helen-1 - Hello Poetry

The most ethereal moments of my childhood were evenings spent astride my young horse’s familiar back. At these times I used no saddle or bridle because I wanted nothing to separate me from my Pegasus. The two of us often didn’t go anywhere or even move at all, instead we stood rooted in the paddock, entranced by the ancient bond that had stupefied girls and their horses for centuries before us. On those quiet summer nights we sat and smelt the earth cooling, heard the breeze’s cryptic secrets, and watched the sun sink lazily into its bed behind the mountains. My senses were sharpened beyond human experience, and I was alerted to everything from my horse outward. I could feel each of the coarse, raw fibers of his mane tangled between my fingers. When he inhaled, the breath that passed through his flared nostrils was the same breath that filled my heart and my lungs with the sheer joy of living. I absorbed every shift of his weight and twitch of his ear and flick of his tail. More than that, I felt the identical pounding of his heart as we shared the dizzying exhilaration of standing completely still while the rest of the world continued to spin on its orbit. In these moments, when I became one with my horse, I also became aware of and synonymous with nature. I felt at once the eternity and transience of time. I appreciated the vastness and the limits of the universe. I realized that I was both infinitely significant and less than a fleeting vapor. But none of this enlightenment frightened me, instead it bewitched me, and I became drunk on the clarity of existence. I gulped this glimpse of nature’s deepest truths until the experience became so dizzying that I feared my lungs or my heart or my soul would burst, and I buried my head in his mane just in time. I breathed in his honest, earthy smell and felt his living heat in my mouth while my consciousness slowly, reluctantly came back to Earth as I was supposed to know it. From this angle, I looked through the glass of my horse’s eye and saw the knowledge that had possessed me for an instant, and I was left gasping for breath and trapped in my mortality.

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 9:32 AM UTC

Daques

The most ethereal moments of my childhood were evenings spent astride my young horse’s familiar back. At these times I used no saddle or bridle because I wanted nothing to separate me from my Pegasus. The two of us often didn’t go anywhere or even move at all, instead we stood rooted in the paddock, entranced by the ancient bond that had stupefied girls and their horses for centuries before us. On those quiet summer nights we sat and smelt the earth cooling, heard the breeze’s cryptic secrets, and watched the sun sink lazily into its bed behind the mountains. My senses were sharpened beyond human experience, and I was alerted to everything from my horse outward. I could feel each of the coarse, raw fibers of his mane tangled between my fingers. When he inhaled, the breath that passed through his flared nostrils was the same breath that filled my heart and my lungs with the sheer joy of living. I absorbed every shift of his weight and twitch of his ear and flick of his tail. More than that, I felt the identical pounding of his heart as we shared the dizzying exhilaration of standing completely still while the rest of the world continued to spin on its orbit. In these moments, when I became one with my horse, I also became aware of and synonymous with nature. I felt at once the eternity and transience of time. I appreciated the vastness and the limits of the universe. I realized that I was both infinitely significant and less than a fleeting vapor. But none of this enlightenment frightened me, instead it bewitched me, and I became drunk on the clarity of existence. I gulped this glimpse of nature’s deepest truths until the experience became so dizzying that I feared my lungs or my heart or my soul would burst, and I buried my head in his mane just in time. I breathed in his honest, earthy smell and felt his living heat in my mouth while my consciousness slowly, reluctantly came back to Earth as I was supposed to know it. From this angle, I looked through the glass of my horse’s eye and saw the knowledge that had possessed me for an instant, and I was left gasping for breath and trapped in my mortality.

1

The runner knows the most glorious step is the one that transverses the sedentary boundaries of day-to-day perception. Though many miles are spent cognitively – when her consciousness pants with the worries of non-running - there exists a tangible point beyond which the run becomes feral and the runner’s mind entangled in her muscles’ rhythmic exertion. At this point, nothing is considered but the destination and its taunting distance. Nothing is felt but heady sweat and strain. Nothing is heard but labored breaths and practiced, patterned footsteps. The activity has become the runner’s identity. She is a sweating, striving, driven, and essentially mobile being. She is acutely aware that this run is her purpose and her portion. Her legs will always pump defiantly against time and distance. Her lungs will always sift the sharp winds of locomotion. Her hair will ever whip behind her. And the runner will live this way until her legs dissolve, her lungs collapse, her heart implodes – until she dies running, in perfect, primal ecstasy.

