diary of an old soul

Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown,

Airs drift across the twilight border land,

Odored with life;

. . . whispers to my heart are blown

That fill me with a joy I cannot speak,

Yea, from whose shadow words drop faint and weak.

- George MacDonald

I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for --

will freely go in and out, and find pasture. . . . I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

- John 10:9-10

underground skylight, Seattle

Nick Benevides, Seattle

Nick Benavides's porch's sink. San Francisco, Calif.

two weeks notice, or ballad of the navigator's glow-globe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

- Edgar Allan Poe

stoplights

sitting at the rosecranz, nimitz intersection, i looked out my left window. three homeless men stood in the shade of the building that had once been a grocery store. one of the men adjusted one of the others' collars and brushed the shoulders of his fraying jacket. the third man fed some small birds that had begun gathering around his feet. the poignancy of the moment hit me in the chest like a hot ember. then the shifting light propelled traffic forward, and my car moved with the surge. i felt happy and i felt sad. i felt. i felt. i felt. so very alone.

i have found the point where the earth and the sky touch.

to light you will return

Seattle, Washington

veins

cloud veins split with a hot glass crack

rain peppers the trees cold

the energy splits and floats down to where we stand

my hand holding an umbrella stem

your hand wrapped around mine

effervescence flows from skin to blood to heart 

my foot puddle dodges 

presses a leaf into cement

blood orange paper

veins that once held life 

veins with pen marking connections

canals carrying blood to your heart to your skin to my skin

you glow like the city’s reflection on the sound

waves of your voice transfer life 

with sparkling invisibility

you

are the most precious and beautiful thing in my life. 

shoes

the problem

you said, 

is our shoes:

separation from the earth

i painted my room red

and never wanted to leave

newspapers bled out of walls

a memory hollowed 

out my insides

something persisted 

to propel me 

out of the joy of sorrow

and here we are

with our shoes

(yours can barely carry its name)

i want to melt into you

walks like these

"let's pull over if you don't mind," my friend said. 

i had already passed the turn-in, so i slammed the truck into reverse and rolled into the empty parking lot. the sun had set, or, perhaps more accurately, the world had turned its face from the sun. remnants of its meager attempts to outshine the rain faded behind the clouds. the clouds. the clouds looked unearthly: deep purple layered over grey. they filled the entire sky. i stared for a moment, unable to peel my eyes away. the atmosphere looked colder than it really was. i shivered a little, and my friend offered me his jacket. 

"i'll be fine once we start walking," i told him. 

we wandered into a huge metal-roofed structure with no walls but filled with dead machinery. old oil rigging equipment sprouted from the concrete floor. 

"is someone playing music in there? cuz that would be fucking cool," he smiled. 

eerie sounds echoed off the lifeless metal. a violin maybe. laughter twisted by the cold and machines reached our ears. 

"this place gets shady at night," he said without looking at me. 

"oh great. great idea to come here," i muttered.

we peeked over a ledge where the music seemed to be climbing from. underneath us, sitting at a table was a group of homeless people bundled up in blankets, drinking, and listening to jazz music from a radio. we moved out towards the dimming light.

he pointed out pieces welded together that had no business being welded together. "art," was his explanation.  

"let's go to the compass at the top of the hill," he pointed.

a path twisted up the hill. it looked like a slippery snake or a frozen river. a couple was throwing a frisbee for a black dog who jumped off the ground for the catches. besides the hill in front of us and the trees to our left, the park was open. the cold and rain had cleared almost everyone out. 

my friend squished straight up the grass while i walked up the slick path trying not to slip. 

"i'm an "a" to "b-er," he explained. turning and walking back down to the path he asked, "do you think if i sat here all day i could sell people fortunes?"

"definitely. you always seemed like the miss cleo type," i smiled. 

"i would sit them down and look at their palm for awhile and say 'hmmmm,'" he rubbed his hand on his chin.

"standard."

