Don't bend before sleep
be the merry slayer of mysteries
for
the same scene passing and re-crossing
know how to say
that the event is a set of phrases
and that in the old quarrel between the real and the dream
the door is in the midst of the effusions
Vague feeling
partly emerged
of a cloud of lies
that the wind pushes towards the mountain
for haunting sentences
convert the spoken word
in grayness of convenience .
be the porcupine
shrewd admonitions
and if the step hurries you
like the snail on its shiny path
return to your barns
the useless package of substitutes
gird the cloth with light
go to the party
and discover your heart.
142
All posts by Gael GERARD
I advance
I advance
of marble
in the first line
in this possibility to join us
in our nuptials
of real truth .
I walk
fingerprint memory
from my throat
sort l'ineffable
at the young men's crematorium
refusing exhaustion .
And since life is "to see"
I dissolve
on the shore of grace
in fraternal drowsiness
cutting into thin colored strips
the much sought-after face
the face of childhood
the face of every man in search of himself .
And if everything was a matter of silence
much more than music .
141
It's closed but be careful
It's closed but be careful
there is the insubordination of full light
there is the straightness of a supple bow vigilance
there is the threshold of the sludge of great washings
there is the ambition to walk in the footsteps of your name
there is the intimate circumcision of the range of exchanges extended to the confines of the universe
there lies the responsibility of an impeccable conscience
there is the seam assembling with a scarlet thread the fabrics of flesh and of the word
there is the passage that the step of the sheep tramples
angry conversation on the customary path
there is the leaf of a tree let loose in the wind from a distant land
there is the night of pains and temptations hemmed in by the rising dawn .
So goes the nave fulfilling its office
mistress of exile and vanity
welling up of tears at the bedside of finitude
transmitter
apart from sex fortune and power
the message that neither wears out the heart nor dries up the blood
the message of the warriors much more than that of the spouses
the fiery message out of fatigue and regret
the message unveiled by seeing and hearing it
the message of the joy of final vows
the message of grace and smile
the message of the dew that fell on Saint John's morning
the message of the fruits that we offer
The message that never closes
gratitude of the day .
The man holds the keys to his fragile balance .
Man is the creator of both his hell and his paradise .
143
little daddy
You're not done to leave .
Sometimes when black clouds are gathering and that the rout plants its black flag, your brain scrambles, tu cries. A cry beyond pain and call. A cry to abyssal causes. A cry of a human being in the grip of an encounter unlikely. A cry that disturbs our usual understanding. An outrageous cry who wants to show us something. But what ? What did you see ? As for your emotions, I don't have the key to decode them .
You wander in these lands between dog and wolf, where the greyness of a frost-saturated winter grabs images from yesteryear, where the vapors of the backwater of the origins alter consciousness, was, where hallucinations and visions meet .
You are between life and death but life is the strongest, even in the last trip, and it's which allows us to feel the fragility of this life, his unique face and that strong from this ultimate experience we are of flesh, of mind and soul great mystery transcribers, we the innocent, we the followers of Wonder .
You scream and I hear you through the corridors of this retirement home that you didn't never could do yours, so much was your difficulty in communicating and adapting big .
They are no longer “Madame !” that you utter but long moans that rise from the depth of your being to address someone undefined, that you can't appoint. save you from danger ? Relieve you ? Help you get through this ordeal, this upheaval of being which sinks into the labyrinth made of traces memories and impasses ? You don't know what to ask, your emaciated hand squeezes my hand. You don't even ask me to come home anymore, at home .
your functions vitals have been reduced to eating and sleeping, and when I walk away your prolonged complaint grinds my chest like a vice and wrings my heart .
When I leave you after kissing you, I feel like this will be the last time ; and then I'm not going back because I don't know what to do to help you, to reassure you, to calm you down. Cowardly I abandon you, and then I makes you feel guilty !
