Tag: friendship

friendship (revisited)

Friendship is simple.
It’s also complex, but let’s ignore that.

It can be what we want it to be.
Well, sometimes. There is such a thing as unrealistic expectations but that’s not what this post is about. This post is simple. This post will simply concentrate on the lovely simplicity of simple friendship.

Take the friendship cats offer just as one example:
IMG_20161231_080925

Can’t get more simple than that. (And when I say simple, I may mean complex)

Then there is the simple friendship of my five six year old niece, who I have posted about before with her awesome stories. She is also an amazing artist. Here is some of her work, capturing, once again, the simple friendship cats have to offer:

IMG_20170309_232423

This cat is obviously simple, as it is talking to itself. (But wouldn’t you agree, this art is simply incredible?!)

I love our nieces. And our nephews. All of our family. But especially the ones who are cute. Pure and simple. They make me feel noble things like this:

IMG_20170210_144628

And that’s pretty much all I think can be said for friendship. Please do not correct me if I am wrong.

[And please do not steal the artwork from this page.]

digit the majestic (revisited upon his passing)

IMG_20170309_232423

For my friend’s adorable cat…and now, truly in his honour and with gratitude for the short time we spent together…(drawing by my niece).

~*~

furtively felining into the room,

unannounced, unruly fur unadorned,

blinking in reluctant wakefulness,

he stares into my dishevelled mind,

eyes sparking in the recognition of likes,

“it must take a long time brushing that out?”

 

pawing my cerebral textiles

for a loose thread of understanding,

I roll it into a ball

to play with later.

 

Weighed down by the fire

we sink into the magic napping carpet…

 

originally posted 9th Jan, 2017

with basil’s mum

basil is no clown

I had the pleasure of spending some rare time with an old friend a few days ago.

The mother of Basil (RIP) actually.

Sometimes things do come together to create the perfect non storm of connection.

We sat swinging our legs from her wonderful, new verandah. The weather was perfect. Could have been scripted. We were transported on our own friendship stage (cf video).

I truly love those precious moments of a collective soul sigh. Thank God for old friends. Old Nick Cave loving friends.

And then I remembered I had written about friendship before so I won’t go on again.
(And if I do say so myself, I don’t need to. I think that old post, bursting with profundity, says it all… I could be kidding, wink…)

 

the journey doesn’t end here…

But she really did love those tiles.

They were hand made

and placed with loving

carelessness, in haste.

 

She picked them for practicality

for their water proof qualities

she thought,

(not thinking about salt water, of course),

and their quirkiness,

something different for everyone.

 

He helped her peel them off,

“it’s time for a renovation”, he said.

And they exchanged those looks.

The knowing one she thought she always had

he now wore.

 

Because really, he knew this was no renovation.

It was simply an unveiling.

(‘Cursum Perficio’ was engraved on tiles in the entrance to Marilyn Monroe’s last home. It wasn’t actually in mind when I started writing this, it came afterwards, hence the title…)

song meaning

 

 

Recurring Dream

This is a reworking of a poem I wrote a couple of months ago, after visiting an old friend in Arizona. These gorgeous trees surrounded our camp site. A night by a campfire, sharing sorrows and burdens with an old friend, is one of the best things in life imho. Thanks to Charles, the reluctant poet   for inviting me to join ‘the back side of the night’ theme started by The sailor poet.  I really appreciate their encouragement, as well as that by Davy at Davy D blog.  Thanks Guys!

~*~

img_20170113_100300

How those maudlin woods enticed us

adorned so enchantingly with unprecipitation

and the black of trees’ core,

begging interpretation from the sympatheticly dressed.

But we decided not to indulge them.

Or

maybe us.

We held hands instead.

And ran through.

Through

to the back side of the night

where together we watched

the eyelid opening at horizon,

where we no longer dream

of windows wiping clean…

for Melissa

harmonica dream

swirling and seen

as we drift into sleep.