"then i'd tell them 'life sucks, and then you die.'"

"life does not suck," i said shoving his shoulder.

"it does right now. for me at least," he said glumly.

"i know," i replied, "it will get better though. you have to know sadness to know happiness."

"i guess."

we reached the top: a huge compass was planted, taking up the entire platform of the hill. pieces of shells and purple glass were inlaid, and golden hands pointed north, south, east, and west. i was interested in south: choppy water expanded and contracted as boats maneuvered their way to dock. the city glowed at the water's edge, climbing towards the sky. cold, rain-washed air blew around us. puddles reflected the intense clouds back at themselves. the world as it was right now was beautiful. 

"this is why i moved to here," he said, "for pointless walks like these."

the comfort of darkness

darkness swept the earth in my dream,

cold crowded the streets with its wings,

cold talons pursued each river and stream

into the mountains, found out their springs

and drilled the dark world with ice.

an enormous wreck of a bird

closed on my heart in the darkness

and sank into sleep as it shivered.

not even the heat of your blood, nor the pure

light falling endlessly from you, like rain, 

could stay in my memory there

or comfort me then.

only the comfort of darkness,

the ice-cold, unfreeezable brine,

could melt the cries into silence,

your bright hands into mine. 

- galway kinnell

excerpts from old letters

i wonder about you. i wish we could skip the ocean and have that coffee. 

i remember that you smiled with your eyes. when you smiled, your eyes smiled too. it was really great. i guess we spent about 5 minutes together...

how did you get so wise and sharp for a person of two decades?

how did you get so much style?

I met a girl today, from LA. and she has a friend who was cousins with edie. trueness.

i would pay for your coffee. 

yeah, i was like "i need to know this girl." i didn't know what i know now, but maybe somehow i knew i needed to know?

..............

maybe i will post more later.

Georgetown, Washington

my ears are happy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alVa9LRQrc

Mitchell and Poli

conversation

you're the coolest person i know, she said.

i know, he replied.

is it hard?

effortless.

lakes of green

today it is raining in seattle. the liquid is leeching down the screenless windows of my small bedroom and leaking a chill through the single panes. it’s pouring, and i can feel the thunder. the electricity has been out for awhile. lightning must have hit some major power line. it’s pouring outside -- in my mind. 

it’s actually eighty-five degrees in the northwest and not even a drop of dew dripping from a single veiny leaf. i wish it was raining because it’s seattle, and it’s supposed to. where’s the gloom? 

tonight i’m going to make a vegetarian dinner. not because i would ever think of permanently leaving the land of hotdogs or bbq, but because i want to try something new. maybe some sort of casserole. the kind that looks disgusting and tastes wonderful. 

even though one is supposed to wait thirty minutes after eating to swim, i will go straight towards a non-salty body of water. the sun will still be high even though it will be late. i will decide to make the best of this weather. maybe i’ll jump from the high dive into Green Lake with the heat pushing me towards the swaying algae the lake takes its name from. someone told me today that sometimes this underwater forest grows so thick and so tall that they (whoever they is) shut the lake down to expunge the plant from its muddy floor. scuba divers equipped with weed-whackers manufactured for underwater use probably traipse out of government vans with their flippers already on. maybe they wield some rusty clippers for the edge work. kids would sit on the banks with overgrown bumblebees flying over their heads. they would dip their toes in the warm water and wait not so patiently with small sighs for the lake-gardeners to finish their deforestation. 

stream of consciousness

seattle is an even better place to live than i imagined. i’ve been so happy since i’ve moved here, and it’s helping me realize that happiness doesn’t depend on the people i’m with (since most of them are not here) but instead on a decision that i make to be happy and to be content. 

someone told me that i was an answer to his prayers about one of his friends. i’m heartbroken to say that i don’t think i am. now i’m waiting for the same thing for the same person. logic vs emotion vs emotion vs logic. they don’t have to mean different things. they’re just different functions of the same organ. 

