The Thing Is

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry4 Comments

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

“The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass, Mules of Love.

for Michele

Up To The Mountain (MLK Song)

On By Christina's WordsIn Music

“I went up to the mountain
Because you asked me to
Up over the clouds
To where the sky was blue
I could see all around me
Everywhere
I could see all around me
Everywhere

Sometimes I feel like
I’ve never been nothing but tired
And I’ll be walking
Till the day I expire
Sometimes I lay down
No more can I do
But then I go on again
Because you ask me to

Some days I look down
Afraid I will fall
And though the sun shines
I see nothing at all
Then I hear your sweet voice, oh
Oh, come and then go, come and then go
Telling me softly
You love me so

The peaceful valley
Just over the mountain
The peaceful valley
Few come to know
I may never get there
Ever in this lifetime
But sooner or later
It’s there I will go
Sooner or later
It’s there I will go”

“Up to the Mountain (MLK song)” (video). Written and performed by Patty Griffin. (Purchase on Amazon)

Sacred Emily (comments will remain open)

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

. . . That is a word.
That is a word careless.
Paper peaches.
Paper peaches are tears.
Rest in grapes.
Thoroughly needed.
Thoroughly needed signs.
All but.
Relieving relieving.
Argonauts.
That is plenty.
Cunning saxon symbol.
Symbol of beauty.
Thimble of everything.
Cunning clover thimble.
Cunning of everything.
Cunning of thimble.
Cunning cunning.
Place in pets.
Night town.
Night town a glass.
Color mahogany.
Color mahogany center.
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters.
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Page ages page ages page ages.
Wiped Wiped wire wire.
Sweeter than peaches and pears and cream.
Wiped wire wiped wire.
Extra extreme.
Put measure treasure.
Measure treasure.
Tables track.
Nursed.
Dough.
That will do. . . .

— From Gertrude Stein’s Geography and Plays (1922); Read full poem at “Letters of Note.”

***

Comments and Likes will remain open. Thank you to everyone for sharing your thoughts and helpful guidance on this subject. (Jennie and I will edit the About page to reflect this decision.)

Written words can stand alone, and often do so powerfully, but what are words without the meaning we attach to them? “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Our meanings paint the “red red rose,” and the blood we shed when pricked by thorns paints our memory. “What’s in a name [or a word]? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

So please, share your meanings, share your voices, share your words. And share freely, with us and with each other, without obligation or expectation. Jennie and I will do the same.

“When God chose your kind …

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote

When God chose your kind as the object of His love, I was the first in all of heaven to bow down before you. My love, my hope for mankind was no less than His. But I have watched you trample that gift. I have watched you kill each other over race and greed … waging war over dust and rubble and the words in old books. And yet, in the midst of all this darkness, I see some people who will not be bowed. I see some people who will not give up, even when they know all hope is lost. Some people, who realize being lost is so close to being found. I see you … you are the reason I still have faith.

~ From Archangel Michael’s character in the 2009 movie Legion