Richibi’s Weblog

“Orchard in Blossom (Plum Trees)“ (1888)

Vincent van Gogh

__________

walking in beauty must be a conscious
thing, you don’t wake up doing it in the
morning unless you train yourself to

for the past few days I’ve incorporated
the prayer, am intending to learn it
through, not just its kernel, however
itself highly inspirational

In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me I walk.
With beauty behind me I walk.
With beauty around me I walk
With beauty above me I walk.
With beauty below me I walk
In beauty all is made whole.
In beauty all is restored.
In my youth I am aware of it, and
In old age I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail.
In beauty it is begun.
In beauty it is ended.

during the past several days the weather
has been grey, bleak, uninviting, there
was beauty only in the candles I lit, the
pyjamas I never took off, and, truth be
told, the chicken I broiled with soya
sauce, lemon juice and honey, with
baby carrots to dip, and carrot cake to
top it all off, with lots of icing

nor do I ever run out of wine

what’s not beautiful about that, I needed
to conclude after all those days moping,
feeling sorry for myself

I said the same to a friend today over
lunch, at presently the best restaurant
in Vancouver, there she sat poised,
dripping in grace, a tailored olive
jacket, an ochre pendant with a light
brown scarf wrapped loosely around
her neck, stretched towards me with
just the right amount of both discretion
and attention, presenting her Mona Lisa
smile, as she’d herself called it

she had crossed her defunct great love
inadvertently somewhere, his jaw had
dropped, she had smiled that mysterious
smile, she told me, and slipped beyond
his ken

should I go to Australia, she asked,
where her nephew’s daughter is
getting married, it’s hot, it’s humid,
it’s a long trip, I could die on the
way

every time I go downtown, I think I
might not make it, I retorted, but I do,
and I don’t

when was the last time you saw your
nephew, I asked

four or five years ago, she replied

you love him, he loves you, he would
be so honoured, I said, and if you die
on the way he’ll still be honoured,
they all will

this is how you walk in beauty, I said,
you latch onto the poem as it passes,
they’re fleeting, be they ever so many,
we let them go by, they would’ve been
our memories, instead of our default
position, where you could die anyway

today I left home, I said, saw my first
cherry blossoms of the season, midst
the gnarled van Gogh branches of the
other trees lining both sides of the
street, emerald moss growing already
along their trunks

a woman selling wares mouthing the
words to Billy Holiday’s “God Bless
the Child” so that I thought she’d
been the one singing

beside her someone selling wooden
marionettes he was dangling, grinning,
trying to look enchanting in his Charlie
Chaplin clothes, looking more like
Ebenezer Scrooge, a wolf in sheep’s
clothing

but a cover of “You, You’re Driving
Me Crazy“ I sent Apollo, my Sun God,
for ukulele, megaphone, and of course
voice, inspired me more than anything
else today, I continued, turned my
frustration into poetry, how not to
mope, he’s been gone since before
C***mas, much too long

beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in
beauty all is made whole

to walking in beauty, we toasted

Richard