Wednesday 31 October 2018
Sunday 28 October 2018
Nothing at all
Nothing at all
The cry for help goes out -
you sms a friend about your struggles -
she returns it with a prayer or something,
something that mantles your shoulders,
soothes your heart,
relaxes your belly -
you feel-think Thank you's,
hope you're right
about them being received.
Still, you weep all day.
Manage to get up, bath, dress, but
weep, sleep, weep -
on it goes.
You write yourself off sick,
can't be anything but horizontal
on cushions
beneath the clay filigree
lantern of words
you created for your wedding
to your
late husband.
It keeps popping phrases
into your line of vision,
'carving each letter',
and so on.
Then another friend arrives
with a book about the dead,
you talk
about love and desire,
pour some wine,
lend him
your husband's corduroy jacket
to see him home
in the chilly dusk.
And
- whether it's the wine,
the friend, the book, the weeping, or
the prayers -
you're back inside yourself,
write the mails you must,
declare your limits,
sluicegate your grief
(thank your brother-in-law under your breath
for showing you at Scottish Waterways
how sluice gates work)
so you can barge
elegantly on
this course
of free water, while reclining
on the couch
as if nothing had happened
at all.
- Silke Heiss, 23rd October 2018
The cry for help goes out -
you sms a friend about your struggles -
she returns it with a prayer or something,
something that mantles your shoulders,
soothes your heart,
relaxes your belly -
you feel-think Thank you's,
hope you're right
about them being received.
Still, you weep all day.
Manage to get up, bath, dress, but
weep, sleep, weep -
on it goes.
You write yourself off sick,
can't be anything but horizontal
on cushions
beneath the clay filigree
lantern of words
you created for your wedding
to your
late husband.
It keeps popping phrases
into your line of vision,
'carving each letter',
and so on.
Then another friend arrives
with a book about the dead,
you talk
about love and desire,
pour some wine,
lend him
your husband's corduroy jacket
to see him home
in the chilly dusk.
And
- whether it's the wine,
the friend, the book, the weeping, or
the prayers -
you're back inside yourself,
write the mails you must,
declare your limits,
sluicegate your grief
(thank your brother-in-law under your breath
for showing you at Scottish Waterways
how sluice gates work)
so you can barge
elegantly on
this course
of free water, while reclining
on the couch
as if nothing had happened
at all.
- Silke Heiss, 23rd October 2018
Sunday 21 October 2018
Philosophy in loins
Philosophy in loins
My letters, these days, step
at times not in terrain
I've been -
barefoot, plain
they point
almost away from poetry -
take a train of thought
beyond space-time,
capsuled into stillness
- like a liner on the horizon,
suspended on eternity's curve,
steadily joins the dots
plotting her journey
into wisdom's harbour:
where brown and blue eyes meet
by a philosophy in loins
of sky and earth
and all the forms of water -
wild, and sweetly bowered.
- Silke Heiss, October 2018
My letters, these days, step
at times not in terrain
I've been -
barefoot, plain
they point
almost away from poetry -
take a train of thought
beyond space-time,
capsuled into stillness
- like a liner on the horizon,
suspended on eternity's curve,
steadily joins the dots
plotting her journey
into wisdom's harbour:
where brown and blue eyes meet
by a philosophy in loins
of sky and earth
and all the forms of water -
wild, and sweetly bowered.
- Silke Heiss, October 2018
Sunday 14 October 2018
Tuesday 9 October 2018
Chalice (a hitherto unpublished poem by Norman Morrissey)
With the days so suddenly summery, hammocking in the cool Green Nook is possible again. And then, by some idle chance I happened upon this moving poem, more crystalline than any photograph could muster for the moment it captures; a poem I don't remember hearing or reading before, utterly humbling for the love my husband felt for me; and archetypal in the pure man-love it conveys towards a chosen woman -
Chalice
To see you rocking in your hammock
in the old place
(that once was a sylvan nook in the formal, dressed-stone
garden I had
before my heart broke
and the wilderness tangled in
like the jungle over a Mayan temple
but now has been
trimmed back into My-Lady's-Bower's sweet symmetries)
was to see an elvish thing
bobbing in a curled leaf
on a gentle stream;
it was to feel my dream of these past years
- you finding a haven
where your own heart's time
can brim over
to make this new home I offer you
with both hands on bended knee
fit chalice
for your heart's
welling abundancies
to
be
drunk from.
