Daddy's Little Princess.

[Violet]

.. my angel, how are you?

I wanted to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day, especially as I'd set aside this little card for you quite some time ago, now.

Well, wish me luck. I'm entirely unqualified to be building my own website, but I guess I have to just try and white knuckle it. So far it's..............

(yeah)

(it sucks)


Gosh, you'll be touring in just a few weeks now. (!)

.. keep wonderful, my love.. and I'll see if I can't try and be wonderful too. (may as well give it a shot, at least)

.. okay, so.. here's that lingering kiss of mine.. x.. (to my perfect Valentine)

[Violet]

.. my love, how are you?

.. I hope you got to see the post I had written earlier today.. and whoever else may have read it, that's fine, too. However, I found myself feeling anxious about leaving it here just given its sensitive nature. Still, it's the sort of thing that's getting stirred up around here, given what's been happening with Roshi.

.. anyway, for now.. I've to look straight ahead, and try to make the most of my talents, and my good health, and--well, hopefully I'll make sense of this whole website business. Today, I seem to have had a "personal therapy" day, instead. But, maybe I needed that.


.. alright, my angel. I'll post this photo again, as I rather like it. The day I took it was just so misty, everything felt somehow "enchanted." Where my bike is parked is at the end of the road belonging to the first lake.. [the lake just near where I live] This is the point where one has to turn around, given the first lake has no road that goes entirely around it. Oh, and as I may have already mentioned (at some point), that's why I wound up riding to "our lake" to begin with, as it's just so much nicer to have a whole lake to ride around.

.. anyway, my love.. my thoughts and prayers are with you..

and I send again my tender kiss.. x.. (and now I'm needing a good night's sleep, I think..

[Violet]

.. my angel, how are you?

Well, I caught up on some badly needed sleep, and felt much better yesterday.

.. and there was some wonderful sun earlier in the day, but by the time I went out it had vanished behind the clouds.. and so, it was quite cold out Saturday as I rode out to our lake.

Actually, in that first post I wrote the other day [which I later removed] I'd used the expression "the fallen." Well, for some reason those words came to me as I rode, and what I started noticing were all the fallen trees in the forests along the road—this, given all the bad storms up here this past year.

.. anyway, I took a number of photographs of these downed trees, which I may post at some point.

.. but it was after riding around our lake.. [first seeing that our bell was once again very still].. but it was on the way home that something caught my eye. Something I'd never noticed before. It was a five-pointed star, bound in Christmas tree lights, and nailed to a tree. It wasn't near a house or anything. In fact, it was in the middle of a small forest, which I thought rather odd.

.. so I stopped again, even knowing my hands would freeze, since I need to remove my ski gloves to handle the camera. Actually, I think I rather like using the twilight since it has a way of “obscuring” things, but in a way that hopefully reveals things, as well. [I like not knowing what it is I’m looking for exactly, given it’s more of a feeling I’m trying to find than anything else] Oh, but the camera lens just hates this lack of light, since it’s constantly moving in and out.. [it’s still on automatic, except I turn off the flash].. but, yes, it’s trying desperately to “correct” things, when I’m not too keen on having anything “corrected.”

.. so, anyway, here they are. Oh, and “For the Fallen”.. is maybe what they should be titled.

anyway, I'll probably use the next several posts for these, so it will take a few minutes to upload them.

.. alright, my love. As always, I’m missing you.. and I send again my tender kiss.. x.. (and I do hope all is going well in preparation for your tour.. xx x..

edits: just typos.

[Violet]

..

[Violet]

..

[Violet]

.. so this is the last post on this. Actually, given all these photographs are meant to be slightly out of focus, it's easier to see them by clicking on them to seem them larger.

[Violet]

.. actually.. I had a few additional pics posted here at the end, but I removed them. Avoiding the pitfalls of this for me has to do with veering away from anything too "designie" feeling.. or even "cool" seeming. I took a number of pics with a lot of drag on the Christmas lights.. [much more than the ones I posted].. and those ones tended to look real cool.. but that doesn't do anything for me.

