Category Archives: Writing Challenges

Small Stone for Jan. 29, 2015

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Jan 29

“All things in the world are two. In our minds we are two, good and evil…” –Letakots-Lesa (Gray Eagle Chief) Pawnee, 19th century

The quote later goes on to say: “the right hand that strikes and makes for evil… the left hand full of kindness near the heart.”

I must say, as a left-hander, it is wonderful to find a view that does not see the left hand as evil or somehow deficient.

 


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Is this trait genetic or an accident of birth,
an odd traverse through birth canal,
a last-minute bias of brain?

There are more of us now amid great speculation
of why and wherefore, some suggestion
the more violent the society the greater its need


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We’re not gauche, not sinister, just hampered by
proliferation of tools that make us seem awkward, uncoordinated.
But consider our ability for music, for mathematics, for language…


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CAS Jan. 29 2015


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Below are links to lists of musicians and U.S. presidents and lefthandedness

 

Small Stone for Jan. 28 2015

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Jan 28

 

 

 

Awake before dawn when morning
looks no different than night
In winter no birds sing to the coming sun

 

highdefinition picture of the winter landscape 6

But it is late January, the sky lightens earlier
turns from colours of midnight to a bright cold blue
If there were no snow on the rooftops
 

 

it would resemble spring, but the breath
remains chill, a hint of snow to come, weeks yet
before the tulips push through dark soil.
 

 

CAS Jan 28, 2015

 

winter beautiful snow

 

 

 

Small Stone for Jan. 27, 2015

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black_stones_and_leaves_stock_photo_170410 Jan 27 2015

Today I draw not from The Red Road, but inspired by the poems of Red Hawk, encountered first this morning in an old issue (2007) of Vallum magazine, http://www.vallummag.com/poem_redhawk_dream.htm

and later this morning I also see another Red Hawk poem on Rattle: http://www.rattle.com/poetry/category/poems/

 

“…they come up river-haunted.
spewing up the language of river stones…” — from Dreaming With The Stone, Red Hawk

As this journey through small stones flows
to its last days, I’m drawn to the flat black stones
of Red Hawk’s river, to the small brown pebbles
 

 in a dry fountain on a bookshelf, to the gloss on
grey stones the colour of doves’ wings
in the late sun of early summer evenings
 


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each speaks its own stone dialect, yet only the touchstones
from friends no longer here reveal their messages.
The first says “Peace” and the other  whispers “Believe”.
 

CAS Jan 27, 2015

stones pic for blog

 

 

Small Stone for Jan. 26, 2015

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black_stones_and_leaves_stock_photo_170410Jan. 26 2015

Today, I was thinking about what the phrase, The Red Road, might mean, understanding that it has been taken up by a number of different groups for different reasons. Most of the Google hits are about a TV series I’ve never seen. It is used also by those recovering from addictions. But it seems it was appropriated from Native American beliefs. Yet even there it differs from tribe to tribe. Do I even have the right to use the phrase in my own way? Perhaps not. But it leads me to think about other paths: Robert Frost’s two roads in the poem, The Road Not Taken, the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz, and later Elton John. At the end of the Wizard, Dorothy repeats over and over, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”  Is what I am looking for at home?  Is it already in my own mind, a place of healing thought and meditation…?

Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, from The Wond...

Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz first edition. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Which road shall I walk along today?
Perhaps one of Frost’s divergent paths—
no, it is winter and no paths are yellow,
not even the one that leads to Oz.

 Even at the end of that road, there is only
a fake wizard, a city where we learn that
everything we need will be found at home,
everything we seek inside ourselves already.

 Perhaps the Red Road too is not mine,
an inappropriate appropriation, other beliefs
I can never hope to know. Nothing external
speaks to me today, only what is here, internal.

 
CAS Jan 26 2015

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