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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 11, 2013 - 10:16am PT
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Leonard Cohen
God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot lyrics
Lyrics: Cohen/Recorded By Buffy Sainte-Marie
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is alive, magic is afoot
God is afoot, magic is alive
Alive is afoot, magic never died
God never sickened
Many poor men lied
Many sick men lied
Magic never weakened
Magic never hid
Magic always ruled
God is afoot, God never died
God was ruler
Though his funeral lengthened
Though his mourners thickened
Magic never fled
Though his shrouds were hoisted
The naked God did live
Though his words were twisted
The naked magic thrived
Though his death was published
Round and round the world
The heart did not believe
Many hurt men wondered
Many struck men bled
Magic never faltered
Magic always lead
Many stones were rolled
But God would not lie down
Many wild men lied
Many fat men listened
Though they offered stones
Magic still was fed
Though they locked their coffers
God was always served
Magic is afoot, God is alive
Alive is afoot
Alive is in command
Many weak men hungered
Many strong men thrived
Though they boast of solitude
God was at their side
Nor the dreamer in his cell
Nor the captain on the hill
Magic is alive
Though his death was pardoned
Round and round the world
The heart would not believe
Though laws were carved in marble
They could not shelter men
Though altars built in parliaments
They could not order men
Police arrested magic and magic went with them
Mmmmm.... for magic loves the hungry
But magic would not tarry
It moves from arm to arm
It would not stay with them
Magic is afoot
It cannot come to harm
It rests in an empty palm
It spawns in an empty mind
But magic is no instrument
Magic is the end
Many men drove magic
But magic stayed behind
Many strong men lied
They only passed through magic
And out the other side
Many weak men lied
They came to God in secret
And though they left Him nourished
They would not tell who healed
Though mountains danced before them
They said that God was dead
Though his shrouds were hoisted
The naked God did live
This I mean to whisper to my mind
This I mean to laugh within my mind
This I mean my mind to serve
Til' service is but magic
Moving through the world
And mind itself is magic
Coursing through the flesh
And flesh itself is magic
Dancing on a clock
And time itself
The magic length of God.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 14, 2013 - 03:32am PT
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Enigmaticism
Climb an Enigma
Join the mice on the Stigma
Take a trip up Void.
Klesmer square-dancin'
No harder than polka-dottin'
Of that I'm certain.
Does living water
Die when it freezes? Just what
Does it do when dead?
All glaciers must die.
All glaciers just lie
In troughs of their own.
I may never know--
If bowls of Jello freeze
Will the stuff still shake?
I sit here writing.
You sit there reading my write.
Are we connecting?
I'll likely never know.
Is that the point or have you read
The one thing not said?
To all the brave f*#king ice climbing heros. It's f*#king water, I've never understood the compulsion, but it's a thing of beauty to watch. This one's for Mr. Lowe.
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Anastasia
climber
InLOVEwithAris.
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Jan 14, 2013 - 04:28am PT
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I miss Mtmun...
Yeah, here here to Mr. Lowe.
I like him very much too.
That is a great poem!
Fantastic Mr. Mouse.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jan 14, 2013 - 07:39am PT
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wow--stasi was up til 1:30. what will she cook up next?
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jan 14, 2013 - 11:50am PT
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Anastasia has a baby. All bets are off for sleep for at a least a year or so... if she's really lucky! :-)
With 3, 6 and 9 year olds, you never know when the call is going to come in. Was up at 4:20 am putting covers back on 3 year old who'd thown them off (on a night where it got down to 32 here in Socal!
And hear, hear for Mr. Lowe!
OK, back to poetry:
No postmortems, please.
The world is immortal.
The world renews itself.
What about poems and songs --
Do they perish?
Maybe they only
Vanish awhile.
Maybe they go underground
To gather some other
Knowledge and come back
In another form:
New words, a new melody,
Yet somehow
The same beloved,
Singing the same song.
~ Gregory Orr ~
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jan 14, 2013 - 11:56am PT
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100 Butterflies (excerpt
Where you are going
and the place you stay
come to the same thing.
What you long for
and what you've left behind
are as useless as your name.
Just one time, walk out
into the field and look
at that towering oak --
an acorn still beating at its heart.
~ Peter Levitt ~
(100 Butterflies)
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2013 - 11:58am PT
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The media wrestles the ire of one so appalled
School kids are singing the praises of President Obama.