Dès que je quitte l’étage où tu résides et que l’ascenseur atteint le Rez-de-chaussée, je n’entends plus tes cris mais néanmoins ils continuent de résonner au plus profond de mon être. I am abandoned. I'm left out, me the evil born … maybe like you. J’essaye de me faire à l’idée que je n’ai plus de papa, I'm sad, I am upset, a big ball rises from my belly. I calm down, I manage the situation while undergoing a visceral tearing. Your cries follow me when I meditate, when I walk in the rain, dans le vent, under the sun and I hear your voice calling me, gently, très doucement telle une caresse, your caress, que tu me prodiguais quand dans mon petit lit d’enfant j’avais tant de mal à m’endormir .
You don't ask definitely more help, you seem to be no longer asking for news from your children. You are alone and the fog that envelops you suggests the flight of crows on a chilly summer morning in the tall trees that lined the canal in Briennon .
Tu es là à attendre qu’une porte ultime s’ouvre dans le mur de cette chambre que tu n’as jamais investie. You are the gateway to an opportunity not to be missed. Tu attends un dernier train qui siffle dans le lointain mais qui tarde à apparaître. You have nothing more to give. Ce qui t’appartenait ne t’appartient plus, what was your home, you have been dispossessed. Ton appartement a été occupé, la vaisselle du dimanche et des jours de fête a été éparpillée, even your signature was copied. of hope, point. De sourires sur ton visage, point. La trompette dont tu jouais à été offerte à l’enfant d’une soignante. Your last piece of luggage is packed, et puis d’ailleurs ça fait bon temps que tu n’as plus de bagages. You gave, … we have taken .
Occasionally, in moments of lucidity, you could have asked for it to go a little faster, that the end of the tunnel opens to the large terminal light, so they say. But the do you know what's next ? I so wanted us to talk about this. I would have liked so much that you take this initiative… And it is now that I hear, that I measure all that a father is able to give to his children when he is aware of being part of the great chain of generations and that his own life, unique and sacred, is at the service of others .
Maybe this will be tonight. Maybe in a few days. become cold. Let the bones break like glass. That the blood no longer circulates. That sudden stillness be a relief after suffering. Let the tick tock of the pacemaker make a hellish noise in this inert body .
The black vehicle still hasn't arrived. But what are they doing all these so-called alive to drink pastis, to play belotte, to wallow in front of the TV, as it freezes on the edge of the pack ice ! ” I wait, me, the hearse ! “
I remember the tour of France that we went to see with Charlot, in the years fifty. It was a step against the clock. The last runner to pass was Anquetil who had the yellow jersey, and then behind had followed the broom wagon. The party is over, we had returned by the train from Versailles to get off at Pont Mirabeau station and return home via Avenue Emile Zola. I held at arm's length a paper bag containing some small advertising objects that I had managed to catch on the way of the publicity caravan. It was sunny, a July sun was playing with the foliage of the avenue. I liked this transition from shadow to light and I I jumped on the perforated cast iron plates that surrounded the trees. I was happy to have spent some time with you, papa, my little daddy… And this broom wagon that is waiting !
Four years ago and half, when mom left us, I stayed with you for a week rue de la Jarry. It was there last time i was really close to you. You never asked me questions other than strictly material. You never cried. Never you did not spontaneously evoke any memory. If sadness there was you wouldn't tell me didn't show it. I was doing it “delicate” with you so as not to make you glimpse my deep distress and I did not push you so that both of us wept over the departure of our wife and mother. I was afraid that you you collapse. I was already measuring in the silence that you showed – it is always me who started the conversation – that your mental state was disturbed. You seemed elsewhere from all this. Your lack of emotion made me cold in the back. I couldn't find the words that would have made you say, contact you in your sensitivity. I knew you were already a bit gone .