.. so.. some of the more "homely" seeming pics--or just obscure seeming, maybe, or delicate.. anyway, those are the qualities that seem closer to something, I think. [whatever that "something" may be..

.. (another kiss, my love.. x

[Violet]

.. my love, how are you?

.. well, I've been reading some of the Sasaki Archive, which gets fairly disheartening fairly quickly. I did think Myoan Grace Schireson, who's both a Dharma teacher and a clinical psychologist, had some useful things to say. She brings up "transference," which I believe is a fairly understood concept at this point. Certainly in psychotherapy the transference taking place on the part of the patient is understood, and therapists who take advantage of that by having sex with their patients.. well.. I'm sure that happens more than I'd even care to consider.. [the world being as it is].. but, at least it's fairly universally understood as inappropriate and harmful to the patient--as it would be concerning a student, as well.

[later note: you know, I keep returning to this post, as I'm not sure what I want to leave of it. It's been upsetting news, and I do understand why people have been trying their best to grapple with its implications on the original thread on this topic. I think, too, that it does help sometimes to try and parse things out]

.. so

.. anyway, my angel.. I know you're a strong person, and I shouldn't worry about you too much.. but, still I do.. [at least a little, I do]

.. so, be kind to yourself.. and

well, just know I'm here, holding the fort.. [as it were].. up here on You're My Sun Mountain.. [yeah.. I re-named it]

.. so.. all my love and support and tender care in this tender kiss of mine.. x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEcTq78S690
FULL SCREEN..

[Violet]

.. (my love, how are you?.. I'm really really procrastinating.. but


Another Poet


Another poet will have to say
how much I love you
I’m too busy now with the Arabian Sea
and its perverse repetitions
of white and grey

I’m tired of telling you
and so are the trees
and so are the deck chairs

Yes, I have given up a lot of things
in the last few minutes
including the great honour
of saying I love you

I’ve become thin and beautiful again
I shaved off my grandfather’s beard
I’m loose in the belt
And tight in the jowl

Crazy young beauties
still covered with the grime
of ashrams and shrines
examine their imagination
in an old man’s room

Boys change their lives
in the wake of my gait
anxious to study
elusive realities
under my hypnotic indifference

The brain of the whale
crowns the edge of the water
like a lurid sunset
but all I ever see
is you or You
or you in You
or You in you

Confusing to everyone else
but to me
total employment

I introduce
the young to the young
They dance away in misery
while I conspire
with the Arabian Sea
to create
an ugly silence
which gets the ocean
off my back
and more important
lets another poet say
how much I love you


L.C. [Book of Longing]







To Another Poet (from a Lesser Poet)


My angel, that’s really very sly of you,
how you titled this poem
of

yours.

I mean, I was about to protest
that
you were having another [no doubt lesser] poet
say

I love you

Only, now that I've decided that you
are

Another Poet

well, I guess I feel less cheated,
then. (still, I’d like a more direct
approach

next time)


(by the way, these particular trees never tire
of telling you how much I love you) (although, I've yet
to confront
the

deck chairs)



x

[Violet]

.. my angel, I hope all is well with you. It's very late, and I need to get to sleep.. but I thought I'd post for you one of my "enchanted forest" shots from that misty misty day..

(I miss you, my love.. x

[Violet]

.. my angel, I keep bumping into problems. [back on this website building thing].. and I’m waiting on further help from the techies.

.. anyway, I just wrote you a little poem, for your morning tea.. x



[later edit: poem removed]

[Violet]

My love, how are you?.. (it is so very close now.. your tour.. and I send you my warmest thoughts and feelings, that all may be well with that)


Okay.. I do feel to say one more thing on this issue, even though I’m reluctant to.

I noticed that the thread concerning Roshi was getting contentious, and so it was decided it would be moved to a far less prominent section of the forum. But, what that stirred in me was the sense that

well, isn’t that so much of the problem with all of this? This “shoving it under the rug”.. when something is difficult to look at?

