When one is listening intensely
in the soft blackness of the night
heavily veiled in mystery
the remembrance garden deep in my heart
there is so much to feel
perhaps prayer is like that
the seething inside
too full of living to be written down
It’s wanting keeps us going
like a wrong key turning round and round in a lock
It’s all the unwordable things one wants
and having nothing happen
Life is full of opposite contraries
the freedom of memory and imagining
a longing to know and understand
so that nothing is lost
that makes the skin of you
feel like something namelessly exquisite
there is a lonely, blue brooding over everything
always unfolding, never in a hurry
I am circled by trees
moss, very deep and silent
the creatures are all folded down in sleep
the holy ones
guarding their precious secrets
a sky quivering with movement
glimpses of the between places
~ Cento of lines taken from Hundreds and Thousands, The Journals of Emily Carr, p. 75, 78, 81, 84, 91, 103, 116, 117, 121, 127, 138, 152, 158, 165, 174, 179, 181, 183, 184, 201,206, 222, 239
12 thoughts on "When one is listening intensely"
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Beautiful imagery coalesces in these lines
And I can’t really take credit for that. I just arranged the lines.
your poems spiral
Into swelling springs
Thank you!
I love how you craft extra layers of meaning out of these journals: “It’s wanting keeps us going”
Thank you, Shaun.
Masterful – I love the descriptions you craft from her words.
Thank you. I feel funny about taking any credit. All I’m doing is arranging lines and phrases that were already awesome, to make something new.
Nice! I especially love the last stanza.
Thank you!
Fav lines:
heavily veiled in mystery
the remembrance garden deep in my heart
I am circled by trees
moss, very deep and silent
and
glimpses of the between places
√√
Thanks. I have a lot of fun rearranging killer lines by poets and other writers to make some new meaning that occurs to me.