Swimming in Metaphor

[Image: “THE-ROOM-OF-EXTREMELY-USEFUL-THINGS,” by Sam Leighton on Flickr.com; used here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!). This scarcely requires comment — er, right?]

From whiskey river:

When we walk, holding stories in us, do they touch the ground through our footprints? What is this power of metaphor, by which we liken a thing we see to a thing we imagine or have seen before — the granite crag to an old crystalline heart — changing its form, allowing animation to suffuse the world via inference? Metaphor, perhaps, is the tame, the civilized, version of shamanic shapeshifting, word-magic, the recognition of stories as toothed messengers from the wilds. What if we turned the old nursery rhymes and fairytales we all know into feral creatures once again, set them loose in new lands to root through the acorn fall of oak trees? What else is there to do, if we want to keep any of the wildness of the world, and of ourselves?

(Sylvia Linsteadt [source])

…and:

What the Wind Says
For David Swanger

The wind says, “I am the voice beside you,
a leaf against the curb, a name you whisper
for the way it haunts you. You can hear
whatever the mind wants. I am still
holding a breath, the ghost beneath a sheet,
some lost moment a hinge finds. Open

the gate and walk away: you wish to turn
the porch light off and never look back
to the row of identical houses, your years
mortgaged with the familiar acts
of habits. Try to forget each hour spent
lying awake trying to forget, for regret
remembers regret, which is why

I never sweep the same place twice.
Often this voice is mistaken
for someone else. I remind others
of who they are, or wish to be. I know desires
better than any wildfire knows me.
So what do you wait for? A whim, a promise,
some dream? Think how dust settles
upon the shelf, how a tornado always loses
its funnel, how tomorrow becomes another day.
Think how capricious I am, for what
I bring to you, for what I take away.”

(Greg Sellers [source])

…and:

In a world where we are left to renegotiate our traumas again and again, we have to find empathetic, patient witnesses. My grandmother used to say: Some people in your life need to be mirrors and show you who you are from time to time. Some people in your life need to be blankets and embrace everything you are from time to time. Keep your mirrors clean and bright. Keep your blankets soft and close.

(Scherezade Siobhan [source])

Not from whiskey river:

For the Sleepwalkers

Tonight I want to say something wonderful
for the sleepwalkers who have so much faith
in their legs, so much faith in the invisible

arrow carved into the carpet, the worn path
that leads to the stairs instead of the window,
the gaping doorway instead of the seamless mirror.

I love the way that sleepwalkers are willing
to step out of their bodies into the night,
to raise their arms and welcome the darkness,

palming the blank spaces, touching everything.
Always they return home safely, like blind men
who know it is morning by feeling shadows.

And always they wake up as themselves again.
That’s why I want to say something astonishing
like: Our hearts are leaving our bodies.

Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs
flying through the trees at night, soaking up
the darkest beams of moonlight, the music

of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches.
And now our hearts are thick black fists
flying back to the glove of our chests.

We have to learn to trust our hearts like that.
We have to learn the desperate faith of sleep-
walkers who rise out of their calm beds

and walk through the skin of another life.
We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness
and wake up to ourselves, nourished and surprised.

(Edward Hirsch [source])

…and:

Personally, I’m not much for symbolism. I never get it. Why can’t things be just as they are? I never thought to psychoanalyze Seymour Glass or sought to break down “Desolation Row.” I just wanted to get lost, become one with somewhere else, slip a wreath on a steeple top solely because I wished it.

(Patti Smith [source])

…and:

Let the Light Stand

Let the light stand for nothing
but illumination. Let
the naked man and woman
out for air. Let the curtain hide
only another side of the
curtain. Let the food consumed
be consummated. Let the
consommé be a dish. Let the
dish into the bedroom
because she is there for the
cat. Let the cat be cool as Miles.
Let it all happen again
if you can. Let it happen again
if you can. Let the first word
spoken during intercourse be the
only definition you require. Let
need be need. Let love be need
also, if need be. And let
it all happen again because it can.

(Corey Mesler [source])

…and:

“The rose,” he announced. “Loveliest and most formidable of flowers. Arms of York and Lancaster. In medieval times, a symbol of Jesus. Always, it has meant, beauty, love, peace …”

He presented the bud to Martha Macnamara. It lay resting on his long fingers until she scooped it up. She sniffed it and held it up to the light.

“Symbol? What’s a symbol? This is a rose.” She smiled and walked on.

(R.A. MacAvoy [source])