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Showing posts from February, 2018

A Poet's Journal: February 13th, 2015

  February 13th, 2015 Aiako Harria yesterday, first time this year; overtaken by the beauty.  It is at about this time along the hillsides and in the thickets that the brown of the end of winter starts mixing with the green of the beginning of spring. But an outing like this, though refreshing, can do nothing for the interior state of mind when one is tired and helpless; it only offers a slight reprieve, but we are back again, missing it: the sights, the sounds, the smell of the forest--somehow it only adds to the misfortune.  It is difficult to wander along the thin trails because we have built up a reason and an inspiration for our coming; there is a goal, a new plant to find; something to be attained, a new path to take.  All the expectation dies with each step, and yet it is still beautiful, still appealing, still the key to some secret meaning we have created for ourselves; and when we stop and look at it all, we realize we are merely the sum of our attainments, the sum that keeps
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A Poet's Journal: February 3rd, 2013 (With Audio)

February 3rd, 2013 For the first time in some months I am confident in my path and linger not upon doubt.  Those creatures of thought heard in the solitudes of the forest no longer need a name, but are somehow understood, and should I put my finger upon the sounds of distant words, they become recognizable purely because of utterance.  Giving life and finding sureness in the dark, is a compassion unlooked for, but so very well at home, that we almost too swiftly set out again before we have enjoyed the full comforts of that most intimate moment. Douglas Thornton
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A Poet's Journal: January 26th, 2013 (With Audio)

January 26th, 2013 We must constantly be set in some direction lest our preoccupations fall within a mode of importance that bind us to an obligation which does not serve our purpose or present state of mind.  Yet this is hard to define at any given moment, and though we are contemplative, our thinking mostly consists in reflections on variously changing subjects.  If we could let ourselves be pulled into the center and perfect intention of our art, the reconciliation of life as we see it in reality, and the wisdom for which we aim, would not be so difficult.  But as it is, the effort is divided and we must learn to let go. Douglas Thornton
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A Poet's Journal: January 8th, 2013 (With Audio)

January 8th, 2013 Today, Tuesday, sun all day; feel the days getting longer.  The slightest variation in light is perceptible only by the way in which it hits certain objects.  To the eye, we may notice morning, evening, and noon, by taking into account the incline of the sun, but as for our earth moving in its orbit and the light growing longer or brighter on the hills or the walls of our homes, that feeling and that change is lost unless we take minutious observation of our daily surroundings.  Light, by contrast, is a transformation of the understanding of the inexplicable; it enlightens but does not clarify our perceptions, and even though it is to make the day longer, it is not a privilege granted for our comfort.  Though the object then may help us see, it makes us turn our backs to that which we really want to know, and so the languor and discomfort of these ever-widening days is a burden and something careful to be shrugged off. Douglas Thornton
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A Poet's Journal: November 15th, 2012 (With Audio)

November 15th, 2012 Hiked on the 10th; mushroom hunting and the first cepe de Bordeaux I've ever found.  Those places where the mushroom lives and sprouts up excite me; for they are on the most unnoticeable part of ground and give importance to a spot that we would have briefly looked over in any other circumstance.  It is perhaps a meditation on nature; the robin, the squirrel, and even the deer are apt to cross our path, and still other birds, or the tracks of unknown animals, and though the mushroom still sits in the back of our mind, we anticipate an encounter with something far less known, and going into the underbrush, or pushing aside dead leaves, enlightens a conscious courage that is almost as ancient as it is foreign to our daily lives.  He certainly who finds what he's looking for has always been searching for something else. Douglas Thornton
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