic.
2003 April 20
A Wilted Bloom
How very short the years are,
along this “famished road”.
We feel the crushing weight of time,
Within our hearts and bones.
To dust we’re quickly rushing,
We haven’t that much time.
Colliding with the moon and stars,
Our thoughts do upwards climb.
We hold each precious moment,
As if it’s all that’s real.
The price we pay for living,
Upon this earthly wheel.
It’s here our souls are tethered,
By trouble and defeat.
The salt of life rubbed in our wounds,
Our reprieve will be to sleep.
eyeamdust 