While Listening to Coltrane

"Though I play at the edges of knowing,/truly I know/our part is not knowing,/but looking, and touching, and loving,/which is the way I walked on,/softly,/through the pale-pink morning light." --Mary Oliver, "Bone" from Why I Wake Early

"So Penelope took the hand of Odysseus,/not to hold him back but to impress/this peace on his memory:/from this point on, the silence through which you move/is my voice pursuing you." --Louise Gluck, "Quiet Evening" from Meadowlands

It's not so much about being Penelope's daughter, but recognizing that I am Penelope, Odysseus, and Athena rolled into one; I embody all three at once. A trinity in and of itself. Home, Quest, and the twin engines of action: Desire and Intuition. The trinity balances, keeps the earth spinning, keeps the world moving forward, keeps me on the road, path, trail, interstate, always with some sense of direction, and, if I know anything, always knowing change is constant.

As much as Alexandra remains at home in O Pioneers! certain her purpose is to shape the land, give all of herself to it, knowing the cost, Willa Cather traveled, as if her constant movement would propel everything else forward along with her. The price is the same for both: the ever-present need for reconciliation, order, meaning, constant creation.

So what is this need for space? Or silence? Or place between/within the conversation between the piano and the sax? Maybe it's about the persistent possibility of catching a glimpse, of seeing the very thing that would settle the moment.


Photos (from top to bottom): Scipio, Utah; outside Beatrice, Nebraska; north of Lebanon, Kansas; outside Beatrice, Nebraska.