tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28467730825872223382012-02-18T21:08:18.265-08:00an intersection of matter and spiritKarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-30425367099035842502012-02-16T11:56:00.000-08:002012-02-16T11:56:30.342-08:00

"Simon explained truth to me," Thomas said. "If there's a tree in the distance and you run to get there, run across the grass with all your heart, and you make it and touch the tree, press your face against the bark, then it is all true. But if you stumble and fall, lose your way, move to the city and buy a VCR and watch cowboy movies all the time, then nothing is true."      - from

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-69118782850070070742012-02-02T19:42:00.000-08:002012-02-02T19:42:43.362-08:00

Dear Lonely Animal, Last night I wanted nachos again, a big plate of nachos covered in cheese and black beans and salsa, sour cream, guacamole-- did I mention cheese? Animal, sometimes I want nachos so much that it distracts me from what I should be doing, I mean, pursuing, I mean, my career. How can one person's stomach be so hungry for snacks? It was Easter today and the local cafe hid

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-12597837225141181132012-01-21T07:12:00.000-08:002012-01-21T07:12:07.650-08:00

One of a bajillion signs that my husband takes pictures of while out wandering the world Two posts in a week!  Have I caught a bug?  Why yes, yes I have.  It is raining outside, and I am in North Carolina, in my parents' house.  It is too drizzly to go running, perhaps.  Perhaps not.  I believe I write about running more than I actually run, and I am okay with that.  You? Before I say

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-83696413187042997262012-01-18T17:32:00.000-08:002012-01-18T17:32:37.328-08:00

Found photo from some forgotten thrift store.  I like its myriad stories. I want to say hi. And that, as much as I declared a winter holiday for myself, and started reading The Brothers Karamazov, just certain I would have time to finish it (this time), I have been super busy. It's true, some of that busyness has been in my head.  For this I blame the winds outside my door, and a complete

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-56966505065031221692011-12-22T06:00:00.000-08:002012-02-10T05:33:00.179-08:00

The orchard at my husband's childhood home I am writing to share something from the profound Linda Hogan: "Humans want truth the way water desires to be sea level and moves across the continent for the greater ocean." (from The Woman Who Watches Over the World) And to say: It snowed last night. Thank God!  It has been cold and icy here since our last snow, but without the quiet gratification

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-72828572556550578512011-12-02T16:36:00.000-08:002012-01-08T15:58:21.725-08:00

I Imagine the Gods by Jack Gilbert I imagine the gods saying, We will make it up to you. We will give you three wishes, they say. Let me see the squirrels again, I tell them. Let me eat some of the great hog stuffed and roasted on its giant spit and put out, steaming, into the winter of my neighborhood when I was usually too broke to afford even the hundred grams I ate so happily walking up the

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-59083236766327611952011-11-14T20:12:00.000-08:002012-01-08T15:59:16.104-08:00

Brother Andre's Heart: Montreal, 2003 by J.L. Conrad In 1973, the heart gone, pilgrims climb the stairs on knees to eye the heartless man in his hollow chamber. Memory's plumbline laid from there to here on limestone. The mountain around which the city. Yes, I remember. A new opening through which the body remade itself. Rocks knocked from mountainsides brought here to bear weight upward

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-43788530393707507592011-10-23T11:20:00.000-07:002012-01-08T16:01:05.041-08:00

I am not sure what the connection is of my six related things.  But I trust that there is one, because I am thinking about them. 1. There may be no better combination in my world than a vinyasa yoga class followed by red wine.  I went to an event last night at a local donation-based yoga studio, and was bowled over by the re-incarnated studio's beauty.  The rich yellow hues and golden Sanscrit

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-82215756287734929472011-10-08T18:54:00.000-07:002012-01-08T16:01:34.476-08:00

A Myth of Devotion  by Louise Glück When Hades decided he loved this girl he built for her a duplicate of earth, everything the same, down to the meadow, but with a bed added. Everything the same, including sunlight, because it would be hard on a young girl to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness Gradually

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-25961990162716942732011-09-30T14:41:00.000-07:002011-10-01T13:52:48.294-07:00

A rendering of my inner stupa next to a Trent Miller drawing.  Can you guess which one I did?! Dear self, Today has been a hard day.  I don't really get why, but it has!  You seem to be very worried about the future, about where all of this is going.  Which I get.  But it seems to me you are also becoming blinded by panic!  Which is both unattractive and unsettling. I also noticed that you

