Mary Oliver

Today i bought this fabulous book of poetry by Mary Oliver, and i just could not wait to share this one with you... here we go.


Pink Moon - The Pond
You think it will never happen again.
Then, one night in April,
the tribes wake trilling.
You walk down to the shore.
Your coming stills them,
but little by little the silence lifts
until song is everywhere
and your soul rises from your bones
and strides out over the water.
It is a crazy thing to do -
for no one cam live like that,
floating around in the darkness
over the gauzy water.
Left on the shore your bones
keep shouting come back!
But your soul wont listen;
in the distance it is sparkling
like hot wires. So,
like a good friend,
you decide to follow.
You step off the shore
and plummet to your knees -
you slog forward to your thighs
and sink to your cheekbones -
and now you are cought
by the cold chains of the water -
you are vanishing while around you
the frogs continue to sing, driving
their music upward through your own throat,
not even noticing
you are someone else.
And thats when it happens -
you see everything
through their eyes,
their joy, their necessity;
you wear their webbed fingers;
your throat swells.
And thats when you know
you will live whether you will or not,
one way or another,
because everything is everything else,
one long muscle.
Its no more mysterious than that.
So you relax, you dont fight it anymore,
the darkness coming down
called water,
called spring,
called the green leaf, called
a womans body
as it turns into mud and leaves,
as it betas in its cage of water,
as it turns like a lonely spindle
in the moonlight, as it says
yes.

enjoy... over and over...

halifax

halifax, halifax,
you captured my heart, and i through you away
but i came crawling back like i most always do
and i have to admit
it was not just for you.

i came back for a few special people,
a couple ideas,
and a remembered feeling.

i thought it would be blissful.. sunshine and roses,
but halifax was crying and so i cried too.

i came with some friends who also had friends
so friends led to more friends
friends friends galore!!

alot of the times were so very good,
and most of the time i ate more pita than i should
have :)

i think every day, except one or two,
i found myself trying to find somthing to do,
so most of those days i would make the big hike,
up citadel hill to reinvent my life.
i thought up some wild and crazy ideas, then as i was laughing my way down the hill,
i would promise myself, and am promising still...

to be content with my life at the moment its in,
to enjoy the place and the people i'm with,
to always look back, but with only one eye,
to keep an ear and a hand to the ground so i'm strong,
to put my nose to the breeze, let my hair float in the wind,
with my other eye, to watch my feel to insure that they're dancing,
spread my heart between everything that makes it beat fast,
and as far as the future goes, i've got my mind and a hand for that,
dream up dreams that seem impossible to reach,
then feel things out, fumble along,
but dance breathe and keep my lips filled with song.


hooray hooray hooray! im going to colorado!

chair love

the other day i went for an adventure through american suburbia. it almost killed me.
but then i found a chair.
this beautiful wooden fold up chair just sitting on the side of the road.
so i picked it up and took it for a walk.
and then i arrived at the wierdest corner around. on one side there was an senior citizens centre, right beside it is a place that makes coffins and gravestones, and across the street is the cemetary.
now that is weird.
so i took my chair and sat in the cemetary and played my harmonica and sang some songs. it was great, and no one around complained about all the noise :)
if i knew how i would put pictures of the chair on, but i don't really know how. i'll work on it and see what i can do.

lalala

not sure about this whole blog thing.
but it might just be a fun idea.
so i'm going to try it out. see if it fits.

today i learned plumbing. i'm staying with family in new jersey and my uncle was working in the crawlspace trying to hook some stuff up, so i was crawling along with him. pretty fun stuff. and now the toilet will flush. exciting.

but the more exciting thing is... i've got a really nice big bed calling my name right now, with three pillows! i'm about to give in to temptation...

So i have two weeks left, and i got sick! We were reading about Malaria, and i had all the symptoms for it, but luckily, it only lasted a couple days, and now i'm pretty much better. But the annoying thing is that i was supposed to be out building a dam right now with a bunch of people from Winkler (crazy i know). But i missed my ride because i was sick. Damn! oops.

Alright, here i am sitting in a beautiful garden surrounded by tropical plants. We've traveled north west to Nakuru town. The west is where all of the political violence happened, its calmed down now, but we've seen some IDP camps where people are living because they've been kicked out of their homes because of their tribe. People are crazy. Anyway, today we're going into a game park where we'll see flamingos, rinos, hippos, lions, leopards, birds of prey, and maybe even some rare tree climbing lions. Its going to be great. In the game parks they have these lodges which are very beautiful in African style. So we're all excited about swiming!!

well well, i can't believe it either, i have started a blog. it just sort of happened, i'm not sure how. but anyways, currently i am sitting in a small catholic cyber cafe in Machakos, Kenya, wiping the sweat from my face. I realize its kind of a silly time to start a blog, because i'v been away for more than two months and will be home in just one more month. But i've started one anyways. So i've been in kenya for a while, and feel pretty much at home, i'm used to being stared at and whispered about while walking down the street. the term Muzungu (basically meaning strange thing) given to white people is one i'm used to. But i still don't know about it, doesn't it seem rude to all someone strange, or is that just my western mind talking, and couldn't i turn around and call them muzungus if we're just going by skin color? I don't know, i guess thats just the way it is.