jewel-like beauty

Any Chance Meeting

In every gathering, in any chance
meeting on the street, there is a

shine, an elegance rising up. Today
I recognized that that jewel-like

beauty is the presence, our loving
confusion, the glow in which watery

clay gets brighter than fire, the
one we call the Friend. I begged,

“Is there a way into you, a ladder?”
“Your head is the ladder. Bring

it down under your feet.” The mind,
this globe of awareness, is a starry

universe that when you push off from
it with our foot, a thousand new

roads become clear, as you yourself do
at dawn, sailing through the light.

Rumi

that wildness of heart

“He was a reasonable man and he believed that there was love in his heart.
There was not. Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear in them but only that wildness of heart that springs from such longing and they cry out to stay his presence for they know at once that while godless men may live well enough in their exile those to whom he has spoken can contemplate no life without Him but only darkness and despair…”

from "The Crossing"
Cormac McCarthy

lovett children. first state

lovett children. first state, originally uploaded by Mark Horst.

I'm working on this portrait... I like the lightness in it--and the gesture of the children. There are some areas to clarify, even though I plan to keep it more suggestive than polished.