My next step

[lizzytysh]

Hi Sarry ~

As always, Leonard speaks in layers. Still, I do know that Leonard has at least once ridden a white horse onto the stage in [I believe, Boston] when a traffic jam was making him and his group late for a performance. I believe he also rode at least one horse when he lived in a cabin for awhile in Tennessee. It's not a picture that comes easily to my mind, Leonard on a horse, and I'd love to see such a photo... or at least to know that he rode. Your words capture a very lovely aspect of the relationship between a person and their horse.


~ Lizzy

[Dany Hilven]

I like to listen to this particular song in my car...
You know what's peculiar?
Somewhere in the 80's (1986...) I really discovered this song, driving home from work at night, playing it on my cassette recorder in my Ford Sierra... My children were still very young (Nadja 8, David 5).
Now, David - at 25 - enjoys it as much as I still do.
It goes deep, you know, it really is very existential.
LC wraps it up: light and darkness, time and endlessness, right and wrong...
In short - duality of life.
He really has a bright mind.
Dany

[Sarry]

Interesting Lizzy. I too spent some time in Tennessee at the very pit of my life only to come back to Canada where I belong. In a small old farm house at the base of the Smokies. Wonder if he was just over the ridge? Life is funny, isn't it?

Dany, my children too are listening to the "old" stuff. It is true; "to everything turn, turn..." And you think they aren't paying attention but they are. My son recently made me a CD and it had all my favourites on it from years ago. I was amazed.

Peace

S

[lizzytysh]

My son recently made me a CD and it had all my favourites on it from years ago. I was amazed.

I'm amazed by that, too ~ what a gift .

Yes ~ wouldn't that have been something if you were neighbours of a sort ... maybe even a Six Degrees of Separation thing. You make it sound appealing where you were there; yet, Canada must have been moreso for you.

Nice overview of The Ballad... , Dany... and very cool that David now shares your love of it.


~ Lizzy

[Dany Hilven]

It really is cool, Lizzy and Sarry, noticing your child reacts pretty much the same way to songs/poems than yourself...
It says a lot about the universality and timelessness of the work in question.

[lizzytysh]

It says a lot about the universality and timelessness of the work in question.

Yes... Exactly, Dany. I take heart in knowing that it will continue through the many years ahead . Generation after generation, as long as we and those that follow us continue to introduce and share Leonard with others who are younger. Have faith in their intelligence and humanity and all will be well.


~ Lizzy

[Dany Hilven]

never have you been closer to me
or I to you
never more dearly

so strange what lies behind us
what already was so good
what seemingly never could be improved

tomorrow can come
as can the days after tomorrow

the careful balancing
between light and dark
the hesitating dwelling
were there is no more time

eyes open
looking outside in
the voices muffled

never were we more silent




Dany

[Dany Hilven]

Now I see

It has never come to me
With such devastating clearness before
Shocking as primal thoughts
Battered and beaten and dying

It seemingly lingered in the far corner of my mind
As if waiting for some ghostly ship
As if humbled in grace

It has almost nullified itself
Almost forgotten to beg

And now I see
From now on I start longing
For the bittersweet justice
Of master and slave

For the endless sighing in awe
For the moving in you again

The wonder that never
Ever
Stops



Dany

[jimbo]

do nt be afraid to cry

[jimbo]

dont be afraid to cry cause your tears are the words you cannot find.........

will finish later.....

[lizzytysh]

dont be afraid to cry cause your tears will be the words of the prayer you cannot find

This is poignant and, I feel, true.


~ Lizzy

[Dany Hilven]

It's interesting to see what is being read into ones work...

Nice, though, that poetry can be a universal tool with which everyone digs up her/his own understanding.

Apart from not being afraid to cry or to laugh, apart from not really needing a divine icon like some god to be comforted or blessed or condemned and rejected (!), as so many I like to dwell in that (still) mystical space of duality.

I have no message, though, I do not want to confess, except to the ones close to me, I do not want to be anything else than a simple human being, some representative in the big tree of animals - a predator amongst predators, gifted perhaps with some insight in the relatively limited ability of humans to disguise egoism in love or compassion.

There's nothing new under the sun - "homo homini lupus est", man is the wolf to men.
Beware of the one who presents her/himself as a good one...
So I do not fear anything in this life, neither can anything really make me cry because I know what I can expect.

I'm not being completely honest, though: I am afraid of death, and, I too shall cry at the loss of any of the ones close to me.

So, I continue to pick up pebbles and pieces of junk and things forgotten on the path I walk and look at them in awe and wonder.

And I keep on finding myself breathlessly looking at a devastating sunset, or the starry night sky, or the warm fleshed woman lying beside me, or my children, my dog, my friends...

And, occasionally, some of this I try to wrap in a poem.

But please - feel free to read into it whatever is yours, because it just might be really in there...

And definitely - thanks for reading me at all!

Dany

[jimbo]

ok cowboy its a free world i said a prayer for you

Death only comes to those who dont let God live in them
yes we all die but our soul lives on. in what place?
that is entirely your choice. Im not afraid to die

[Dany Hilven]

I have to disagree, jimbo - death comes to us all, as to all that lives.
There's nothing wrong with finding comfort in believing, this truly can take away fear for anything, yes even from dying.
I really do not want to get entangled in true/untrue statements that nobody can verify or prove - that's a waste of time.
The thing is, I feel comfortable with me being afraid of dying. Death is only a very unconvenient fact, a "no options left" situation and that, I feel, is very disturbing.
I do accept your prayer, however, though I take it as a fresh flower.
Something I can see and touch and smell.

Here's a poem for all who feel that way...


beyond praying

we stood there
wondering
slicing images with razor like thoughts

we analyzed, probed

the cold didn’t matter
it was buried inside us
it froze the words of believe
like breath in deepest winter

thin white music bubbled like water
gently it gurgled into our ears

we ignored it

with dry lips
we crumbled our prayers

then
walking away
we didn’t even stumble



Dany

[jimbo]

Thank you Dany for your poem