There was an amazon in the ball park today.
I saw her.
She sent the earth rolling and foaming under her feet
The sun burning her image indelible
into the forever place behind my eyes
Some Wonderful is coming TOWARDS
air molecules parting in front
burned and splashed aside by steps as sure as arrows that cost breasts
a wave of movement three steps ahead of amazon legs
My scalp tingles and curls toll bells
through the afternoon
an amazon in the water, in motion, in the sun
wild manes of foam rising above her knees
hanging above her knees (it's magic)
Her hair burning to the shoulder
sun pushing from behind
water rising in front
amazon in motion, woman of the waves
What could I do but call your name out loud?
and wait for the burning and splashing of you
to converge about me in the afternoon sun.
-lora bennett, 1974.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
When Did the Settling Start?
Where were the beaches with shells?
Where was the climbing on the unicorn's back and flying into the night sky?
Where was the standing under a waterfall and letting the negative ions tumble in through the welcoming funnels - nourishment for the living cells much deeper than our WATERPROOF barrier?
Where was the dancing naked around a bonfire with heart burning in the centre like the flames?
Where was the passionate love making so intense a bond forged that we almost die unto bliss but know it can't be sustained?
When did the settling start?
Lynn Kirk
Where was the climbing on the unicorn's back and flying into the night sky?
Where was the standing under a waterfall and letting the negative ions tumble in through the welcoming funnels - nourishment for the living cells much deeper than our WATERPROOF barrier?
Where was the dancing naked around a bonfire with heart burning in the centre like the flames?
Where was the passionate love making so intense a bond forged that we almost die unto bliss but know it can't be sustained?
When did the settling start?
Lynn Kirk
Days of Thunder
what amazing warfare we conducted
on the miss canada beauty pageant
toronto 1975
dark rainy night
moon in scorpio
over mudfields
and barbed wire
we moved silently
stealthily
in formation
as our third world sisters must
with ammunition
faces hard set
purposeful and unrelenting
our energy converged
to burst upon the keepers of the alien
performance
custodians of bodies and mind
less gestures
shaking for an instant this repetition
our sisters!
lost in male definitions of "Beauty"
glamour dispelled
in one instant of profundity
before the looks of shock and horror
are replaced by feigned enchantment
once again
ruffled skirts and collars
remain of the disorder
a game disturbed at its climax
to be replayed
over and over again
until our forces multiply
they know we're around
international womens year
Ms Canada next year!
making us feel we owned a year
or rather trying
no charge it's free!
they buy our souls each year
Lynn Kirk (1975)
on the miss canada beauty pageant
toronto 1975
dark rainy night
moon in scorpio
over mudfields
and barbed wire
we moved silently
stealthily
in formation
as our third world sisters must
with ammunition
faces hard set
purposeful and unrelenting
our energy converged
to burst upon the keepers of the alien
performance
custodians of bodies and mind
less gestures
shaking for an instant this repetition
our sisters!
lost in male definitions of "Beauty"
glamour dispelled
in one instant of profundity
before the looks of shock and horror
are replaced by feigned enchantment
once again
ruffled skirts and collars
remain of the disorder
a game disturbed at its climax
to be replayed
over and over again
until our forces multiply
they know we're around
international womens year
Ms Canada next year!
making us feel we owned a year
or rather trying
no charge it's free!
they buy our souls each year
Lynn Kirk (1975)
Naomi and Ruth
In Ruth's Book we meet for the first time a woman who loves someone. Ruth sacrifices everything for love. When a biblical woman for the first time, loves someone,it is not one of the Bible's many patriarchs, heros or kings that is the object of her love. Ruth loved another woman.
Ruth and Naomi are not bound to one another against their will, nor are they under the authority of a man.They don't compete with one another for his favour or to be chosen to bear his son. The bonds between Ruth and Naomi are voluntary. Their relationship is characterized by thoughtfulness, collaboration and love.
Naomi migrates to the land of Moab together with her husband and two sons. They are fleeing a famine. Her husband dies and her sons marry two Moabite women named Orpa and Ruth. After ten years the sons die as well. And when Naomi hears that times are better in Bethlehem she decides to return. She implores Orpa and Ruth to return to the home of their childhood. Only there do they have a chance of remarriage. Naomi has her own bitter experiences. A woman can only survive if she has a man. But Ruth won't let herself be persuaded. She follows Naomi. Some researchers point out that Ruth's decision is the most radical in the entire Bible. Ruth who gives up her country, her family and her people in order to follow Naomi has taught Naomi that a woman can fill another woman's life with meaning, support and love. Ruth's Book teaches that love between women is possible and that it is of value.