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 9:22 AM UTC

so she runs

The runner knows the most glorious step is the one that transverses the sedentary boundaries of day-to-day perception. Though many miles are spent cognitively – when her consciousness pants with the worries of non-running - there exists a tangible point beyond which the run becomes feral and the runner’s mind entangled in her muscles’ rhythmic exertion. At this point, nothing is considered but the destination and its taunting distance. Nothing is felt but heady sweat and strain. Nothing is heard but labored breaths and practiced, patterned footsteps. The activity has become the runner’s identity. She is a sweating, striving, driven, and essentially mobile being. She is acutely aware that this run is her purpose and her portion. Her legs will always pump defiantly against time and distance. Her lungs will always sift the sharp winds of locomotion. Her hair will ever whip behind her. And the runner will live this way until her legs dissolve, her lungs collapse, her heart implodes – until she dies running, in perfect, primal ecstasy.

1

In my dreams, I’m independent. I am living, I am learning, I am liberated, all by myself. In my dreams, I’m preparing. For my profession, for my passion, for my purpose, and I’m almost there. In my dreams, I‘m loving. My friends, my family, my fiancé, they surround me. In my dreams, you’re watching me. Happily, hopefully, healthily, and we’ve completely forgotten. We’ve forgotten that you were ever sick. We’ve forgotten that we were ever scared. We’ve forgotten that these were ever just dreams. We are simply there, together. And I know that you are safe. And I know that you are proud. And I know that you love me. And you know that I love you.

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 9:20 AM UTC

When all this is over

In my dreams, I’m independent. I am living, I am learning, I am liberated, all by myself. In my dreams, I’m preparing. For my profession, for my passion, for my purpose, and I’m almost there. In my dreams, I‘m loving. My friends, my family, my fiancé, they surround me. In my dreams, you’re watching me. Happily, hopefully, healthily, and we’ve completely forgotten. We’ve forgotten that you were ever sick. We’ve forgotten that we were ever scared. We’ve forgotten that these were ever just dreams. We are simply there, together. And I know that you are safe. And I know that you are proud. And I know that you love me. And you know that I love you.

25

A goose weary of gaudy beaches and blinding sunlight decided not to fly south that winter. He froze to death.

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 9:18 AM UTC

Break Formation

A goose weary of gaudy beaches and blinding sunlight decided not to fly south that winter. He froze to death.

6

in a golden birdcage on a satin perch i trill to the window or the world beyond it my feathers flush with the colors of sunrise which i have heralded many a morn

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 9:05 AM UTC

civilized

in a golden birdcage on a satin perch i trill to the window or the world beyond it my feathers flush with the colors of sunrise which i have heralded many a morn

6

The rising sun sets on a brand old day. We dance to broken hearts, summertime, and parallels. Onward, flags flying, to the beat of enterprise and the smell of *** While swirls of blue and yellow skate dizzily behind us. I collapse on a mirror flecked with drops of blood and stickers. Here above the truth is peace and quiet and clarity and numb. Because tomorrow, again, the setting dust will rise behind the hills.

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 9:05 AM UTC

University

The rising sun sets on a brand old day. We dance to broken hearts, summertime, and parallels. Onward, flags flying, to the beat of enterprise and the smell of *** While swirls of blue and yellow skate dizzily behind us. I collapse on a mirror flecked with drops of blood and stickers. Here above the truth is peace and quiet and clarity and numb. Because tomorrow, again, the setting dust will rise behind the hills.

