A Mindful Life

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
–T.S. Eliot

That brave little neck,
the stem of a sunflower;
your brain is blooming.
—–
Your luscious curved cheek
is a small apple that begs
for tender kisses.
—–
The tree sapling back
nourishes roots and branches;
may it grow mighty.
—–
Hands touch but don’t clutch
like curious mice seeking
their fortune in cheese.

How I love her!

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait for tomorrow,
For babies grow up, I’ve learned, to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.
–Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Thanks to those who reflected with me about the multiple-blog dilemma. I decided to quit keeping several blogs. I have now integrated the posts from Knit Together and Aenigmas into this blog.
If you want to read them (since they reside and mingle with the archives), you can find them by reading the Domestic Arts [...]

In 2005 when I learned to knit, I assumed that writing about and posting photos of my knitting might be boring to readers here, so I started another blog. It focuses not just on knitting but on domestic arts: recipes, cleaning tips, and I toss in a few silly quizzes for variety. (Because silly quizzes [...]

I’m healthy. My daughter thrives. My marriage is happy. The weather is sunny and mild. We’re not in the middle of a mortgage crisis. We can pay our bills. I have a good social network.
So why have I grown tired, sad, and teary over the course of the day? I was prepared to chide myself [...]

At the turn of the century
it is a long way down
to the mind’s I. A treehouse
chronicles my journey to this
lost continent, which requires
the amber spyglass to navigate.
When I arrive I am barely a
shadow of a man. There is
snow falling on cedars; through
the woods I hear the single hound
wailing for her hometown. After
twenty years at Hull [...]

Her moon is rising
over fleshy peaks after
many years of night.

Carnal syrup which flows within,
why not make it art?
It has been spilled
enough to fill
the gloomy pit of Tartarus.
Ferry to us the draught of life.
Preserve us from dissolution,
for our gene codes fight dauntlessly,
against this.
Be not used to segregate others,
for humanity is one tribe.
Thou art the mystery, the
sinew, and the richness
that makes our lives worth living. Yes.
–
For [...]

I drape against a picnic table, inhaling
orange blossom perfume thick as syrup
on the breeze. With pen poised,
my hand starts scrawling when
in the corner of my sight
I catch perched on my elbow a small
tuxedo with eight legs.
Jerking,
I shake her off; she lands on my knee.
I am Goliath. With a stamp of my foot
she tumbles
to the [...]