Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Seeking the Subtle Thread

It’s one of those kind of days.  3am and a To Do list.

Yesterday I was liquid, alive in exotic locales.  Swirling in music:  Bon Iver, Gillian Welch, Scott Matthews.

This morning, there are no artful photographic images.  No graceful alliterations to spout forth.

Just a sharpened pencil outlining a list.  PDFs of school calendars.  Bank statements and a calculator.

I tell myself there is an art to this.  This practical living we all dance through.  That there must be some merit in writing about the most mundane.  Some inspiration in the quest to find the magic.

The seeking of some satiating thread (so subtle), in even this most parched scape.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Wellspring

slowly
as liquid
you came and stirred the places
that slept

quiet
rising like steam
those spaces
still
and thick
no sound

breathing
your story
35 days without bathing
deep in holy mountains
stumbling upon waterfalls and hot springs
soaking all day
in the river of the white goddess
the oasis

unbidden
it was me
you say
that swirled in eddies
gushed in distant rushing spates
there with you
in sacred waters

these hidden pockets
inlets
curving stone
are surfaces softened
smoothed
by time’s lapping
I want to be forever in their carving

pooling waterways
spill and seep
as I soak
in the haven
of your story
an alchemy of elements
the mystery of our collision
where we are sourced at the wellspring
offering oasis
in the dry

artwork by Alison Berry
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

All One

By day
there are YMCA swim lessons
amid spray-on sunscreen clouds
and chlorine
a stop by the super-store on the way home
for a 12-pack roll of toilet paper

By night
I am an ancient soul
dreamtime
where I live
on the banks of an inlet
observing centuries of mariners
who approach my river mouth
and settle

these travelers are the water cultures
Indians of the Ganges
Polynesians of the Pacific
Italians from Venetian canals

It works this way in dreams
details may not match the mind
there’s just an understanding

that there is one water source
and a merging of its distant parts
waterways and bloodlines
cultures collide
over time
space
seep
blend

Who is this ancient me
in dreamtime
watching time unfurl
through men in boats
finding their way to the shore?

she understands
it’s all connected
not in the way
one would read a bumper sticker on a Prius
it’s a knowing
fundamental
as the element of water

dreamy waters, yes
but real all the same

courtesy of http://www.nowpublic.com