 

so long in the past

our impressions were cast

our friendship to keep.

 

our young minds so moved

the lyrics manoeuvred

to capture the steep

 

rise and the fall

of broken hearts’ call

the standing that’s reaped.

~

Thirty years on

our friendship, blessed, strong

lament’s aura seeps

still,

into sympathetic hearts

joined forever.

~*~

For dear Melissa, my friend from high school, the times we fell asleep to this gorgeous song. (I was so tempted, Mel, to write, “manooved” in the poem 🙂 )

And to those who struggle with serious addiction. My heart is filled with empathy ❤

 

 

 

grey’s end

the seismic shift

as you lift

from this world

 

the cosmic drift

as you slipped

from the swirl

 

memories knit

edited, clipped

from the furl

 

tears are tipped

heart is ripped

from the swell

 

it was time…

 

 

“choirs of stars appearing…”

The gifts you leave behind

there are no words for,

this bouquet of memories

leaves a scent of a doorway

to concertina-d time,

where I’d wake in the night

so gently enveloped

by the musical dreams

of a fellow insomniac,

composing your art on piano,

transposing your sight onto canvas,

our hearts

pressed up against the glass in wonder

at our endless sight.

But the only glass that reveals now

is filling

with the ends of sand.

 

sepiated

img_20170212_233703_199

(I took this photo yesterday of my father. He still works as a landscaper, at 83! He helps to take care of this beautiful property for his friend, who died a couple of years ago. He helps to lovingly tend it for her children who currently live elsewhere.)

*

your whispering  legacy haunted

those delightfully enchanted trees

they bashfully danced to the harmony’s spell

you cast on ebullient breeze.

gentle tread of your variegated spirit

autumned now with so much grace

I know you have moved on in silence

but our movement here follows your trace.

the impression of a loved one’s silhouette

caught tenderly in a still frame

is a clear photographic injustice

to the care that he takes in your name…

dresden

img_20170209_205729_277Thirteen years have already passed and I still remember the way Dresden’s venerable spirit soaked through my pores.

But it wasn’t until my beloved friend started to sing, that my heart translated the stories she told me, the unspeakable truths of her tormented past.

Never have I been so moved by sound. Perspective winded me in all tenses.

If ever anyone should bow to any sense of venerable, it was now, at her humble feet. I took a photo, one that should be in the dictionary…

for Mary Beth

 

my dear friend
my old friend
my forever friend
so happy we reconnected
and friendship should always be celebrated (didn’t expect this did you? Ha. Gotcha. Plus, I always liked this song! Just thought of it today after we parted. Girl, how you make me laugh.)
Above all those others, keep flying… ❤

sedona

your name

written so beautifully on the map

to leave a lasting impression

and reminds me of a song

(I never understood),

your people so rare

they’re fireflies as we pass

filling my eyes with tears of relief,

the embrace of the scent of a dreamed past.

this floury cloud

clothes me in the silk

of your colours undiminished

by winter’s gloom –

these gifts so sharply edged

but now willingly, intuitively blurred and fall softly

into these waiting arms of gratitude

(this video is beautiful. And I agree with the sentiment of the video producer, no one place is God’s country. Well, except that Sedona, may, just may, have made me question that a little…)

come sit with me dear friend

sam_0731

“They I said it wouldn’t happen again,

this flooding”

a sight not to be seen for another __ years.

“My ears filling with expert voices

trapping the scurrying feelings

insecting in the inescaping

infecting the elucidating”

nourishing the swell

between us –

your eyes telling me

under the indiscriminate trees.

Which are as beautiful within the flood as without.

smiling in the sudden illumination…

i wish i could remember

what door I came through

to get here.

the here of you.

I would board it up

with orange tape

strung like the scent of warning,

and burn the clothes on me

that are weft with mourning,

sewing these curtains instead,

these curtains of you imbued thread.

the windows left bare to the healing…