View From The Northern Wall: The Holiness Of Place

Thursday, February 20, 2014

The Holiness Of Place

Mount Moran, Grand Tetons, Wyoming

The Holiness Of Place

Some of us build on
the people in our strange lives
and some build heart on
the places they go,
they have been in former lives.

What is it I do
that so provokes you
I ask? And why is it that
you take me away
again and again?

I am from forests. Aspens
quake in my back yard
and I shiver to
their time, taking their green shape,
continuing my
eternal return.

September 5, 2010 10:31 PM

1 comment:

TomFebruary 21, 2014 at 8:53 AM
And the Spring, it is a-coming!
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.

The View From The Northern Wall

Some years ago my poetry took on a mythic flavor and I became a character in my own poems, a mage, "the man of the Northern Wall". This apellation is not completely fictional. My middle name is Noordwal, a Dutch term for north wall, though in current Dutch it mainly means north bank as in riverbank. I was told that an ancestor, a Portugese Jew escaping the Inquisition, settled in a small Dutch town and took this name from where he settled, near the north wall of the town. I have thought for a long time that -wal meant wall, think my mother told me that. A linguist might say that my usage is no longer common, is an older usage, but then the Inquisition happened in Portugal a few centuries ago, right around the time the Moors lost control of the Iberian Peninsula and the Jews lost the modest protection given them by Islam. Now I write as this mage, my poetry persona.

View From The Northern Wall

Thursday, February 20, 2014

The Holiness Of Place

1 comment:

The View From The Northern Wall

About Me

Over The Wall

All Time Favorites

Blog Archive

Page Hit Counter