my cat makes me extremely happy. he talks to me. and i talk back. he’s a great listener. my boyfriend bought him a toy. i think he may have been trying to get lucky. it was a pretty good ploy. 

i have two job interviews tomorrow. in a weird way, i like applying for jobs. it’s a challenge i know i can accomplish. 

i really love people more than anything. i enjoy them immensely. i miss a lot of people. 

i want to paint and draw and read more, but i don’t make the time for it, and that frustrates me.

i went to a yoga class today for the first time. i like pilates better. 

anyway

someday you will walk a dripping sidewalk

the sea inspecting your retreat

waves scraping splinters from the dock

salt, sand, sidewalk meet

faded neon bars require the night to be duller

i hope you understand the saxophone player 

in his doorway of peeling color

a scarlet song drifting in the fog layer

i never liked cherries anyway

"But in some cases it is really more to one's credit to be carried away by an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to be unmoved."

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky 

These hands were born reaching.

They know no other way.

- Amy Berkhoudt

the title to one of her photographs which is as stunning as her words. 

right turn

Irish countryside

"Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? . . . If it be, give me thine hand" (2 Kings 10:15). I do not mean, "Be of my opinion." You need not. I do not expect of desire it. Neither do I mean, "I will be of your opinion." I cannot; it does not depend on my choice. I can no more think than I can see or hear as I will. Keep your opinion; I, mine, and that as steadily as ever. . . . Let all opinions on one side and the other: only, "give me thine hand." . . . "If thine heart is as my heart," if thou lovest God and all mankind, I ask no more: "Give me thine hand." . . . [and] love me with a very tender affection, as a friend that is closer than a brother, as a brother in Christ.

- John Wesley qtd in Michael Lodahl's The Story of God

Banksy Art, Chalk Farm, London, England

Flaming, stormy, sparkling! She embraced me with her whole self, and my self disappeared.

For she was not she but the whole universe.


Evgenii Ivanovich Zamiatin. We

Olin, San Diego, California

Bugheera Secret Coolcat Houdini Elvis Beaver Shadow Schade, Fort Sumner, New Mexico

I've been in love with this ball of fur for the last nine years. 

Filmed about four years ago.

Birds, Stockholm, Sweden

Rwanda, Africa

dishwasher

i sat on the counter and listened to the dishwasher make its full cycle.

i sat on the counter and listened to you explain.

i asked the same rephrased questions while reversing the syntactic order.

you gave the same rephrased answers while instilling a gentler tone.

i understood and didn't understand

"that makes sense." but it doesn't.

forty-six minutes and four seconds later

i understood without understanding.

the dishwasher clicked once more then vented its steam.

you are gone. no i'm not. yes. you are.

maybe i'm starting to grow up.

the day before was wrong

but we'll make up for it today

i whispered

my arm under your sweet head

we're only saying our goodbyes

in the splinters of dusty night dreams

in the uncomfortably comfortable bed

do you remember my birthday

or my name

do you remember 

or did you remember to forget

i'll remind you to remember

we listened to the snap of sails on the pacific

we touched the cold northwestern wind in the park filled with machines

we experienced the coast glitter like a 1920s dress covered in jazz

we followed the broken road and didn't have to worry -- only drive and drive

there was a story about a ceiling

the trees were silent because all the birds had left

and you read lying on your stomach

your voice more honest

the words emerging from your mouth

became sunburned and sandy

gulls bolted landward to snatch them up

they are greedy

or maybe just hungry

the day before was wrong

we'll make up for it tomorrow

all that is wonderful right now

do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for. 

