Tuesday, May 22, 2012

silence in the pause after the invitation to ascend







this is the stairway from the dream where you return to the earth by pushing through a warm membrane into the house where you slept as a child

will you remember the soft bodies?

will you remember what you always see from the upper window?

hide and count to a hundred

will you forget that the sounds you wake then, the turbines thumping in the basement and the squeal of a rusty gate, are only your heart discovering time, your shoes on the stairs describing space?

wait, wait … now leap from a closet and frighten the mirror

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8 comments:

  1. Hannah StephensonMay 22, 2012 at 7:45 AM

    There is both shakiness and stillness in this image. Very dreamlike.

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    1. James OwensMay 23, 2012 at 10:42 AM

      Hannah: i'm not at all clear about the line dividing dream and reality, but i suspect we dream more often than we know ... perhaps that is a good thing :-)

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  2. LúciaMay 22, 2012 at 1:02 PM

    I remember I used to dream I could fly anywhere. I would follow the stairs, without even touching it...
    I always learn with your photos James, thank you. :)

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    1. James OwensMay 23, 2012 at 10:43 AM

      Lucia: i'm not sure that i have anything to teach ... but perhaps we can learn together ;-)

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  3. erinMay 22, 2012 at 7:17 PM

    jesusgod, i don't know what to say except i love it

    and then i want to squeal with tight delight.

    i stop and read the first long sentence again in one breath and i am tucked up inside myself, up and through and squealing again. holy hell, it is fun but more than this, of course, it is the cat's cradle of being.

    xo
    erin

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    1. James OwensMay 23, 2012 at 10:50 AM

      erin: the cat's cradle of being ... yes!! no credit to me, but being itself is such a surprising mesh of strings, leading to and fro, and where we could never guess ... how could i ever have imagined that i would find myself at the foot of these stairs?? and yet the cat's cradle brings me there and folds us both into the dream :-)

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  4. RuthMay 23, 2012 at 4:42 AM

    James, you have a beautiful sight. That would be enough, I think. But that you manage to share it, convey it, is amazing to me. Pure and fresh. Soft and bright. Dark and beautiful. From the basement to the attic. Often from the inside of walls, peering out at some winsome light.

    I love it.

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    1. James OwensMay 23, 2012 at 10:52 AM

      Ruth: thank you :-) if i convey anything, i am the one who is amazed ... and grateful for the generosity that you bring to the reading ...

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