Praise is not only sweet

Like honey, genuine praise is not only sweet, but also nourishing and even medicinal.

My mother over the phone yesterday told me she is really enjoying the poems in Greater Matter; indeed, the story they tell is keeping her in suspense.

For many people, it may go without saying that your mother praises you, but that is not an experience I share: my mother was always not only highly exacting, but brutally honest in her responses to the things we - and she herself, too - created. That is why her praise now is both nourishing and medicinal.

Added to this is that, since her stroke, she has a slight reading disability. The poems, since they do not run across the entire page, do not tax her eyes to move more than is comfortable. The daughter in me is eternally grateful, for completely extraneous reasons, now to be a poet!

Greater Matter also received unexpected praise from a recent Air b&b host, who ended up buying the kindle version. Amazon won't allow him to post his review, because his purchases are less than a minimum amount stipulated by them. He has kindly given me permission to post it on the social media:

"Hi Silke. We got the book on kindle. Honest, sweet and raw. Reading a bit every night. A rare find these days. Thanks very much for putting pen to paper and actually publishing these intimate thoughts and experiences. If you never did that, something would have been lacking in my life." - Paul van Jaarsveld, Jeffrey's Bay

If you would like to buy the book, you may email me directly for a mail order, at silkeheiss@gmail.com
Alternately, you can find it on  https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Matter-Journey-Poems-Beyond/dp/0994695071

I put out the third Give Your Writing The Edge Nugget yesterday, containing a beautiful, hitherto unpublished poem by Norman Morrissey, expressing the idea that the things we make are incarnations of our spirit. This thought is truly wind in the sails of my book - a thing, which is from start to finish a gift dedicated to his immortal soul.

Epigraph for Greater Matter - a hitherto unpublished poem by Norman Morrissey

Future

You say

you've finally found

where you must die

– here, with me

or in the aura of my own passing.

That is a future indeed.

– Norman Morrissey, 6^th July 2010

Covenantal selves (another hitherto unpublished poem by Norman Morrissey)

Not long ago I found a poem by Norman, which I remember him drafting back in 2012, over a weekend during which he spoke about almost nothing else (the way I remember it, anyway) - namely, ...

... but I actually don't wish to take the words out of his mouth.

Nowhere else have I seen the concept of 'Ubuntu' - we are what we are, because of others - explicated more exactly or more beautifully than in this poem, which he entitled Covenantal selves.

Click on http://eccapoets.blogspot.com/ and scroll down just a little to read this extraordinary, hitherto unpublished poem.

Please do be generous with your feedback, either on the Ecca blog, or here.

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.

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.

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

3.10.2016
Norman on his 67th with the shirt that marked the launch of the Ecca book that year, 'Gold in Spring'.

Real Days and a duiker

Been suffering crashings of confidence when I came upon this poem of Norman's from three years ago and was visited by a duiker. The saving graces of poetry, of nature - realities for me to live by.

A Table Love poem from years back - our "actual breath" in so many ways. 

He or she stared at me a good while on the other side of my window. Only yesterday I'd instructed the gardener NOT to repair the hole in the fence, I suspected the duiker was using it as a thoroughfare; she'd passed my studio while I was working there earlier in the week.