Rendered Inexplicably Happy

| 16 March, 2012 11:55

 

 

Rendered Inexplicably Happy 

 

Somewhere in the morning of Thursdays, I am done with punching a clock for a few days.  I come home and am greeted by four versions of ecstasy that I exist and have come home.  I mix up the dogs' breakfast and let it sit while I do a few dishes, take out the recycling, clean the cat box.  The morning chores. An attempt to retain the ground reclaimed. 

 

I feed the big dogs (a misnomer as the small dogs are so close to the same now as to make the distinction laughable) in the kitchen, take the pups' bowls out for our ritual on the deck, Ebb spinning and dancing in front of me, Max bumping my knees behind, through the narrow hall from the kitchen.  They sit pretty, we hold each others' eyes a moment until I smile and tell them they're good and put the bowls down.

 

Four dogs eating and I put a bag in the black bucket, find the repurposed kitchen ladle, and walk the wet grass of the yard, still in my work shoes and clothes, picking up the shit of the past day.  Something of a complete circle, that is, don't you think?  Or a lost cause, maybe.  Picking up shit while the shitters refill. 

 

The sun is shining this morning.  If you've been paying attention, you know that's New.  We have had the wettest, grayest, chilliest May and June I can remember, with so few breaks. 

 

As I add one more pile to the bucket and look for the next, and the temperature is perfect and the sun is sparkling on the grass and the dogs are eating their breakfast and we're all glad we have each other, I feel happy.  Even picking up shit.

 

I think maybe happy is moments.  Tiny slices.  That we can only be happy by focusing on a detail rather than the whole.

 

There was more to it than that, but, for just now, that's enough.

 

 

Good morning.

 

06.24.10

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Seams

| 03 March, 2012 13:45

 

 

There are seams between then and now, now and next,
where a choice is stiched onto a past, and the next moment
changes everything that follows.  Life is no whole cloth,
formed of a piece, but more a cobbling of action and heart
and thought, greater or lesser, onto the patchworked form 
already existing. Nothing once placed can be ever removed,
 no thing can be  redone or painted over, although its effect
 can be affected with the addition of a piece which alters the
 chemistry of the whole and shifts a balance.  Our task is not
 to change anything already done, but to choose that next act,
love, thought, in such a way that our last fleeting glimpse
 of a cloth finally whole,
pleases us.


LLH; 08.01.10

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Journey Through

| 02 March, 2012 15:22

 

 

Journey Through


 There was a time I knew naught,
     when all turned about me
    and the world curled apace in my
absence.

 When secrets were hidden and depths
revealed and knots were ne'er broken.

      There was a time.  When lives
were being lived, and deaths were
served, and the puzzlings were a
bit and a touch more lineal.

      When beauty abounded and fear
held no terror and what was heard
in the evening of reckoning was bells
and delivery.

       Where new thoughts could form
and old ones be left with no
notice but love

                    and where gods
                  could sit quiet at ether's
                            ease.

 

LLH
08.25.02 

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The Perils Of Passion 101

| 02 March, 2012 03:17

 

 

 

 

There are some few of us

                                                       [I must include myself
                                                       in the sweet name
                                                       of journalistic integrity]

who want life huge and bright,
beautiful in the extreme.
Who are willing to set aside comfort and safety,
to the point where eating,
sleeping,
working,
are simply details of little importance
which can be set aside
at times
to live in that place.

 

This is not just about sex.

                                                   [although the strong impetus
                                                   in that general direction
                                                   is a valid indicator.]

 

I think we misunderstand that sometimes.
often.
think we're talking about a conjoining of bodies when
really
that is simply a choice of direction of energies

towards desire of life huge and bright,

beautiful in the extreme

 

                                                [yes, we do know there are drugs for that.
                                                we are, however, declining to participate
                                                in favor of living.]

 

Removed from that grace
we shutter
we close
we turn in
we die
with the same focus
and intensity.


Or is it the other way around.

 

                                                  {death
                                                  huge and bright
                                                  beautiful in the extreme]

 

We recognize each other
take a deep breath
exhale
cross our fingers and pray
we read the lay correctly and
it's not just. about. to happen.
again.

 

                                                   [I was here to dance
                                                   and no one
                                                   would dance with me.]

 

In self-preservation we have learned
to not show the depth and breadth
in the walking-around world,
we have learned to try the waters
and pull back in
when a tested word
crosses a critical line

 

                                                  [this incredible dance
                                                  of rain and heat
                                                  and dust and love.]


 

We are not usually criminal
occasionally dangerous
often idiots
always fun to watch

or a royal pain in the ass.

one or the other.

 

                                               [we strongly recommend
                                               if you don't want this
                                               life huge and bright,
                                               beautiful in the extreme,
                                               you stay away from us
                                               altogether.]

 

as for me
I'm off to learn the secret handshake.

Mail me if you need it.

 

                                               [jump on in
                                               the water's fine.]

 

~~~~~~~~~~

LLH; 2008

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True Things

| 27 February, 2012 10:05

True Things

 

 

"Is love a true thing, Grandpa?"

"Yes, my son, it is one of them."

"How many true things are there?"

"That is a wise question. Let us count."

"Is beauty one of them?"

"No, it is not, because beauty is known differently to each of us.

"Is wisdom then?"

"No, because wisdom must change as the world turns and changes."

"Then perhaps movement is a true thing?"

"It is the sixth true thing, because once an action is taken it cannot be untaken."

"So is that how I am to know a true thing?"

"One of the three ways, yes. It is the third way. A true thing must hold the power to change to the better a person or the world; it must be not dependent on anything else, but able to work in partnership with anything else; and it must not be able to be destroyed in the truth of itself."

"And how many true things are there?"

"There are six."

"May you tell me the other four, Grandfather, or am I to discover them myself?"

"As you have asked, dear one, I am allowed to answer. And then you may discover them for yourself.

The first is work;

The second is word;

The third is love;

The fourth is thought;

The fifth is song:

The sixth is movement."

 

LLH; 2009

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Pen On Paper 1

| 27 February, 2012 10:00

Pen On Paper 1

 

There is a good chance the murder of me may be the death of us all.

 

It's just words.   Old words written maybe in the depth of a despair or the first sweet soft light of hope.  I don't know.

 

It may have been the remains of a dream or the seeds of a story or the wish for an end.  It's lost now.

 

The things we leave forgotten behind become their own.  When, somewhere along a stony path, we trip over their bones, we find what they have become.

 

        Something else,

           something less,

       Something more,

         their own.

 

Their own.  No longer something of us, but, rather, Something brought to us, given to us, separate from us, whole.

 

We make of it what we will.

 

 

LLH; 11.05.10

 

 

First sentence found in a notebook dated September 12th, 2006, titled ...being the start of me becoming Me.  There were only two sentences in the notebook until I wrote this last night.  The other was:

 

In the center of my deep wishings, the form of you calls out the willing of me.

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