Your Story Was This

Baxter, June 7, 2014

It Was Like This: You Were Happy
by Jane Hirshfield [listen]

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you 
or your days: they will be wrong, 
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

Where You Are

By David Ploskonka (used with permission)

Lost
by David Wagoner, from Traveling Light: New and Collected Poems 

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Coming Home

"Coming home to someone is many things. It is a literal action, an abstract idea, a physical feeling. It is more than the sound of the key turning in the door and the voice that calls from the porch. It is a choice, a promise, a declaration. It is a return, not as a person to a place, but as oneself to another. It is one individual saying to another: ‘You are the one I choose’."

~ source unknown

How Little it Takes

Weeping European Beech, Topiary Park, February 9, 2014

Sabbaths 1999, VII
by Wendell Berry, from Given 

Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

With the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.

What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowlyfalling, and is pleased.

Back in My Place

"All visuals captured in camera by back projecting the animated story into the breaths of the band. In the same way that you can see your breath on a cold day, we filmed at -1ºC (30ºF) to make the animations appear."

~ Wriggles & Robins

Moving
by Travis, from Where You Stand

Another day,
I feel the weight
of the atmosphere’s pressure
and I can’t escape

I try to run, I try to find my feet,
my soul is stickin' to the street;

I gotta move,
I gotta get myself
to clean my shoes
and take the scenic route

However far, I’m following a star
Home is anywhere you are

And everything is falling into place
And then we move again
So take the curve and move along
Until we’re gone, we’re moving on (and on and on and on...)

I feel alive, I am aware
of the colors in the sky where the birds don’t fly
And if the night is coming pretty soon
I’m walking through the dark with you

I’ve got to play
I’ve got to listen
to my toy today
on the motorway

And I could feel the ground
beneath my wheels,
putting me back in my place

Another day, another place
where I can find my way
take the Avenue A

And I know exactly where to go
Home is anywhere you stay

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See also: "Animated Music Video Filmed Through a Band’s Breath in Freezing Temperatures by Wriggles & Robins," Colossal, July 2, 2013