Sleep in the Wind

I vault the sky — blue a trite fancy —
the expanse, the clear color of longing

The horizon gives way
to empyreal heights
and delicious air, my face
to the eye of the sun

Is it calling or indulgence to ride
the wings of one’s own prayers?

I could sleep in the wind.

I hold onto this incarnation of
dreams, but the sun revives me
from slumber on a pillow of dirt
and the sweet draught of
yesterday still in my throat,

I try not to disturb my broken wing.

whitebird3

120 thoughts on “Sleep in the Wind”

  3. “… a calling to ride the wings of one’s own prayers?” We have all been called… indeed.
    Beautiful words of beautiful thought

  5. ‘I try not to disturb my broken wing’. Oh to soar again but awake iinstead upon a ‘pillow of dirt’ from a dream of ‘sleeping in the wind’. Therein lies the beauty of this poem written from a sharp memory of yesterday and replaced instead with the longing of what can no longer be.

  6. It is fate,
    duty even
    to ride the wings of one’s prayers,
    for was it not your desire,
    your longing
    that evoked the strength to ask
    a boon from omniscient omnipotence?

    I knew a boy once,
    who begged for wisdom,
    and learned to drink the bitter cup of sorrow,
    poison to folly,
    fertile womb of wisdom,
    his duty was to drink of the cup he requested.

    your words are beauty-crafted,
    and I wonder what dust litters the floor
    of your studio,
    what scraps of ‘azure’ and ‘Olympian’ and ‘delicious’
    were cast aside
    to make home for these
    sweet blue draughts of empyrean indulgences.

    Alas,
    but I enjoyed those glimpses into ‘art’,
    when word craft itched at your tongue,
    though I do enjoy the landscape
    laid before us here,
    complete in her mystery now.

    Very good,
    as is your style.
    Very good.

    1. I started to smile seeing you’d written,
      as I’d planned to visit half a fortnight
      ago, then drew the smile long and full for
      the vested reading you returned to me
      with questions that bejewel this
      place, my second home.

      Keen, you caught the longing trapped in my
      pen, buried under piles of paper scrawl;
      “This is my brain,” I say of the precarious
      perch off my desk, the notes that wait
      to greet you all in song.

      Ah, my studio – a litter of geometry blocks,
      plastic scale on which I weigh everyday the
      guilt over the time I covet to Create, foldable
      map of the world I have found myself speaking to

      my studio. For all the postmodern accoutrements
      computer and fax, really a mother’s nest
      where I stare hungrily out at the sky.

      1. This is also very gorgeous. It’s not simply that you are a beautiful wordsmith, but I get the impression that these whole images fall easily from your heart/mind. For me, I have a very shy way with words. Poetry comes very hard for me, though sometimes I’m swept up by an inspired moment.

        I think, maybe, that’s why I feel tingly when I read things like this. I like the description of your studio. Truly, like Virginia Woolf’s A Room of Her Own.

        “plastic scale on which I weigh everyday the
        guilt over the time I covet to Create”

        I wrote a post about this guilt over the time used to Create:

        I think it’s time to lose the guilt for our creative hobbies.

        At any rate…gotta go get the munchkins from school.

        I’ll be coming back for more…no doubt about it.

  8. Is it indulgence or calling to ride the wings of one’s own prayers? A fine line, perhaps. But I like to think a calling rings through with absolute truth (love!) while indulgence feels more like lust. Lovely words, HJ!

    1. I understand the distinction you make, T. But indulgence doesn’t always have to be – in fact isn’t necessarily – lascivious. A tired mother might indulge in a hot bath. Others might say it is a need. To her who is overworked she will feel indulgent. I had in mind, actually, something even more vigorous in mind. My desperate attempts to carve myself space to think and write feel entirely a calling when I manage to birth the words that are ready for you all – while they also feel like the most exquisite indulgence, in the thrill I can hardly express.

      1. Is it an indulgence or taking care of ourselves? I don’t see fulfilling our needs as indulgent. But I do understand how it can feel indulgent when that time is considered so precious.

  11. Beautiful, Diana. Very nice indeed.

    Was that empyreal in the sense of purest blue or of the highest heaven? *Nav cleverly disguises having had to use his dictionary app, vocabulary scoundrel that he is*

  13. Diana,

    I wanted to talk about your poem, but I wanted to give it some time to sink in. I’m not always very good at interpreting poetry, especially since what is said often veils a deeper truth. And I’m going to respond based on what you wrote…and what it calls up in me. It may not have been what you intended. IDK.

    “…the expanse is the clear color of longing”

    I’ve experienced a lifetime of longing. Though I had parents in name, I have felt an orphan most of my life, so I’ve longed to belong to a good family. I longed for love that didn’t hurt. I longed to give voice to the invalidated child in me. I’ve longed for people who’ve left my life (like my biological father who I hadn’t seen in 19 years – but had been reunited with thankfully). I’ve longed for rest for my weary spirit. I’ve longed to give up even on mortal life and return to my empyreal Home, because I’d been thwarted at almost every stage in life. But out of sheer stubbornness more than anything, I keep moving forward.

    “Is it indulgence or calling to ride
    the wings of one’s own prayers?”

    It seems like this is a way to ask permission for something you long to do (or more than just one thing). Who are you asking permission from? I hope not anyone outside your own Self.