The 23 June, date mom's birthday, i will pray for you, papa. That you are of this world or elsewhere it doesn't matter, you're already so much gone. Your departure, you anticipated it a long time ago. You sold the house in Saint-Flour as if to close an episode of your life, as if to burn his familiar objects because after you there would be nothing, nothing but strangers who will search in your business, nothing but invaders who will destroy everything. You have not not insisted that we keep this family anchorage. You gave us the money from the sale without returning you, without saying speech. Emotions, point ; as if something about you had died for a very long time. You were already on the way out. In the weeks that followed you had a serious health problem from which you luckily escaped. And since you've been waiting for the sequel. it was not your time. The line of demarcation past, you acted like you shouldn't turn around. matter of life or of death ? Flight forward ?
As soon as the terrible senility overwhelms you, that you no longer have your head, than the trinity depression, Alzheimer's and dementia forces us to the test that we have to cross, you and we three your children who are thus summoned in as beings of conscience and compassion, of vulnerability, of transparency and in cold blood, of reflection and understanding to what is ; we owe ourselves to be witnesses of the great work of life and death to sustain us in welcoming and helping each other in order to lend a hand to those of our loved ones in need. We should have nothing to hide. We should stay united. We should talk to each other. What is left unsaid only engenders a withdrawal into self, rejection and ignorance of the other and much misfortune to our children and little children by the shadow they will cast on our collective memory .
When I hear the knell of finitude at the steeple of existence, I listen, I see, I am sad, I'm crying, I am alone and my loneliness I consume it with my loved ones, I share it with my loved ones who love me. I chew it, I her distills, I her “and eat”, this absolute option of finitude, for that it nourishes me and helps me to grow .
Yes, I will pray for you, to accompany you, to support you, you dad, body and soul associates, to walk with you this path that goes from your home to the cemetery where stay mom .
Papa, I you promise to remember your life story, and to honor this sketch existential that you transmitted to me in order to make fruitful the life that you have given me data, so that this desire to do more than what has been given to us flourishes given. And this, so that it is “the good work” useful for those who will follow us .
there is a time unreasonable where we put the dead at the table for a last meal, out of hunger and material thirst but full of symbolic and spiritual hunger and thirst, in order to to collect the crumbs of life that will allow us to grow on our path of knowledge and wisdom, to give meaning to one's life and to fade away in osmosis of love before what is .
Papa, dans ta démence, emanates an aura where emerges, pure and clear, a deep value. Broken ego gives way to human essence. Et pour celà tu es précieux .
The 23 June, I will think of mom, I will think of you dad, I will think of you two, my brother and My sister, and will promise to live these last years that are mine allotted, as simply as possible, in listening, modesty, respect for each person's personality, support and advice, to all who will be difficulty .
We should not hurt us and have the courage to exchange, to get in touch with our relatives, with others, even if it seems difficult because not very usual in our family culture. Silence if it can be self-regenerating self in meditation and contemplation, is harmful as, transforming in silence, he extinguishes the lamp of hope .
And since around here everything ends with a song or a kind word, let's say that you shouldn't weigh on your neighbor, nor on others, nor on this earth full of the mystery of creation so that we, the “alive on the move”, remain in communion with the Other who will recognize that we are all brothers if we love one another .
140
according to the elms
This tile made of red hexagons .
This avenue of rustling trees of a rainy spring .
The staircase with the wrought iron railing .
This day under the door of the room which lets rise the bursts of voice coming from the dining room .
These windows with their old-fashioned fittings .
This poorly fixed wooden shutter that beats against the wall when a gust of wind rises .
Like the cupboard with its mirror glass from a time stored .
Be there
in the shadow of things in place
sitting in the smashed chair
webs of badly negotiated ideas enturbaning my thoughts
memories chanted by a small inner voice
I took my clicks and my slaps
picture box and moleskin notebook
to go on a pilgrimage to the scents of yesteryear .
Cold and rain changed the dark air in the middle of the afternoon
discrete passage to this state of listening allowing to be disposed
stone on which to build the city of brothers
Heavenly Jerusalem without her angels made visible
Jerusalem just existing to welcome the soul walker
in search of a probable detour towards the premonitory state of repentance
looking for breath and light to ride on
researcher returned to his task
the hoop of a then obsolete croquet game
before the mallet of emptiness
the promoter of desired encounters
those that availability without waiting allows to hatch
even during off-peak hours
as the crumpled song of rain and mixed colors rises from between the ash trees and the elms
in the bright and fragrant garden
phrasing of tears in spring
at the confluence of sound loads
of raging water scraping invisible pebbles
pots of giants .
