like smog shadows rifling valleys
the mountain holds its breath
~
Fragile like feverish water
the ocean aborts the moon’s children
~
Fragile like bees loosing direction
and stamens playing their last hands
~
Fragile like children born overwhelmed
by viruses perplexed
~
Fragile still
like a flower abandoned by the garden
in blooming makes no mistakes
intelligence in its unfolding
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~
Poetry of Light 
Beautiful!
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Thank you Deborah…I was reminded of the intelligence of nature by a Zen poet and wanted to find a gentler voice about the state of our beleaguered planet that honored the gracefulness of the natural world.
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lovely! you expressed it so well. thanks for bringing a sense of the sacred in the natural world.
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Thank you Virgilio. I think we all share this appreciation of the sacred.
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The poem is delicately balanced on the delicate concept of ‘fragile’. And right in the end, there is an exhibition of strength, without saying as much. It’s subtle and powerful. Love it!
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Thank you MJ….I’m trying to learn the art of understatement as a container to hold hard truths. It’s a very broad learning curve, I’m afraid. Perhaps with insight from the Zen poet I succeeded a little better this time. The poet’s poem about the intelligence of nature is something I jotted down on a piece of paper a long time ago, without reference to where I found it. But I am grateful for the lesson.
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fragile pollen
fallen
sweet nectar
whispers
~
pretty please
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Don’t you find that sometimes when poems are re read, they turn out to be messages to yourself?
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funny
I’ve been told
I always talk to
myself…;P
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After allowing this lovely piece to marinate overnight and returning to it now, I realize what I couldn’t articulate upon first reading. Namely that each stunning image you paint of fragility, struck me first with each being’s sense of potency–the mountain, the bee, the ocean, the moon, the child, the flower’s bloom. What a beautiful tribute to nature’s wisdom (and sense of irony or humor?)–each natural wonder encapsulating prodigious power and possibility and simultaneously ultimate vulnerability. I appreciate your magic. Thank you. xo
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You write like you dance…I think I need to come and take lessons on how to spring up from the floor and write a sentence that I don’t have to go back and rearrange all the words……and that’s it exactly….each being’s sense of potency and intelligence encapsulating power and possibility…Thank you!
In my awareness of the moon…is the moon’s awareness of me…powerful !
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Wow. I am truly moved, and heartened, by your kind words drifting gently down onto this hesitant, and so often highly edited, soul. Thank you for your potent artistry and magic. Xo
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Fabulous piece. So clear, specific… it picks its way through the subject so delicately without once losing the beauty in the language.
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Once a high school friend said in passing that she loved watching the shadows of the clouds travel across the hills. I was thunderstruck by the clarity and poetry of this observation. In some way I think it changed my perception of reality. I feel after all these years I’ve finally been able to honor this subtle but intrinsic influence in my life.
Thank you CW for your encouraging comment. It means a great deal. I admire your relationship to a language… I usually find incomprehensible.
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Do you know Rexroth’s books of translations from the Chinese and Japanese. This one if from “100 poems from the Japanese”
I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt
Of a salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.
— Akahito
The poetry of the east is a huge influence on poets from the west (the west coast especially). Involves a whole new way of seeing / being.
I like your poem.
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Well…you’ve opened up a whole new window. I am the salt girl….I mean seriously. It’s too much to explain but this is bloody wonderful. You’ve made my day!
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run with it.
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“Fragile like bees loosing direction
and stamens playing their last hands…”
our Mother Earth is in dangerous peril—Your poem brings it all to light! Great for you! Your writing is here to help us do something…before it is too late…
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