A Friend of Mine Has Disappeared #poem (she was at a #retreat / I nailed it)

spiral or tendril?

A Friend of Mine Has Disappeared

To a spiritual retreat,

I am thinking,

the sort wherein

orchestral rustling

of leaves accompany

spiritual exercise.

Wherein spirals and tendrils,

the inner ear's carpet,

unfurl as royal messengers

bear baskets overflowing

sweetmeats and jewels

and, remember, I know 

her, mystique.

A truck's bullhorn blast

on Third Avenue, 2 a.m.

That's mystique, too.

I suspect she is at a writers'

retreat and didn't say.

She knew I'd be jealous.

Oh, Universe, embrace me

as I weep my petty tears.

Wherever she is, allow

my friend settle into 

knowing as You allow

my wretched unknowing.

Thanks to Pure Slush for including this poem in their anthology on friendship. There's a story here, much of which is set in my imagination. I hadn't heard anything from my friend A., who lived nearby. She wasn't at a spiritual retreat, it turns out, but she was at an artist colony and also in the midst of 'issues'. So, this and that, a call-for-work from the Australian press Pure Slush . . .

In Which the Poet Pushes to Remain Conscious

Vengeful Sprites.  "Cain" by Sophie Blackall*

I finally input the draft of the poem I scribbled early this month at the Met.  Like "St. Sarah Sarai Carrying the Infant Christ Child"--first published in the Mississippi Review (R.I.P.), the poem overtook me.

It's too soon to know if the new poem, written in full draft while I sat on a bench facing a great from the catalog of Euro art.

My point is, however--and I'm using this space as a Memo to Sarah, Hello! Already. Probably the most consistent story in my life that isn't the story of MY LIFE can inspire a poem. It won't necessarily do so.  No sure thing. 

But my intuition says, and pretty loudly given I'm bidden to make it public and relatively, in the way of blog postings, public, keep at it.  Go back to the source. I also note "Remorse"--which was published in Terrain (a thriving online journal) (scroll down--it's the 2nd poem there). It was inspired (I'm using "inspired" as a placeholder--there is a more accurate description unavailable to me) by a story in Genesis.

What I'm saying to myself is Why not push harder to write poems on this theme, aligned to this mythology, belief, religion, wildly active participant in the collective mind?

Huh, Sarah? Don't let yourself bury the impulse in mystery novels and searches for the perfect purse.

*For more on Sophie Blackall, wonderful artist, visit her Facebook page, Sophie Blackall.

All Fools Day, All Saints Day, the Tarot

I didn't become a Tarot reader, though that was a plan. The plumb line between a fixed star and intention is often bisected by will or choice. Or by the fact I couldn't memorize the cards to my satisfaction.

And by the way, today is All Saints Day. That means there are over one thousand designated helpers today. For me, that's enough meaning.

All Saints? Good topic. I immediately wrote All Fools, thought: It's quite a compliment.  In the Tarot deck, the Fool is the first card.  She's numbered "0." Definitely an air sign, without much plan, she leads the conga line of Tarot's major arcana and also of the eccentric, intuitive, original.

Some decks reveal the twelve astrological signs are in or hovering near her knapsack. She packs light but has everything needed, all aspects of personality, emotions, possibility, probability, strength, pitfall. Or so I say. Many others, too.

I'm asking the Fool to help me find a way beyond my concerns about process of the emotions and how people react to life--in writing and in life, though, really, mostly in writing. I need something different as I continue writing fiction, or else I'll feel I'm recycling myself.

I hope I return to the Tarot.  This posting feels light, incomplete, inconclusive, like the fool starting out for who knows where.

The artwork is from http://www.artfulalf.com/ and is by Alicia Lee Farnsworth.

Psychic networking: who needs a body? Facebook & friendship

We almost don't need bodies to know each other. We don't need "in-person" to feel transecting rings of sameness, strength and history.

On the 4th I wrote a status update on the great social networking timesuck (and joy) Facebook: Sarah Sarai bottles rockets.

Appropriate for the day, done, move on, get out, live your life, Sarah Sarai. Which I did. While walking to the life I was living that day a thought came to me, Why doesn't ** comment on that update?

** is a poet I've never met. ** is a poet with any number of poety accomplishments under her belt——book and university professor, to name two. I'd gotten to know a few FB poets through emails of life history, resentments, lusts, insights, but not **.

Still——through comments and photographs I've intuited a sense of the person and of comradeship {and this was before I read her work}.

Not long ago, a poet with whom I have emailed back and forth nailed me in terms of a specific commonality. We might not have signed on for this childhood happening——but now were sisters. Deep intuition was something I associated with friends and family——they may be thousands of miles away but I often get a sense, sometimes scarily specific, of what's happening.

That intuitive intersection—of piecing together the clues and spirit—is clearly part of my Internet repertoire. I noticed it through listservs I signed onto four or five years ago——new friends based on similar perspectives and born out in meeting. I suppose as a reader I could say, Duh. I've been responding to the written word since Beatrix Potter, but "authors" have a persona. Online friends most often don't.

When I got home the night of the fiery 4th I saw ** had commented on me as one who bottles rockets. Some small connection builds.