Word of the Week - 102

Art by Pablo Auladell.

Word of the Week: SHELTER

CARAPACE

If sanity is to survive
the tender, shivering soul must be protected
like an amicable affair.
a façade against
an outside, hostile world.

a carapace must be erected:
a marble wall to conceal thought
of social inferiority;
distorted imperfection;
inherited burden.

search for the field of light celadon green;
seek the nine daughters of Zeus.
if you capture their aura
you are surely blessed;
for they arise and evaporate
in the flicker of an eye.

search for the daughters of Memory;
accept the gifts they bestow:
imagination, creativity, dreams –
Above all, seek shelter for your soul,
For destiny has condemned mankind to deception.

Ronnie Kerrigan

Thank you, Claire Beynon, for first sharing this poem.  That it popped up today suggested I let Ronnie Kerrigan speak for me until I find my own language about shelter, safety, about being vulnerable, fragile and temporary.  I hold the miracles of simply being, of being here, in higher regard with each passing moment.

Thinking stuff up

Artist, Gabriel Pacheco.

The job of sitting and thinking stuff up can be easily mistaken for sloth, which it resembles uncannily.

An arranger of words, a former of thin lines on paper does not always have busy hands.  That many of my thoughts are bestowed as gifts in the middle of the night gives me more breathing room during the day.  My hands have assignments.  I am not visibly idle.

There is a necessarily solitary aspect to being someone whose job is to sit and think stuff up.  It is not a task completed by committee.  It rarely benefits from outside suggestions.  It is organic, all-or-nothing.  It loathes hearing anyone say, on any topic, "But couldn't you just..."  No, I couldn't.  If I could, I would.

Artist, Pablo Auladell.

At the same time, having the job, for pay or as a volunteer, of sitting and thinking stuff up could be the best job there is.  I've never had one that suited me any better and I've had some jobs that I would say were near-perfect matches, though the sock-counting in department stores was not among them.  No restrictions. no boundaries, just application of the contemplative's long-held traditions.

Some days are easier than others.