Tea Musings

Mahler's Fifth

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:02:00 +0000

With the music playing, I sit down to write. Already, I've started pruning the few sentences I've written, pausing abstractedly to watch the cats groom one another.

The first movement surges to its end; then, the second unfurls its unbearable pathos.

And I'm back in Aschenbach's world. For how can I not be, after seeing Death in Venice years ago? The second movement of the symphony, the leitmotif of the movie, so expresses Aschenbach's quixotic quest, that any other association to the music is overshadowed by images of a lonely Venetian beach, Dirk Bogarde's rouged cheeks...

I think about the creative impulse and its curious meanderings, intimately affected by the sediments of one's past experiences and associations.

When the last movement draws to its end, I can hear the desultory breathing from the cats, and I return to my world.

Dinnertime

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:38:00 +0000

He waits, sonorous in his breathing. His eyes widen at something beyond my ken. He straightens himself, his tail, a poised, dark comma. I put down my pen, stir in my seat, and cause a mirroring of activity towards two empty bowls.

Snowman

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:39:00 +0000

A snowman falls into place
without the need of my hands.

He is sculpted as from air
by an unseen divination
taking the shape of something
I have known of all along.

Leave-Taking

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:10:00 +0000

It is the same
the silence of our household sounds
the cats
in their sinuous dance
and the light ebbing as I count the miles.

Dandelions

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:22:00 +0000

In the torrent of waste
pouring out without end,
the sun setting
in the mangle of trees,
you could pick out the one
or two left behind.

Repetition

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:05:00 +0000

In my forty fifth year
I see the accretions
of memories and deeds
like the sediment of green tea
the wisp of its steam
carrying forward the vaguely familiar.

Gratitude

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:00:00 +0000

Already, before noon, I heard the sound of wind and waves, shared a pot of white tea with the scent of oatmeal baking in the air, and read Mr. Merwin.

Home Again

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:57:00 +0000

From the way the pine needles
quake and sputter
I see the wind that will march across the lake
tomorrow or the day after
fluttering my back
as if I were still among the Colonials
and the deflated Santas of the day after
wandering in the music of the past
listening for the beat of tomorrow.

Tea Leaves

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:49:00 +0000

The afternoon comes on this side of town
with its desultory sounds of distant motors.
Their unseen contrails
leave me behind
to wonder over each cup of tea
if you too see the same tea leaves.

Again

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:26:00 +0000

I seem to forget
the touch I have come to know
learning its impress all over again
telling myself this time
I will remember.

Place de la Concorde

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:11:00 +0000

The fountain looms against the background of the unconscious. A lone streetlamp reflects darkness in streaks, illumines the expanse of snow, and stands apart from the tenebrous interior.

Georges-Pierre Seurat's Place de la Concorde, Winter ca. 1882-83, currently on exhibit at the MAM.

Online Shopping

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:16:00 +0000

The season addles
with pixelated smiles
and whirring screens mirror
my restive brain cells.

Tea and Transtromer

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:55:00 +0000

Tired of all who come with words, words but no language
I went to the snow-covered island.
The wild does not have words.
The unwritten pages spread themselves out in all directions!
I come across the marks of roe-deer's hooves in the snow.
Language but no words.

-Tomas Transtromer's From March '79

Abdication

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:19:00 +0000

My cat glowers softly
transmuting instincts
-there is that slow-lidded gaze again-
under the touch
a hand could give.

A law of nature
abdicated
he sleeps
paw to paw.

To Reply

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:14:00 +0000

In the wisp of a word
in a tone
whose outlines are grey
blurred
shuffling the calm between us
it will be noticed
if ever
at a time
when it is too late to reply.

Landscape in Drenthe

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:48:00 +0000

The brown hues stand in contrast to the other Van Goghs in the room. The lone figure on horseback moves across a sere earth, the sodden ruts. Above, the sky emits a light -preternaturally radiant- not reaching the bowed human figure.

Landscape in Drenthe, 1883
(on exhibit at the MAM this season)

The Moments

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 21:14:00 +0000

I drink matcha from an earthen bowl. Slowly, a familiar warmth suffuses me. Clarity emerges. The senses enliven. I call a friend. Later, more tea; this time, an oolong I share with E.
The day ripens, and the moments connect.

Her Words

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:19:00 +0000

It was the intimacy, a sort of spiritual suppleness, when mind prints upon mind indelibly.

-Virginia Woolf from Jacob's Room

I am still reeling from her words. They speak of a moment in which sympathies are shared and to acknowledge it with words would be superfluous.

Like a plant arching its stems of leaves towards the sun, the two minds incline trophically -mind printing upon mind. The moment passes, leaving an indelible echo.

The Funeral

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:57:00 +0000

In an unexpected way that never fails to jar
it comes through with an immediacy:
a photo of faces still known to me
cousins now grown with their children
on a grainy surface of facebook pixels
a head caught averted in a procession of black
my father making the trip over in time
placing a bough for his brother.

In memory of Bac Hung

November Leaves

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:43:00 +0000

The leaves creak in gentle spasms
remaining pendant
while shot through
by the haze of an early afternoon.
Somewhere in these movements
is the unarticulated.

Before Sunrise

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:21:00 +0000

In the shadows of the real
and of the unimagined
I walk beneath weeping willows
on the unswept stretch of fallen leaves
the crash of the lake coming closer
my steps retracing what was not seen

moving on through the shadows
of dewdrops, the crackle of frost
the suffused light of a new day.

November

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:15:00 +0000

Is it the same
by the window
beside the repose of fur
the birch whitened in its season
of lost leaves, of our reflected years

the wind coming through the night
sweeping away the leaves
leaving behind the first frost
we returning to our breath.

Green Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:37:00 +0000

John Fowles, in his essayistic gem, The Tree, touches on the unconscious as a wellspring of creativity. He uses the woods as a metaphor, calling it a green chaos.

We venture into the green chaos with trepidation and exhilaration, not quite sure of what we will find there.

Likewise, each night we dream, plunged into our individual unconscious -our chaos- to be imbued with images that linger with us well into our waking hours. These images provoke associations, and we follow them on a journey where the destination is only revealed upon our reaching it.

Trout

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:56:00 +0000

They move upstream
fins flailing

while a light rain falls
on the crunch of leaves
underfoot as we hurry
through woods and water

pausing to watch
the arc of gray
silver-flashing while airborne
then a flop into silence.

A Guess

noreply@blogger.com (cha sen) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:42:00 +0000

In my dream water respires
on waves heaving and tumbling
down the gray-sheeted walls

to scatter foam
to find the shallows only guessed at.