Friday, May 24, 2013

Keeping it Fresh.


In Asheville waking up. Just getting moving this morning. Last night's drive was a bit long. Ended up taking me ten hours as opposed to the normal 8, 8 and 1/2. What a beautiful drive though. Driving from Ohio, through West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and finally to North Carolina.  I kept thinking of the Rumi quote, "I can't stop pointing at the beauty." That's what it felt like. Green hills all around. Clouds to write poems about. Cute little houses and cows dotting the hillsides. I had great music on sometimes, sometimes silence.

I think what I love most about traveling and being out of your element is that it wakes you up, gets you out of your routine that you can get lost in, day to day. You look up and you say, 'Oh ya! I remember this beauty, I remember this inspiration.' But it's always as if you're seeing it for the first time, as well. That is real beauty. That is truth. Where you know you've seen it before, maybe you've seen it a hundred times but it still reaches into your soul and stirs something. I don't necessarily think you need travel for this, you just need a way to keep yourself awake to the beauty before you. And travel is definitely a way to do that.

I'm going to head out and get some breakfast somewhere with my computer.

Love and light, 

Erin



Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Promises.

The blessings brushing against my fingertips
Like reading braille but not comprehending
The possibility that lives within
The promises of questions unanswered.

What will I find within you
What will I know in this moment
that opens it's mouth wide before me
Just like your unread pages.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The Reunion.

The Reunion.
(inspired by a dream)

There was a cliff, below which lived a pod of alligators. We used to walk there together and peer over the edge, silently drawn in by their cool and steady existence. Occasionally, two of them would have an apparent disagreement. With a quick thrash of their tail in the water, it was over. But that thrash. It was so quick and so powerful. First silence. A slight bump. The violent thrash. And then stillness again. Like it never happened. Intoxicating.

Amy and I were best friends since grade school. We knew everything about each other. Well, I guess I mean that we knew everything that you're willing to tell another living human. There are things that you tell your dog or your cat or pray about that you would never repeat, even to your best friend. I know that, I'm not naive. I suppose Amy had a few things deep within that she never told me, that she never told anyone.

The last time that I saw Amy she came home to visit. She had been living in Thailand, teaching English to children over there and I was so excited to hear everything she had to tell me. I hated that she was so far away for such long periods of time but she always brought so much life with her when she came back.

What an intoxicating and lovely evening we had had. The air even seemed to caress my skin, and smelled of gardenias. "What else should we do before this night is over," Amy asked. We looked at each other and decided to go back one last time to visit our alligators. We drove there peacefully, arrived and linked arms and walked up the familiar as our own kitchen table cliffside. Snuggling down onto our bellies, we could see the moonlight glinting off their reptilian backs as they slid through the water.

"Do you think they feel anything," Amy asked me in a whisper.
"What do you mean, of course they feel things," I replied.
"I don't know," she countered, "they just seem so hard. So focused only on one thing at a time, so different."
"You're just being silly, Amy. We've been here a million times, what's so different now?"
"I don't know," she said, "maybe I'm older. Maybe I'm just drunk. But they seem to have something that they want to say. Something we can't hear. Something ominous."
"Ooooh," I gently made fun of her, "something ominous. Okay, I think that enough. Let's go home," I ended with a smile.

Amy got off the ground slowly and hugged me hard. With a smile back and a slight stumble to the side, she seemed to glide right off the edge of the cliff. I hate to say that it was beautiful, but she fell with grace like an angel through the sky. And then the violent smack of her body against the water that will never, ever leave my mind as long as I shall live. And then the thrashing. And then stillness again. Like it never happened.


Lover's Mask.

I wear the mask  of my lover's lover.  He gave it to me, offhandedly, without thought. I came to need it. Wearing it only,  at first,  w...