Ruth says to Naomi:
”...where you go, I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.”
by
Lillemor Björling, chaplain, 2008.
Ruth and Naomi are not bound to one another against their will, nor are they under the authority of a man.They don't compete with one another for his favour or to be chosen to bear his son. The bonds between Ruth and Naomi are voluntary. Their relationship is characterized by thoughtfulness, collaboration and love.
Naomi migrates to the land of Moab together with her husband and two sons. They are fleeing a famine. Her husband dies and her sons marry two Moabite women named Orpa and Ruth. After ten years the sons die as well. And when Naomi hears that times are better in Bethlehem she decides to return. She implores Orpa and Ruth to return to the home of their childhood. Only there do they have a chance of remarriage. Naomi has her own bitter experiences. A woman can only survive if she has a man. But Ruth won't let herself be persuaded. She follows Naomi. Some researchers point out that Ruth's decision is the most radical in the entire Bible. Ruth who gives up her country, her family and her people in order to follow Naomi has taught Naomi that a woman can fill another woman's life with meaning, support and love. Ruth's Book teaches that love between women is possible and that it is of value.
Ruth says to Naomi:
”...where you go, I will go and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God.”
by
Lillemor Björling, chaplain, 2008.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Prayers of Water
I still remember the moment before opening the shutter on these waterscapes - each moment was like a prayer, a prayer of water.
There was clear water, so clear my heart soared and sang; water in rocky places, desert places; still water, neighbourly and reflective next to the larger moodiness of the Baltic Sea; stones like silent sentinels over water and through time; winter sunsets over the bay near my home.
The past year ended harshly, the world news jolting me into reflection about many things but also driving me outdoors to seek moments of natural beauty.
This seems like a good time to extend beauty into the homes of others.
I hope these images can be a prayer of water and a way to flow into the following year.
-lora bennett, 2002 (view images by clicking on the address below)
http://www.lotusandrose.com/photos_videos/waterscapes/lotusrose.html
There was clear water, so clear my heart soared and sang; water in rocky places, desert places; still water, neighbourly and reflective next to the larger moodiness of the Baltic Sea; stones like silent sentinels over water and through time; winter sunsets over the bay near my home.
The past year ended harshly, the world news jolting me into reflection about many things but also driving me outdoors to seek moments of natural beauty.
This seems like a good time to extend beauty into the homes of others.
I hope these images can be a prayer of water and a way to flow into the following year.
-lora bennett, 2002 (view images by clicking on the address below)
http://www.lotusandrose.com/photos_videos/waterscapes/lotusrose.html
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Heaving, Healing Sea
the heaving healing sea came home with me,
as though I had come to rest beside a great chest of water,
convexing on the inhale,
exploding into storm at the outhale
and making me know my littleness as the natural thing it is.
-lora bennett,2008-
as though I had come to rest beside a great chest of water,
convexing on the inhale,
exploding into storm at the outhale
and making me know my littleness as the natural thing it is.
-lora bennett,2008-
Nasturtium Harvesting
It was nasturtium harvesting day.
First I snipped the cords with scissors then stopped and smelled fear. The drops collecting at the cut made me think hard.
I had failed to talk to the plant as I often do when I'm nervous. So I told the plant everything I had to say. Then I did some more thinking. Then I put away the scissors and furled the fruits away from the stalks with my fingers.
I separated the fruits thus - those are the orange fruits: these are the yellow.
They line the marble sill below the window until they dry and I can put them in envelopes until next spring.
As I pinch-held the fat, green bodies I asked myself, now what makes these fruits? Am I going to eat them like a fruit? They say you can - they say you can eat the whole plant. But no, even though they look good enough to eat, I'm not going to eat these ones.
Well, why aren't they seeds, then? Are you going to use them as seeds?
Yes, I'm going to plant as many as I can take care of in the spring.
So, why aren't these ones seeds?
I don't know, but I wanted to write about it.
There are two nasturtium plants this year. They are the result of four seeds from last year.
The year before, the mother plant came up an orphan out of someone else's soil - a petunia's, I think. I recognized it right away - those dime-shaped leaves, like the leaves of a lily pad, succulent and all grown up, already at the age of three days.
