Silent, upon a peak in Darien

photo © 2020 Martin Hübscher Photography

Despite his soul-piercing look of reproach, hope springs eternal while King Cat surveys
the ruins of his kingdom left by human occupation.

the last post?

“You don’t call yourself a writer because you have some free time and your heart is aching….
Writing is a serious activity, a profession. Not a pastime.”

Simone de Beauvoir quoted by Claudine Monteil in The Beauvoir Sisters, English translation © 2004 by Marjolijn de Jager.

The same is true of painting and acting.

It should mean the end of this blog…..

Young Woman Drawing by Marie-Denise Villers, 1801.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Image source: Wikipedia

“Who saw life steadily and saw it whole.” Matthew Arnold, To A Friend

Calico

Please don’t ask me
“How do you feel?”
In the garden of how I feel
nothing grows
but tears and sighs and bitter aloes.
I cannot speak
my sorrow:
it swells inside me, fungating tumour,
choking words and ulcerating thoughts.

In the garden
of how I feel,
there is no light; sunken corner
of mind’s eye,
knotted stems writhe and mould; torn out of earth,
the mandrakes scream;
ivy leaves
rustle angrily as rats tunnel through,
dragging tails and leaving stench of death

in her garden
where lavender,
lily and roses used to grow.
Violence
of absence displaces memory.
Past and present,
love severed;
nothing looks nor feels the same to me
that once was seen and felt by her, too.

Please don’t tell me,
“you must move on”-
fresh amputee crawling towards
a closed door,
my only way out through catacombs.
Resurrection:
replanting
the wild and tender flowers that she loved,
colours breaking heart of stone and clay,

ancient arts of sweet disorder,
patterns swaying with summer stems
Make-believe
like her the most while having little,
her mystery
calico –
look – she’s climbed to the highest branch again –
she stands, laughing in the dappled light.

Written after seeing a photograph of a woman in a garden

The secret way up

Forest Stairs by Martin Huebscher © 2014