Thanks, Doug, Bill, and also responders to my Chinese Phase last week.
Max in Seattle
On Mar 23, 2016, at 8:14, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Don’t have that connection myself, Max, but I like how you articulate it. You have found a mode for such meditative observation. In the second I second Bill on how the soreness of line catches breath…
>
> Doug
>> On Mar 23, 2016, at 12:19 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Up Capitol Hill Twice
>>
>> 1. Eye and Nose
>>
>> While we’re up here,
>> enjoy the sublime view,
>> I tell the dog, who,
>> far rather than
>> the transcendental
>> prefers nose-to-ground
>> fragrances - scents all
>> that humans frowned
>> on since time began.
>>
>> Look sharp, look round!
>> You may not verbalize,
>> but do mentalize! -
>> those panoramas
>> outdo these aromas -
>> in my view, in my eyes,
>> which are so not-yours.
>>
>> Up! share this favorite
>> bench. Empathize!
>> Dog’s nose knows? -
>> to recognize
>> is truly to know,
>> real knowledge
>> re-cognition.
>> To have been here
>> some time before
>> and to know it again…
>>
>> Flash of a squirrel -
>> at last his eye is caught:
>> Lurch in its direction -
>> this we can share -
>> it’s light in action.
>> Now he’s a sight-hound
>> like me - outward bound
>> rather than down-to-ground.
>>
>> Across the lawn, up its tree,
>> where not even eye
>> can trace it - squirrels
>> itself away. We subside
>> into ourselves. Recovered,
>> we can go back down
>> together, our jaunty
>> saunter and swagger
>> brought on more
>> by the slope than the sense
>> we make between us of our
>> overlapping experience.
>>
>> What do I see in him? -
>> after filtering out projection
>> (in each other’s good books) -
>> cross-species connection
>> familiar yet foreign,
>> Labrador good looks.
>> I see a stubborn survivor
>> of much surgery - liver
>> and thereabouts - returned
>> to the life his courage earned.
>>
>> What does he see - smell -
>> sense - in me? Dog knows.
>> This tolerable Other,
>> patient big brother,
>> who feeds and walks him, well
>> enough, I suppose.
>>
>> 2. Uphill Exercise
>>
>> Uphill stroll
>> becomes a plod
>>
>> take a right
>> along the flat
>>
>> get breath back
>> turn then up
>>
>> another test
>> look about
>>
>> pause for a rest
>> exercise eyes
>>
>> all those houses
>> all those styles
>>
>> modest or proud
>> sad ones doomed
>>
>> prey to developers
>> building high flats
>>
>> all those gardens
>> change of seasons
>>
>> various blossoms
>> petals on grass
>>
>> old trees shattered
>> in the last storm
>>
>> zigzag to the top
>> time for a breather
>>
>> a park bench - sit
>> stop stop full stop
>>
>> watch for the next storm
>> what may it take out?
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Done in by creation itself.
>
> I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
> The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
> We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
>
> Robert Kroetsch.
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