CalmAbiding

Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Antony Hegarty - If it be your will (sans Leonard Cohen V. O. )

Saturday, 20 July 2013

Magdalene- The Seven Devils , by Marie Howe

MAGDALENE–THE SEVEN DEVILS

by Marie Howe

“Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out” —Luke 8:2.

The first was that I was very busy.
The second — I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that.

The third — I worried.
The fourth – envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too – its face. And the ant – its bifurcated body.

Ok the first was that I was so busy.
The second that I might make the wrong choice,
because I had decided to take that plane that day,
that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early
and, I shouldn’t have wanted that.
The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street
the house would blow up.
The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer of skin
lightly thrown over the whole thing.

The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living

The sixth — if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I touched the left arm a little harder than I’d first touched the right then I had to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.

The seventh — I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that was alive and I couldn’t stand it,

I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word – cheesecloth –
to breath through that would trap it — whatever was inside everyone else that
entered me when I breathed in

No. That was the first one.

The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened? How had our lives gotten like this?

The third was that I couldn’t eat food if I really saw it – distinct, separate from me in a bowl or on a plate.

Ok. The first was that I could never get to the end of the list.

The second was that the laundry was never finally done.

The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.
And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was
love?

Someone using you as a co-ordinate to situate himself on earth.

The fourth was I didn’t belong to anyone. I wouldn’t allow myself to belong
to anyone.

Historians would assume my sin was sexual.

The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn’t know.

The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.

The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying.
The sound she made — the gurgling sound — so loud we had to speak louder to hear each other over it.

And that I couldn’t stop hearing it–years later –
grocery shopping, crossing the street –

No, not the sound – it was her body’s hunger
finally evident.–what our mother had hidden all her life.

For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,
the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.

The underneath —that was the first devil. It was always with me.
And that I didn’t think you— if I told you – would understand any of this -

* Published in the July/August 2011 issue

of t

Poem by Marie Howe - "Prayer"

Prayer

by Marie Howe

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important

calls for my attention- the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.

Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage truck outside

already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.

Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints

and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning

to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

Saturday, 1 June 2013

Everything is Changing.

Coastline at The Crags in Western Victoria near Port Fairy.

The rocks are in a state of flux.

Worn away by years of wind and water.

Solid rock is blowing away like dust and sand.

Waves are forming and fading back into the vast ocean.

Your breath and my breath - in and out.

In and out.

Claimed and lost.

Gone.

Transformed.

One of the most rugged and wild sections of Victoria's coastline can be viewed at The Crags, just 12 kilometres west of Port Fairy - a great daytrip and a perfect ending to a tour of the coastal sights of the Great Ocean Road.

The calcarenite cliffs, formed thousands of years ago as water "percolated" between shell fragments, fossils and sand, offer spectacular views of the coastline between Yambuk and Port Fairy and the volcanic Lady Julia Percy (Deen Maar) Island which sits 19km off the coast.

A visit to The Crags will give you a good understanding of why this area is named The Shipwreck Coast, with menacing rock formations jutting from the seabed. Spectacular at any time of the year, during winter months stormy weather and black skys add even more drama to this wild shoreline. In warmer months it's a great spot to relax and view sea birds sweeping along the cliffs.

The area is an important archaeological site with indigenous cultural sites listed on the National Estate. It is part of the traditional homelands of the indigenous Peek Wurrung speakers and has spiritual connections with Deen Maar. Over many thousands of years the coastal reserve was used as a place of gathering, ceremony and feasting for indigenous people.

The Crags is a wild and scenic section of our coast, with panoramic views. Lady Julia Percy Island is home to more than 4000 seals, fairy penguins, birds of prey and has the largest Australian rookeries of fairy prions and driving petrels. Many of the bird species can be viewed from The Crags as they move across the ocean in search of feeding grounds.