- Norman Morrissey
Chalice
To see you rocking in your hammock
in the old place
(that once was a sylvan nook in the formal, dressed-stone
garden I had
before my heart broke
and the wilderness tangled in
like the jungle over a Mayan temple
but now has been
trimmed back into My-Lady's-Bower's sweet symmetries)
was to see an elvish thing
bobbing in a curled leaf
on a gentle stream;
it was to feel my dream of these past years
- you finding a haven
where your own heart's time
can brim over
to make this new home I offer you
with both hands on bended knee
fit chalice
for your heart's
welling abundancies
to
be
drunk from.
- Norman Morrissey
 |
| Us in the "sylvan nook". Photo taken by my mom. |
Wednesday 3 October 2018
Norman's birthday. A king-sized quilt of a blogpost with a hitherto unpublished poem by him.
Today would have been Norman's 69th birthday. I have put together this blog post for the sake of all who appreciated him and who wish to continue to honour his memory - hopefully smiles will break through any tears on your faces.
I loved to spoil him, I loved to be his wife, it was one of the most fulfilling tasks life ever asked of me.
I am sad not to be able to be his wife anymore, but I am grateful for the few years we were given.
He treated me well; he always put my and others' well-being before his own - to a fault; he shouldered the loads life and, indeed, others unfairly put on him; he never blamed me or others for his faults; his dearest wish was to be a decent human being. He showed me, by living them, the qualities it takes to make a true man. I am so very lucky that he shared himself with me to the extent that he did.
All photos are taken by me, with the exception of the photo of Norman at the Ecca reading, which was taken by Lara Kirsten.
The following poem demonstrates the kind of man Norman was - please read it not so much for what he is saying about me, but for what it shows you about him - how he enjoys my wifely fuss and giving, because he sees it gives me joy!
To be herself
You painted a splendid Sunbird
on a shirt
for me
- made me cakes,
laid out a sumptuous picnic under a tree;
now
you're standing me dinner
with fine champagne and crisp beer:
my birthday
- that you celebrate
with all the radiance of giving
your joyous heart
needs
to be
herself.
- Norman Morrissey, 3/10/2015
I loved to spoil him, I loved to be his wife, it was one of the most fulfilling tasks life ever asked of me.
I am sad not to be able to be his wife anymore, but I am grateful for the few years we were given.
He treated me well; he always put my and others' well-being before his own - to a fault; he shouldered the loads life and, indeed, others unfairly put on him; he never blamed me or others for his faults; his dearest wish was to be a decent human being. He showed me, by living them, the qualities it takes to make a true man. I am so very lucky that he shared himself with me to the extent that he did.
All photos are taken by me, with the exception of the photo of Norman at the Ecca reading, which was taken by Lara Kirsten.
 |
| 3.10.2012 Norman on his 63rd birthday. Picnic in the Arboretum, Hogsback. |
 |
| 3.10.2012 At The Bluff, The Edge, Hogsback, with his friend John van Wyngaard |
 |
| 3.10.213 Norman at 64, a wild joyride with me on the back of 'The Red Devil' on the contour path of Hog 1. As far as I know, this was his favourite photo of himself. |
 |
| 3.10.2014 A deeply unspoiled man suspicious of too much comfort, Norman enjoyed the cultural wealth I brought into his life. |
 |
| 3.10.2014 Norman reads from 'This Questioning Terrain', the then newest Ecca Poets book. The Rose Theatre, Hogsback. |
 |
| 3.10.2015 Norman on his 66th birthday |
 |
| 3.10.2015 He loves his shirt. Birthday dinner at The Edge Restaurant, Hogsback. |
To be herself
You painted a splendid Sunbird
on a shirt
for me
- made me cakes,
laid out a sumptuous picnic under a tree;
now
you're standing me dinner
with fine champagne and crisp beer:
my birthday
- that you celebrate
with all the radiance of giving
your joyous heart
needs
to be
herself.
- Norman Morrissey, 3/10/2015
 |
| 3.10.2016 Norman on his 67th with the shirt that marked the launch of the Ecca book that year, 'Gold in Spring'. |
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