Lyrical Thoughts

"Kindness"

There is a place where
even music is no longer
necessary
where I
am always
high

Where words are before somebody utters them
where leaves are before there are leaves
and where these friends
who never leave me
come from

No rest
for the
blessed

No poison envy
lushly clinging
and growing
around the
house twittering
darkening
everything

I will come to you memory shining

This body
is not me

---------------------------

"The Poem"

In morning rain a dark
vast rustling mass of lilacs

summons me (greener
than the dreams of God), it

troubles me
awake, a

smemory--


both by Franz Wright, from God's Silence

These photos are from Sunday, when we went to visit Dan's family for Easter. Lately I've been in the mood to wear very simple, pretty dresses with few accessories. I think my shorter hairstyle, combined with the onset of spring, has provoked an appreciation of simplicity in me. The warm breeze is adornment enough for now.

The poems of Franz Wright, on the other hand, are anything but simple. I discovered his work after a former co-worker gave me a copy of the Knopf National Poetry Month Collection cd. On it, Wright reads several of his poems from God's Silence. At first I was attracted to those recordings because his voice is so full of passion, pain, yearning and pathos. Very soon, I began to appreciate the poems for themselves. Reading the book now, I can hear his voice echoing through the pages, but I also appreciate the words even more for having read them myself -- at my own pace. There is one poem in particular that I haven't included here (but hope to feature later) that I can read over and over again and find myself moved every time.

This afternoon, I sat in a bookstore/cafe drinking herbal tea and eating alone. It was after the lunch rush had passed and no one, not even the waiters, were in a hurry. I'd wandered to this spot without any particular intention of going in, but found myself enjoying those moments of silence, with nothing but linden tea, a falafel wrap, and a book of poetry to occupy my attention. Days like this can be hypnotic if I'm in the right frame of mind. Its as if the perfume of spring and lyrical thoughts have enveloped my mind and drifted off with it...to beautiful places that are always present, but which often go unseen.