Colibri Animato

for the Feast of St. Francis

3 October 2021
     - my 60^th birthday

There is a language we share:
the air that together we breathe,
beneath the open sky!

Who could have known that would be enough
to bridge such an enormous gap?

But even the diary from one year ago
does attest:

“Rounding the corner,
and there you are!

-- We share this life,
though one is fractional
to the other

-- We share this home;
though our dwellings differ,
we are only liminally separate
-- In truth, we are together."

Of another shared aspect,
--that of torpor--
our intersectional relationship
reaches the overarching conclusion:

Choose life!

For, suspended animation is merely life incremental,

slowed to the blessing of the molto adagio,
where the dream that animates us bids us all to live

to each newly dawning day,
slowing each passing moment of awareness
so that we may all be the moment together, and in time.

For how long, my friend,
shall we bless one another’s company,
in the newly dawning om of day?

You greet me by landing on the tomato cage,

despite that fruit being no longer in due season.

Only in the most foreshortened sense of being
can my three-score years coincide with your own

-- yet will I delight in your special greeting,
in the beauteous now that we have,
in the blessing to have been truly seen
and to also have truly seen,
in the mutuality of seeing and acknowledging,
of knowing,
and of caring,
and seeking to live cooperative within that notice--

yea, let this, what we have, be our deepening moment
for as long as providence may bless us both
with such patience and perspicacity,
with such sacred and familial union,

as is that rounding of the corner,
to be with you,
        where you are with me
and we are joyously
together.

© 2021 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.com

 

Blue Moon Blood Moon Eclipse

Wearing a shadow for a covering,
in the coolness of a morning that is not—
for night and day are but a seeming,
guiding that rarest of miracles: vision

—Over this silent music presides the moon,
calling all divine light to rise and water to lie,
and quickening every frozen seed to song
from all measures of waiting slumber.

Such mathematical and unseasonal observances,
of celestial bodies hurtling forward through space,
should swerve and realign misguided churnings
that might trouble a perfect harmonic turn.

In this here and now, wearing a shadow for a covering,
water lies in hushed witness to what eternal moment,
seemingly, is reflected on this still and tensile Bay,

unaware of any unseemly ripple over the fabric of time.

© 2018 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

A Flower in the Garden of Delight

My Master hath a garden

Full-filled with diverse flowers,

Where thou may'st gather posies gay

All times and hours.

Where nought is heard but paradise bird,

Harp, dulcimer and lute,

With cymbal and timbrel,

And the gentle sounding flute.

O Jesus, Lord, my heal and weal,

My bliss complete,

Make thou my heart thy garden plot,

True, fair and neat,

That I may hear this music clear,

Harp, dulcimer and lute,

With cymbal and timbrel,

And the gentle sounding flute.

~ Anonymous

While I have been trying to process the passing of my friend, Raymond Martinez, the words of this anonymous Elizabethan poem sang themselves through my head, and suddenly the enormity this sorrow became clear to me, even dear to me –

But, of course, I must explain. (You knew that was coming.)

I don’t quite remember what year it was that I first met Raymond, but it was at a concert of French Baroque music in West Marin; other singer friends had invited me to come hear the program. I remember that when Raymond sang his solos, it was spine-tinglingly beautiful. And the inevitable duet, trio and choruses. I was introduced to Raymond after the concert, and we chatted for a while and then I was swept along to the reception. Before long, Raymond said, “You know, you should come sing with us.” And that was that.

That was that. For years and years and years, I would show up and it was “Oh, goodie!! I get to sing with Raymond, again!” And it was always a delightful time, whether it was sublime or ridiculous. We shared so many musical experiences that were sublime [Purcell: I was Queen Dido and Raymond was Aeneas, and it was exquisite!] or ridiculous [if you weren't there to see Raymond, dressed in a toga-esque costume with breastplates, head topped with a ten-gallon hat, make his grand entrance for "Oedipus Tex" roaring in on a forklift at Toby's Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station, you missed a singularly triumphant moment of ridiculousness in the annals of chamber opera], or even a somewhat disconcerting mixture of both, I can’t begin to catalogue them. But Raymond remembered all of them, and as the catalogue of your history with him expanded through time, so did a small, highly personal language develop between you and he. Heaven help you if you sat or stood near him during rehearsals, because he was a merciless sotto voce jester to whatever comedies evolved in the rehearsal process. He had the most deliciously wicked sense of humor, and he was always pushing the envelope of what he could successfully pitch into the room. Many were the times when I could feel my face burning red, as I struggled to keep myself from exploding with inappropriate laughter. Raymond would toss a cue word, a code phrase or a little sound from the personal language over his shoulder toward you; each of these was a golden thread woven, by means of the shared history, into the ever-unrolling carpet of fun and music.