139
burzet
Some water
plenty of water
assigned to the incessant growl of an animal whisper
rustling of a voice against the basalt wall
droplets of pearls in tune with a guttural sound
clapping hairy hands against the bloody rock.
Arise the monotonous allegiance
the continuous beam
the stratified complaint of the ecobuages of the city .
The alphabet expresses itself in its dissonances
these brothers whose craftsmanship
was carried away by the burle
towards the valley of permissiveness .
Only the sound of a bell
over the stream of water
maneuver on call
the men of the magnanerie
while it's still dark
on this winter morning to cross this wooden bridge
the clogs striking with their fittings the threshold of the workshop .
Happy event
that the arrival of bales of silk
bristling with a thousand iridescent threads
off the coarse burlap
stopped as hesitant
to enter the ghoul
where the mash of scrap metal associated with the screeching of scratches
gurgle smoothing fine textiles .
Instant marauding
of the boy behind the building
quickly picking up the full bag
placed on the sticky bench in the locker room
time for a leap in the shadows
out of the ravine of expectations
to get drunk free
the beating heart
on the stony path
outside the promiscuity of the bottom
and high hearts
bring to the cottage without fire
the black streaks
of a printed update
around her face
chestnuts and onions
oings .
out of age message
spirit-lifting floricultural
weary genuflexions
on the way to the three crosses
between Golgotha and the finitude of Mary .
Only women saints admitted
to hold by the arm
passing males
for a smile
riots
disappear in the thicket
looking for sea buckthorn
that they will ooze
on the stone of fevers
story of getting started
without countdown
on the shell path .
Only women saints admitted
slowly progressing
towards love and compassion
laden with armfuls of golden broom
to the measure of the high barn doors
burrowing under their ample skirts
the skulls of the dead
the loins girded with a cloth
si rouge
than the rising sun
by its iridescent disc
evokes the holy chrism of the anointing of Holy Wednesday
that of the day makers
as long as betting is allowed
on saffron suin
of master Cornille's gray mare
shaken with pleasure
at the sight of this flour so white
than the powerful movement of the millstone
stone against stone
makes you fly away
according to the trills of the blackbird
at dawn
of a May morning .
138
my friend
To have you met fills me with joy, toi, different from me and yet so close .
You accompany me and calm me when the weather is stormy, black thoughts rise from my bitter chasms and that my repartee are excessive .
Your firm anger that one might think feigned are to me the vibrant and saving brainstorm when touched by a slumber of attention and soul I stammer vague responses to the risk of novelty .
I love you, without the shadow of a doubt, that even our joint arrival on another planet does not could exempt us from expressing our mad desire in the mirror of seeking and to understand all about what life is .
I admire you beyond any restrictive consideration, with a willing and broad admiration, that even the late flight of a partridge in front of our steps could not distract us .
And yet God knows that I like the red partridges which, with their heavy and flat flight, could wake up with a saving start the sleeper of the valley that I have so often tend to be .
In front of our energy of standing men charged with the possibilities of future realization, the earth, our field of activity, is so vast, powerful and fragile at the same time, sensible, loving and receptive, that we even hear the whisper from the beginning of beginnings .
Your word turned towards the eternal urgency to state the essence of things allows me to continue my way, freed from all shackles, towards the clear sowing of my deepest gardens .
You welcome me with so much generosity, promptness and accuracy that I do not even have the time to thank you. As soon as I see you, I'm on the prowl to consume you with my head and my heart, and as soon as I consume myself, as soon as you give me penetrate me, then you disappear, so i fund .
you are mother, big sister, angel and felibrige of my heart for whom the emotion that I feel at your regard is immediately transformed into “senses” clear and deep in the service of my commitment of fidelity to your teaching. You, my luminous arrow .
