somewhere i have never travelled...

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if you wish to be close to me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the sow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e. e. cummings

hazy shade of winter...

Time, time, time, see what's become of me

While I looked around

For my possibilities

I was so hard to please

But look around, leaves are brown

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the Salvation Army band

Down by the riverside, its bound to be a better ride

Than what you've got planned

Carry your cup in your hand

And look around, leaves are brown now

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend

That's an easy thing to say, but if your hopes should pass away

It's simply pretend

That you can build them again...

~ Simon & Garfunkel

♥ Witchery dress

♥ Sportsgirl bag

♥ Tony Bianco heels

sonnet xvii...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know now other way

than this: where I does not exist, or you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda.

clenched soul...

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues. 

~ Pablo Neruda.

secret flowers...

Is love a light for me? A steady light,

A lamp within whose pallid pool I dream

Over old love-books? Or is it a gleam,

A lantern coming towards me from afar

Down a dark mountain? Is my love a star?

Ah me!- so high above so coldly bright!

The fire dances. Is my love a fire

Leaping down the twilight muddy and bold?

Nay, I'd be frightened of him. I'm too cold

For quick and eager loving. There's a gold

Sheen on these flower petals as they fold

More truly mine, more like to my desire.

The flower petals fold. They are by the sun

Forgotten. In a shadowy wood they grow

Where the dark trees keep up a to-and-fro

Shadowy waving. Who will watch them shine

When I have dreamed my dream? Ah, darling mine,

Find them, gather them for me one by one.

~ Katherine Mansfield.

reflections...

Today was soup-kitchen day. The day that the husband and I spend volunteering at a local church outreach centre, helping cook and serve hot food for the hundred or so people who turn up hungry, cold and down on their luck. The one day a month I spend there is one of the best days for me, and often one of the worst.

Although run by a local church, the centre is not overtly religious - and as I am a practicing atheist, this suits me down to the ground. The volunteers here are from all different walks of life and different religions, drawn together by our common wish to help those who are less fortunate. There is such and open-minded attitude towards non-Christians there, no judgment on those of us who are not religious, that it renews my respect for those who do embrace religion in their lives. Having an elderly client ask me one day whether I had found Jesus, I repressed the cheeky urge to reply, "I didn't realise you'd lost him", and smiled and said nothing.

The weather was miserable today, cold and windy and very rainy, so we had a larger group than usual, and they were wet and chilled. But we had good food, and lots of it, plenty to go round, so nobody left hungry or missed out. One of the clients came round the back to help with the dishes, as we were run off our feet. There is such a strong sense of community amongst them, they stand together and look out for one another; making sure a mother with a young baby gets the first meal, and plenty of leftovers to take home; helping a man with a walking frame to a seat. The best of humanity emerges out of the worst circumstances, and reaffirms my faith in the essential goodness that is in all of us, no matter how low we are brought in life.

Kids are the worst, the most heart-breaking. Today we had a group of three little boys, all under the age of 10 I would guess, but it's hard to tell sometimes when they are so thin. It makes me want to cry sometimes, seeing such young children sitting at a fold-out table, on hard plastic chairs, waiting patiently for the plate of hot food. I know it breaks my husband's heart to see them, he loves kids - he always makes sure they get the largest serving possible, and sneaks them extra dessert or cans of drink. They have such irrepressible hope in their eyes those kids, like a light shining out of them. It makes me sad to think that that light will dim over time, as the life they have been given rubs the fresh bloom of childhood off them. They will eventually stop thinking that people are kind, stop expecting good things for themselves in life. The drugs and the violence will stamp it out of them. And it makes me angry, makes me question what bad fortune condemned them to be born into such a life of poverty, of depression, of abuse.

But on the whole the experience today was positive, as it always is. The old man with no teeth who, when I hand him his meal, always says "Thank you darling, I love you darling." The volatile young heroin user who protectively watches over the young women and kids like a hawk, shielding them from anyone who flares up or gets aggressive. The teenage couple who sit together near the door, clearly embarrassed to be there, quietly grateful for everything they are given. They are all good people, and the knowledge that, by giving up a few hours of my weekend each month, I can in some small way make things a bit easier, a bit better for them, makes me happier than almost anything else in my life.

* * *

Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving." 

And he answered: 

You give but little when you give of your possessions. 

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. 

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow? 

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city? 

And what is fear of need but need itself? 

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable? 

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. 

And there are those who have little and give it all. 

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. 

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. 

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. 

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue; 

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space. 

Khalil Gibran.

song of the flower...

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth; I was
Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun, which is
The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath;
I am the memory of a moment of happiness;
I am the last gift of the living to the dead;
I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.

But I look up high to see only the light,
And never look down to see my shadow.
This is wisdom which man must learn.

Khalil Gibran.

daydream, i fell asleep amongst the flowers...

Tumbling-hair

              picker of buttercups

                                   violets

dandelions

And the big bullying daisies

                             through the field wonderful

with eyes a little sorry

Another comes

              also picking flowers

 

e. e. cummings

a strange girl in bright colours

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have. Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love is this fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's shipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.

~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko

♥ Dress by MinkPink

♥ Cardi by Benetton

♥ Wedges by Tony Bianco

goodnight, moon

who knows if the moon's

a balloon,coming out of a keen city

in the sky--filled with pretty people?

(and if you and i should

get into it,if they

should take me and take you into their balloon,

why then

we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:

go sailing

away and away sailing into a keen

city which nobody's ever visited,where

always

              it's

                           Spring)and everyone's

in love and flowers pick themselves

~ e. e. cummings

as the days being to lengthen...

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.
~ Emily Dickinson

The most exciting thing about these photos? They were taken at 5pm. Finally, after months of early sunsets and getting home after dark, the days are starting to lengthen, and we are heading for summer. It's not quite warm enough yet to brave wearing this dress without tights, but in a month or so I will be breaking out the fake tan and going bare-legged!

♥ Dress by Lover

♥ Tights by Forever New

♥ Vintage brogues