Shine into the darkness
of brooding quiet forces
that do not want you there.
Radiate into those shadow grey spaces
that don’t claim the name of place
and thus do not receive or comprehend you…
shine on loudly into that sinister lurk.
Your bones deeply grasp
their independence from person,
place or thing…they embody
the stringy collaboration
with you and you alone.
They do not need anything’s
skunky permission to be
or to do or to sing into the
communion of the stars
of courage and anthemic
soaring adoration of LIVE!
Some would shine like the sun…
but you, like the moon
are magnanimous and magical
in your mystery and simplicity
and your goodness and gift radiates
in glowy glimmers and clear silver
beams bouncing off soft evening meadows.
They wait for morning, in
that sinister lurk, that cold
and sinister lurk, while you
mount up…big, bony,
beaming gentle in the soft
beautiful night…
that sable cotton brilliant
and gentle.
She is busy, that lil spider,
preparing webs to catch
the breath of faintest promise
to give to her beloveds
all the spice that wafts there,
scented on those winds so warm…
but I miss her…
her eyes upon my words
so reassuring and affirming
and confirming to myself
the truths of which I write
that slide so easily
right under every other nose…
I have cloaked myself in cheeses,
breads, the scents of vintages
chocolates and the smells
of flamenco heels sparking
on the dance floor midst
sweat and anguish and amour.
I miss her…DDH
and her eyes gentle
on my words
and her heart so fierce
within their meaning
She talks like cliffs,
speaking words of grey granite
and loose limestone that
stand against blue skies
and grab onto puffy clouds.
She’s exalted over valleys, far distant in chasms
between the green and the happy streams
and places there beside her words
where eagles spin and scream
and echo in the sunset’s gleam.
She is low meadows laying soft.
She is all signification, all there
but you must have faith to listen
because she speaks in silence
louder than Beethoven.
She is not easy or attainable
but she will not hurt you, just
make you count the cost
and if you don’t, then rest assured
you will hurt yourself.
I love her in the mountain air
and in the meadow mist
both lively and lazy.
She is my best friend, and
more solid than all the earth.
after a storm the air
scrubbed and electric
and crackling with ancient
newness, fresh like a goddess
reborn in wonder and at home
moves across my face
and into my lungs
like eternity alive
and shouting
singingafter we clear the air
and our words sparkle
fresh, cracks highlighted
by tears like raindrops
offered in falling curtains
of feeling, of love, of joy
lingering slightly stained
crimson like liquid crystal heartsit’s then we see each other
again for the first time ever
and our hearts say hello you
while our eyes scream missed you so
and our voices twine again in song
like the sound of rivers
with the light of mountains
in the fresh forever air
in this fresh forever air
those brittle,
bright blasted shards jagged and hungry and
so shockingly absent.
They yawn with full belly
and ravenous soul for more
death, more hurt, more
*unlife*
but I have them
in my sights, now.
I shall throw me down
on my sister’s wounds I shall bleed my heart dry
with balm from Gilead and
I shall cry out
in constant consolation
from her inward parts
while our
Strong Soldier Sisters Stand
round about us outside and ringed
in winged-woman-might and tender hearts
so knit,
so tight.
And in
your death place
I find
life transcendent And in
my own
your laugh rings
so resplendent
here…coffee and cats, warm and sweet and the window thin and clear between me and out there clouds close and quiet and laying soft, snuggling over rainy earth
and you, thoughts of your life snuggling in the base of my throat sweet and thick, hurty-hearty present and I morosely serene…staring out the window at this grey new spring morning.
As you are writing, pouring out heart onto the pages in fits and in starts I am right there, so quiet and soft and Heart is the flag that we unfurl aloft.
I know to be still and just rest there in peace while furious storms you capture and release transformed by your spinning skills, straw into gold, while I look on in wonder and glory behold.
You shift in your seat and blow that wisp of hair that falls crost your brow towards your face ever fair. But I keep my balance with liquidy frame and wait til you’re done and you call out my name.
I am so happy to sit there and pour out my glad joy to a friend I adore and warm up the cold places in your deep core and follow our Mama Who goes on Before.
I have been turning easier these days.
Oh I always fit snug, I had been cut right
for that elaborate crocheted lock
in your tough tender heart.
You sized me up well
with nary even an eye laid on,
just an ear tuned to sounds
of a deft touch and trustworthy twist
of key in lock, snik! Tumble, and open.
But remember? How there was that
rattle, jiggle back and forth jitterbug
of hand and key, and lock unmoved?
That was edged catching on tumblers
and still skert stiff sidewalls inside
hearts eager, afraid and brave
all at once…
edges filing away
time whiling away
we, twirling in this journey
sailing, sitting, smiling
“Those who love you
are not fooled by mistakes you have made
or dark images you hold about yourself.
They remember your beauty when you feel ugly;
your wholeness when you are broken;
your innocence when you feel guilty;
and your purpose when you are confused.”
look here, Sis…inside this door
(ignore the shoes on the floor)
feel the smooth cedar sides
and smell the incense promises
of growing into things
when all else stops fitting.
Feel the door? I have been carving there
the promises I hear
broadcast from Mama’s Hair
(it’s in the falling rain, Silly Sis!
I swear! And rainsong is full
of Her promises so clear!)
but push aside all these other clothes,
ones that we can use later for dress-up
when we are high on herb tea
and dreamy…lucid…flying
and feel right here.
Yeah, that’s the one!
I found this, laying in an old hat box!