And then I have you free chosen as my friend when you don't choose your family .
And I would be always the bow to bend your reiterated thoughts with force as it is imperative for you that we take them into account. The current state of the world depends .
Your message gets through. Your word is queen. The fluidity of your vision marries me. The tracks that you leave behind, I collect them at the height of my perceptions and my mental capacities to integrate them for the time of a communion .
Your face is inscribed in the depths of my soul and as soon as a breath comes to pass, immediately I get up to take up this mysterious song that during one of our first meetings I whispered and who has always accompanied me when I cross your path .
Your gaze signs the authorities of these places of peace and summons to the vigilance of a attentive flame of relevance .
If it happens to lose us some time and find you, no preamble is required in the first look you give me. You are the, I'm here, corps, soul and spirit ready for the task before us, this great work woven with warmth human, intentions of kindness and demands for understanding about our posture to hold in our troubled times .
And if you go travel, know that here or elsewhere there will be room for your disciples, for my brothers and sisters in you, to perpetuate the fire from between the waters and the skull, and tell us about what still needs to be done .
And since life is a continuous quest and pilgrimage, you are the pilgrim's bumblebee, the precious stick which sustains me and with which I calligraph in the dust of the path the sacred letters of our universal writing .
I love you, my friend .
137
Just a step towards wisdom
Wisdom. Word “wisdom” comes from latin “know”, where also comes from word “flavor”. Wisdom is the art of appreciating flavor. She shows a very concrete attitude, very real, and quite far from elaborate conceptual organization. It's about finding an art of living that let you taste the flavor of life .
How does this concept of wisdom relate to that, plus occidental, fromphilosophy ; because philosophy means “love of wisdom”. In ancient times philosophers were men who were expected to live by their philosophy that they taught. To philosophize involved a a way of life which harmonizes thought and life .
And then over the last few centuries, in West, philosophy has become the art of building systems of thought, to support them, to defend them and, in “legal problems”, discussions, to prove their supremacy over others. In classical China, one of homes of worldly wisdom, it was designed differently ; so we said that “the wise man is clueless, sans position, without necessity” .
I think a sage is a human being without particular quality, without a predetermined idea, without standing at defend, because he wants to remain open to reality, to be fresh and ready for what happens. It is through this posture that the sage can best reflect the one who confides in him. Wisdom is the opposite of wisdom. twitching. She is close to serenity .
The wise “believes” not ; he has the “he was” .
The “belief” comes from latin “to believe” and in this family of words we find in particular in French “credulity”, that is to say a way of giving one's adhesion to assertions that one is unable to rationally substantiate. Believe it is to adhere to certain affirmations .
The “he was” comes from latin “fides” and in the family of words derived from this root there are Latin “trust”, who gave “trust ” in French. A man of faith is not primarily a man who believes this or that, but a man inhabited from within by confidence. Have faith, is to trust in whatever ultimate reality. We can be inhabited by confidence and faith without really knowing what is the bottom of the bottom of the real .
Do not consider the “belief” as credulity, but as being of another order level of consciousness than the “he was .”
And on this way, we are always trying to to do the first step. When we take a step, we expose ourselves to a imbalance. We accept for a moment to lose the balance of stillness until a new equilibrium point is found, setting foot on the ground. When there's nothing more reassuring than standing still, advance one foot in front of the other, is to take the risk of tripping. It is accepting the known to go to the unknown, And this, without knowing in advance if this reserve joy and trial. To him who gets up and walks, will open before him a vast space, because depending on the course he sets – whether it is truth, reality or wisdom – the “true walker” can only go from beginning to beginning with beginnings that have no end.
The “true walker” is a man of this world. He cannot deviate from the commitment which at the turn of his life course will summon him to enter into a story, to subscribe to what has been done or not yet done before him and that he senses that it must be done. He will need to take part. He will have to incarnate to help transform the world.
