I want to thank my regular commentors for a tremendous compliment on yesterday's post. Please know y'all are appreciated. And loved. You know who you are.
I don't think these next poems were about me. I know where the first poem came from, in response to a website I frequent and reply to (or as Rachel said, steal from - I am so comfortable with thinking about it like that :). I think the second poem was a development of the first. So it is not that I felt like this when I wrote them, nor is it that I feel like this now. However, my brothers, my sisters, I have definitely felt like this before. I do know what depression is, what loneliness is, what the terrible fear of weakness is when I am isolate and small. I can easily access that memory, just as I can my own overwhelming grief and bewilderment. So I can and do write poetry from the larger truths of my life, the places I have been, and not only where I am right now, or right then, last January. I have not been turbulent for a while now, pretty much since 2001.
On the other hand, it remains true that I was unknowingly struggling with blockage in an artery and a vein in my heart. So I muse that perhaps I knew on some level. I know I was busy making peace with a variety of weaknesses that seem to be receding now that the artery is fixed. The cardiologist informed me last week that there is a vein with a 60% blockage. It is too small for a stent. Also, at 60% they don't do anything typically, hoping the statin drug will be sufficient to deal with it over time. I presume that if it gets nasty and it is too small for a stent, then it's bypass time.
A Clear Song
Sometimes life gets like
It's below zero outside.
I heard a guy say
One time that when it's
This cold, there's no solitude,
Instead it's lonely,
So damned cold lonely
Even though the song is clear
Sung in this cold air.
January 16, 2009 10:28 AM
********************************
There is no more to say....
Listen To The Wind
You said then, "Listen
To the wind at your window,
Tell me that isn't
The sound of my loss."
I know that wind too, whistling
Through the hole in me.
I was locked out then,
Bewildered, bereft, blinded
By my fate, by faith
Violated so
As they took from me my heart's
Delight, my young life.
January 16, 2009 12:20 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
You speak it so well. That desolation.
ReplyDeletexxx
First, let me say that I'm glad this isn't an immediate place in your life, with the cold and the wind and the loss, but I understand that you've felt this way before. So have I, but I doubt that I ever articulated it so well as you have here.
ReplyDeleteNow for the blockage - I'm happy that you're feeling better! My husband (who happens to be the same age as you) had an episode last year and we discovered that he has a blockage in a vein too small for a stent. We've been told that it isn't a matter of "if" he'll have to have a by-pass, but "when." The good news is that his meds seems to be controlling things and his activity so far has not been limited at all. He works outside (his avocation) long and harder than I think he should, but he went back to the doctor after a year and nothing had changed, so that's as good thing! I hope you have the same prognosis!
I know where the second poem came from:)
ReplyDeleteIt is funny...I don't think I had seen the first poem before. I really know what you are saying there -- no solitude, cold loneliness. I am glad that is not where you are right now. I am glad that is not where I am.
The second poem...I read it and read it and kept thinking I knew I had read it before...it is a good thing you put the dates on -- otherwise I might not have slept last night trying to figure it out.
Loss
And in the comments there you speak of stealing "like those birds" which must be why I think of you as a magpie:)
Thank you Christopher, for all the richness you offer.
I certainly hope that all goes well with the blockage. Thank you, Karen, for the story of your husband. That is comforting.
xxxooo to all :)
Christopher, I love your poems, and really love the backstory that comes along. I don't come every day because I really try so hard not to be on the computer all the time, so I just now read your last post and all the comments. You have a BUNCH of people here who love you, love your work, and are inspired by what you do and say, and how you live, and have lived. I for one, have colors added to my palette because you have taken the time not only to write what you do here, but in your responses on my blog, I have found profound depth and personal growth. I'm for the whole pizza, even if I can't always eat it. I'm listening to the wind, but sometimes I don't hear all the notes.
ReplyDeleteChristopher, your poems are beautiful as always. And as always, they pack a powerful punch. I'm glad you're not in the place with the cold wind now, but I am sorry for all your health problems. You are a strong man! I'm glad you're feeling better and sharing your wonderful words and wisdom with the world.
ReplyDeletespoken long ago
ReplyDeletewords breathed
crystalline clear
in frigid air
there is no doubt
cold meaning
in haunted sound
biting frozen ears
iced reflection of the past
is remembered in whistling wind
solitary and cold as death
snow witch song
GD
Michelle, It is not a skill I cherish, to speak well of desolation.
ReplyDeleteKaren, I had help with the images, both of them. I capitalize on inner and outer resources. I think the divine has a hand in it.
As for your husband, I am glad he has you. Perhaps these things will go well for us both. I definitely got an "if" rather than a "when" on the bypass idea.
Faith, isn't that fun. Good memory. I am not really worried to remember where I wrote the poems or I could make notations. The timing seems more important. I especially like pointing to the date and saying don't think you can catch me, I am four months later or so in my "real" life. Heh. Can't catch meeeeeee.
Catv, you are very kind to write such things. I know I am loved. I love you too. I cannot write what I do without the cross fertilization. I am not stand alone creative. I need dialog. If I can't get it from you all, then I get it by talking to myself. I need dialog.
Julie, I don't think I have health problems right now. I feel better than I have in a while. Thanks for your concern.
Ghost, maybe not cold as death. There is a song we sang, by Rene Clausen, with these lyrics
Set Me As A Seal
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it.
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death.
Solitude is chosen. Lonliness bestowed. I like solitude.
ReplyDeleteThe wind can carry so many messages. Perhaps it's just a delivery service for the larger message. This one is cold, too.
Erin, I like solitude too. I am not a man who runs away from himself. I am not in bad company when I am alone. As a sickly kid, I developed "whaddya do when there's nothing to do" skills and I am rarely bored any given day. I have several books, probably 12 or so waiting for me to get to them. Several are non-fiction. Many other auto-entertainments :) If I didn't care for others so much I could easily be a hermit. Loneliness has been largely solved in my life...
ReplyDeleteI have also dispelled most of my lurking notions that I have some real destiny here on the planet that will somehow transform my life. Those notions pulled me forward for years. I no longer need such magnetism. It didn't come to nothing, but that pull didn't meet expectation either.
I had people in my life not only for the here and now but for the hope that there would be a meeting with destiny in it.