september's journeys














a reverie for september...
september 5, 2009

long moments gazing into quiet waters...
soft nights lost in unfathomable dreams...

dear friends, let us meet at the teahouse in the forest, where we may sit together and savor cups of malty yunnan tea. let's listen, as the poet opens to us the heart of the world:


Aunt Leaf

Needing one, I invented her - - -
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker - - -
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish - - - and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

- Mary Oliver

resources for the september journey

mary oliver poems on poetseers
natalie goldberg, writing down the bones
james hillman, re-visioning psychology

and remembering tea and friends

tea tao by giovdim...
sanctuary for the senses and the soul.

may all travelers find joy!!
jeanne