The “true walker” also seems to out of the world. He is in himself, for himself, the object of its realization through an internal route. He is in direct contact with what is beyond him and inexorably advances towards the unnameable and the nameless. He gives and receives as of passing time and the encounters it makes without particularly lending pay attention to the consequences of their actions. It is“presence” to what is. He is in trust .
The “true walker” in search of his achievement must overcome the contradiction between“l’engagement” and“interiority” in order to be at gates of the temple where “wisdom” and “awareness” are at the both differentiated and reunited. At this point in his journey, by a reversal perspective driven by faith, it can exceed the level of reality beyond from which our logic no longer works. In effect, what in our world usual seems inappropriate, can appear on the contrary in consonance, when we change register, like a new level of reality .
There is no opposition between the search for interiority and engagement in the life of the world. One is almost condition for the other to be truly effective. The one who would stay almost always locked in on itself in a sort of bottomless quest end up drying out on the vine because it will lack food from the relationship with all the beings around him. And whoever would engage in transformation of the world without taking the time to return to its interiority deep, this one after a while will be able to scatter, crumble, to disperse, se chosifier .
136
D’une relation l’autre
Il est admis que c’est seulement par l’expérience personnelle que nous pouvons accéder à un peu plus de connaissance .
Put in a jar all the substitute teachings only lead to subjecting to the test of the brine the purity of the quest in its foreplay ; things are getting hot, it burns same, but this researcher of dark waters will never reach maturity .
Tu n’attesteras pas de ton appartenance à quoi que ce soit, une joie illusoire pouvant se glisser entre ta parole et l’objet de ta recherche .
really be you. Crossing the ford, there will be a test. Alors ne te raconte pas d’histoire. Et même, do not say anything. Keep silent. See, and you will be seen .
Si viens à passer le voyageur aux sept chameaux chargés de tapis, of silks, de fourrures de parfums et de pierres précieuses, et que celui-ci veuille acheter tes vieilles chaussures toutes racornies, c’est que ces chaussures n’ont pas toujours été les tiennes et qu’un autre les portera .
You are then left the path, and be his obliged .
Ne sois plus la victime de ta croyance à être sur le “bon” way. Les grandes choses que nous puissions voir le seront par l’entremise des proches personnes qui t’entourent. Your wife, your man, your children, your friends, your neighbors, te convoqueront à cesser d’être la victime de l’autre pour t’engager sur la voie de n’attendre rien .
135
The simplicity
Might as well talk about me .
So much for stones, flowers and then trees .
I spoke to them .
I am part of this brotherhood of gardeners from creation .
I know that you have to progress with your bare hands, work in the moment, in obedience to what is, to listen, and no don't wear high-performance tools .
And then I discovered that nature speaks, and listening to it, I discovered the inner silence of communion, of this union of oneself with the other, that the other is a mineral, a plant, a being animal or human, or a natural or cosmic entity greater than oneself .
Certainly nature does not speak French or Japanese, nor a symbolic language, but it is expressed by “resonance”. We put ourselves in a waiting position without waiting, of pray, of contemplation and the cherry tree tells you a story, and the ash, another story, and beech yet another story .
with Christians, at Easter, we touch the mystery of death : if there is no death, there is no resurrection. If I bring my granddaughter see the rotting almond, I don't tell him : “Look at the rotting almond”, more : “Looked the almond tree being born”. For the almond, it is certainly a terrible time, but this almond gives life. It's letting go, l'abandon, trust .
Trees give us growth .
One day while walking, I passed an apple tree, with at its base a small apple tree no higher than three apples in the process of to push . I looked up and saw a rotten apple hanging from the apple tree. I understood then that there were two deaths. This apple loved its mama so much that she did not want to cut the umbilical cord and remained clinging to the branch where it rotted without giving life. another apple, elle, fell. She took the risk of looking elsewhere and cutting the umbilical cord is fell to the ground ; She is dead, but from this death was born an apple tree .
Nature teaches us that there are jumps, deaths, pruning, breaks in rhythm, a necessary obedience to be done with confidence in order to find the first act, the creative act .
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