GABRYEL HARRISON

ON THE WAY TO BURGOYNE BAY

2010-07-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

In the grassland, stillness spilling
swallow’s flight unweighted, sprung to sky
this branch, this winged release
up, up, high hummingbird, dragonfly, goldfinch, swallow

memory of warmth, shard of stone holding snake
uncoiling shade at my feet black and gold garter disappearing
raven’s guttural clamshell call, fieldberry, forest of many layered darkness entering deep pine, hemlock, cedar calm sea of green
looking back at me
standing in the long grass with the ancestors beneath me.
Daisies on the mounded land waving white heads. Last requiem.
In the open meadow moves a deer and her fawn, flash
of robin’s vermillion breast startled up, eagles riding slow
circles of air, infinite charcoal ceiling of the world, this calligraphic scribe of stormcloud and light closing the distance between us
azure pools of your eyes.

Requiem For A Dream Lux Aeterna FULL ORCHESTRA

2010-06-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

ON APPROACHING THE AFTERLIFE

2010-06-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

POEM ON APPROACHING THE AFTERLIFE

The big fish are almost gone now
empty beds where they rested and fed
my childhood past, spent watching
the struggle on bank’s edge
bloodied, ragged skins in shreds
falling from salmon spent in spawn.
Living flesh broken away from spines
even as new life struggled within
to be born
sweet milt filling streams lost now.
Lost streams buried under the IGA down the street
concrete mall holding heavy metal freezers full of fish.

Hole gushing in the Gulf, spilt riches
they call it crude, but what’s more crude
than a gaping wound I ask you
What is not yet taken?

Before I fall silent, I want to say
do not look away. Feed them. Give to them
give to the broken and empty. Give your own starving heart.
For every hungry ghost, give up your life.

For years now, I have mistaken despair for caring
like many—I have been sleeping.
Wake up!
Do not hesitate because your tender heart is almost gone
we are all killing something
you have this courage
forgive yourself, and go on loving the world.
Accept your gift.

c. Gabryel Harrison

REQUIEM FOR THE GULF

2010-06-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

take a chance on your inspiration

2010-03-10T23:24:00.000-08:00

Don't be afraid to be a mystery to yourself. So many times we do things or take certain directions that we don't understand. It is only much later that we see how that action fit perfectly and inevitably to the overall pattern of our life. That is why it is so important to be willing to take a chance on our inspiration...When we override our deepest desires with "practical, “reasonable” considerations we are not only wasting our time, we are passing up precious opportunities that will not come again. -Reggie Ray

for all those born and unborn

2010-03-10T22:54:00.000-08:00

sorrow is the darkness
curled in your closed fist

emptiness
like a hole in the palm of your hand

We all touch it
are touched by the one wound
opening us to light

home waters

2010-03-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

Going home. To the country of my birth
to hear the wordless speech of mountain,
earth, water, horizon, longing
to touch ground
breathing the breath
of the Long White Cloud
like a pilgrim walking,
the closer I come
the more the mountain disappears
the closer I come
the more I realize
you were always inside me
in my bones
there is no seeking
just home
in your waters.

Gabryel Harrison

ELEGY 111

2010-03-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

Born when the hearse

was drawn by powerful black horses

one hundred and three years gone.

In one small room of himself

sitting for hours, weeks months.

Years of sleeping, or sitting still,

seeming to study the empty air

unmoving in his chair

staring into the distance

serious face expecting nothing.

Nothing changing. Not even the chair.

Not since mustard was the favored color

of naugahyde lazy boys.

He died in winter, blind buds waking

in wet beds too soon.

I remember the warm silver drizzle

of rain, the usual barrenness of trees

shining forth in a cloud of strangeness,

pussy willows bursting from branches

like sparked flint torches burning holes

in January’s ashen sky. I remember

the river was high. The quiet glow,

how even the water looked solemn,

tide slow as a curtain closing.

When I asked, was he meditating,

was he perfecting stillness,

he shrugged, hopeless gesture

of emptiness, “ No “ he said, “I can’t stop

my mind wandering. I can’t stop

worrying. Its not peaceful in here”.

I used to think the only bead left to worry was

who shall deliver him from his life

buried, yet surviving in the dry tear of memory,

a rise in the Dow Jones feeding him like scripture.

