Blogging from Asheville, NC circa Feb. 2003, when we were dorks.

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Even in absurdity, sacrament.
Even in hardship, holiness.
Even in doubt,
faith.
Even in chaos,
realization.
Even in paradox,
blessedness.

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Wed 09 Jul 14

Thinks from a walkabout

A little meditation from my walk today at Hominy Creek Greenway:

"We travel vast distances to 'visit nature.' As beings of nature we seldom visit ourselves, which requires not even a quiver of movement. Yet should we embark to visit the self- the natural self- there lies before us a map of the entire Universe, right where you are, now. What we come through we contain. Even if we are utterly immersed in the inorganic, there is no power so great as Nature which keeps us in Its order. In our tenderest of oscillations or awkwardest of bumblings, we are an orderly outgrowth of a seemingly chaotic Universal garden. And, we are young yet- still tart wild fruit on a vine just beginning to be guided upward by the sun. That's us, as a species. As for you and me... well, all there is to do from here on out is laugh about that."

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 20.00 Wed, 09 Jul '14

Sat 28 Jun 14

Never Alone in the Night

This song/poem came to me this morning in and out of dreams, and I've reconstructed the words more from the feeling of it, but the rhythm of the song is as clear as can be. Perhaps, with the recent passing of two brave warriors this week, this song is an expression of release. Here goes:

If the road is a' calling your name my friend
If the road is a' calling your name
I give you all the luck I have
All I've ever earned.
The road will take some fortune my friend
Now it's yours to burn.

When the sea is a' singing your song my dear
When the sea is a' singing your song
I give to you the boat I row
Small and worthy is she.
Tempest waves toss great ships my dear
It's the pilot not the sea.

As the wind is a' lifting your wings my love
As the wind is a' lifting your wings
I give a message for you to keep
A secret 'tween you and I
Soar above this tired ol' world my love
Remember us to the sky.

And the stars are a' chanting you home my one
And the stars are a' chanting you home
I give to you what you gave to me
A day so free and bright
You're forever a constellation my one
We're never alone in the night
We're never alone in the night
We're never alone in the night
Always one in the light.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 17.53 Sat, 28 Jun '14

Fri 13 Jun 14

Do not blame the moon

Nothing is right in the world, nothing wrong in it either-
there’s your hunger, there’s that fire, there’s his brutality,
the savage dance of give and take goes on all night, some will kiss
some leave scorned but do not blame the moon for all the happens under
this is music, and your bowed head in the crooked shadows is the down tempo-
you do not always exhale, you are not always awake, your pain is the balances, baby.

Ain't no such thing as luck, ain't never been, life is that thing.
Black cat cross you, bend down to those golden eyes so vast, so Bast,
each blink a blessing with her soft homeless tussle of after-hours hair, her song
for that moment brings you into being, shadow to shadow, and you both lived, and
loved for that touch no matter your fates- should you be revered a venerated elder or die,
nameless blood on streets, do not blame the stars for constellations fixing your bisecting path.

You worn to the bone and everybody can see it, you plow endless-
yet in derangement on you go, in fields of the impossible you seed fever dreams
your harvest is strange but good, so you don’t stop and no we don’t want you to, yet-
fallow goes the acres of broken farmers, choiceless but to dream and the demand is high.
So do not blame the sun for your crop and thus your work, for you threw the first seed and ate
the first fruit, cry to the sky for purpose and it will answer “to grow;” let rain mingle with your dire tears.

Come here, under my arms.
Fall into your long-lost soul
like a song finds a receiver
on an old crackling radio.
Look up, and out, and well
past the sky- do not blame
the moon, the stars, the
sun for your creaking bones.
Just as wood in the hull
of a boat you made to sail
baby, do not blame them-
be lit, and navigate by them.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 23.59 Fri, 13 Jun '14

Thu 29 May 14

Midnight for Maya

The gifts any midnight can bring, should you dare to wait for it in the still minutes prior
are so small, smaller than words, eyes only see stars as pinpricks, fireflies as living meteors,
and the hours on the clock are only ink traversed by overtime hands, wrought in metal, far off.

These are peculiar gifts- alone with the tangle of your thoughts, in the gutter of lust, at the height of luck.
No night bears same witness to the day we wore before, though the paths worn across the floors of dreams may
weave akin to other stories, nothing bisects likewise ever- these are hooks whereupon significant hats are ever hung.

The darkness and lightness are themselves choices elected in mood, in song, in recollection or forget;
reflections are unforgiving, no day-glow softens the canyons of your yearnings won and lost.
Stark the contrasts we face- that’s why we gather, to laugh away the ridgelines of the soul.