“Kill your TV, end the media mind control BS”, says I.
"Get a life", I am told
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 14, 2013 - 12:14pm PT
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Ice melts winter begins
Miracles happen in cold
The Mtnmun returns.
Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they're turned around.
Who'd have thought they'd lead ya (Who'd have thought they'd lead ya)
Here where we need ya (Here where we need ya)
Yeah we tease him a lot cause we've got him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
lyrics by John Sebastian, a useful poet
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Jan 14, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
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breastfeeding, huh? explains a lot.
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Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2013 - 12:21pm PT
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Thank you Mouse and Anastasia. Lovely works coming from this entire crew.
Cold breath of winter, erupting ice crystal
Crisp pine scent wafting through the dormant forest
Warm hugs in the morning keep summer alive
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 14, 2013 - 12:34pm PT
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Say I Hear Ya Here
Is it "Hear Hear" Eric?
"Here Here" Sta?
There there Mouse
Say hey there and chill Won't kill
Ya to not worry.
Or infinitive
Split like ya just now did
It's all better kid
:))
They've gone haikuku
Seventeen syllables of
Stream of consciousness
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jan 16, 2013 - 01:59pm PT
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The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII
Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.
What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.
Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.
Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
(In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 17, 2013 - 08:45am PT
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Darkness, Darkness
lyrics/Jesse Colin Young
Darkness darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your dream
Darness darkness, hide my yearning
For the things that cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Towards the things I cannot see now
Towards the things I cannot see now
The things I cannot see now
Darkness darkness, long and lonesome
Is the day brings me here
I have found the edge of sadneess
I have known the depths of fear
Darkness darkness, be my blanket
Cover my head with the endless night
Take away away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now
The emptiness of right now
Fill the emptiness of right now
Darkness darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of my shadow
In the silence of my dream
Darkness darkness, be my blanket
Cover my with the endlesss night
Take away away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now
In the emptiness of right now
In the emptiness of right now
Just waiting for the sun.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jan 20, 2013 - 02:36am PT
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Beautiful Mouse, beautiful.
Eric
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jan 20, 2013 - 02:36am PT
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This one is right down my alley:
Shoveling Snow With Buddha
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.
Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?
But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.
This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.
He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.
All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.
After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?
Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.
Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.
~ Billy Collins ~
(Picnic, Lightning)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jan 20, 2013 - 04:03am PT
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The Preceding Twenty-Four Hours
Any time you went into the warm bright sun from the gloom
Whenever you found an extra five dollars in your wallet that you had forgoten you stashed
When you found the chocolate chips were white chocolate and not just plain toll house morsels
That time you thought a message was wiped out only to find it again on your computer
Especially the last time you made it to the gas pump on fumes
The time some dork from the UC offered to buy you a drink and you found he's really just as decent as you and only slightly better educated and that's all in computers and carpentry, heck
Did it make your day?
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Jan 21, 2013 - 02:56pm PT
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Staring in the the abyss today...
Enriching the Earth
To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.
~ Wendell Berry ~
(Collected Poems 1957 - 1982)
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jan 21, 2013 - 03:11pm PT
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To the Stone-cutters
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stone have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
Robinson Jeffers
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jan 21, 2013 - 03:26pm PT
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Birds
The fierce musical cries of a couple of sparrowhawks hunting on the
headland,
Hovering and darting, their heads northwestward,
Prick like silver arrows shot through a curtain the noise of the ocean
Trampling its granite; their red backs gleam
Under my window around the stone corners; nothing gracefuller, nothing
Nimbler in the wind. Westward the wave-gleaners,
The old gray sea-going gulls are gathered together, the northwest wind
wakening
Their wings to the wild spirals of the wind-dance.
Fresh as the air, salt as the foam, play birds in the bright wind, fly falcons
Forgetting the oak and the pinewood, come gulls
From the Carmel sands and the sands at the river-mouth, from Lobos and
out of the limitless
Power of the mass of the sea, for a poem
Needs a multitude, multitudes of thoughts, all fierce, all fresh-eaters,
musically clamorous
Bright hawks that hover and dart headlong, and ungainly
Gray hungers fledged with desire of transgression, salt slimed beaks, from
the sharp
Rock-shores of the world and the secret waters.
Robinson Jeffers
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