Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

The Art of Disappearing

2/27/2022

Art by Cindy Wood
www.cindywoodart.com

When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone is telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

Be the mystery at the crossroads

2/20/2022

Earth: I Flow by Cindy Wood, www.cindywoodart.com

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

In honor of Margery Wood, 1918-1975
Art by Cindy Wood, 2014

"I painted this in honor of my mother who died 47 years ago, when I was 10 years old. In her journal is her favorite poem, this Rilke poem, albeit a slightly different translation than the one above. Alongside a photo of her is a postcard of the Annunciation and a multidimensional messenger, the hummingbird." - Cindy

Glimpse

2/13/2022

Glimpse by Cindy Wood
www.cindywoodart.com

It was as if a window suddenly blew open
and the sky outside the mind came flooding in.
My childhood shriveled to a close,
just like that, thread of smoke
that rose and touched a cloud - or the cloud’s
replica adrift on the slow river of thinking -
and disappeared inside it. In that dark water,
a new lily was opening, sky-white out of the muck.
It was only a glimpse, quick,
like a bird ruffling,
but I saw the flower’s
beautiful stark shape, an artichoke
brightened from within by the moon.
A path lay shadowy under my feet,
and I followed it.

- Chase Twichell

We Live to be Near Her

2/6/2022

Painting by Cindy Wood
www.cindywoodart.com

When beauty walks into the room and sits
down close to you and is willing to let you
gaze at her as much as you want,

no one has to tell you all is alright now, no
one has to parrot again . . . someday your pain
won't exist.

For we live to be near her. She oozes grace.
Part of her benediction is that all the hormones
you want to come alive do.

Passion in full throttle says to the past, says to
worries--go fuck yourself, and the past will
crouch down or run . . . like a pup in the
presence of a fierce dog.

When God makes itself more known and all
our attention rivets on some aspect of Splendor,

all our internal dialogue--what can it do, but
cease to deplete one,

then something lifts our heart toward the Sky.

- Hafiz, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky

The Art of Disappearing

Be the mystery at the crossroads

Glimpse

We Live to be Near Her

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The Art of Disappearing

Be the mystery at the crossroads

Glimpse

We Live to be Near Her

Archives

Categories

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