And there are crucibles, train-tracks, ill-defined shadows that yearn so to shake us past the hours, into elsewhere.
The un-uttered thought, the skeleton’s knuckles tracing the closet door, all too seek the dark to emerge
as a night-blooming flower hides perfect imperfection under starlight and dew, an entirety seeks out.

Midnight is a time to reckon with your name, your song, your signature across the brief arc
of a sphere that bears us through the implausible cosmic- when the clock strikes,
you are both little and huge, a mite and a monster, and in-between that name.

Think of all the crooners intoning this time, not imagining you, but there you are-
hearing it, contained within a love story, or woe, but nonetheless unforgotten.
Midnight has come- what maps you through these thin hours? If anything, yourself.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 01.21 Thu, 29 May '14

Mon 14 Apr 14

Time, getting "a way" from me

Time is a warped, wicked, and wanton wastrel. I feel that I was only just in Palmer Lake, Colorado celebrating the life of my cousin Joslin Nagle, then only moments before that I was in Belize in 2013, and Asia 2012. Spring seems to have a strange momentum to it as far as getting out- of your physical locale anyway. Getting out of one's head, preconceived notions, well-worn maps need not be seasonally conditioned, however- these are journeys that are ticketed by the moment... all for which I'm grateful, even upon the most perilous of terrains. These travels remind me I have the unique and cosmically rare experience of existing, and that I have a duty to persist for all those dear to me that have not danced the calendar as far as I have. In persisting, do so with their highest dreams in my rucksack. It really is the least any of us can do to pay tribute to those we love, and to time- tricking us into not noticing it's made off with our watch.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 01.10 Mon, 14 Apr '14

Mon 03 Mar 14

Finding shards of humor from a broken (into) home

Finding shards of humor from a broken (into) home:

* I am shocked (SHOCKED!) that the thieves didn't trifle with by bitcoin-infused conditioner and nano-diamond toothpaste!
* Cats find that massive displaced piles of clothes & bed linens on floor are great for sleeping and are campaigning for their permanency. Denied, as they didn't even throw a single cat ninja star during the invasion.
* There's no section in Martha Stewart Living for "Unburgling Your Home: The New Spring Cleaning."
* It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit using Kafka-esque Facebook backgrounds!

 

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 11.07 Mon, 03 Mar '14

Sun 02 Feb 14

11 years, and still puttering along

Some say the blog is dead. Perhaps the medium has been corralled to the few, the looney, those who don't ascribe to the constant updates, character limits, or convert their sites to glaring click-bait-y advert brothels. BOTM as an 11 year old, is still a precocious brat that will follow only the edicts of the spontaneous impulse to go out and play. You may see the kid here and there, but the kid will do his own thing in his own time. Says the 41 year old man.

Who knows what will transpire in the next year, and what kind of year end summing up will be going on... how many or few posts. Yet this has been a stalwart presence through thick, thin, and thinning out. As one of the original Asheville bloggers, I feel in several turns, the site has fulfilled its need. But there's no need to close up shop. I don't count how many or how few stop by. I just put up the occasional New Thing, and come what may of it. I hope it does something good. At the very least, this serves as a repository of what I truly wanted to make public; FB and Twitter be damned.

That's that. Tomorrow I fast for a week. I wonder how my brain will adapt to no food on the job- one where articulation is key. I've no idea. But I'll know next week, and perhaps find a way to say something about it that makes its way here. Regardless- thank you, who ever you are (the future???) for sticking with me and this home on the range.

Oh the places we've gone.

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 00.34 Sun, 02 Feb '14

Mon 13 Jan 14

Feral

My eyes were given to me by Africa
Sharpened on the darkening violet horizon
Training my spine to align with a galaxy-lit night
Springing into the brush a savage, emerging a gilded royal.
My claws were given to me by Asia
Where the fecund scream of the jungle
Carried me to the canopy, then the mountaintop,
And the people took my exhalations as a herald; I was roaring “This life!”
My fur was given to me by Europe
That my every laying-place was warm enough
None but my kind have the senses to know our movements
Harder the task to find us in the rough, while we wrote ourselves in your epics.
My soul was given to me in America
Where my million-year story I called deeply upon
To survive your cold un-giving streets, dodging your anxious lives,
To find shelter in a place where other wanderers have gathered- together, we outsiders.
My name was given to me by you
Your every outstretched hand, your every kindness,
Affirmed my path as clearly as the gleaming backbone of stars-
I lived long enough to have been given a name; now you can call me loved,
Now you can call me wilderness.

(for Annabelle)

Support resources for Feral Cat programs

filed under: from the birdy's beak blogged: 20.27 Mon, 13 Jan '14

"Aut Viam Inveniam, Aut Faciam." - Seneca