Saturday, August 13, 2011

Between Moons

It's that time

again,

when you delight to see the moon looming, rising serenely over the water and go,

Look!


And you stop to note how here, and now, the sky is bold blue and purplish

and the lamp, there, glows green

and the backs of cars blink red

and the moon's white makes the colour deeper

and the moment becomes bigger than

This.

Larger than the getting into the car and the getting home for dinner and the getting ready for bed and the Getting On.

It's

like a pause button.


And I think,

How am I? How have I been between the last moon and this,

how were you, and we?


Well,

there was hard and beautiful, rolled up together, like two cats curled.


And a gift,
soul-touching and resonant,

from someone else (Kimia, thank you).





(At the end of this talk, when she is standing there…? Beautiful.)


And time with

a sister

for a whole day! In the big city. Doing grown-up and silly, silly things. Laughing 'til we were bent over. Discovering each other again (it being the first time we'd hung out, just us two for a whole day in a Very Long Time).






And 

kids who have blown my mind, truly this past month, with the words they have written in writers workshop. Blown! My! Mind!

Their energy makes me write harder, better, more, too. It makes me feel lifted, so that I write things I care about. And I feel so lucky, to spend time with people like these. 



And

Someone I adore, dealing with things I wish I could do anything about…

the only help I can give from so far away, is
love love love love love. Great gobs of it, sent in steady waves.


And

a cat in a sun patch.


And rows of orange hats
(and green letters and yellow escalators and pink bags. Yum)


A big dog in a shopping mall


A girl dancing on shadows


A paper rocket


A vine of bottles


2 cats. 1 lap.



A stick in sand


The sky! The sea!



Long languid days where the air tasted,

lip smackingly

of Spring.


Two dazzling children


And the colour of night coming.



You try to catch these things,

these moments,

try to press them between pages, try to hold them, but they, in truth, slip like shadows out,

and dance out of time.

All you can do is note them as they pass. Each small thing and say, I am glad I saw you, felt you, photographed you, thought you, wrote you, held you,
loved you,

lived you.

All you can truly keep
is how
pleased you are to have been there.

All you can say is: Thank you.









3 comments:

  1. Gregory the poeticalAugust 13, 2011 at 6:52 AM

    there was hard and beautiful, rolled up together, like two cats curled
    - simply exquisite.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this. Your writing makes me smile. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful. Love the girl playing in shadows. Love Thandie Newton's talk. Isn't TED the greatest? I want the vine bottles. I have seen those bottle trees before and so love them. Glad you got to spend a day with your sister.

    Helena, thank you so much for all your comments on my blog. They are such a blessing to me. I always read them to Kei and we both LOVE you so! I love what you have done and learned 'between moons'.

    ReplyDelete

I love hearing from you! Thank you for your heartfelt, thoughtful responses—they lift me, and give me light.