It was hiding from everyone,
down at Mortie’s Second Hand store!
I brought it to the counter and asked
How Much? He thought I meant the box.
He said he would sell it to me for a song.
I went to open it but his old liver-spotted hand
reached out gnarly but softer than spaghetti
and pressed on mine, and with the smallest shake
of his head he whispered “sing”.
So I did…singing of sun, shining. tomorrow…
Bottom Dollars and love…
and he added tears in harmonic light
Right??! I know! A bargain!
And when I went to try it on,
the dress said “hang me up and wait for Sis!”
So there…just for you…waiting its whole life
for you to step into it
Yes, it’s true. The ubër expensive store…the one that things are expensive at 50% off.
I don’t care. They make clothes that are like my heart, and when I wear them…well, I only have one top by them, and when I wear it I feel like I look pretty, and that is worth a lot to me.
If I ever become rich in a monetary sense, I am going to shop only at anthropologie! Well, and Buckle. Well, and some good place for underwear too. Well, and…LOL! Okay, so I love to shop.
But Anthropologie is my favorite place to go, and bathe in the music and atmosphere as I wander thru the racks and try things on, and then over to their housewares section for that special serving platter or table runner.
One of my most heartfelt dreams is to go to Anthropologie with my bff, and no limit on our pocketbook…and then off to coffee and each of us with a book tucked away close by that we find lines from coming alive and jumping out of the book and into the conversation and sipped along with the coffee…
Sigh…I miss those times we never had, DDH…I do indeed.
SO anyway, please enjoy this cute lil video that captures a lot of the intangibles that make me sigh.
I am on my knees right now…literally I have the laptop on the floor in front of me so I can kneel as I type:
Would you please, for real, click on this play button and listen to Archie Fisher sing his song “River Like You”?
I think he is the greatest living folk singer. Period.
Oh no…not the purest voice, not the most fantastical poetic lyrics (Van Morrison has that corner well occupied lol), not the greatest guitar playing. No…it is nothing like that with Archie Fisher. It’s deeper, ineffable…let me tell you a story…
A few years back, I was working on the Pacific Coast in a very historic town, and I saw a poster appear in the window of a small record shop there which probably sold more “medicinal herb” than it did records! But the poster…it advertised that a man named Archie Fisher was going to come and play a concert and tickets were like $12…well I was mildly interested, as I was separated during the week from my darling and the kids, so I was always searching for something to fill the void in my life left by their absence in body.
I read the poster bemusedly, and then ran across this quote: “Archie Fisher is the greatest folk singer of our time. If I heard he was playing any venue anywhere within 500 miles of me, I would go hear him and figure the rest out later.” Now Constance…I am somewhat of a folk music aficionado, and I love this form of music far more than any other, finding it deeper and more connected to our humanity than any other music (which, by the way, has its own excellencies and sublimity)…and having cut my teeth on the more esoteric ravings of Van Morrison and from there quickly diving in to Celtic Folk music and the seedbed from which Van sprang, well let’s just say that 1500 or so recordings later, I am very familiar with folk music…and yet somehow this Archie Fisher had escaped my notice!! Grrr…the nerve of him! lol
Anyway, I was skeptical but as I had nothing else to do, I bought a ticket, showed up, only to see a man who looked exactly like he does in this video…in fact, he was wearing the exact same shirt, for real! He sat down in a chair, and tuned his guitar (not very well, actually)…and when it was “close enough”, he took off picking it and on its surface, it sounded like a million other songs…but something was different…
Only God knows what, and why…but I began to weep, literally, within about 5 seconds of his beginning, and he rendered magic there before me as he sang “Borderlands”.
I bawled thru the entire first set, barely recovered at intermission, and then cried even harder during the last set, having to excuse myself a couple of times to go outside where I could sob audibly. Constance, I thought I was going to die. It was so beautiful that it killed me somehow, while simultaneously resurrecting me only to slay me again. I wanted to die on the spot so the moment would never be diminished by the passage of time…I wanted to live forever so I could laud and pay tribute to this lightening rod of meaning and wonder released thru melody and music.
The song that I am posting here is the one that broke me open once and for all…it describes for me my darling, who she is to me…
…but lately, it also is so apropos in describing the one known as ddh. In ddh’s realm, this is descriptive of my gratefulness and wonder and joy at having a friend…like one closer than a relative! One who shares my joys and sorrows, and I share alike those same things…
I post this in honor of my baby of course…but the fresh application, and the one for which I bring it to Grace Notes and to you, is in honor of the ddh…and on that day at 643 I will be hearing this song in my heart and sitting in wonder at a river there, and always different and always there and always different.
Happy Birthday, and wow did They ever outdo Themselves when They thought of you.
As far as that quote, on the poster? About Archie Fisher? Well, now I sniff in disdain, and raise my chin and ask archly
She spins,
drawing down and deep
from her most secret treasure.
She carries with her silk,
gossamer strands and strategy
and patiently she makes
from who she is inside…
her one and only option.
And need. Her One Desire.
She gets life, sustenance,
exists for transformation
and creation
of her web of life.And I watch, fascinated
by her patience, her diligent patience, her perseverance.
Mama, teach me
to take the traumas,
desires, longings,
emptinesses, hurts, wounds, deposits and experiences,
Teach me to yield
and let this whirling
confusion become spinning,
and spinning out of who I am,
that I might spin a web
to catch Your Sacred blessings
and life.
it’s then we see each other
And I watch, fascinated
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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