Of course, I’m torn, my angel, in that I don’t want any harm to come to you. I feel protective of you in that sense.. just as you might understandably feel concerning Roshi.

.. only..

well, are we “right” in this?

.. and so, I thought to bring this up again, as it does weigh on me.. especially now that this issue has been safely “hidden,” here at the forum.

.. but maybe you can see how dear you are to me. And maybe you can see too why I feel unsettled as concerns all this.

it seems certain dynamics get replicated until they are resolved. But, until that time, we are presented with the same challenges—again, and again.

.. at the very least, I do think this forum should be tolerant of those seeking to deal with an issue that’s troubling, but certainly no less significant due to that fact. I'm not saying I know what section this thread on Roshi belongs in. I just thought to mention what the decision to move it had brought up in me, as I may not be alone in this.

okay. That’s all I can think to say just now. Nothing in this is easy.


My sincere best to everyone here..

.. and my love to you, my angel.. x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Llvv5Rw1CPw
FULL SCREEN..

[Violet]

.. my angel, I wound up staying up late last night, trying my hand at this. I felt I was too tired to even tell what I was doing after a while, so I left it for today.

anyway, here goes:


.. Leonard, my love.. how are you this evening?

I did want to say how much I like this poem, actually.


Another Poet


Another poet will have to say
how much I love you
I’m too busy now with the Arabian Sea
and its perverse repetitions
of white and grey

I’m tired of telling you
and so are the trees
and so are the deck chairs

Yes, I have given up a lot of things
in the last few minutes
including the great honour
of saying I love you

I’ve become thin and beautiful again
I shaved off my grandfather’s beard
I’m loose in the belt
And tight in the jowl

Crazy young beauties
still covered with the grime
of ashrams and shrines
examine their imagination
in an old man’s room

Boys change their lives
in the wake of my gait
anxious to study
elusive realities
under my hypnotic indifference

The brain of the whale
crowns the edge of the water
like a lurid sunset
but all I ever see
is you or You
or you in You
or You in you

Confusing to everyone else
but to me
total employment

I introduce
the young to the young
They dance away in misery
while I conspire
with the Arabian Sea
to create
an ugly silence
which gets the ocean
off my back
and more important
lets another poet say
how much I love you


L.C. [Book of Longing]


.. when I wrote my little Gracie Allenish "response," I had just randomly opened your book, and this was on the page where I had landed. But it's been good to live with for a while. Just this one poem.

I remember you saying something about your wanting to be a minor poet. I think you said something to the effect of there being some room there. Anyway, this poem has me remembering your saying that. Phrases like

which gets the ocean
off my back

which both cracks me up and seems to take care of those pesky Romantics all in one fell swoop.

[actually, you take a number of swipes at that blasted Arabian Sea] [I couldn't agree with you more: what a huge annoyance]

You know, to tell you the truth, I really didn't mind at all your having another poet say.. well, you know—what you said. Especially since the first poet who came to my mind was—well, I'll get to that.

[actually, I remember saying to you once I'd make the worst critic of your writing—in part because I'd always be evaluating it in terms of whether I thought you could love me in particular].. [probably not the most professional approach]

.. [oh, also, since sometimes a line of yours has me wanting to just throw you down, and kiss you all over] [I mean, that crack about the deck chairs was enough to do that]

and yet, despite your "seeming" indifference, you do find ways to

actually, I was about to say "evoke".. but that's not quite right..

The brain of the whale
crowns the edge of the water
like a lurid sunset

"evoke" is not quite right, since if it were I'd then be able to finish that sentence I started. Only, really I can't. [oh, but in a way that you win, because don’t you really hate that banal sort of literary criticism? You know, that "this evokes this," and "that evokes that?"] [although, at least the fear of it has a way of “toughening defense”]

[writing is hell to pay sometimes]

.. so, anyway.. if these brain waves in some manner divine the water’s edge—still, one wouldn’t immediately think "lurid." A lurid sunset. (do we blame this backlash on the Poets? or is it a matter of "real" nature?)