7

Fall surrendered, snow fell, and Ruth’s mother bought a blanket for her daughter’s seventeenth Christmas. It wasn’t a very expensive or spectacular blanket; it was extraordinary only in the fact that it hadn’t been picked mindlessly from a Christmas list but had instead been chosen lovingly and thoughtfully. She knew her daughter was forever chilly and would love the blanket’s fleece side, and she laughed to see that it had snaps just like the blanket she herself had spent her evenings cocooned in when she was Ruth’s age. So she wrapped the blanket more beautifully than the other gifts and set it gently under the tree. The sun stretched, adults yawned, and Ruth opened her mother’s gift on Christmas morning. At the sight of the blanket, her grandmother’s eyes welled with memories of Ruth’s mother, looking almost identical to how Ruth looked now, wrapped up in her own blanket with the snaps. Ruth admired the gentle color of the blanket’s slick side and stroked the fleece side against her check before setting it on top of the rest of her gifts. She thanked her mother enthusiastically (she’d always been acutely aware of her reaction to gifts in front of their givers) and laughed good-naturedly at her grandmother’s hovering tears before hugging them down her face. Naked trees shivered, frost iced the landscape, and at her mother’s suggestion Ruth spent the winter with the blanket layered beneath her covers. She nestled beneath it every night, but felt guilty when she couldn’t love it any more than anything else she had in her room, and she never snapped it around herself as her mother had done. She’d tried to wear it like that the day she was given the blanket, but it had made her feel uncomfortable and constrained. So instead she slept with the blanket spread flat beneath her sheets through that winter and into the spring. Spring sprung, flowers bloomed and Ruth bounced for a moment on her toes before diving headfirst into his eyes. The weeks passed for her not in hours and days but in giggles and kisses, and she was surprised when her usually analytical, suspicious mind released her heart and allowed it to love recklessly and entirely. Making her bed one giddy morning, Ruth stroked the soft, fleece side of her blanket and then the slick, smooth side, and she thought of sweet picnics and stargazing from quiet hilltops. She folded the blanket and kept it in her car in preparation for any such spontaneity. The moon beamed loudly, prom streamers fluttered, and Ruth danced with him wildly. Her classmates all felt just as immortal, and everyone laughed and spun and anticipated together. When they finally left the dance, Ruth’s body was still coursing with the night’s excitement, intoxicated with young love and the bright eternity that stretched before her. He brought her to a small hilltop where she spread the slick side of the blanket against the grass, and the two lay trembling there beneath the stars. Finally, he wrapped his mouth and his heart and his body around hers, and her innocence leaked slowly onto the fleece. The moon slid drunkenly behind the hills, birds began to wake, and Ruth flew home on her own audacity, leading the dawn behind her. In the dim light, she noticed the garbage can her father had brought to the curb the night before, and she decided to spare her mother the pain of discovering the once soft fleece now stained with rebellion. Quietly, she lifted the lid and dropped the blanket inside. Its snaps scraped loudly against the can for an instant, but then the morning quickly swallowed the noise. By the time the lid banged back down, Ruth was rushing back to the house, her blanket already forgotten.

