Sujātā

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, asking, branches, Buddha, flow, milk, need, offering, passing, place, rice, river, sitting, Sujata, time, wisdom

                Sujātā

                the Nairañjanā flows,
                it always flows, Sujātā
                knows the flows, she had passed there

                every day, she passed
                the Bodhisattva parched
                as a blackened tree-stump,

                and every day saw only
                the low low reach of
                the tree wide and high

                waiting for the One
                to sit under, axial
                to the universe

                and before it was even
                apparent and the need
                had yet to ask she

                had creamed the
                sweetest milk with
                bursting grains of rice

                and offered it by the
                ever-flowing river, all
                absent of design and

                plot, but ineluctable
                in both place and
                process; so few found so wise

 

from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra:

                “The village girl Sujātā, who has done much good in the past,
                  Continuously makes offerings, thinking: “May this guide complete his discipline!”                
                  When she hears the request of the gods, she brings milk porridge with honey;
                  She goes to the river and happily sits on the banks of the Nairañjanā.”

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

branches & river wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
Buddha wormhole: in deed
flow wormhole: transferring
passing & sitting wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
time wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

 

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threshold to behold

Tags

1967, 2019, 8*, abandonment, alcove, being, birds, blue, books, breeze, Dad, Eglinton Hill, evening, garden, head, identity, life, meaning, openness, place, purpose, room, shoulders, skirting board, sky, son, sound, standing, text, time, trees, Victorian houses, weight, windows

                                  threshold to behold

                having persistently interrogated every alcove
                and skirting and sash-window of every room
                he could possibly have been in

                for any lead to any whereabouts, to even a
                chalk-outline, of how to be (beyond the breath
                of standing next to him in the breezy garden) –

                they were so well-moulded, fitted at perfect
                right angle, pulleys holding the weight just right
                to open, surely they would know – nothing,

                (or were they just too arcane to decode),
                the son stood before the bookshelves – how
                was it, now – legs not really astride but anyhow,

                (dangling, even), but head and shoulders alert,
                scanning the spines, weighing what each had
                to offer to respective places and times in the

                whole of a life, ah, this is the one – plucked –
                from the top of the spine, reached down; felt
                their weight, now, opened boarded covers

                (sound of crease), open at random (must of
                decades), what does the text say when
                eavesdropped unaware, has it sense, could I inhabit

                that sense enough to see what to do, to breathe
                what to be – birds take flight into the turning deep blue
                above evening trees

 

my father left his family on my eighth birthday; I’m sure he didn’t plan in that way, but that’s the day he happened to come home late again and confess that he’d been seeing someone else – I played with my new cars behind the sofa and listened to him leave, I didn’t look up so much as stare at the shape of the room as if noticing for the first time in the Victorian house on the hill where we lived; ‘I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed’ (a no-prize to anyone who can name where these lyrics come from) looking for the direction I needed to be ‘the man of the house, now’ as someone said to me at the time; it’s only now I have retired that I realise there is no direction to go and that there is no man about the house other than saying makes it so; I still don’t look up, but am more and more sure that I don’t have to, now; still, all that browsing, plucking and hoarding over the years …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

abandonment & Dad & life wormhole: my uncomfortable life
being wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
blue & trees wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
books wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
breeze wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
Eglinton Hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
evening & time & windows wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
garden wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
identity wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
meaning wormhole: the old man;
openness wormhole: the mantra of Maitreya
sky wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
sound wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
Victorian houses wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing

 

clear as vista

Tags

2014, apocalypse, breath, buildings, city, effect, flag, Have, movement, openness, place, relief, seasons, skyline, space, time, view, vista, wind

                buildings of the skyline
                nonchalant and upright

                heave breath through season
                own skyline in years

                wave flags and storey
                benign and unquestioned

                to the wind and the space
                which is safe from view

                the impossible interface be
                tween Have and Open

                for space fits around
                and wind is just movement

                from nowhere to nowhere
                when seen in effect

                when seen in relief their
                built-in apocalypse

                of gathering obsolescence
                is clear as vista

 

this poem was found within the above image which was the most recent in a series of ‘Wordless Wednesday’s by Vanessa Foster in her blog, Unguarded Moments: have a look – https://vgfoster.com/2014/09/17/wordless-wednesday/ – and ‘related’ back to her previous ones, too: they are beautiful

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

breath wormhole: breathing through hypnagogia
buildings & city wormhole: between
Have wormhole: is there anything to write?
openness wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
skyline wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
space wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
time wormhole: circuitry
wind wormhole: step

 

stone

Tags

2017, 7*, acceptance, afterlife, barrow, breath, death, girl, hair, life, lost, parent, place, settlement, sky, speech, stone, time, world

courtesy of https://historicengland.org.uk – hope she doesn’t mind

                                there was
                                just out
                                and hunt
                                and gather

                                and then
                                we stopped
                                to keep
                                and found

                the whole world wider than the sky

                                that we
                                got lost
                                to where
                                we were

                                and time
                                which came
                                to late
                                and so we

                                hauled
                                the stones
                                to fix
                                place

                                and dis
                                covered
                                in …
                                and life

                                and death
                                the smell of
                                deepness
                                the breath

                                of stone
                “you know what they were talking about
                                in class …
                                Kirsty …”

                                scampering
                                sideways
                                down the
                                slope untied

                                hair waving
                                all over
                                the place
                “… they were talking about barrows, burial

                                chambers;
                                we’re standing
                                on them
                                now – ”

                                all over
                                the place;
                                I’ve come
                                from the

                                ground I’ll
                                go back to
                                the ground
                                when time

 

perspective; read the whole sequence as it treads sideways down through time: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

acceptance wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
breath & hair & life wormhole: brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie
death wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
girl wormhole: neither nude nor / descending a staircase
sky wormhole: ssreet chak-chak
speech wormhole: retirement
stone & time & world wormhole: weight

 

traffic lights and broad avenue

Tags

1965, 2016, 6*, avenue, body, brick, buildings, clouds, Dr Strange, evening, eyes, face, grace, implication, manifestation, morning, mouth, place, realisation, storey, streets, sun, synchronicity, traffic lights, travelling, uncaused, will

                it is always the willed renege
                that let’s the face dislocate-
                hideous in full disclosure
                when implications emerge

                that the mouth no longer
                forms, the nostrils lose
                their boundary, the eyes no
                longer level, that the body

                fulfils its natural grace to
                tend to travel where point
                is cornered without street
                to edge and dwelling stands

                familiar as brick but
                stacked in storey and cipher
                whence cones and bolts will
                manifest but unoriginate

                `till squint is healed and
                morning cloud will shred
                the evening sun between
                traffic lights and broad avenue

 

not surprised by the camber of “The Demon’s Disciple!” by Lee & Ditko in Strange Tales#128, January 1965

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

buildings wormhole: fresh destiny
clouds wormhole: did I get old?
Dr Strange wormhole: Clea
evening wormhole: the 19th century
eyes wormhole: adjustment
morning wormhole: magnificent salad
mouth wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
realisation wormhole: just one, open, nerve,
streets wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
sun wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I suddenly / remembered
traffic lights wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
travelling wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”