(gosh, at least the trees are just tired)


.. (and yes, the boys and girls are circling around you

but, how could they not be?).. (I just thought of a "flake of your life")


But, you know, I do believe you dare come "closest," my love, when you say
that

.. all I ever see
is you or You
or you in You
or You in you

which reminds me. Here's a poem by the poet who came to my mind.. (when first you assigned this task)

.. (but first, my tender kiss good-night.. x


Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

John Keats


.. (I love you, too).. (my love)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHt8R3h7SwA
FULL SCREEN..

[Violet]

“Fanny Brawne walked the Heath for many years, often far into
the night. She never forgot John Keats or removed his ring.”

[as per Jane Campion's film, Bright Star]

.. my love, as things turned out.. (as regards my own “walks on the Heath”).. I wound up taking some “night shots” yesterday evening, not even intending to. But, you’re always with me, my love.. and

anyway, I’m hoping all is going well for you in preparation for the tour.

.. my tender kiss.. x.. (as always)


This love


The snow beneath
my
body feels a

comfort,

as my hand
rests on
the camera. and even as I
can’t see it

still, I know it: the trees
against
the
night sky, like a

Ryder.



x

[Violet]

.. my love, how are you?

.. as to this website business, I’m—well, "half" waiting.. [since I'm doing stuff too].. but, yes, I'm waiting to speak with someone I know who lives in New Zealand. He will hopefully help me decide how to proceed with my website. I learned enough to know that to have a design I’d be pleased with would take some work, and there are just so many routes one might take. So, I’m hoping he’ll give me some good advice. It’s just coordinating things with him time wise that’s tricky.

[okay, my fear is that I may have to learn: code].. [say it isn’t so].. [please]

<div id="primary" class="site-content">

[I don’t even want to know what that means].. [but I have a feeling I may have to]

.. alright, my angel. You know, I’m curious what your first shows are going to be like. How similar they’ll be to where you left off.. or how different.

.. (meantime).. the following poem I wrote yesterday. You know I think I can blame this “tumbling” thing I sometimes do.. (with word sound, that is).. on a Dylan Thomas poem I was exposed to when I first went to college. [that “Refusal to Mourn” one] [with the long title]

I’m pretty sure the “sweep” of that poem got into my young brain, and somehow never left. [although, other than that first impression, I can’t say Thomas is a poet I read, or feel close to] [I’d far rather take some time with the Romantics just now, in any case]

.. anyway, it could be that the following poem is an example of this proclivity of mine—the tumbling thing, I mean.. for better, or for worse. (hopefully it's working here.. but.. well, sometimes I'll look back on something and see better its flaws.. so

.. in any case, what in some manner inspired this poem—or at least how it starts out.. is this sense of “waking up” that sometimes happens to me concerning my writing you these "little love notes".. (as I've come to call them) Such moments really do feel like waking up from a dream, and I’m left wondering how on earth I got to this place with things. And yet, still, I somehow manage to absorb the “shock” of it, and just keep going. (!) But, I suppose that’s because it’s not terribly difficult for me to feel to be in love with you.. (my angel).. it’s not a stretch at all, in fact.

.. of course, I’ve known that things have to change for quite a while now, and I guess the website is a part of that

but. Well, as you’ve seen in the past, I find it just so difficult to say good-bye to you. Even though it wouldn’t really be good-bye. Not really.

.. still. It’s a dilemma. I mean, you really do feel to be a part of me now. And that can be just such a terribly lovely thing.

Only now.. well.. I guess I really do need to re-enter the world somehow. I mean, on the practical side of things. (which, truth be told, is fairly dismal at present)

.. however.. (on the bright side).. my therapist thinks I'm doing a lot better than I was. So, maybe you've helped me in that.

.. alright, so.. this poem.

But first.. another tender kiss.. x.. (mixed with luck for all that you’re presently up to..



[later edit: poem removed]