The Banquet

For some people
love is delivered
fresh from the oven,
aromatic as a prayer,
to be consumed only
after a ritualized
washing of hands.
Others meet God five
times a day:
each time they are hungry
God manifests on a plate
to fill them up.
This banquet is beyond religion,
more personal than breath,
universal.
The spent soul is replenished
through the echoing chamber
of an empty, grateful body,
each of its cells saying
repeatedly
thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.


Poem "The Banquet" from 'The Everyday Wife' (2010) by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers.

enthusiasm

Sometimes enthusiasm scatters,

stumbles

then seeps its last few drops into the
drains of doubt.

And sometimes it rises,

up and away towards the

place where fingers of sunshine

tickle it

out of its silliness.

And other times it even

ventures towards the

great wide oceanic

depth of love

and is

refreshed

that way.

And it lives!

amsterdam is

amsterdam is the colour of naples on a yellow summer afternoon when the rain has just washed my forehead clean of the anxiety that last winters brush scratched across it.

amsterdam is fine, oil, colours of warmth.

amsterdam is where i am.

with a canvas, palette and brushes.

and all the colours of my imagination
working their way around my head -
sometimes as a wreath i can touch;
othertimes a halo that touches me.

this is why i blog

i have been sitting in complete darkness for almost an hour now. thank heavens for my trusty laptop. and thankful, i am, for getting out of the shower in time! today was writing day. it followed on from yesterday. i have this new ritual, where i make special time to write, not like its a job or a have-to-do, but more like it fits into that category of, hey lets go shopping. okay maybe not quite that, but close enough.

for example, i had to take care of some stuff for dad yesterday, so i went off to Killarney Mall, got his stuff done, then browsed the bookstore for a bit, and finally made my way to Mugg & Bean. I found myself a comfy little table beside the window, ordered my brunch, and got to work with pen to notebook. and i was amazed at the output! aside from the welcome stream of words, i also met some friends and cousins as they ambled in and out. the thing i love about this coffee shop, is that its placed on the first floor of the mall with an awesome view of the highway. and yesterday happened to be one of those cloudy, watercolour grey sky, rain-teasing kind of days, so the view was simply fabulous. i used to love this place back in the day as an architecture student. (im a dropout architecture student:P) creative brainstorming potential is immeasurable in a place like that.

i wrote a bit today, too. and i sat around in comfies all day, while the family has been galavanting on a visiting and shopping expedition of sorts. and so, here i am, staring at the laptop after an invigorating shower, contemplating my next round of a hoped-for word storm, when the lights go. power out. its the entire neighbourhood, by the look of it. i plodded downstairs rather precariously, by the light of my rescusitated orange mobile phone, carrying the laptop like a well-loved teddy bear, and found a spot on the leather couch to plant myself. so, this means that im safe and preoccupied. these are necessarily good things. i am safe from stumbling and breaking ankle, neck or any talented appendages like fingers that type at keyboard or play mxit muse-ic. also, i am preoccupied. which means i don't have to dwell on the darkness. i only like dark chocolate, not dark houses.

and out of this worded reflection, the greatest revelation is that i have remembered why it is that i blog in the first place. its because these arb moments in life are of utmost bloggability, thats why! i think im liking this solitary darkness after all :P

i just wish that my ghd was battery powered... sigh.

Art as Flirtation and Surrender

In your light I learn how to love.

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that sight becomes this art.

J.RUMI



(Excerpt from The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, 1995. )