It is easy, even comfortable, to think of the past as a linear narrative; but that is not actually how brains record and archive our experiences.

Marilyn McCabe notes: “So much of the past is only what we think we know based on what we remember, or think we remember. The past is a fun-house maze of stretchy mirrors and blind corners.”

~

The brain and consciousness intertwine through so much complex, possibly fractal, and certainly inter-relational connections that chaos looms as an option all the time; human experience is an edge phenomenon. I have long considered the meadow and forest, the clearing or glade, the hedgerow, the riverbank, ditch, or roadside berm as metaphor for what keeps us curious–interested in life and its inter-relationships, its connectedness and its chaos.

~

By complete coincidence, a biologist/blogger posts a poem by Robert Duncan; an excerpt here:

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
– Robert Duncan

~

Yes. Often I am, myself, permitted to return to a meadow. Pretty much daily, when I’m home. And what I learn there! What the edges and the chaos (and the patterns, and the simplicity) reveal to me!

~

As an aside: Dave Bonta writes poetry blog roundups here: https://www.vianegativa.us/2018/04/poet-bloggers-revival-digest-week-14/ Each of the links he posts is worthy of a read.

Dave has even posted his wedding to Rachel Rawlins–video, context, porcupine, open-sourced wedding vows, poems, & all: https://www.vianegativa.us/2018/04/mountain-wedding/

When it’s done well, lived well, marriage can be one of the bounds that hold against chaos, “a place of first permission”–even for anarchists.

Namaste! And keep reading poetry.