Saturday, April 4, 2015

Endangered


writing hunts me down, offers

Tibetan heights. I blend in the blank drift

unlatched from gate and bone.  I become

a shape of breath, rippling through mountains

like a feline ghost. At first, everything

seems sparse, from pine to plants,

words to theme, I hear nothing that melts

into clarity but feel this wind

circling the moon as if it were a bowl

meant to sing, summon art that has lain

silent, inward from long tracts of time

that led me here. I look around and wait,

My eyes lantern the mist.
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 I have seen images of the illusive snow leopard. It moves sleek and stealthily through the snow drifts of the high, Asian mountains. This beautiful feline has also become an "endangered species".  So what happens when we ,as  writers, become endangered of losing our grip, our peace of mind because of  stress and other daily pressures. Anxiety, depression and other conditions evolve which lessen our ability to stay on track, confident even hopeful. At this point, writing intervenes and takes me to a higher place where I have a chance to pause and breathe, seek and wander. Like that wintry cat, I blend into the mind's landscape while becoming relieved but somewhat disoriented. I yearn to write and know I am here to write something. Words and themes are elusive but I sense there is light ,a moon in the sky that is calling for me to look and listen This process requires tolerance, a heightened sensitivity and faith that the idea will form and the silence will melt. As essayist and writer Jeanette Winterson puts it -- Art, in its making and in its enjoying, demands long tracts of time.

 

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