The winter I was fifty, I sat with him, waiting,

by his bedside watching

the full moon of his mouth, the open“O”

full and empty, one last syllable drawn in

circle of time gasping, shuddering

wound and portal,

as if the death-tide rising in his throat

were lover, as if all the waters in him

were reaching up for sky

eyes fallen inward, aliveness imploded

as a star burst inside him so all I could see

was light, the eye of his heart opened outward

to the world

a man blind all his life, lost and bewildered,

now lit up and burning like a torch

a light in the wilderness

we all saw it. We all felt the sweetness pouring from him

the softness, kindness,

the hard flint of his life surrendered

spark of absolution

touching us all

burning the knotted cord

of hurt between us

nothing left but the body’s butter lamp glow

spilling its light in darkness,

one being, one body

touching and being,

released and releasing

all that remains

2010-03-10T17:24:00.000-08:00

“I will tell you how it was the world changed”

Robert Bringhurst

I will tell you how it was the world changed

at the precipice of his life

watching a man clinging to breath

die slowly by drowning

his hands reaching up

in parting, it is then

the world enters you.

The world gives itself up to you

more real than flesh

more real than the body you inhabit

more than air

more than water

in its great turning

all returning,

light is all that remains

growing like a tide inside you.

I will tell you how it was the world changed

between us time and space

dissolved

silences full of language

sightless eyes bright

opening to another world

inside of this one

growing visible

in his blind eyes and mine

joined in the heart’s transmission.

Wisdom, holy, eternal love

being at the edge of a cliff

where it all opens out

no ground, nothing left,

everything held in emptiness.

ELEGY FOR HHH

2010-03-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

The January of my grandfather’s death

the unborn river rose from its bed.

Fraser’s South Arm raised up

its waters toward the land

spilled streams of mountains

emptied darkness of canyon walls

gunmetal clouds, glacial water

falls, light, quick and silver water

rising over moss, swallowing boulders and trees

slippery branches grazing the river’s spine

cold to the bone, bubbling

life sunken deep beneath the surface

unextinguished, tide gurgling

like the waters of death rising in my grandfather’s throat.

Death doesn’t arrive from somewhere.

It doesn’t come from far away

but swells sea-deep inside the skin,

sounds guttural rattling the body’s cave

shudder and twitch of

mind riding waves beneath the skull

plunge and surge

of light lifting up into him

indivisible being

undying

pouring through his veins love, endless, full,

luminous spirit flown, vanished,

nothing left

but beached alabaster vessel of bone.

Gabryel Harrison January 19, 2010

in Memoriam

2007-08-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

There is a mango, plump and soft, filled with the juicy gift of its sweetness bleeding into a white ceramic bowl its over-ripeness. I cannot eat this food, this lingering fragrance of your kindness left on my doorstep the week you died. You have left this world for another state of grace and I, who am alive, listen to the mind’s pains of hunger for an answer to why I did not cut the sunflowers from my garden and bring them to you that evening they held the light of day burnished and gold as the glowing corona of Christ in all the Byzantine Icons. Sometimes, when the heart’s eye is opened to the round bloom of love, the body closes in its old cloak of fear, blind fingers tugging at the worn habit of protection, leaving emptiness in her beggar’s bowl.
Now, this bruised ovoid fruit, skin shinning its subdued russet flame speaks to me in the whispered shame of my heart calling forth its own forgiveness.

August Eclipse 2007

2007-08-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

“They should put out the eyes of painters as they do those of bullfinches,
to make them sing better.” Picasso

Drenched in moonlight
the midnight water is moving
the river to the sea
past the open mouths of
coyotes howling at the full round song of the moon
calling back to herself
all the waters spread beneath her
all the waters inside us
all our inner tides complicit
rising to her round measure of time
appearing and disappearing in her cool silver sphere
this lunar wax and wane true as the shadowed penumbra of our imaginings
wandering our own warm sea like a blind prophet
singing out in this vast emptiness
for us to hear the words of invisible power.
Listen to what calls from the deep well of darkness.
Incorruptible celestial guide lighting our skins
shining bright as coins
closing the eyes of the dead.

I have just left the red

2007-07-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have just left the red
center of a rose, paint buttery
smooth as a petal’s velvet cave,
studio full of the scent
of damar, turpentine and oil.
On the black table, Bing cherries in a white bowl.

Outside, I water the double begonia,
scarlet petals limp,
summer’s torch burning everything.
For three days, a hot wind
licking the brittle edges of leaves.
Grass burnished gold,
inextinguishable light
on this parched earth.

I am thinking of the wide blue wheel
and all that air,
that sliver of eternity
between me and the taut membrane of the trampoline
catapulting me bright as a child into the morning
I slipped free of gravity
bodiless, light as the swallows
flight all round me, all the shadows of clouds
white as the wings of angels
and I seeing them in the jade ribbon,
the river far below me.

The day is a handful of jewels.
Even the shock of carmine trucks,
chrome yellow hoses uncoiling from
fire engines exciting the day,
polished metal skins
and chrome shrill as a warning.

Think of it.
Eyes on heaven, arms flung wide
floating me upward into Brueghel’s blue,
fire rising beneath me.
As I leapt higher and higher
flames climbed from their cradle
of dry timber, tongues hungry
for the same mouthful of air.
Death always ready to burst forth,
and I oblivious
rising to the heart's spark
this sudden flickering
raising me up blind
but alive,! So alive.

Ancient cedars

2007-05-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

The air, sweet with pine and soft hush after the chainsaw’s whine is stilled. Carl is guide to the lively, sharp-toothed blade slicing green wood that will be my winter’s comfort. Once split, one season of sun and the keen screams of wind raw from the river, strips the living water from these felled trees. I am looking at the decadent center of each round when I hear Ben talking about the beached grey whale lying dead at Tsawassen’s tide line. He is telling us that sometimes if bulldozers or backhoes cannot drag the 50 tons of carcass close enough for the sea to slip her waves beneath the gravid weight, men thrust dynamite inside each orifice and cut open still more wounds to bear their explosives. Blubber, bone and blood blown sky-high, shattering this lover of water, this song-ful leviathan of the deep. Warm, red stain of a mammal like you and I, now scattered across the sand like the pieces of Osiris by his brother. I am shocked into stillness. I can see the bones shining, suddenly exposed to air.
I seek refuge in the rings of this tree. I ground myself in round circles telling me of its history, the dark strands woven with the light, the transforming of wind and earth and rain, the turning of day and night into something of grace and green. Some say whales carry the memories of all the world inside them. In what dark cavity can they find a place for this?
Clay breaks silence in a whisper. I hear his reverence. Words set adrift in the air like an offering. Sentences compressed like the incense of trees. Ancient Canadian trees.Cedars twisted in limb and gnarled with age like bonsais. Some, he said, seeded themselves in tiny crevices of rock before the first Crusade. Long before Columbus touched the continent those cedars were sipping air from their tenacious holds in cracks scarring rock ledges of the Niagara Escarpment.

Wiry roots wound tight in grains of soil fallen from the talons of eagles. I wonder why I have never heard of these trees? They possess the inner secret of how to thrive in the earth's cracked seam. The way they live 2000 years on air and emptiness. Tempests raging all around them.There must be something in the heartwood itself. Something they must take inside them like the rock takes in the light. It makes me think of those wise women and men who sit still and let everything flow through them. Peacefully abiding. Meditating in the mouths of darkness with the eye of the heart wide open. Opening the way for vast emptiness. Opening the way for the infinite moment. Round and whole and perfect, turning eternity's golden wheel. Opening the way for the light.

Chrysanthemums

2007-05-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

I sat watching the river early this morning. A great blue heron and I shared the slanting arrows of rain. They entered silent and quick as slivers, breaking the skin of the slough. The bird was concentrating all its stillness on what lay beneath the silted tide.
Myself, I was transfixed with fire. Cacophony of chrysanthemums, long stems bearing their spiked crowns aloft, shining chrome yellow, crimson, and traffic cone bright. A corolla of flames rising between slate sky and water bleak as zinc. Somebody had left a bouquet in a plastic Schweppes tonic bottle carefully cut and tied with a strand of twined wool, white and blue fastened to a bench overlooking the Fraser. Rain dark as a beaten shield falling around this golden shrine, alight, luminous as fireworks bursting in the gray cataract of the morning.
Sometimes, I think I'll go blind from the looking. The eye longs to draw its dark curtain across the unthinkable. We strain toward the invisible, hungering for some shape of beauty, the flash of light to feed us, the one thread binding us to the center of things. We lose sight of eternity when all the time it burns bright as an ember inside us. See here, the dark cerement of earth and sky alive, this offfering of fiery petals more brilliant than any pyre.
I wanted to return with a splash of gin, to dissolve my witness into the pure tonic collected in memory of the dead. To honour the way one tender gesture can for a moment return them alive to us. But I lingered, and oh the glory to see the heron unfold its wings. Silent angel rising. The river flowing serene. Blades of marsh grass were swaying, gently bending in memory of her passing.

San Francisco, Mexico. On the trail to Casa Kali.

2007-05-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

photograph by Isabella Scandolari

The heart has built its nest
in an ecstasy of thorns.
Coracle of protection suspended
in branches woven
like a tattooed crown.
It was always the dangerous
you loved the best.
The bright hook. The torn flesh.
But now, when i look on
that cage of twisted limbs,
the suffering,
I see only the bright blue
blessing. All that openness beckoning.
Each black barb
enfolded
in the light's invitation.

hello world

2007-05-23T21:44:00.002-07:00

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