To thine own self be true

Often the forgotten part of our lives is, simply, the sky–the ever-changing backdrop to our days on terra firma. Places and contexts may remain relatively the same or slow-changing, but the skyscapes and cloudscapes come and go with some regularity. Which is why, incidentally, it is a little bleak to go weeks on end as we have recently in Edmo winter without a good extended opportunity to see even sun or sky. Same effect in Vancouver’s version of rainy winter.

But–and I always come back to the brilliant summer skies in the evening or magic hour when the light has certain je-ne-sais-quoi effects–when the skies, the very heavens open up after a rain, one can see worlds within worlds played out in heavenly vistas. Or strange magical blues, oranges, or pinks along the horizons of these unreal, ephemeral, privileged moments.

At other times, it may simply be the wonder of just looking up at the beauty of puffy passing clouds on sky-blue in August or September. And one again is a shepherd boy in Thomas Gray’s time, lollygagging and wondering at the majesty of Nature–its large, deep, usually solitary pleasures. It is from such moments as the latter, that I feel again as I did at 17, when starting out, feeling the potential of life and the urge to move, and to write something equally memorable.

But those heavenly summer vistas, with their splendiferous roads upward into other worlds, other larger imaginative possibilities–which once spurred Turner to paint his numerous wild sky and cloud abstracts. No question the passion of one’s life could be simply creatively expressing or recording what is above one’s head most of the time. A beauty one will never find on a smartphone screen, or in a conventional company of revellers.

When I was 18, those same skies bespoke to me and said, Romantically, “This is It. This is true Beauty. This is Vision. This is the only God you will ever need to satisfy something so deeply and essentially you in your unique path through Life.” And that became a personal standard or ideal, so to speak, by which I measured all else, and the myriad possibilities of Nature, Beauty and Poesy.

A favorite preferred image–a spoken word record album cover which hangs on my bedroom wall. (Dylan Thomas often wrote of the inner child and childhood, especially its freedoms.)

A recurring dream of flight–reachieved today. A nice overdue massage and steak dinner at Milestone’s. Does it get any better than that on such another icy frigid day in Edmo?

Notes: (click on image for larger pic) Quite Early One Morning lp by Caedmon; art work: uncredited

(from the excellent Inn at Laurel Point, Victoria harbour)

highly recommended:

-walking downtown–checking out the unique shops

-afternoon tea at the Empress; they will make up cucumber sandwiches if you request; the tea gift shop–it ships their fabulous blue box tea

-provincial museum: realistic nighttime prairie train depot worth a stop for any train fans

-Butchart Gardens; sunken garden

-Emily Carr house and museum (there are more and better works there than weak, overpraised Vancouver Art Gallery)

-harbor cruise

My grandson’s day yesterday/Sunday.

Nothing but solitary play with his birthday presents and Christmas ones, too, no doubt.
Easy to imagine him playing with the simple keyboard instrument, checking out the various keys and sounds, or playing with the yellow CAT truck which lights up and plays many construction site sounds, or exploring the audio alphabet/word/number panel. But mostly, I suspect, playing with the new colored wooden blocks, moving them around one at a time, or playing with the new sound wood puzzle which has different vehicle pieces.

Ah, bliss! To be all alone, with seemingly unlimited hours to pursue the freedom of choice, primary imaginative distraction, and adultless fun without the presence of other children. The world one makes up, the world to arrange as we will, without someone else to interfere or disrupt. Unlimited, unfettered, unscreened, non-directed play–simple pleasure, self-generated engagement, and total immersion. As good as it gets for age 2.

“Cursed be the social lies that warp us from living truth!’--Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”

The sleepers lie so deep,
their gardens go unplanted.
Their summer song unsung forever,
the spring-words half-remembered.
The rose and the smell
of running water here.
And then a voice
that tries to find itself,
to speak the saddest silence.

It is said the sleepers
never wake to rise,
only babble with their bedmates,
discuss the latest zygote
or virtual reality,
unplugged from the umbilical
cords of imagined souls.

The sleepers dance in masques
of nightmare shapes.
All-serious now, they
bury their affections
in cozy plots of work and reason,
complain of what they miss
on full-moon nights,
refuse the cracks of entry
to another life in stars.

It is said the sleepers put
themselves to sleep at last
with dreams of tv,
mortgages and murder.
They give up hope and try
to plant themselves in vain,
their only seedlings
dust of secret song.

In the great shared cemetery
of heart and mind,
the sleepers stretch their forevers
in separate pallets,
ache to recall a recurring dream:
the sprouting wings of distant love.

(previously published Sept. 5, 2012)

We are all held together
by wires and Wi-Fi.
The props that hold us up
can only be glimpsed
in a certain slant of light.
We are really coming apart
all the time, even as we laugh
and profess a strength.

Lame the underpinnings
of our all-so gossamer texts.
We droop our fatigues
against a greater mystery,
our pains and plans mere habits
of exclusiveness.
We turn ourselves inside-out
for others to see how
we might glow in the dark:
blue shadows on evening snow.

When winter came that year,
we could almost imagine
another breathing,
some vague restoration.
There were, though, those among us
who reported seeing streaks of light
or perhaps a radiance
behind all these fronts.

Discovery of “The Box Game”

Now gone forever.

Phil Everly, 74.

The gentle soul of the famous Everly Bros.

Musical legends who, in turn, inspired the English Everlys–John and Paul and the

Folkie Everlys–Paul and Art.

Numerous hits. A great live act I saw back in the ’90s at the Jube.

Their legendary Albert Hall reunion concert on DVD is spectacular fun.

In retrospect, Phil was the often-overlooked lead singer of the brother team. (His harmonies were tunes in themselves, in their right.) The Everlys would not have been as memorable and entertaining without his incredible vocal parts.

.

“For us, there is only the trying”, found object conceptual art by Richard Davies

(quote from T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”, Four Quartets

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Mixed-media piece by local artist, teacher-friend Don Pimm which graces the front hallway entrance. His representation of William Carlos Williams’ poem “So much depends upon” . It’s all there: the rainwater, the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens.