The onion loves the onion.
It hugs its many layers,
saying, O, O, O,
each vowel smaller
than the last.
Some say it has no heart.
It doesn’t need one.
It surrounds itself,
feels whole. Primordial.
First among vegetables.
If Eve had bitten it
instead of the apple,
how different
Paradise.
Lorna Crozier
From: Sex Lives of Vegetables.
(cello portrait by: Christa-S-Nelson)
To be a musician is a curse. To not be one is even worse. –Jazz trumpeter Jack Daney
“The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people goin’ by
I see friends shaking hands saying, “How do you do”
They’re really saying “I love you.”
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know;
And I think to myself, What a wonderful world;
Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world.
Oh yeah!”
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
by e.e. cumming
The bird you captured is dead.
I told you it would die
but you would not learn
from my telling. You wanted
to cage a bird in your hands
and learn to fly.
Listen again.
You must not handle birds.
They cannot fly through your fingers.
You are not a nest
and a feather is
not made of blood and bone.
Only words
can fly for you like birds
on the wall of the sun.
A bird is a poem
that talks of the end of cages.
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
The road winds into the distance
rocks, roots, puddles and mud
draw them higher.
Each step one closer to the lodge
built years ago by others
who passed beneath more youthful trees.
Trees that now bend and sway
creak and groan as they lean
to hear conversation below,
chatter to ease the monotony
of the upward stretch.
Clouds twist and tumble
tease with grey and blues swirls,
jackets on and off
in rhythm with their play.
Each stride squashes every day worry.
Layers of adult responsibility shed
as boots splash and smiles spread.
Friends greet each other,
prairie dogs happy to ascend to the alpine,
to explore new territory.
Covered in mud they giggle,
children who play in the rain
because they can.
(credit: Ruedi Beglinger – photo taken at Moloch Hut, Selkirk Mountains)
mountain peaks
rise heavenward
in joyful exclamation
I tickle clouds
make angels laugh
(photo credit: Arnoud Jansen)
lazy summer heat
stops time
papa naps in shade
Use the talents you possess, for the woods
would be very silent if no birds sing
except the best.
– Henry Van Dyke
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