House

My House   My house is a cabinet for small things: fruit bowl, its flashes of orange, green, the pleasure of pears, green tea, a cat that purrs, the length of a settee.   Tall windows, light falls through to yellow up walls, clothes airer, often full, a wheeled dog for small steps, toy box, long staircase, banister, a wide bed for all times, the Turkish carpet to thrill the hall, a bronze elephant holds back the door.   Wholehearted thanks for these good things, camera, candle, witching bowl, a lifetime of books, the earthenware plate my mother used, photographs, my grandmother’s chair, a poet’s bell, the whale on the wall, the Buddha’s stare.   Rose Cook

A friend dies suddenly ~ White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field by Mary Oliver (in memory of William Hubbard)

Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings — five feet apart —
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow —
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought:
maybe death isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us —
as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.