· the cultural society · » Pam Rehm

The Greening of the Body

Pam Rehm — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:00:49 +0000

The idea of
        Who you are
        or
        woe is I

The cultivation
of an essence

is essentially
an encounter

equated with
“in the beginning”

This intimate entrance
This trance of intimacy

that constantly avails me

•

Life is drawn
from the land’s mercy

Try as it might,
it can’t outgrow it

Insects at dawn
A blackberry thicket
wearing the sun

Miracle has in it
Reclaim
An aim we can
moor ourselves in

Moreover,
to reclaim miracle
is the essential equation

•

Holding is not keeping
but a weakening
that provides strength

I wend down the street
take a detour through leaves
to emulate freedom
from traffic, crowds

Ecstasy evolves slowly
within
a closed horizon

I become its concentration

As the barely perceptible
subtly replenishes my potential

A Sequence for Joseph Massey

Pam Rehm — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:00:40 +0000

Silent
as the hawk
Roosting

in shaded hollows
under the first stars

Frost
closes over alters
morning’s outlines

Start as we do
Steady

The tedium of worry
unbalances

what we see

And suddenly
the ghost
glistens

Listening
a lowly attendant

to the depth
of the sensitive field

of vision

We encounter ourselves
growing

I Followed, I Found, I Went Down

Pam Rehm — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:00:37 +0000

The give and take
of strength
to create
out of a labyrinth
of seeking

Your own

One’s only close range
between known and unknown

To give and take alms

Your arms around
a frightened animal

At close range,
strength is enigmatic

A strange creation

Your own reach
is your only familiar

Familiars

Pam Rehm — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:00:18 +0000

The give and take
of strength
to create
out of a labyrinth
of seeking

Your own

One’s only close range
between known and unknown

To give and take alms

Your arms around
a frightened animal

At close range,
strength is enigmatic

A strange creation

Your own reach
is your only familiar

Pam Rehm, contributor

Pam Rehm — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 16:00:47 +0000

One to Another (for Peter O’Leary)

Pam Rehm — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:00:14 +0000

How do you make
embodiment dear

if you fear
its hold on your life?

The daunting tolerance
of unsolitariness

and how to garner silence
from the outside in

How will I survive
the broad plain

with the form of my feeling
at the boundary of faith

Shall I have hope
inside the throat, imploringly

as I lay the days in order?

Teach me sense

Help me to grow
a rare perception

to know the main essentials
of finding

a deeper revelation

A reminder of the link
between meanings

For all that we focus on
offerings

As they move from perch to feed bowl

One can easily miss things

Everything contrives to bring to within
use

a constituent part
of home

For surely life grows into
a majestic spirit

Illumined
the soul is an exquisite organ

Receptive
imagination does not require power

Sown in bones and flesh
Raised in flaming mysticalness

Your vision will alight
the fire to create

A continual source
of sustenance

The World Is Still… (for Stephen M. Meyer)

Pam Rehm — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:00:06 +0000

The world is still
not yet over

though we devour it
and fill it up

Holes here
some places entirely gone

Collapsed livingness

A perishable record
deep from within us

A wildness tamed
into a ghostly sleep

This is not a prophecy

This is obviously
the world clothed

in a double mantle

Metamorphosis

Pam Rehm — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:00:32 +0000

A drop of water
disappears

A fusion, the glow
of fire lays aside

The air suffused
with light

The body glorified
with life

Dissolves

in its evolution
to resurrection

Identity

Pam Rehm — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:00:19 +0000

In the midst of you
It all comes down to

You

A species of feeling

Thinking, between
the apartment and the street

how easy it is

to change one’s mind

Another Dimension

Pam Rehm — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:00:10 +0000

     1

Out of kilter with words
observe the cycles
intrinsic to sensibility

An echo, repeated

A doubling-back
and into oneself

Hand over hand

an austere strand of identity
is embedded in any metamorphosis

A hint at the boundaries
summons its emanation

Stepping among the primary questions
the body is altered attention

     2

Identify your fortune
in an echo

A well-trodden book

Walking on all fours
it is bold to reach an animal capacity

I can imagine the energy
in a butterfly’s wings

A lane, a journey
every footstep

Worn by months of chances

the merest touch
of sunlight
can balance a person

     3

Conscious of coincidence
and the wide circumference of ages

A realm of remoteness

A place out of touch

The companion we trace
is the same vehement silence

The earth is so connected to the soul

The sea, the trees
enough to behold

     4

A diligent seclusion
implies an evident immersion
in another dimension

We speak and think this creed
over and against the bosom

We move invariably suspended
beneath the sky

which makes likewise, a halo
in the air

How strange, every day
more brilliant

     5

Fortune makes fools
in her own nest

Follow the birds

Let the words echo
and behold the evident

A strand of trees
worn into memory

Every journey
a walking capacity

I can imagine the body
embroidered to the soul

The color of the sea,
earth
embedded in every touch