One might think, reading this, that Raymond was frivolous, but no. Raymond took everything seriously, though he might not always be willing for people to see his serious side. There were glimpses of it, and it was revealed through intimate conversations.

Seasons came and went. Flowers of all kinds came in and out of season. But singing was always in season. We sang church services, memorial services, sunrise services for Easter, and midnight services at Christmas. Summer festivals; winter concerts; Sunday afternoon salons; the odd pick-up gig, here and there; and weddings. Raymond sang at my wedding, along with three other beloved colleagues. Someone else has written about how welcoming Raymond was to everyone he made music with in ensembles; music was never about competition, always about collaboration. Singing and musicking, the moveable musical feast, always and ever in season. And where there was music, there was Raymond, your colleague, confidant, collaborator, even co-conspirator in and of beauty—and fun! And when he wasn’t singing, he was taking in the opera, the symphony, friends giving recitals or concerts, edifying trips to museums of every kind [one day, as I was heading into the Legion of Honor, I heard my name called—there was Raymond! He'd already seen the exhibit and was waiting for a friend to come meet him for lunch. "Come this way— I know a terrific spot for getting pictures with the bridge in the background" So, I followed him. Indeed, it was a breathtaking spot, and he pulled out a film camera and snapped me with the bridge. Then his friend arrived, and after introductions, they went on their way, and I went on in to see the exhibit].

He loved nature; hiking; places of both cultivated and uncultivated beauty. God only knows how many miles he walked during his lifetime. He loved architecture. Life was all about being immersed in the ever transforming and informing experience of beauty. The back garden at Crescent Avenue was his hortus conclusus, a personal cloister of shade and green. He tended that garden, for as long as he was able, like it was a shrine, and shared it with friends as often as he could. As much as he loved this private sanctuary, he loved to happen upon beauty everywhere, and I truly mean everywhere.

Raymond may not have been all that handy with a computer, but his favorite piece of technology was the digital camera a singer friend gave to him. The right size to shove in a pocket, he was always prepared to experience and record his random encounters with beauty. Many of the subjects of the resulting photos were transformed into his superlative artwork, known to most of us through his business, Watercolors of the World. The last time I saw him, he told me about the condition of his health, asked me to pray for him, and then sought to soften this horrible blow by pulling out his camera and showing me the snap of an unbelievably gorgeous spray of flowers on a tree and a photograph of his latest painting, a giant succulent or cactus he saw in Golden Gate Park. “Do you know what species this is?” He asked me. I didn’t know. He knew far more formal names of plants than I did; he had to tell me that white flowers I’d photographed were freesias, not crocuses. But knowing the proper name doesn’t make the aroma of blooms sweet; they manage that on their own, whether we name them or not.

So, this brings me back to the Elizabethan poem. Those words were positively singing themselves through my head this morning, and I realized that Raymond, colleague and confidant, collaborator and co-conspirator, had also been the master cultivator, and of a garden much larger than the one at Crescent Avenue. Raymond spent his life cultivating a very great garden of friends. You and I, dear friends, each of us is a unique flower in Raymond’s garden; family, singers, poets and instrumentalists, all of us are in that great garden!

I think we can honor our friend Raymond’s memory best by being continually in season, blooming to bursting, and spreading, far and wide, our joyful noise of sweet and ever sweeter music.

© 2016 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Procrastination

Breezes shift,
stirring leaves in spirals,
stirring music of memory,
conjuring seasons past,
reasons present,
and stretching toward
regions unexplored.

Memories are fragile,
like a house of cards,
built as much with forgetting
as remembering,
and yet, and yet,
the stirring and the falling,
well, that’s all right.

Sweeping up this pile,
a thoughtful procrastination,
not to relive, but to realize
all that has been,
all that has changed,
all that has been built
because of all that came before,
a moment to pause and reflect,
a moment to cherish.

Wistful in the windswept lane,
meanings present themselves not,
but experience is the unending song,
a music built on all such themes
as sift now through my soul
and tug my vision forward.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 30. There is a time for building

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                30.

There is a time for building,
a time for collapse,
a time of reckoning,
a time for remembering,
a time of forgetting,
a time for forgiving
a time of returning;
all these times are the same time,
past, present and future,
all apparent in the blooming eglantine,
all apparent in the salt clinging to each blossom,
all apparent in everything awaiting its due season.

We rise, we fall, we crumble;
Our old wood burns quick, hot
cinders into ash; we return to earth
and the wind carries us, like seeds,
to every corner, every place—
we are the song on the wind
as sunlight fills the empty pool;
neither shadow, nor light,
but we are there, in due season.

We are in the running rivers,
we are in the waving grain,
we are in the slowness of trees,
in the speed of the hummingbird,
we are the cries, smiles, laughter and dance
that turn to mourning and remembrance,
we are silence and sound, which together are music,
we are the songs of sadness or rejoicing—
we are the time and seasons,
and we await our due,
our return.

