On Friendship and Transience
The days are warmer now–in the 40s (Fahrenheit), and a fresh snow has fallen on the melting snow, covering all the emerging dirt, spruce needles, scraps of paper. I am glad of this warmth, even though it’s relative. And I’m thinking of transitions.
I learned yesterday that my friend Kim had given up the struggle of her last days and slipped off into the vast ocean of consciousness–an image I once heard from a Buddhist monk. I have been grieving her going for over a week now, and to learn that she had finally let go was a relief–followed by these warm bright days.
I still have not written the longer piece I want to write about her, but, for now, am thinking about transition–winter to spring, seed to plant, wood to fire, being to non-being, or as Faulkner put it “Was. Not was.” Write about something in transition–the moment before the bird alights, the pause before sunup, the day before the river breaks up. Write about things that are so transient they are lost before we have time to realize they have been present.
Post a poem in the comments and I’ll add it to this post.
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Here’s one from an old friend, Larry Laraby;
Recipe for the perfect ‘Life.’
Indifference
Apathy
Fear
Pain
Strip
Salt and pepper
Sift
Simmer
Bake
Kill the beast of indifference,
Strip the beast of its apathy.
Cut the pain of sorrow from
The flesh of oppression.
Salt and pepper to taste
Sift the fear from the first blush
Of innocence. Combine equal parts
Of love and forgetting
And stir in a generous helping of hope.
Bake at the speed of light,
Sprinkle with grace
Let cool until Autumn colors the days with memories.
Larry Laraby (1-21-2010)
Mattie's Pillow 