art

dawn 42423

The sun rose while I slept. I had not yet risen

When I heard an early oriole above the roof of my house.

Suddenly it was like the Royal Park at dawn,

With birds calling from the branches of the ten-thousand-year trees.

I thought of my time as a Court Official

When I was meticulous with my pencil in the Audience Hall.

At the height of Spring, in occasional moments of leisure,

I would look at the grass and growing things,

And at dawn and at dusk I would hear this sound.

Where do I hear it now?

In the lonely solitude of the City of Hsün Yang.

The bird’s song is certainly the same,

The change is in the emotions of the man.

If I could only stop thinking that I am at the ends of the earth,

I wonder, would it be so different from the Palace after all? ~Po Chü-I *

*cited: Trans: F Ayscough & A Lowell, Project Gutenberg eBook of Fir-Flower Tablets: Po Chü-I, “Hearing the Early Oriole” (written in exile).

history is remembrances re-emerging

contemplative photography 6 copy

Intentionally, I set my mind upon the engagement of self with the process of reading the words of another with a knowing that I have accepted an invitation to consider an author’s worldview; that is, to place reality upon a shelf or to open a unique window of understanding.

…distraction, from this engagement as I become aware of a shadow presence – a transparent here-ness tinted with memories of you. It is as if you emerged from the printed page calling forth shared memories.  I feel you sitting silently beside me. Within this silence, I begin to search for words, sentences that covey meanings and insights that awaken the joy that comes from an easing of longing and I hear myself whisper, “Here, a treasured story of thought that reconnects us, reflects a past time of us together, that validates words, ideas—you—and messages, ‘I have heard you within the sharing of love.  I delight in knowing you.  I wish to thank you for simply being…you are the joy that accompanies a gift in transit to being received.’”

…awareness, the words on the page have faded, I have disengaged myself from the invitation to consider the worldview of another as I entered imagined moments with you.  I miss you.  I miss us.

…accepting that what I yearn for can never be for I’m in the autumn of my life while you, my child, have now entered your summer as your children dance within their spring.  Seasons flow one into another—their circular, repeating patterns defined by an unseen guiding hand—births expectations, hope and trust created from past consistencies.

History is remembrances re-emerging like the youthful sprout fragile in its newness, in its responding to life’s call.  Yet, in time this newness will fade and become fragile as one’s autumn yields to their winter.

First posted on September 26, 2013

lens-artists: alone time

A freshly-opened cherry bud … her lips upon the flute. She leans in the corner of the balcony: the night is chill, her silken robes are thin, her fingers cold . . . but music floats through the frosty woods and startled plums fall pattering down. ~Chang Hsien (Ed. various. The Jade Flute, The Project Gutenberg eBook)

The general sense impressions I have of “alone times” are moments of grief and loss as well as feelings similar to forlorn, isolated, lonely.

if there’s a house
standing alone, sure enough…
plum blossoms ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

I have often pondered a different sense of “alone” after learning of it’s origins; Middle English, “all one.”

“All one” speaks to me of a time of solitary; a sense of completion, wholeness, self-direction, and freedom.

Leya’s Alone Time