    I understand why we ask for permission from others. Seeking external validation has been ingrained since the beginning of our species. We’ve been conditioned to look to others for approval and permission to honor our soul and it’s expression. Women, especially, have been indoctrinated to give up their own needs for the needs of others. (I haven’t asked you yet, have you ever read or listened to Clarissa Pinkola Estes The Woman Who Ran with the Wolves? I think amazon has the MP3s for very cheap…) I’d recommend you to listen to her teachings…it’s wonderful stuff for women and creativity…

    “I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

    ― Hermann Hesse, Demian

    I have ALSO ceased to ask permission from external sources, and instead, follow my own wisdom, gleaned after MUCH trial and error and consultation with my higher power. I know I can discover what’s best for me. I know feeding my soul helps nourish me so that I can feed others from a full cup, not an empty one.

    When we give up the idea of right and wrong, and we just LIVE and BE, everything becomes okay. There are no mistakes in life, only lessons to be learned. =)

    Blessings to you,

    Casey

    1. C, you really didn’t need to put so much thought into this. Thanks a bunch for the conscientious reading. I had just wanted to share my response to ddtg. Readers should not have to work so hard to puzzle out the writer’s mEaNinG. As I said in the series on blogging, what’s most important to me is that you see yourself in the mirror reflection. I’m glad – while saddened – to know of your longings.

      “this is a way to ask permission for something you long to do (or more than just one thing)”. Yes. more than one. And of Whom I ask it is a great question. For me, it’s not a quest for external validation. And the funny thing is, to the extent I have not chased it in the blogging, I have gotten it – plenty of. My life did a 180 when I came to know Christ at 17 and I remain anchored in Him who is far bigger and deeper than my failings, issues, and fears.

      I don’t think we have to renounce the distinction betw right and wrong to embrace the moment, and I also don’t see life is possible if we gave them up. (We come to the place I talked about in the blogging posts, where you draw the boundaries of your own beliefs in the assent/dissent to what you find here.) I am also not sure how you could reconcile this belief with your outrage (past or residual) over your mom and all her actions that you had to pay for. Justice by definition carries the weight of right and wrong. Mistakes riddle my life but God redeems them as lessons.

      I am grateful for your generous audience, Casey, and …. did not expect such a response to the struggling artist poems, though I knew you would find your own voice in them. You most certainly are an artist, btw – a very creative one at that.

      1. I don’t try to reconcile the paradoxical within me. I’m made up of multifaceted parts that aren’t always in agreement. I’ve come to accept my contradictory nature. Nothing in my life has every been anything but inconsistent, so I’ve learned I have to accept it all as okay enough as it is.

        “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

        ~ Walt Whitman

        Many of the things I say, like this one…”When we give up the idea of right and wrong, and we just LIVE and BE, everything becomes okay. There are no mistakes in life, only lessons to be learned.”… are what comes up in me when I read your poem to remind me of that Truth that I don’t yet own completely. I may, in time, or I may not. Who knows.

        For people like me, Truths don’t always stick like they should. We have velcro memories for bad things (and they stick like craZy), and teflon memories for the good (and they are oh, so fleeting). Why that should be, I’m not sure.

        II cognitively believe certain things that contrasts with the deep shame I still carry from the ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ as introjected in me from various sources. I still am learning to trust my own authority, my own connection to a higher power which goes by many names, including “Christ” and “The One Who Knows”.

        My longings, I think, are resolving. As it was once sung by The Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need”.

        I think that’s true for all of us…

      1. Thanks Diana. I love the craft myself. I remember reading of a teacher who was asked by a student, ‘Do you think I’l ever be a writer?’ and the teacher said, ‘That depends. Do you love sentences?’ I can’t remember where I read this. Maybe Annie Dillard?
        Cheers, B

      1. Yes! Thank you for the correction 🙂

        This is what I glean-

        “The expanse is the clear color of longing ” That it will not be defined by anyone.

        “The horizon gives way to empyreal heights and delicious air”, it’s so captivating!

        “I hold on to this incarnation of dreams but the sun revives me from slumber on a pile of dirt” I believe God wants me living in the future, not trying to exist by recreating the past in some way.

        “I try not to disturb my broken wing.”
        Putting all comedy aside, it speaks of the importance of taking time to heal.

        Again , thank you. 🙂

  25. Beautiful wonderful poem, D. As I was reading this, I saw myself still asleep on a summer’s morning, curtains open and the sun rising outside. Sun falling on me but my tired, tired body – tired from staying up late writing – does not want to rise. Thanks for sharing this again 🙂

  29. Well D-

    You know bLuE ……fetched my attention…

    bit I dug ‘a pillow of dirt,’ ie, brown!!

    I often think of the moments BEFORE pen goes to paper; the capturing of that which is hard to put into words; I suppose that is the essence of poetry eh-

    nice catch!
    .

      1. Then again D…………

        You have just been struck with a ray of illumination, you HAD to harness the moment and put it to ink…………….you do it………….the words seem perfect, the cadence, all of it………and……through the mystery of technology………….it vanishes from your screen!

        There is NO WAY you can re-sing the debut. Happened last week. I tried and tried to ‘bring it back,’ but no can do. That bird took the wings that I gave him, and left town 🙂

        ‘the agony of defeat………………’ lol

        Ever happen to you? Of course it did.

  41. So poignant, Diana. “Delicious air,” “sleep in the wind,” and “sweet draught of yesterday,” comprise a bittersweet thread of words that weave us into the end. I can’t stop rereading it. Just lovely.

  42. I like one of your comments here Diana; each reader has their own interpretation. I’m feeling the sweet dream you were engaged in until you woke up to the reality of life, yet you continue to hope. 🙂

  44. This is sublime – and the comments here are marvellous, particularly the images conjured by readers, and the poets’ “call and response”. I love that, in a world that is what it is, at this moment and during others, poetry still stirs so much colour in human beings. A xx

  45. Such a lovely poem, I could almost imagine soaring, even sleeping with that kind of fresh breeze rippling through my feathers ..if a bird, but surely it would even feel good to a human, thanks.

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