Archive for the ‘Vessels’ Tag

Cosmic Vessels   3 comments

Vessel Collage blogCosmic Vessels — Photo Artistry by kenne

You are my vessel
We share the words of life,
An I and a You.

On the risks and thralls
Of life we sing blissful songs,
Overjoyed with love.

We live in the word
Forming a relationship,
Trusting the response.

The inscription reads:
“Mere air, these words,
but delicious to hear.”

— kenne

Posted June 10, 2014 by kenneturner in Art, Life, Philosophy, Photography, Poetry

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Literature, The Gift That Keeps On Giving   4 comments

Vessel II Blue Background blogVessels — Image by kenne

The things that happen to us in life do so because we act.
The more we act, the more opportunities we have upon which to act,
the more we connect creating a vessel filled with learning moments.
If we don’t act on the moments,
each will become an opportunity lost.
Even so,
it’s essential to not think about what may have been left behind.

My vessel is an alchemy of acts
from which new opportunities are poured – acts attract acts.
Paulo Coelho wrote in his bestseller, The Alchemist, 

“There is only one way to learn,” the alchemist answered.
“It’s through action. Everything you need to know
you have learned through your journey.”

It was fifteen years ago that I first read Coelho’s enchanting fable.
It was in preparation for leading a group of four young professionals
to the state of São Paulo in Brazil that I learned of Paulo Coelho and his 1988 novel.
The book fits well into my philosophy
and set the tone for the trip and remains instrumental in my life.

I’m pleased to be reading this inspiring book fifteen years out.
The Alchemist is the gift that keeps on giving.
Some years ago after reading my poem Solstice Night,”
my brother Tom wrote to me that my poem
 reminded him
of the first lines from Conrad Aiken’s long poem, “The House of Dust.”

The sun goes down in a cold, pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

In turn, his reminding me of Conrad Aiken, and my return to The Alchemist,
that reminded me of the following from Aiken’s poem, “A Letter from Li Po.”

what’s true in these, or false? which is the ‘I’
of ‘I’s’? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.

Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self-becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play,
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow’s foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.

So many gifts that keep on giving.

— kenne