Month: December 2011

ACROSS THE CEILING

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

I just  woke up from that semi-dream that seems so real.  In the  twilight of my room I had found myself typing furiously to keep up with the sound and sight of those familiar words, “T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the house…”

All the words of any tale told to me across my life, of the magic stories of Santa Claus, of Peter Pan and Wendy and the boys, of all the poetry I’ve cherished of Dickens and Tiny Tim and  Bob Cratchett’s family, and the Spirits of Christmas Past …. all these came tumbling out in long lines, waving across the room, from wall to wall, undulating with so many words, so small as if I were in Santa’s sleigh, following as the tales were told.

You were there, too, and I was determined to get every single word, exactly as it was being told and seen at the same time.  We would finally have it!

And then, the clatter showed up and I knew the typing was not really happening, that there was no record at all of  the magic I’d been following with all my heart.

I suddenly realized that the words I was following had been already  typed over by the wall by my computer monitor, and all the rest that wanted to be said and remembered,  all of that was gone.

………………… yet not gone, because here I am having to tell  you all about it.

You may be wondering how Peter Pan got caught up in all that remembered time.  This is how that happened: every year in early December, my mother would take my sister and me into the City to see the annual show for children in some theatre on Broadway.

Those undulating lines we traveled together just now were like the flight of Peter Pan as he circled the ceiling, and flew out of the window into the night.

I am defying gravity by telling you this tale of magic and delight that was so much more than my simple words can evoke.  The best part is that you couldn’t wait for me to get all the lines out, all the words of all the stories that we tell ourselves to keep us young at heart.  We did take that flight in long lines,  back and forth across my darkened room.

This fresh memory is the only proof I have that it really happened.

Who knows, it may return next year, and that is when I will truly catch it all. with love …

Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

Image
Illustration by Robert Ingpen. “Come with me to Never Land,” Peter Pan said. “How do we get there?” asked Michael.”We fly, of course,” Peter said, zipping around the room.”Then we cannot go,” said Wendy sadly. “We do not know how to fly.”“Flying is easy,” Peter Pan said. “JUST THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS. ~ J.M. Barrie

THE POETS

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

It’s been 10 days of focusing on essentials, ever
toward a simpler balance, as I’ve moved through
a miasma of seasonal illness, finally feeling myself
again.

Refreshed by 4 hours of sleep, I got up just now
to reach again for a poem. thoughts of other years’
solstice observations, rituals, some as old as the
years I’ve lived, push forward.

“Home for the holidays”, always a theme.
Whom, then, to reach for? … David Whyte:

“Y O U D A R K N E S S

You darkness from which I come,
I love you more than all the fires
that fence out the world,
for the fire makes a circle
for everyone
so that no one sees you anymore.

But darkness holds it all:
the shape and the flame,
the animal and myself,
how it holds them,
all powers, all sight-

and it is possible: its great strength
is breaking into my body.

I have faith in the night.”

……RAINER MARIA RILKE, trans. D.W.

That line, ‘its great strength is breaking into my body’,
supports and carries me.
I felt left naked by darkness, for so many nights,
grateful for the dream-time that is healing me.

You will choose other lines to respond to, for sure.
I was so delighted to happen on two poets who have
cast light on all my comings and goings!

Welcome, this dawning festival of Light.

with love …
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

THE REFRIGERATOR

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

Expiration dates for food sit on the side of my
‘fridge. You’d think that this would take care of
healthy conditions within its contents, however it
is dependent on my awareness of actual physical
time.

I was brought up very short last night. Around
11 p.m. I suddenly found myself in the throes of
severe abdominal pain, some vague tightening in
my chest, and chills. It took me an hour to work
with my body, take in what pain actually feels like
when it’s present and persistent.

Initially, I felt trapped in that body. I did all I could
do to distract myself, after taking a homeopathic
remedy. Crossword puzzles, in the vicinity of the
bathroom helped. My body soon took over all options
and there was a break-thru that allowed me to return
to bed, and sleep.

When I awoke, around 3:30 a.m., I felt a marvelous peace,
and I thought about the food I’d kept in the ‘fridge. Quite
possibly, I’d lost track of time and decided, as I lay there,
that there is that law of diminishing energy at work here.

WOW!
I’ve been busy for weeks, balancing balls of tasks,and in
the process, defied the law of diminishing energy.

These are small reminders of the amazing connection of
all parts of my living experience. I find these patterns to
be excellent guidelines that in their every-day way help to
establish an easy understanding that leaves blame behind,
that allows change without resistance, and restores my wild
plans for the rest of my life.

Now I just have to apply that to good intentions.

with love …
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

Energy Returning

THE MORNING AFTER

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

Yesterday was my birthday for the year 2011, very late in
the year, too near Christmas and New Year’s to make a
dent in all the activity surrounding this time, I said.

Yet, whatta day it was!

So many of you, whom I touch briefly, occasionally in the
morning ‘dailies’, let me know what it felt like to be
simply loved.

Thank you, each and every one of you, for the way that
day was so nourishing, so yummy.

Here, now, my thanks to you:

“S U N R I S E

You can
die for it —
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
as joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
what is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter fire.”

………..MARY OLIVER

with love …
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

‘RELATIONS’

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

POSTMISTRESS EARTH 04421

“From broken dreams, we wake to every day’s
brave history, the gravity of every moment.
We wake to let our lives
inhabit: now, here, again,
this very day,
passionate as all
Yeats woke in old age to hope for,
the sun turns up, under an off-shore cloudbank
spun at 700 and some mph to meet it,
rosy as the cheeks of a Chios woman
Homer may have been
touched by,

just as Janet is touching, climbing
familiar steps, granite locally quarried,
to work at 04421, a peninsular village
spun just as Janet is spun,
into light, light appearing

to resurrect not simply its own
life but the whole
improbable
system, tugging
the planet
around to look precisely
as Janet looks,

alight with the gravity of her office,
before turning the key that opens up
its full
radiance:
the familiar arrivals,
departures,
and even predictable orbits in which,
with excited constancy, by how
to each other
we’re held, we keep
from spinning out
by how to each other
we hold.”

(oop’s! I edited the title, it seemed so long —
it started with: OLD LIGHT/NEW SUN and then
the rest)

……………..PHILIP BOOTH, from the Day’s Work
section of Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems.

I also edited the arrangement of the lines, often
combining two lines in one, then going back to his
original break-ups which would have made this
morning’s ‘Daily’ stretch out and look too long
to even begin.

The day looks good from here on.

with love …
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette

POEM TO BE READ AT 3 AM

Posted on by Antoinette Martignoni

Poems are perfect at 3 a.m. I found this poem just a bit
after, but since it’s not yet 4 (a.m.), it will still work:

“Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
At 3 A.M.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on.”

………..DONALD JUSTICE, from the book, Good Poems,
selected by Garrison Keillor.

Ships that pass in the night?
What this brings back for me are the times my parents
would awaken us at 2 a.m. to be on the road by 3. so
we would avoid the traffic later in the day.

Or on a train from Philadelphia, on the way home at
Christmastime, speeding past lighted windows of New
Jersey in the cold dark. I was 20.

It fascinates me to this day to be up really early, and
to feel I’ve got a head start on the day.

And now the joy to know that maybe you will read this
and maybe be up, even as I write this. This ‘Daily’ is
for you. Thanks for being around.

with love …
Mom/Mimi/Toni/Antoinette