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 3:27 AM UTC

Blanket

Fall surrendered, snow fell, and Ruth’s mother bought a blanket for her daughter’s seventeenth Christmas. It wasn’t a very expensive or spectacular blanket; it was extraordinary only in the fact that it hadn’t been picked mindlessly from a Christmas list but had instead been chosen lovingly and thoughtfully. She knew her daughter was forever chilly and would love the blanket’s fleece side, and she laughed to see that it had snaps just like the blanket she herself had spent her evenings cocooned in when she was Ruth’s age. So she wrapped the blanket more beautifully than the other gifts and set it gently under the tree. The sun stretched, adults yawned, and Ruth opened her mother’s gift on Christmas morning. At the sight of the blanket, her grandmother’s eyes welled with memories of Ruth’s mother, looking almost identical to how Ruth looked now, wrapped up in her own blanket with the snaps. Ruth admired the gentle color of the blanket’s slick side and stroked the fleece side against her check before setting it on top of the rest of her gifts. She thanked her mother enthusiastically (she’d always been acutely aware of her reaction to gifts in front of their givers) and laughed good-naturedly at her grandmother’s hovering tears before hugging them down her face. Naked trees shivered, frost iced the landscape, and at her mother’s suggestion Ruth spent the winter with the blanket layered beneath her covers. She nestled beneath it every night, but felt guilty when she couldn’t love it any more than anything else she had in her room, and she never snapped it around herself as her mother had done. She’d tried to wear it like that the day she was given the blanket, but it had made her feel uncomfortable and constrained. So instead she slept with the blanket spread flat beneath her sheets through that winter and into the spring. Spring sprung, flowers bloomed and Ruth bounced for a moment on her toes before diving headfirst into his eyes. The weeks passed for her not in hours and days but in giggles and kisses, and she was surprised when her usually analytical, suspicious mind released her heart and allowed it to love recklessly and entirely. Making her bed one giddy morning, Ruth stroked the soft, fleece side of her blanket and then the slick, smooth side, and she thought of sweet picnics and stargazing from quiet hilltops. She folded the blanket and kept it in her car in preparation for any such spontaneity. The moon beamed loudly, prom streamers fluttered, and Ruth danced with him wildly. Her classmates all felt just as immortal, and everyone laughed and spun and anticipated together. When they finally left the dance, Ruth’s body was still coursing with the night’s excitement, intoxicated with young love and the bright eternity that stretched before her. He brought her to a small hilltop where she spread the slick side of the blanket against the grass, and the two lay trembling there beneath the stars. Finally, he wrapped his mouth and his heart and his body around hers, and her innocence leaked slowly onto the fleece. The moon slid drunkenly behind the hills, birds began to wake, and Ruth flew home on her own audacity, leading the dawn behind her. In the dim light, she noticed the garbage can her father had brought to the curb the night before, and she decided to spare her mother the pain of discovering the once soft fleece now stained with rebellion. Quietly, she lifted the lid and dropped the blanket inside. Its snaps scraped loudly against the can for an instant, but then the morning quickly swallowed the noise. By the time the lid banged back down, Ruth was rushing back to the house, her blanket already forgotten.

6

i’ve come home to see you’ve left me the key you brought it to me because i’d called you crying i look up to see above the new key that picture of me and now my throat is drying i guess now it’s you who’s crying

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 3:22 AM UTC

call first

i’ve come home to see you’ve left me the key you brought it to me because i’d called you crying i look up to see above the new key that picture of me and now my throat is drying i guess now it’s you who’s crying

9

there is a moon sweet and silver a smile on its side i’m sure it can see me even so high in the sky it is watching me and my family and our pain and our helplessness and it’s still smiling i think I will climb the pensile stars to rest on the moon it is surely so soft and so quiet and so warm and so far away from everything cuddled in its soft silver i’ll watch a big blue marble with tiny little people and tiny little lives and tiny little problems how odd the problems seemed so big from down there and they aren’t really this must be why the moon smiles

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 3:21 AM UTC

Moon

there is a moon sweet and silver a smile on its side i’m sure it can see me even so high in the sky it is watching me and my family and our pain and our helplessness and it’s still smiling i think I will climb the pensile stars to rest on the moon it is surely so soft and so quiet and so warm and so far away from everything cuddled in its soft silver i’ll watch a big blue marble with tiny little people and tiny little lives and tiny little problems how odd the problems seemed so big from down there and they aren’t really this must be why the moon smiles

30

O to escape the throes of reality! O to shatter the shackles of ambition! O to wriggle free from the white-knuckled grasp of foresight! My soul would leap wildly from the ledge, to dive – twisted, gyrating, and splayed – into formless existence! Time would dissolve! Distinction melt! And my being would float forever amid the dust and the ages and the reflected sunlight!

0

Feb 20, 2012

Feb 20, 2012 at 3:20 AM UTC

Shirk

O to escape the throes of reality! O to shatter the shackles of ambition! O to wriggle free from the white-knuckled grasp of foresight! My soul would leap wildly from the ledge, to dive – twisted, gyrating, and splayed – into formless existence! Time would dissolve! Distinction melt! And my being would float forever amid the dust and the ages and the reflected sunlight!

9