Save it or throw it away?
Save it, I thought and placing a spoon in the soil, pulled gently at the stalk.
The stalk snapped off in my fingers.
Horrors.
Save it, or throw it away?
Save it, I thought and placed the stalk with its pretty leaves in a glass of water in the window.
Four days later, there were roots and several weeks after that, roots to plant, so I planted it.
It gave me yellow flowers and orange flowers - my orphan nasturtium. And in the fall, it gave me four fat, round, juicy fruits that fell one after the other onto the balcony carpeting.
The two plants resulting from that have just delivered over fourty plump, promising,juicy fruits and I am agape.
I'm a grape.
I wonder why I wasn't agape before? I've planted carrots from 'invisible' seeds. And seen a handful of tomatoe seeds explode into a ruby fruit forest jungle.
What was it with this nasturtium?
I think it might have been the fact that it came from nowhere. Not from a paper envelope I bought at the gardening centre. It was just there, still warm, or so I thought of it. This whisper of the possibility of life turns my lights on - gets me going, gets me involved.
I think it might have been the fact that I got involved.
The destiny of the orphan nasturtium plant made a difference.
So I watched with more than just passing interest.
I was invested.
Engaged, you might say, in the matrimonial sense.
Blended, mixed, nasturtium blood in mine.
And above all, I was happy. I stepped into the sphere of my orphan nasturtium and knew happiness.
A "fruit" is so much more than a "seed". It's the culmination of a full season filled with hope. It's food until you get to the woody outer shell and the bitter inner explosion of next season's life. It's the pride and glory of any farmer.
And ain't I a farmer??
So I say fruit.
First I snipped the cords with scissors then stopped and smelled fear. The drops collecting at the cut made me think hard.
I had failed to talk to the plant as I often do when I'm nervous. So I told the plant everything I had to say. Then I did some more thinking. Then I put away the scissors and furled the fruits away from the stalks with my fingers.
I separated the fruits thus - those are the orange fruits: these are the yellow.
They line the marble sill below the window until they dry and I can put them in envelopes until next spring.
As I pinch-held the fat, green bodies I asked myself, now what makes these fruits? Am I going to eat them like a fruit? They say you can - they say you can eat the whole plant. But no, even though they look good enough to eat, I'm not going to eat these ones.
Well, why aren't they seeds, then? Are you going to use them as seeds?
Yes, I'm going to plant as many as I can take care of in the spring.
So, why aren't these ones seeds?
I don't know, but I wanted to write about it.
There are two nasturtium plants this year. They are the result of four seeds from last year.
The year before, the mother plant came up an orphan out of someone else's soil - a petunia's, I think. I recognized it right away - those dime-shaped leaves, like the leaves of a lily pad, succulent and all grown up, already at the age of three days.
Save it or throw it away?
Save it, I thought and placing a spoon in the soil, pulled gently at the stalk.
The stalk snapped off in my fingers.
Horrors.
Save it, or throw it away?
Save it, I thought and placed the stalk with its pretty leaves in a glass of water in the window.
Four days later, there were roots and several weeks after that, roots to plant, so I planted it.
It gave me yellow flowers and orange flowers - my orphan nasturtium. And in the fall, it gave me four fat, round, juicy fruits that fell one after the other onto the balcony carpeting.
The two plants resulting from that have just delivered over fourty plump, promising,juicy fruits and I am agape.
I'm a grape.
I wonder why I wasn't agape before? I've planted carrots from 'invisible' seeds. And seen a handful of tomatoe seeds explode into a ruby fruit forest jungle.
What was it with this nasturtium?
I think it might have been the fact that it came from nowhere. Not from a paper envelope I bought at the gardening centre. It was just there, still warm, or so I thought of it. This whisper of the possibility of life turns my lights on - gets me going, gets me involved.
I think it might have been the fact that I got involved.
The destiny of the orphan nasturtium plant made a difference.
So I watched with more than just passing interest.
I was invested.
Engaged, you might say, in the matrimonial sense.
Blended, mixed, nasturtium blood in mine.
And above all, I was happy. I stepped into the sphere of my orphan nasturtium and knew happiness.
A "fruit" is so much more than a "seed". It's the culmination of a full season filled with hope. It's food until you get to the woody outer shell and the bitter inner explosion of next season's life. It's the pride and glory of any farmer.
And ain't I a farmer??
So I say fruit.
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