We are quietness at rest,
if we could be content so to be.

We are the dream,
if we could be content so to be.

The house of mirth and the house of mourning
are one and the same dream;
the clinging salt does not harm the beauty of the rose,
and the rose does not rebuke the embrace of the salty spray—
they are content to be thrown together,
for it is grand to be;
being is the grandest dream of all.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 4. Flowers were our guests

                 4.

Flowers were our guests,
stopping with us
and blushing at our attention
to their beauty,
as if to say,
we just are;
in them is crystallized
the liquid potential
of increase and decrease,
of here, of now,
of gone, of loss,
of remembering
and return.

On the crowded city streets,
of a Winter day
the silent array
of lax and flaccid faces
reflects a vacancy, promoted
by distraction to distraction
by means of empty distractions
or at least none that edify.

Winter came to those streets,
but not to this garden,
where Spring still manages
to surprise with bright colors
to delight with intoxicating aromas
—ah, how intoxicating!

High in the trees,
the wise hoopoe bird
makes the rallying cry:
lost atoms, faces, hearts:
return to your center;
the outlier calling
is an empty journey.

Rose and jasmine,
hyacinth, Persian blue allium and iris,
showing through twisting honey suckle,
our flowers, our friends,
having come to visit,
are grateful to retain their seats;
the dusty bowl of petals
is no fit ending to their story
or ours.

© 2014 Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Turning

Leaves cascade to the ground,
a small music,
played by the wind;
it has begun,
this turning,
detaching
and falling
to freedoms
complicit with windy whims.

It is just the beginning
—we must be clear about that—
the start of a dialogue, a transition;
each leaf, as it turns,
glows, even as it fades
under the Autumn sun,
and, dying, dries,
and when it falls,
this is only a newer
hello,
the very latest one.

A slow dance,
this seasonal song,
is merely one of nature’s
many conversations;
the cold breath of Winter
may find an answer
in the winds of Spring,
or a balmy reply
on Summer’s sunny crest.

To turn,
to burn;
to prance
and dance,
unpinned
by the wind,
upended
(mayhap unintended)
and made free
to flee and be
and to become,
with all and some,
wholly changed material,
electrically ecstatic and
eclectically charged
for both the now and next.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

In the Garden of Delights: 1. et invisibilium

the thin veils
of invisible realms,
they softly flutter,
the breeze flowing
free upon the brow
—and I know you are near,
your vibrations pooling
in the autumn afternoon.

I have often wondered:
if I were to completely falter,
should I spark and go up like straw?

but, none has ever sparked such flame,
and I forestall madness
while time shifts at my foundations,
visibilium et invisibilium,
with gentleness and loving kindness.

had I tried,
I could have sent them away,
but they fly to me
—for conversation, mostly—
for I am a light, too.

we are all frustrated and
colorful intelligences,
reckless, even mad;
all that is missing
is the convivial cup of tea.

refuge is found in capitulation,
a weaving in with the pattern integral:
a unique delight, lightly balanced.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Moon Seekers

They watch the sky by day,
Scanning for the soft night orb,
Devoted, even while the sun's hot flame obscures it.

Her name was the first word they uttered,
Hers the first tune that they ever heard;
She is mother to all creation.

Her changing form is a cyclical mystery,
To be observed, to be studied, to be mastered,
Piece by piece, sliver by sliver, day by day,
From their rising in the morning
To the afternoon siesta,
And on waking from thence to
Night's sweet-dream sonambulance,
They track her progress through the gardens of Eternity.

Rare daylit sightings are cause for celebration,
While the backlit splendor of night's full array
May send shivers of glee down their spines,
Past their knees and into their toes,
Where a hop or a jump sends it all back up
To rush out through their moon-like smiles as squeals of delight…

For they, like the stars, know the tune by heart,
For it is the music of the spheres, and they play a part;
For it is her tune that sings them to their rest, then to their reawaking start.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Winnowing

In the dwindling days of the year,

you find me
in the fields,
ready for harvest.

Shall the culling
be bitter
or shall it
be sweet?

Harvest,
the turning of the year,
the time of turning
and returning,
for threshing
and for winnowing.

Stand amid the grain
and feel the wind,
gathering ripe stalks
with whispering
and singing.

Stand among the still tender shoots
and feel the wind,
caressing each and all
into a dance of plenty
with a song.

The winnowing fan
is aloft, riding the breeze!
The music and the dance,
the singing never ends!

The same song
garners the wheat
as burns the chaff;
in either case,
transcendence
is the fruit.

Now the song,
the sweet song,
has found me,
inside the dance,
inside the spiraling now.

Take me in the field,
and winnow on.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Blessings and prayers for our departed loved ones, this All Souls' Day.