Emily Loved The Birds

Emily loved the birds. She loved the bees, she loved love.

A bird came down the walk:

He did not know I saw;

He bit an angle-worm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew

From a convenient grass,

And then hopped sidewise to the wall

To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyesThat hurried all abroad,--

They looked like frightened beads,

I thought;

He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,

I offered him a crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers

And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,

Too silver for a seam,Or butterflies,

off banks of noon,

Leap, splashless,

as they swim.

I stopped watching a Fellini movie this morning to go check the herb garden. Water. We have water everywhere due to all the recent storms and although it makes everything green and lush and wonderful, I know it's causing concerns for people in other parts of the country. Lake Delton emptied. I couldn't believe it. We would visit the Dells as children and took our son there when he was little to ride all the water rides. There's no Dells fun this summer because of all the rain the lake spilled into the river and houses were lost and summers ruined.

One of the joys of all the water falling from the sky are the birds that have found their way to our yard. The little geese (and a family of ducks) have found their way to my yard along with a heron. There was a heron standing in the middle of all the standing water this morning and I felt it was Fellini telling me something, whispering in my ear that anything is possible. Because you see it's not that we feel we are inadquate. It's quite the opposite, beyond measure we, each as individuals are powerful, and brilliant and beautiful and knowing so much more than we will ever admit to knowing. But then there's that little voice behind our ear, right at the hairline that makes us wonder "Who am I to be all those things and what am I supposed to do with that knowledge?" We create our own monsters. And then it rains for 10 days straight and you begin to wonder if Al Gore is somewhere doing a rain dance to get us to recycle more and spray less into the air and drive less.

I think Emily knew her poems had power that's why she hid them. I don't believe she was ashamed or wondered if they would touch the soul or remind us why the bees buzz. I think she knew that if one of these poems were to leak out of her universe, it would change. Everything would change that very moment and she'd no longer be that secluded wall flower, she'd have to be fabulous and how does one be fabulous and still be shy?

After a hundred years

Nobody knows the place,--

Agony, that enacted there,

Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,

Strangers strolled and spelled

At the lone orthographyOf the elder dead.

Winds of summer fieldsRecollect the way,--

Instinct picking up the keyDropped by memory.

-Emily Dickinson

The trees in my yard are stories tall, too high to measure and so they must have been here for hundreds of years, did geese come to rest in the yard then? Did someone else manage an herb garden? Did a raccoon come to visit looking for a scrap of food? Life and nature is this constant ball of moving energy and it is our huberus that saves us from being caught up in the twirl of it without making our voices known. How many of us have a poem in our head, a song in our heart, a painting that plays in our soul but never makes the canvas? What stops us? The baby crying in the other room? The customer who needs to check in 40 times before finishing a sale? The floor in the kitchen that needs to be swept? The life that swirls around us shouldn't stop us from living the large life we were meant to live.

A few years ago Best Friend and I got the idea to host a radio show. We made the proposal, gathered up all the interesting people we knew, sufi masters, poets, pagans, miscreants from all sorts of life. A few weeks later we were on the way to the studio our hearts beating in our chest like a mad drum. What starts as an idea turns into action and that action defines us by our bravery and our willing to put it out there. Every time I make a new jewelry design, I hold my breath for a second, sure my idea is the genius move I've been waiting to make. I felt this way about a Prufrock bracelet. I agongized over the details of a bracelet made with all the symbols of the wonderful Eliot poem. I found mermaids singing each to each. I found little spoon charms as a way to measure his life. When I listed it I thought "Who wouldnt want this wonderful literary piece of art?" It sat there, for months on Etsy, waiting for someone who read Prufrock and who appreciated the importance of that poem in a MANS LIFE. Yeah, that's where I missed the boat. Prufock is a poem written for a man.

Meanwhile, Best Friend calls and asks me "Hey have you ever made a chicken bracelet?" Are there really people who would wear chickens? As she's a genius, I find the images, put them on a bracelet and I'm making a chicken piece of art. Not only does it sell in 10 minutes, I take orders for four more. Grief. Putting it out there is ALWAYS worth the energy and the effort. We are only as good as our last effort. We do get credit for trying. Take care, enjoy the day, read some Emily and if you are looking for my art, you can find it at Etsy.com under the seller name POETSUMMER, at Ebay (ugh!) under the same seller name and my own Ecommerce site at Summerpoet.com. Wear your art! Carrie.