Meditations in an Emergency

Annemarieke van Drimmelen, Paris, 2014

“In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love,”
Frank O’Hara – Meditations in an Emergency

Lovely Lizzie

Beata Beatrix – Dante Gabriel Rossetti

He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim:
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
-Christina Rossetti

 

Of Something Beautiful

“If the moon smiled,
She would resemble you.
You leave the same impression.
Of something beautiful,
But annihilating.”
~Sylvia Plath, The Rival

In honor of Sylvia, who died 53 years ago February 11th.

Blossoms in Winter

“The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size.” ~Gertrude S. Wister

Autumn Blaze

“Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.” ~William Allingham

Photograph: ©Lisa Chapman 2015

Heart’s Gone to Sea…

Photo credit:Wyatt McSpadden/Grove Press

A REDOLENCE FOR NIMS

O triple sob — turned forty

at midnight — body at dawn

booze-soddened but hopeful,

knowing that the only thing

to remember is dreams.

Dead clear zero, Sunday afternoon

in an attic of a closed resort

on Lake Michigan with one lone

duck riding the diminishing

swells of yesterday’s storm

against the snowy cliffs of North Manitou:

Whom are we to love?

How many and what for?

My heart’s gone to sea for years.

This is a prayer, plaint, wish,

howl of void beneath breastbone.

Dreams, soul chasers, bring

back my heart alive.

~Jim Harrison

Winter Trees

 The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.

On their blotter of fog the trees

Seem a botanical drawing.

Memories growing, ring on ring,

A series of weddings.

From “Winter Trees” ~Sylvia Plath