5.10.07 frostwalt
oh what id give to be a swinger of birches the supple bend of youth to rhythmfloat above the soil from trunk to trunk in the lazy arc of the moon but they dont grow out here so ill be a swinger of cedars if i can find any now that so many are cut and i cant swing on firs because theyre too weak when theyre young and too tall when theyre old and the bark would be rough on my white collar hands and as for other trees i dont know theyre names so how could i use them to swing
oh what id give to stretch my length on leaves of grass but out here its all asphalt and concrete and manicured lawns all the leaves halved and burn browned at the top not a meadow or glade or glen of wildgrass within reach so ill be a layer on stones with unknown edges sharper than time and all the while ill replay the phrase leavesofgrass in my mind till it fills me with green and scents and the sun and everything summer is supposed to mean which is the fruition of spring or the answer to winters still life introspection on death oh what id give to consistently sing the song of myself clear and clean which i do when i can and im not out of tune too flat or too sharp wavering between and the verses all muddled and slurred which is strange because i should know it complete
the melody is yours it is mine it is the same since the beginning of thought and of reason and of wondering at unfettered stars and wind on the ice and of hypnotized water and its manic times too it is the song of myself but only in that it is the song of ourselves and its being sung from the grave and moaned by shades and thrown down from on high and rising from bottom and our your my song will not stop not even when weve ceased to matter or to be of matter and
oh how i wish i could catalog in seconds what eternity means and share with you what ive learned in these my flashing moments of immortality.
Posted in blogism
June 13th, 2007 at 2:31 am
Oh shit I think somehow I submitted that and did not mean to…either that or it got erased in cyberspace somehow. UGH. Go figure because it has been so impossibly hard for me to write this last year and this is my first attempt….Ok going to just try to spout it out here in summary fashion.
I discovered your website a few months ago, after giving birth in my home in my living room in a birthing tub, to a 8 lb 6 oz baby girl, Najala (”of wide eyes” in Arabic - my Gramma’s name). A long awaited child and planned with great intention. After giving birth - which was the most beautiful and transformational experience of my life - struggled with breastfeeding for 8 weeks, didn’t know until towards the end of the 8 weeks it was due to thrush. Bleary eyed one night I was googling thrush and came across your website somehow, which at 3 am was very interesting…a lot I could relate to.
So ok, stay with me. Two days after I found out I was pregnant my grandfather passed away from mesothelioma (lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure - horrible horrrible stuff). One of the biggest losses of my life - never knew my father - crazy childhood blah blah blah but Grampa was always there. So in searching for some answers and comfort, I turned to Song of Myself, shorty after I had just had my 1st ultrasound at 7 weeks and named my fetus Sprout, after the ultrasound revealed a blob that looked like a beansprout about to unfurl. When I came across these lines, I was sure that it was a message from the Universe that Grampa had met Sprout on the way out and all was good….”What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, even the smallest sprout shows there is really no death, and if ever there was it led forward life, and it does not wait at the end to arrest it, and ceased the moment life appeared. All goes onward and outward…and nothing collapses,and to die is different that any supposed and luckier.” In the last year I have read a lot of Whitman and found comfort in the timelessness of his words.
After Grampa died, I put down my pen….I got halfway through writing about his death and couldn’t write anymore about it. Haven’t been able to pick up a pen since. Yesterday was the 1st anniversary of his death. I feel like I’m finally getting ready to write again, maybe. I think I’ve had it in my head that I needed to finish writing about it before writing about all that has transpired in my life since. Not sure if I feel that way anymore. One thing that motherhood is teaching me is to have less rigid ideas of how things should be or how I’d like them to be. When I first read about your walk and other ramblings, I read it with longing for a life that I almost had once, that was similar to yours, if only in spirit rather than actual experiences. The older I get though and the more people I meet I realize how alike we all are…and while I cannot put it as eleqouently as Whitman put it, there is nothing new on this earth. Our thoughts, our feelings, our experiences, our feet and wanderings, shit and tears - there is nothing new here. They have been destroyed and created and recycled a thousand times over…your longings were and are someone elses - even mine and yet like you said already your existance is halfway erased….
So do you think it’s part of your journey to suffer the longing and searching you do? I once thought it was part of my journey - to never find contentment, to be a wanderer, a searcher- sometimes I still question it, but I am at a point where I have realized that the shit that I wanted - to live an unordinary life full throttle and taste every part of it with every cell of my body…well I don’t know if I’ve just settled or what but I’ve come to the conclusion that this thirst is partly my own egocentric desire to do what hasn’t been done just so I can say I did it (I’ll freely admit it’s always been half the thrill) and if energy can neither be created nor destroyed then fuck it’s all been done and felt and soaked up by everyone anyway…I think it’s just life’s desire to spew itself on the canvas and make a different mark…
So, I’ve given up on the idea of leaving all of my possesions behind and traveling around the world in search of new insights…I’m sure I would become a different person - maybe even a better one - but I am content to find the insights I do in the simpleness and the settledness of my life…like chopping wood and singing to my babe when she is crying and driving to work every day. There is a simpleness in these things, in these acts that brings me peace of mind and heart. Sometimes I get sad that I have given up my restlessness and settled down, but in doing so I have realized I gave up a thorn in my side in a way too…I would never have been content until I decided that I wanted to be, with the life I have. There may not be a great book that tells the adventures of my life, but I will be content if at least one person I leave behind will look back at my life and see that it is filled with goodess.
Not sure if any of this makes sense to you, but I thank you for reading this and for stirring my mind and desire to write… your words licked the tip of my pen and got the ink flowing…I humbly thank you. Good luck on your journey through this life…
Namaste,
Elisha