Estelore's Poetry

[Estelore]

We are a rare sort, but we are linked by common emotions and experiences. To describe each of my instruments in a single word (followed by an explanation, as is natural with me):

Clarinet: Natural. The sort of thing that I can effortlessly do every single day, without feeling bored. If I neglect a day of practice, it feels all wrong and uncomfortable. I NEED my daily clarinet fix. To put it in the terms of a friend, I can "kiss that clarinet and make it sing!"  It's like swimming, really.

Violin: Personal. This was the only instrument that I BEGGED to play, as the others were more-or-less forced on me. I NEEDED to play the violin, and now I do. It's the sort of thing that stays close to your heart, even after you put him back in his case. It's like a part of my own being.

Piano: Oxygen. Piano is like breathing for me...it is vital, and natural, and effortless, but you can't OWN it. It is the sort of thing that you take for granted, until the moment that it is taken away from you just long enough for you to realise just how NECESSARY it is. Piano is a passion that defies words, but you can't just pick it up and carry it with you like clarinet and violin, so the piano never TRULY feels like "MY piano!!!", the way that Claire is MY clarinet!! and El Violeta is MY violin!!. It is most beloved for me, but I cannot hold it and posess it the way I can my other instruments, so it seems like an intangible, evanescent thing when I am not playing. The instant I get up from the piano bench, that sense of tender connection to the instrument instantly SNAPS!! back into perspective, and you know that, unlike everything else, you WON'T be the only person to ever touch that beautiful instrument. It's almost a heart-breaking sensation, but it makes you love it even more, for its temporary nature.

Clarinet is something that you DO, a solid verb. Violin is something that you OWN, a part of yourself. Piano is something you ARE, a temporary but very REAL state of being.

[Estelore]

Observations
---
What is it that limits the human mind,
traps your thoughts in an endless box
of cyclical causal paradox?
How can you not see a tesseract,
or feel the expanse of the universe,
stretched out before you,
going on forever?
I cannot understand what can trap the psyche,
tie it up in chains,
so that it cannot imagine Nothing,
but neither can it encompass Everything.

At the same time, your emotions defy imagination:
Your passions, your highs and lows, the depth of your suffering
and the radiance of your joy!
I love you, but how am I to understand you?
To let your heart so thoroughly rule your head? Unthinkable!

The love and the hate that is inside each of you
is enough to make an angel weep,
for both of them burn hot and slow,
like a hearthfire...
or a funeral pyre.

The pain that you bring to others
often borders on the unforgivable,
and yet I cannot bring myself to hate you,
because when you DO show virtue...

Courage and hope, each of which depends
on the presence of the other
for its own existence...

The desire for freedom,
faith and trust in your icons...

Optimism and idealism, in a dark and cynical world...

Oh, it is enough to make me forgive everything,
for the love of you,
you strange little creatures who sing
and dance and write about love and life,
even if it brings me as much pain
as you visit upon each other,
time and again.

I do not know you,
but I feel almost like a mother,
and I would never harm you,
except to save you.

You people make no sense,
but I shall never give up
trying to make sense from what I learn from you.

You see, I have passions, too.
---


Blasted typos.

[Estelore]

An Attempt at a Villanelle
---
I'm standing in the garden, watching you walk by,
I don't think that you notice, but truly, I don't care.
We shall meet again, beneath this sky.

I do not think you know me, and maybe you are shy,
for I have seen you act as though I were naught but air,
while I stand in my garden, watching you walk by.

I've never tried to stop you, and now I wonder why,
for every day I've seen you walking there,
just as we'll meet again beneath this sky.

In the rain, you cannot see me cry,
and so I know that you won't stop to stare,
as I stand in my garden, watching you walk by.

Today, there is a sadness in your eye,
as though you're lost, and cannot guess at where
we will meet again, beneath this sky.

Tomorrow I shall just give it a try,
for I feel there is much that we can share,
while standing in my garden, watching life go by,
greeting a new day beneath this sky.
---

[zaprowsdower]

Beautiful :'(

[Estelore]

Really?!


 

Thanks! Hey, do you want to get InterWorld going? I'll be online for the next hour or so, I think!

[zaprowsdower]

OK, who goes first?

[Estelore]

I just did. Go ahead and post, and you can bump into me, or you can say that I materialized in the middle of your office/home/headquarters/the street in front of you...or you can follow me into the next Reality that I visit, without 'telling' me, but you should indicate that that is your intention (in parentheses at the end of the post), so that I don't claim to have met you.

Whatever you like!

[Estelore]

In the case that you don't know, I have two strong lineages that I attempt to honour, when I am given the chance. On my father's side, I am EXTREMELY Scottish, even though I don't live in Scotland. On my mother's side, however, I am descended from the Cherokee, a Native American nation. According to their zodiac, I was born under the sign of the Owl, and it is my 'Birth Totem'.
Now, as anyone who has read the Religion threads knows, I am a devout Christian. Among other things, I believe that God sends His angels into our lives to serve as guardians, guides, and messengers. I believe also that sometimes these angels manifest as animals or even as inanimate objects, so that we can occasionally recognise them and (hopefully) understand what they are trying to tell us.

