Scenes from Within

 

Water above

and below

and still I thirst.

 

My other life flies

in all directions,

but here 

there is one thing

and the lake is another,

and in the clear light

beneath it All 

I know everything

I need to know.

 

The forest

is retreating. Death is

easy and in soft focus,

with roots believing

they will feel

their moist home again

after a cold

ebony sleep,

after waiting on the

other side 

of Light—

 

Now this I understand. 

 

It never was what

can be seen, 

not even the swans like

feathered nymphs, too 

beautiful to be real 

anyhow, and not even the

sky, inverted, glaring back, 

burning in ice, or the

chaste oaks with leaves

on a mission, or even

my cat, little killer

and hero.

 

It's what waits beneath,

what sprouts, 

pure and knowing,

in the unseen, 

 

what floats

as nothing and all things,

truth and untruth,

the dark that is also light,

 

beyond this,

beyond touch,

beyond form,

 

in the endless center

of every center

where we begin,

where all is one. 

 

Patricia Joan Jones

 

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word_man's picture

ge nice to find a magic place

ge nice to find a magic place of total serinity


ron parrish

patriciajj's picture

Thank you for reading and

Thank you for reading and capturing my vision. So grateful for your support..

word_man's picture

you`re welcome

you`re welcome


ron parrish

allets's picture

Internal Spiritscape

.

Inverted, is a way to cement this realm with another or others. Knowing it is there as norhing vaguely corporeal is a beginning. To not be rooted in visions or inspired visuals or ancient records is an old standard for me. None, if any of the questions were evere partually addressed. Sermons are guides to survive here. A great gig, church, male designed, male protected. Eternity, lke the unverse, is all inclusive, is the only heavenly destnation I seek. It is all one. 

 


 

 

patriciajj's picture

There is nothing like deep

There is nothing like deep insights from a superior intellect that has taken the journey and knows where it leads. Thank you for your brilliant commentary. I share your disillusionment with "the great gig" which I always suspected was a scheme by a patriarchal society to keep women subjected by putting God's stamp of approval on their abuse and oppression. I broke out a long time ago. 

 

My deepest gratitude for your support and understanding. 

J-C4113D's picture

"The  endless center of every

"The  endless center of every center . . ." I shall start by saying that this phrase (attention:  graduate students, you will want to include this in your dissertations) is the centerpiece that describes the centerpiece poems that are the anchor of your magnificent collection.  This is my first observation about this poem.

  Your use of nature imagery to convey, and in support of, a real human and poignant emotion, is one of the planks in the great platform of your consistent talent.  When I read this poem, or any of your poems, I am always struck by the way the words fit together perfectly---no extra clutter, but not so lean that something seems missing.  You never makes these amateur errors.  I do not know how many drafts are required for your poems to take final form (and those graduate students that I like to address from time to time will probably find out much more about this), but whatever process you follow in however many drafts it takes always produces a perfect poem.  I have never seen you miss; I have never seen you post a near-miss.  The experience of watching your collection expand and take form is, I think, very similar to the experience of those Egyptians who watched the Pyramids being built, who watched the enormous achievement gather itself from ordinary materials to create a most extraodinary landmark.  This is another metaphor for what it is like to watch your poems post.

    They tell that there is a lot of conditions required for a planet to be able to support carbon-based life.  And that these conditions are so rare in the Universe that the mathematical expectation is that they are never completely gathered anywhere.  Except here, on earth.  Your poems embody this sense of the rare for me.  You are constructing a world, as Wallace Stevens constructed his "planet on the table," out of the most rare conditions and factors, and you bring them together with a skill reflective of, and implanted in you by, our gracious God Who cherishes the creations of the Creation.  You are great in so many ways that the very word "great: collapses under the weight of your accomplishments.  There will come a day when comments in ordinary English will not be able to keep up with the extraordinary verbal skill and emotional truth that your poems present and display.  Thank you for posting this poem; thank you for posting all of your poems; and thanking you for being postpoems' most major Poet.


J-Called

patriciajj's picture

How do I thank you for that

How do I thank you for that sublime prose poem, that astute and impossibly brilliant essay on a work that I could call my soul itself. It's a wild and deeply fulfilling experience to have someone completely understand where I'm going in my expressions, to get the whole purpose and plot of my inner saga. 

 

I've found it deeply gratifying to watch your various series of poems take shape as well, and to see your distinct style manifest in a variety of forms and treasures. That someone with your knowledge and skill would take the time to offer such deep and insightful analysis of my reflections is the highest honor. 

 

Forever grateful.

 

This poem took three drafts.