Stroke by
Stroke my
Body remembers that life and cries for
The lost parts of itself-
Fins, gills
Opening like flowers into
The flesh…I swear I know
Just what the blue-gray scales
Shingling
The rest of me would
Feel like!
Paradise!
..the very bones! How
They long to give up the long trek inland, the brittle
Beauty of understanding,
And dive,
And simply
Become gain a flaming body
Of blind feeling…
Vanished like victory inside that
Insucking genesis, that
Roaring flamboyance, that
Perfect
Beginning and
Conclusion of our own.
In the last several poems Mary has written of the fire of union and here it is again. She is looking outside of being human, of her own body, to see the beauty without that lures her into melding into the great sea. She appears to look at being human as only a burden of love, of thinking as opposed to feeling and being. I am now on the lookout for any of her poems that are drawn to beauty from the existence of humanity, that surely has its own perfection beginning and conclusion of its own, because it is not separate from what we perceive as other, but which is ours to claim as ours. I want to be on the look out for human beauty in my own life, for it is my gift to see it, and my sin to not.
Do you resist accepting humans, either individually or as a whole, as perfect and belonging on this planet? What might you gain if you did accept and embody humans inherent worth and dignity?
From T - Looking for the beauty in humans is noble work, and for me, definitely work! I fear I usually look upon them as a virus growing on the surface of this planet. But - what a coincidence! - just yesterday I was thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, compassion is uniquely human. I was watching some film about a cheetah and her grown up son who refused to go away on his own - and how, being young and strong, he was getting all the meat and now refusing to share with his mother. She was looking quite thin. I really have to look hard to find anything we have that is "better" than other creatures. And already I'm second-guessing the cheetah, who is, after all, a solitary beast - why would it have compassion as a core element of its nature? Elephants, on the other hand, do appear to have compassion for each other. Well, please let us know as you come up with sources for "good" humanity. I have a series of Joseph Campbell videos where he discusses the innateness of human interconnection. If I find it, I will share.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see the results of your search. I think you do see the beauty in individuals. It is one of your gifts.
ReplyDeleteI see beauty in people much of the time. Until they prove they are flawed to the point of not functioning I tend to focus on their strenghts. Children appreciate when you notice their strenghts. Okay, so I manipulate them a bit. For example one of my neighbor boys is very creative. He can make a really big mess when he produces wonderful cardboard, paint, scissors, tape creations. I was guiding him to pick up before he headed home. We were picking up with me asking if this piece of paper was trash or needed to be saved for use tomorrow when his mother came. I told her how wonderfully he was picking up and how much I appreciated that. I've never had to even mention the words 'pick up' since. He has taken charge and makes sure the others help pick up, too.
I think the biggest gain I receive by accepting people the way they are and showing them my acceptance in word, deed, gesture, etc. is that they extend their trust to me, and their strengths fit with my weaknesses and my strenghts fit with their weaknesses making us both feel whole.We belong on theis planet and go together on our journey to help promote taking care of our planet.
Funny that you read the poem as meaning a desire to not be human. Perhaps because of how I feel in the sea I read this poem very differently. To me it is about becoming absolutely human, completely a part of the wild and wonderful world, feeling it move against your strong muscles, taking your place as an animal deeply inside it all.
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