.
The progress of rivers flowing and developing their several arcs of sinuosity and bends and curves and eroding their channels and winding and moving on along is fascinating to consider; one can't help being reminded of the curious wandering movement of, say, a sentence, or even of a life, with its long or short, wide or narrow trajectory, whether flowing in a straight direct course or more commonly, as rivers and people grow older, in a pattern of many convoluted meanders...
Pelicans on Bolinas Lagoon: photo by blmurch, 2007
The river Wensum, Norwich, England: photo by Paul Hayes, 2005
love that last bit.
ReplyDeleteThank you gamefaced.
ReplyDeleteAlways hoping there will be one more bend in the river...
cheers to that : )
ReplyDeleteTom!
ReplyDeletewow! how can i thank you for thinking about my question... and providing me/us with such a beautiful and profound answer?
before this, i told you that you are a river... nourishing our souls... now i want to add:
.e
...a
.....c
........h
..........b
............e
..............n
................d
..................i
...................n
....................y
....................o
....................u
...................r
..................w
.................i
................n
...............d
..............i
............n
..........g
.......p
.....a
...t
.h
..........is a
..........knot
.........in the
.........cosmic
......entanglement
namaste!
Hb,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, you have shown me that next bend.
How lovely it always is to meander through the aether with you...
it is!
ReplyDeleteit really is...
hey Tom... that link to that graphic representation of the life of a meander... was soooooo amazing...
and the ultimate shape is somehow like what i left here for you...
wow!
i found the essay relating to it and now i should go and read it... as i'm very curious to know what happens to that bend which is eventually separated form the main course of the river...
the first point i noticed was that... regardless of the bend, the river goes it's original way...
hmmmm...
but it is not always the case, eh?
what a beautiful dialog... through these recent posts...
something is brewing in my mind... a mixture of what i have written on them... something is shaping...
i should go and read that essay now...
thanks... thanks... thanks... my dear friend and teacher...
convoluted meanders
ReplyDeletethis sounds like a two-word description of my entire life.
hey Tom...
ReplyDeleteguess what!
earlier this morning i woke up with several things flashing in my mind... one was this:
http://dearteachercrow.blogspot.com/2008/01/way-initiation.html
a very old work talking about the path and what we find on each bend/turn...
another ingredient in the brew...
:)
bye for now...
Otto,
ReplyDeleteMe too with the convoluted meanders.
Perhaps a poetic way of describing a seemingly interminable series of pratfalls...?
(Though I guess I should speak for myself; and for that matter, at my stage, the difference between "seemingly interminable" and "interminable" is probably no more than a few split ends.)
____
And meanwhile...
Here is hb's poem, in Farsi and in English.
Yes, "on each turn," perhaps we begin to see a bit more of the way... anyway 'twould be nice to think so.
Here in total obscurity.
(More light! More light!)
this came to me after reading this comment of yours and that poem by Hecht...
ReplyDelete.
no need for more light
=========================
we need no heroes to die for us
no sun to rip the mask of the night
a ray of light can be the sun
a blade of grass, a garden of delight
one word can be a poem
a sentence, a neverending flight
just a sound breaks the silence
and a feathery touch can send you to the heights
sometimes only one step
is the beginning and the end of a long journey
with one turn, your river may reach the ocean engulfing me
let them kill us one by one
in the name of a god or a whatnot
let them burn us on cold stakes
or hang on the gallows of the fate
let them bury us alive
or dig us out
to torture with another death in a long life
no need for more light
just a candle ends the night
all the cosmos beats in one heart
always a baby will float on the nile
.
I've sat by the Wensum near West Raynum, meandered, drifted off and dreamt. Flooded memories you bring to me here.
ReplyDeleteLeigh,
ReplyDeleteReally lovely to hear this.
Ah the slow winding rivers and streams of that part of your country, so intimately related in my memory to the human scale of things...
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteYou have a great blog. Several of your photos are just breathtaking! I found you via the blog list and glad that I did.
Diane
Many thanks Diane.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I've been round to your place too, and much enjoyed.
These our meandering progresses and windings-back, all part of the flow.