Welcome to the Labyrinth

Happy Autumn!

Clay mask: 2013
Rudi's apples.

Mary Oliver: "To Love What Is Mortal"

IN BLACKWATER WOODS

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

--Mary Oliver

Note: I came to this fine poem from Jennifer Cutting's fine tribute to her beloved cat Mr. Sunshine, who passed away just recently.  Wednesday will be the seventh anniversary of the passing of my own sunshine-orange-boy Rudi.

The Spirit of Autumn

Hernest: sculpture mix; brown glazes, layered.

(You can learn more about this luck-piece here.)

Remembering Rudi: A Gallery

Rest in peace, dear me-orange-boy-o:
You fought the good fight against cancer for many years.

April 1, 1995 - September 16, 2008.

Pictures of pictures.

Dream-Return

Rudi's been dead now three and a half years, but last night he visited me in a dream, that big old happy self doing his same old tricks. Felt really good.

Rudi would have been seventeen on April Fool's Day.

I've dreamed recently of my father and my friend Keith, both deceased, and in the dreams they were very much alive, very much going about fairly mundane tasks. Those dreams felt good too. Waking has had its own sorrows, sure, but the dreams felt good.

I can't recall in which poem just now, but Carolyn Kizer wrote words that I find comforting and haunting, puzzling and promising:

I dream of the dead,

Kind, brilliant, and comforting.

The lost return to us

When we are lost.

Touchstone: Neruda, For Rudi

Here's another favorite poem from Pablo Neruda: "I have four dogs to declare" / "Declaro cuatro perros." His poem puts me into his sorrow, his attention, his wonder, his love, and this poem puts me into memories of my father, actually, and puts me into my own list of beloved creatures, mostly cats, beginning with Rudi, including Motley, China, Sam, Charlie, and others. Perhaps this poem will engage you and your sorrows--memories, creatures, losses--in a way that proves worthwhile, as I am engaged.

I will quote the poem in William O'Daly's English translation as well as Neruda's original Spanish.

I have four dogs to declare:

one is already buried in the garden,

two others keep me on my toes,

tiny wild

destroyers,

with thick paws and hard canines

like needles of stones.

And one scruffy dog,

aloof,

fair-haired in her gracious manner.

No one hears her smooth golden steps

or her distant presence.

She barks only late at night

at certain phantoms,

so that just a few chosen hidden persons

hear her on the roads

or in other dark places.

Declaro cuatro perros:

uno ya esta enterrado en el jardin,

otros dos me sorprenden,

minusculos salvajes

destructores,

de patas gruesas y colmillos duros

como agujas de roca.

Y una perra grenuda,

distante,

rubia en su cortesia.

No se sienten sus pasos de oro suave,

ni su distante presencia.

Solo ladra muy tarde por la noche

para ciertos fantasmas,

para que solo ciertos ausentes escogidos

la oigan en los caminos

o en otros sitios oscuros.

Neruda, Pablo. The Sea and Bells. Trans. William O'Daly. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1988.