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-63227722142267122622011-09-24T23:00:00.000-07:002011-09-24T23:00:34.248-07:00

What I Learned From My Mother by Julia Kasdorf I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds.  I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-2233617331164095072011-09-13T10:30:00.000-07:002011-10-15T12:05:47.226-07:00

Dissolver of Sugar by Rumi Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me, if this is the time. Do it gently with a touch of a hand, or a look. Every morning I wait at dawn.  That's when it's happened before.  Or do it suddenly like an execution.  How else can I get ready for death? You breathe without a body like a spark. You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter. You keep me away with your arm, but the

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-57964303478189571422011-09-07T08:59:00.000-07:002011-09-07T08:59:16.338-07:00

When I Look At the Old Car by Marcia F. Brown When I look at the old car backed into the cleared-out space in the shed, I can almost understand those bewildered men who leave their softening wives in middle age, up- and-walk-out after decades of marriage and family, to take up with some buffed and waxed young thing with great lines, horsepower to burn and a dazzling array of untested equipment.

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-20987871514239846482011-08-29T12:59:00.000-07:002011-08-29T18:26:03.510-07:00

The House on Broughton Street by Mary Ann Larkin Always it was a summer afternoon I see my mother climbing the stairs to the porch My grandmother waiting tiny but formidable She'd been expecting her the sisters smiling brothers watching My mother in her grey crepe the white gloves she always wore Her hair and eyes dark among these fair, freckled people My father shyly presenting her— something

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-42994008934000201592011-08-09T14:16:00.000-07:002011-08-29T18:22:12.810-07:00

I baked a Leprechaun Trap Cake for my friend Amelia's totally rad blog and I'm pretty psyched about it.  Read all about baking versus cooking, and sugar versus love, here. Then add Bon Appetempt to your Reader and have a magical day! Love, Kara P.S. What's that?  A poem you say?  Certainly!  Hang on to your hats.  This one's a WILD one.  (Stay tuned for a recorded reading of this poem by a

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-59720322254409538762011-07-25T14:52:00.000-07:002011-08-29T18:22:33.254-07:00

Hell by Jeff Tweedy When the devil came he was not red but chrome and he said come with me you must go so I went alone where there was no fire no torture no hate everything clean and precise towering polished diamond skyscrapers glittering ice avenues translucent blues and silver signs marking every turn I was welcomed with open arms unmarked all lines of defeat sanded away I felt no fear I

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-43205400203050980952011-07-08T15:57:00.000-07:002011-08-29T18:28:32.004-07:00

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Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-26358793982398187092011-06-21T15:42:00.000-07:002011-06-21T22:25:40.279-07:00

A Secret Life by Stephen Dunn Why you need to have one is not much more mysterious than why you don't say what you think at the birth of an ugly baby. Or, you've just made love and feel you'd rather have been in a dark booth where your partner was nodding, whispering yes, yes, you're brilliant. The secret life begins early, is kept alive by all that's unpopular in you, all that you know a

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-47526278776688171982011-06-09T22:11:00.000-07:002011-06-09T22:11:53.977-07:00

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } 292, Emily Dickinson If your Nerve, deny

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-50744180697866977592011-05-25T14:18:00.000-07:002011-05-25T14:18:55.999-07:00

Forget safety live where you fear to live destroy your reputation Be notorious I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on, I'll be mad.                               -Rumi Last year, I discovered a list I made when I was very little--say 7 or 8 years old--detailing what I should do the next day.  It listed the hour to wake up, the time to get dressed, the window of time to eat

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-72464259587341410422011-05-16T20:54:00.000-07:002011-08-18T17:37:32.393-07:00

Landscape by Mary Oliver Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that they have no tongues, could lecture all day if they wanted about spiritual patience?  Isn't it clear the black oaks along the path are standing as though they were the most fragile of flowers? Every morning I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close,  I am as good as dead. Every

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-5093578694579878352011-05-04T20:46:00.000-07:002011-05-06T13:39:43.562-07:00

OLD SONG by Robert Creeley Take off your clothes, love, And come to me. Soon will the sun be breaking Over yon sea. And all of our hairs be white, love, For aught we do And all our nights be one, love, For all we knew. "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."  --Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Tonight, I am hungry for bed, hungry