- Epicurus 

5th Ave, New York City

San Francisco, California

we still have 30

some things must be felt to be known

and this i know

i know i will remember 

the poetry 

we spent summer nights wrapped in each other

i know i will remember

sitting on your front porch

on the creaky steps 

in a forest of light and leaves and cigarette smoke

when the traffic melted into breezes

and knowing you are 

all at once

and knowing the levels were, are, will be connected

and the bridges fire-proof

and we have insurance besides

we still have 30

i'll feed the birds

and you'll make the words come alive

everything will be more than it really is

we'll move to seattle 

and open a bookstore

i'll have a cat

and you'll make the words come alive

someday you'll know what you already know

you'll make the words come alive

because we still have 30

Fort Sumner, New Mexico

As I walked out one evening

O look, look in the mirror
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.
--W. H. Auden

Rwanda, Africa

everyone who might wander into its radiance

The palm trees speckled the night horizon as we walked down the OB pier. I held your hand and the smell of salt lay heavy in the air. Families fished on either side of us, casting lines over our heads and then back into the ocean, the waves bringing in more blackness dripping from the stars down the inky sky, drenching the water. You commented on how fishing was a family affair. Whichever parent wasn’t fishing sat on the dock with little kids sleeping on his or her lap. Spanish music floated on the too warm fall air.

We decided to leave the sepia-lighted pier full of people who themselves were growing sepia in the drooping glow. We did not want to be hazy like the rest of them. We wanted to be, and we were, luminous. The moon tried to light a path for us as we climbed the cliffs and stepped over water pooled in cold cracks. Finally we found a desirable spot—jutting out from the cliffs was a rock platform ideal for watching waves. We climbed up and opened a bottle of apple cider. I laid my head on your shoulder.

“I’ve decided that you’re one of the best things to happen to me in a long time,” you said. My mind went back to the night we stayed up talking until the sun edged the night away with a creeping, glowing pinkness.

We talked for a long time. The waves grew bolder and taller, rocketing up the cliff’s barrier. Eavesdropping on our conversation. We talked about snippets in time that stitched our relationship together thus far.

We talked about sitting in your house, a fully alive breeze danced and spun through the windows held open by books of poems, windows which refused to stay open on their own accord. We summoned Gallway Kinnell, e. e. cummings, and Billy Collins as a force against the gusts. I remember sitting there, hearing the poetry from your mouth leaving slowly then snapping in the breeze like a banner.

With tape you hung two poems above your bed. You transferred them to my room where they doubled as dream catchers and were the last thing my eyes saw before closing in sleep. Since that lyrical summer, I no longer sleep under those poems, but the images remain taped to the rafters of my brain.

One of the things we first found we had in common was our shared love of poetry; it’s really no wonder then that the two of us together are like a poem with each hour becoming a new verse and every day another stanza. We found an excerpt from an introduction by e. e. cummings and clung to it:

“The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople—it’s no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone. You and I are humanbeings; mostpeople are snobs. you and i are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human beings; for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery, the mystery of growing: the mystery which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves. you and i wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life, for eternal us, is now; and now is much too busy being a little more than everything to seem anything”

this means more than you know

"The internal silence you are experiencing is a secret blessing. Stillness leads to insight. Lack of ego encourages the love of simple pleasures. When your mind shuts the fuck up, all of a sudden, the world opens and serenades you. The buzz of the ignition of a fluorescent light, the annoying brrurrrrrr of a passing Harley (I fucking hate Harleys by the way), the drips of water from your beautiful leaky faucet, life-giving prods and pokes, eye-opening smacks... You are alive.

Where will you go? What will you do? Who will you touch? Much of this is out of your hands! Your only solace is the fact that you are solid and beautiful and always radiant in a crowd."

- matt stirling

the glow in high tide

we abandoned the boardwalk
and maneuvered our bikes sideways more than anything
towards the land's torn, crinkled edge

the absense of stars made the glowy foam three times brighter
maybe more

our tires slished through the moon's mirror
and we zigzagged infinity symbols in sand
as permanent as all that is said to be lasting

behind us lit hills stretched fog wings from their spines
and the glow, the waves' glow
covered you and me in the ecstasy of night

tribute to hemingway

they asked me to write my story in six words:

the song within sings no more.