Lost Alphabet –Lisa Olstein: “Any shift in philosophy introduces the need for new habits of body.”

What can I say? I stand before this book amazed. I have been enfolded into her writing as if I am one of her specimens. She turns this work of hers, bugs and dust, into simple beauty. I rest with her as I read what she writes. I never would have thought it would be so beautiful.

She is a beautiful lyrical prose-ist, so interesting and unique of perspective. It feels so real, like this is how she writes in her daily journal, like beauty just pours forth from her thoughts. She has a gift. This is a gift. I cannot imagine that just anyone can write this way. To chronicle her experiences in this manner is amazing.

There is daily experience, the mundane, and the confusions intertwined with gentle philosophy: “—it’s a mistake to believe we know what we require. We are guided in directions we don’t know how to imagine.” Simple truths stated in beauty. I breathe them in because I don’t know how else to absorb them.

I am struck—and I am not a bug person—with a desire to see pictures of her work. I would imagine a beauty akin to her words and think it would be interesting to see.

At times, her experiences are evasive to me, yet poetic just the same. Does poetry mean more to the person writing it than most of the readers? I guess it depends on the writer, the reader, and the written.

“When I am not myself, Ilya tries to remind me.” When I am not myself…

“Slowly, the absence of pain arrives like snow falling.” I love her imagery. Simple, true.

My favorite sentence: “This moment could be any moment since the moment I arrived.” There is truth in this statement. Her word choice is succinct, perfect, unpretentious, beautiful, straightforward and deeply layered with transformations at the same time. Poetic genius…I know I am easily wooed, always have been but I would love to live in her soul for a while. I would emerge from the cocoon an entirely different creature.

Changes in moments of time…each moment a meaning. Why are her simple statements poetic? What makes it so? Is it only the precise and careful word choice? I feel like it is a pouring out of her soul. She is generous to share…How does she avoid cliché and sounding corny, or just plain? Her words are her own. She makes them her own. She owns them. I want to own my words…

I admire the simplicity…and the quiet…the most. I would steal it in a heartbeat if I thought I could. Her experiences could be crudely chronicled and there would be no beauty in it. She lives in the beauty of it. [the miraculous paradox].

Her everyday moments bring about profound questions: “I used to tell them when they asked about the things and places I’ve seen. I remember less and less. Who am I here in this village? Who am I anywhere?” Her ability to live and breathe in the moment and then to write it, is something I am lacking. I don’t see the beauty that would be my muse…I need to see.

I love her extreme focus on the tiny, the moment, the present experience—it is beautiful and to be emulated. I am repeatedly surprised when I turn the pages by how much I am moved by her writing. She certainly inspires me to write. I find myself writing in response to her. I love her!

Boldly

Boldy I will say

I am not a victim

Boldly I will greet each day

I will be bold when I send my children off

Boldly I will try the untried

Boldly I will speak for what I believe.

We must be bold

Embolden ourselves

Or be trampled to the ground

By monsters and  fears

Boldly

I will raise my children

Boldly

I will grow old and never stop learning

Boldy

I will say this to you:

Be bold

If someone said to me

If someone said to me: “Supposing you were to die tomorrow, what would you do?” If it were raining, I would bring my children outside barefoot and tell them to feel the rain, really feel it on their skin and remember me by the smell of it falling on the ground. If the sun was shining, I would bring my babies outside and tell them, feel the warmth and remember when you are cold, the sun is always there to warm you, she is your mother. I would read a poem or two to them and tell them to remember poetry as they grow. I would make them all hug me and tell them to remember each other when life brings them down. I would drink champagne, very expensive champagne, and share sweet strawberries with my babies, so I could kiss their fruited lips and tell them “remember strawberries and be sweet to one another.” I would breathe in deep, the air near the ocean and tell my children, “remember the ocean. She will always listen to you.”We would eat chocolate and I would let them know it is good to indulge, if but sometimes. I would tickle my babies and laugh with them and hope they remember to laugh always and to remember my laugh as it held all the love in the world for them. I would tuck them in sweetly and tell them I love them more than feeble words can say. I would kiss their sweet foreheads and touch their soft hair and cry into their arms. It is me who is losing. I would leave my heart in their breasts and my soul in their home. I would make sweet love to my husband and hold him until the morning light shown through the darkness. I would make him promise to love and protect my babies. I would breathe in his breath and tell him to be strong, “Take my breath and be strong,” I would say. I would walk naked to my grave and know my love was spent well. I would look back but once and forever. I would take the hands of my father, my grandmother, and I would take my place among the Guardians.

