Norman Allan
 
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Norman Allan : the story for Ezra
book three: towards joy
chapter two: from spiralling ecstatically
                                      e.e.cummings:
a snit with Ee: an ode to me
Chapter 1:God in the Tree                    
Chapter 2 from spiralling ecstatically this                             
Chapter 3:                          
Chapter:4:                        
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7:
Chapter 8:
Chapter 9:
Chapter: 10:

 
     
 

Chapter: from spiralling ecstatically... e.e.cummings:
               a snit with Ea: an ode to me

  
 


from aspirating ecstatically this

proud nowhere of earth's most prodigious night
blossoms a newborn babe:around him,eyes
-gifted with every keener appetite
than mere unmiracle can quite appease-
humbly in their imagined bodies kneel
(over time space doom dream while floats the whole

perhapsless mystery of paradise)

mind without soul may blast some universe
to might have been,and stop ten thousand stars
but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall
even prevail a million questionings
against the silence of his mother's smile

- whose only secret all creation sings.

  
 




 
  e.e. cummings wrote that. isn't that       the cat's whiskers ?   Sue Reynolds reintroduced me to cummings a few years back. She brought an e.e. cumming's piece as a prompt to one of her Inkslinger workshops... [was it "Buffalo Bill"?]  
     
 
 
     
  recently I had tried to read some Rilke, in translation (:watched a couple of young women reading Rilke, thought I should try: couldn't hack it(: I thought, when Sue brought us cummings, I should try reading...!     and  I'm delighted. (this is virtually the only poetry I'm happy a reading from the page in decades {my own work excluded}) He is so keen such a keen mind  delightful    
 

well, I got into comparing myself... the selected anthology I read, out of 150 or so poems that I read, I noted (on the back inside cover) thirteen to revisit... and thought, I have as many fine poems I's just that he is innovative... helped create the milieux in which we now live, think, write... and then I read "from spiralling ecstatically this..."

it awed me

  
 


and that's a context for... or a segue into that Sue's sweetheart, J. Doer, dissed me!

Doer, dissed me... like I have never been dissed... (even as a kid!)    Doer blew me off (like a piece of shit)...



so segue, again,... in the metta practice that Mel gave me... Metta is the Buddhist "loving kindness practice." You say this ritual of well being, first for yourself. Then for a loved and esteemed person, who you envisage siting to your left. The for an anybody, someone you feel neutral towards, across from you. The for an "enemy" or a "difficult person", envisaged to of your right hand side. (I've written of this in the next chapter, chapter three, "Dr. Allan's Medicine Show", in a page on healing rituals.)

Doer is mean, mean like Mordecai. Mordecai had talent and intense intelligence. Doer might have a bit of the later. So now I have Doer for my right side, an "enemy"for the benediction. May Doer be well...

"may Doer be filled with happiness and well being
 may Doer be free from malice envy disdain, anxiety worry and all affections of the heart and mind
 may Doer rejoice in the happiness and well being of all
 may Doer be at piece, at ease"

 
 

I asked Sue of something she said her teacher said... and her email reply...

"I think what I quoted," she said, "was: 'Our work is to learn to hold ourselves in warm regard, in spite of our very human failings.'

Cheers!"

spiralling: the cosmos...

 

So, from spiralling ecsatically, to Doer dissing me, let's mover to a snit with Ezra.     While going into the city to draw, on Ee's suggestion, is just one chapter back... here in book three, in fact, that was last summer, 2015. It is now the summer of 2016, and Ezra back in Toronto for a couple of months.

  
 


We were sitting on the "deck" in back, night time, a few weeks back, early June, for the lilac was in bloom. "Paint me this," said Ezra.
     "Ah, the night time lilac. Yes."

  



 

 
     
 
     
   
       
       
       
   


 
       
       
 
 
 
Chapter
 
 
 
  oh, and do visit normanallan.com : the website