1. Every morning, I walk my dog and feed my outdoor cats, and every time I take the same path through my garden to do this.

2. Last night before bed, I spent some time to meditate on certain things (don't laugh, I take it seriously. It's like praying, but instead of TALKING to God, you LISTEN to him. No, I don't say 'ohmmm', and I don't sit cross-legged, either. It's just a matter of emptying the mind enough to allow something new to come in.), and the concept of totems as angels was one of them. I asked if they could perhaps be the same thing, and, if so, 'was mine truly the Owl?'.

3. The only owl common to my city is the Barn Owl, because it is good at inhabiting human-made buildings.

4. This morning, I found a primary flight feather from a Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus, and I knew beyond ALL doubt that that was the correct species) lying across my path, where I could not help but notice it. There had been a heavy gale that night (BIG HUMUNGOUS WIND), and the ground of my garden was littered with debris and coated with water, silt, and muck, but my path was completely dry and clear of EVERYTHING, except for that one, perfectly formed owl feather.

5. I do not believe in coincidences. Thus, this poem.

---
Totem Owl

Winged Messenger
on silent wings,
fly like a shadow to my side.


Wise One,
Hunter,
Night-Glider,
do not hide from this little one
who walks in the sun
and stumbles blindly in the darkness.
I would dance in the shadow of your wings.

Inquisitor and Judge,
Moon-Singer,
Guardian and Guide,
Golden Eyes,
share with me your sight.
Teach me to listen
in silence.
Lend me patience and stillness.
Drive away the terror of nightfall,
and help me again to see
the glory of this indigo world.
---

[Estelore]

You see this? This is me when I'm happy. You won't like me when I'm angry.

[Toominator Z]

I may be mistaken but I recall a previous conversation where you told me you were majoring in something OTHER than art/music. WHY?!?!?!?! As a fellow pianist it's exasperrating someone of your talent wouldn't pursue that. Kinda makes me think twice about doing it myself.

[Estelore]

Toomin! YOU'RE BACK!! 

I've missed you much.

Music is virtually a religious act for me. To commercialize it would be to deny its meaning in my life.

Also, the music industry is appallingly competitive. I prefer to take my song at leisure, thank you very much. 

[Estelore]

I've just thought of a fair analogy to my feelings about music.

Do you recall that scene in the Bible, where Jesus walks to the temple on the Sabbath and sees people using God's House as a marketplace, buying and selling things? He gets royally P.O.ed, and He destroys the merchants' stands and carts, shouting at everyone for violating the temple and breaking the Sabbath.

Well, music is like that for me. To commercialize it is like selling bananas and fish in the temple on the Sabbath.

See?

Poetry time. Back story: This morning I found a Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly dying in my garden. I moved him out of the heat of the sun (today is record-breakingly hot), but she still died. This is sorta' a passage prayer and a memorial for the poor little thing. Butterflies...they mean something to me that I cannot fully explain...so...yeah . Here we go.
---

Psyche

Delicate creature, broken and fallen,
do you know what they say about you?
An old story said that the first of your kind was
a woman who loved Love Himself.
They call you the symbol of the soul itself,
the last breath and the final blessing and kiss
of those who are dying.
They say that every time a butterfly dies,
somewhere a heart is breaking, a soul is in pain.
When I heard your struggle, the feeble beating
of your painted wings,
I could not help but believe it.
The sound of a broken butterfly
is the sound of a heart when it breaks.

[ANna]

Wow, Estelore. Just, wow. That was amazing.

[Estelore]

Thanks.

[Estelore]

The Folk                                                       
With Courtesy to Robert Frost

Whose woods these are,
I'll never know,
but he's not out here
in the snow.
He will not see me passing through
and he won't miss me when I go.

I sometimes wonder what is true
and why the forest folk, so few,
have drifted from this silent land
and left it to build life anew.

The biting cold on face and hand,
the wind that cuts like glass and sand,
the frozen void of deepest night
have helped me now to understand.

The secret folk have fled like light
for places new and pure and bright,
and I shall follow in their glow
as long as they remain in sight.



---
And again, in Welsh. Such a lovely language. 

'r Bobl
Ag Chwrteisi at Rhobert Rew

Whose brennau dyma ,
 Fi ll erioed adnabod ,
 namyn e s mo i maes 'ma i mewn 'r bwrw eira.
 E ewyllysia mo canfod 'm yn pasio drwo a enillai t fetha 'm pryd A.
Fi ar adegau rhyfedda beth ydy 'n ddiau a paham 'r choedwig bobl ,
 fel hychydig ,
wedi lluchio chan hon 'n dawedog dirio a ar ôl 'i at adeilada buchedd o'r newydd.
'r yn brathu annwyd acha gwynebu a balf ,
'r am-dro a archollion cara gwydr a dywod ,
'r fferedig ddiddim chan deepest nos wedi cyfnerthu 'm awron at ddeall.
 'r chwnsel bobl wedi cilio rhag cara chyneua achos chyfleadau 'n grai a 'n anllygredig a 'n befr ,
a Fi shall canlyn i mewn 'n hwy glow 'n gyhyd fel arhosan i mewn drem.
---