If we want to

If we want to

We will help one another without looking for something in return

If we want to

We will embrace our differences, our likenesses

If we want to

We will see one God or many and realize it does not matter

If we want to

We will lift each other up rather than knock each other down

If we want to

We will work together and discard treacherous competition

If we want to

We will stop fighting

If we want to

We will eat together and take a siesta.

If we want to

We will teach our children to love

If we want to

We will rid ourselves of hate and misunderstanding

How far is far?

How far is far?

How far will you walk with me?

When you have already

gone to the other side

how far is too far to get back?

Is far too far?

I want to know.

Is it too far to see me,

your grandchildren?

Is it too far

to feel my despair

when I miss you?

The other end of the world

is far.

How far is far

when far is where you are?

Too far, I’m afraid.

Too far.

The Colour Pink

One would not, I think, relate the color pink to the beginning of a life. But there is a truth in the pinkness of the womb and the pink furled being growing, attempting to adapt to new surroundings. The waters of love, the pink nourishment that will one day become the bellybutton that mother, father, brother, sister will adore, will bury with pink-lipped kisses. There is pink and there is red. Red is the lifeblood coursing through mother and child. Pink is the love, the lovely place where this life began and the lovely descent into the harsher brighter world, where the pink disappears. Disappears only until mother folds newness to her breast and shows her the pink areola that will now become the nourishing mother’s milk from which the child will suckle, will continue to grow, to adapt to new surroundings. Pinking her cheeks with the delight of dulce de leche. Pinking her lips with mother love kisses. Growing and living and nourishing herself to become what mother is. Until the time mother can no longer suckle her, for her pinkness is becoming her own. She will grow and grow her own way. Her pink lips, she will share with another in red hot kisses. Her newfound pinkness she will share in passion, loving or not, but hopefully loving. A pink flower to nourish, grow, protect, and also to share... Life is like that, always pink on the inside.

Verses on Bird. Poems by Zhang Er

Who can write like this without sounding forced, or worse yet, corny? I can't believe the fluidity achieved in this writing. The images lead seamlessly into one another, forming a story and yet more stories within. I read and wonder how many levels of meaning I am missing. Plenty, doubtless. Zhang Er is a master of art. I would steal every element if I could.  I wish I could steal the mind that is the creation. I don't know if I have the ability in my soul to achieve writing like this...

What can be said here without my sounding childish and inept?

Something I would love to achieve in my own writing? The languid, slow movement of the words into images that mean more than meets the eye. I want to tell a story of life and art and embrace nature. And I want it to be poetry. I feel like Zhang Er reaches metaphysical heights using concrete images. I would like to be able to do that. I often falter and stay stuck in the concrete, never leaving the ground. In direct contrast Verses on Bird barely brushes the ground.

Elements of different art forms are woven in meticulously with poetry, nature, life...the length of the verses and sparsity of punctuation draw me in like a spring breeze bringing me into summer. She tells us how to paint, how to take a picture, how to write, how to see. And she fills her words with truths, and it is not all beauty, so it's real. Believable. Undeniable.

She writes, "One has to keep a certain distance to recognize things within a field of vision." It is precisely this distance I am lacking and I think it sometimes makes my writing feel forced. Zhang Er seems disciplined in her distance...which is promising because that means perhaps I can learn it.

There is a patience to her words, which is something else I can learn: (p27)

"Drizzling, or choosing words carefully in the rainy afternoon,
Yet through your orderly cool and fine details
I can see the sailless mast, erect and sliding down toward the river's mouth.
So I wait, wait for your silent display on the moonlit sea after the tide has drifted."

I rush. I hurry to get it all out, then I move on to the next thing. She sits with her subject, sits with her words, and waits patiently. I am like the adolescent while her maturity is evident in her writing.