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-9171501313912643322011-04-27T00:57:00.000-07:002011-04-27T00:57:25.137-07:00

I have always loved the gaps, the spaces between things, as much as the things. I love staring, pondering, mulling, puttering. I love the times when someone or something is late—there’s that rich possibility of noticing more, in the meantime…Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.    -Naomi Shahib Nye Here is a

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-45716718290042062422011-04-10T00:38:00.000-07:002011-04-10T00:40:09.822-07:00

Words from the First Futurist Manifesto, printed in Le Figaro in 1909 Tonight I'm thinking about artists in the world, sewing their snippets of dreams together, everything together. I found these words in an old sketchbook, taken from The Shock of the New, by Robert Hughes. I am shocked how much I like the old drawings I started in graduate school, when I was going out of my mind with stress.

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-18477911211324744582011-04-06T23:18:00.000-07:002011-04-06T23:18:29.021-07:00

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body        love what it loves Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-20849966122342605182011-03-30T11:41:00.000-07:002011-03-30T11:41:54.731-07:00

LAY OF WOOD by Donald Revell Yellowbird here for one day only, I'm telling you The trees here Are children of themselves.  You can see it: The deadwood in mid-air Departing into mid-air, And just below it, Bright circles of emerald-green new growth. The day is long when it is blind. This morning, I find only darkness in me Where yesterday I saw through countless eyes. Yellowbird, I pray for

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-53276432457172805772011-03-01T23:58:00.000-08:002011-03-01T23:58:12.296-08:00

Poem 1: An Entrance by Malena Morling In the city      of leaks and ghosts      just past The Casket      Company on Van Rennselaer      Street there is a      building with its front      entrace cemented      shut. And just      above it are the words:      "No Trespassing." Poem 2: Sunflower by Federico Garcia Lorca If I did love a cyclops I would swoon beneath his stronger gaze sans

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-70397737541241090272011-02-15T23:53:00.000-08:002011-02-15T23:53:57.943-08:00

Ed by Louis Simpson Ed was in love with a cocktail waitress, but Ed's family, and his friends, didn't approve. So he broke it off. He married a respectable woman who played the piano. She played well enough to have been a professional. Ed's wife left him... Years later, at a family gathering Ed got drunk and made a fool of himself. He said, "I should have married Doreen." "Well," they

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-40230502165382242302011-01-31T20:35:00.000-08:002011-01-31T20:35:14.307-08:00

Happy New Year!  But it's almost February!  Where did January go?  Mine went to recovering from travel, sleeping and eating, plotting out the new year, cleaning out the old year, day dreaming, night dreaming, drawing, singing, praying, all with a little work sprinkled in. I have been chewing on lots of quotes lately, and these have sustained me as much as beloved poems. The poems I hear have

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-59540625044454261822010-12-15T09:33:00.000-08:002010-12-15T09:33:16.062-08:00

Summer Meadow by Tomas Transtromer There's so much we must be witness to. Reality wears us so thin  but here is summer at last: a large airport--the controller brings down planeload after planeload of frozen people from outer space. The grass and the flowers--here's where we land. The grass has a green supervisor.  I report to him. I went to a friend's gathering on Friday night.  Heading in

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-70471247594141277392010-12-02T21:28:00.000-08:002010-12-02T21:28:46.788-08:00

What Is Real Flesh or cloth or water or wind hair or feathers or rock jumbling completeness curve of the horns our reaction to anecdote There are trees, flowers, crags  there is a river a spring with rocky basin full of crystaline water understood in its essence Everything the cult of chastity I began this post the day after Thanksgiving, when my world had returned to its normal pace. 

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-34592800102123560132010-11-13T14:00:00.000-08:002010-11-13T14:03:16.910-08:00

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Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-53784028950927863372010-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:002010-10-28T16:43:54.840-07:00

Wax by RumiWhen I see you and how you are, I close my eyes to the other. For your Solomon's seal I become wax throughout my body.  I wait to be light. I give up opinions on all matters. I become the reed flute for your breath. You were inside my hand. I kept reaching around for something. I was inside your hand, but I kept asking questions of those who know very little. I must have been

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2846773082587222338.post-82417942070887831752010-10-11T11:38:00.000-07:002010-10-19T12:19:19.439-07:00

The Guest House   by Rumi This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The

Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188240393702813228noreply@blogger.com3