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Robin Flicker

@robin.flicker

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by @robin.flicker

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a day ago

Listening to John Lennon on what would be his 86th birthday. With gratitude for all he gave, and we won’t be afraid. by @robin.flicker

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a day ago

What I can’t understand is when anyone says, “that’s just a house sparrow,” as if their plenitude makes them less precious. Who thinks of them so is not looking at their velvety faces, bright eyes, sweet expressions, the constant movement they’re in, is not considering the energy it must take to be them, is neither hearing their cheerful chatter nor admiring their camaraderie. Here is one, here are three. by @robin.flicker

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2 days ago

Morning glories, late to bloom, open at sunrise closed by late afternoon, twinned round and round relentless vines weedy and with heart shaped leaves late flowers for the bees and I think of Keats, little glowy things that keep growing even when so much else is going, weedy tenacious twinning glowy growing and all that I see in this season makes me smile and weep, admire and grieve. by @robin.flicker

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2 days ago

Starry night by @robin.flicker

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3 days ago

Sunday flowers, for Helen forever and for everyone. by @robin.flicker

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5 days ago

When I was young, I thought that Saint Francis was feeding or playing with the birds. I was upset when I learned that he was preaching to them. In my mind I continued to believe that he was feeding or playing with them.

I was so happy when I found this poem by Seamus Heaney because in the poem, when Saint Francis preaches love to the birds they listen, flutter, throttle up “[i]nto the blue like a flock of words released for fun from his holy lips”. They pirouette, dance on the wing, “for sheer joy” play and sing.

Imagine how beautiful that is.

It’s a brilliant turning upside down of orthodoxy and an extraordinary demonstration of what poetry is, and how much love it can accomplish.

The fresco is by Giotto, and can be found in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy.

SAINT FRANCIS AND THE BIRDS

When Francis preached love to the birds
They listened, fluttered, throttled up
Into the blue like a flock of words

Released for fun from his holy lips.
Then wheeled back, whirred about his head,
Pirouetted on brothers’ capes.

Danced on the wing, for sheer joy played
And sang, like images took flight.
Which was the best poem Francis made,

His argument true, his tone light.

- Seamus Heaney by @robin.flicker

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6 days ago

Here was last night’s waning gibbous moon, pillowed in buttermilk clouds, rainbows, banks of snow. by @robin.flicker

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7 days ago

“We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

Thinking of President Jimmy Carter on what would be his 102nd birthday. With gratitude for his extraordinary service to humanity. by @robin.flicker

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8 days ago

Of Wallace Stevens, Helen Vendler wrote: “Though there are poets undeniably greater than Stevens, and poets whom I love as well, he is the poet whose poems I would have written had I been the poet he was.”

So on his birthday, I not only think of Stevens, who, as Helen said, “understood everything,” but also of Helen, and her uncanny ability to understand him.

Happy birthday, Wallace Stevens. No end of gratitude for your having put the planet on the table. by @robin.flicker

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8 days ago

I am outside the room at Mass General where you lay, breathing effortfully.
I have seen you I say, do all manner of things, smoke and dance, wild birds in your hands, Paris, France.

“Why,” you ask, with what strength you have left, “can’t there be a time for work and a time for rest?” You ask this as if on the other side of things.

Now the agony begins; now the horror has seized me with its fangs.

We wore black velvet dresses to pilgrim barefoot over the end of the world at dawn to bury your bird in a silk scarf with green fronds. The sun rose over the hills. Living birds sang. We stood solemnly at the foot of the tree where we’d first picnicked on bread and cheese. You produced a pot of jam.

I did not love the bird, but l loved the funeral. It was beautiful. You had arranged the scene. I thought with your small hands you could arrange anything.

Now you lie there, I can see that. Now in your velvet dress face down on the grass. Now turning on your back.

What can I do to keep you? How bridge the gap?

“Stop being so afraid and stop buying me ice cream.”
But you’re so thin, watching you sip cream soup then hand it to me and ask, “Does this smell okay?”
It does not. Radiation having burned your nose and throat, you couldn’t have known and there you were, sipping rancid soup and I’d been thinking, good, eat.

Everything straighter without your hair. Even the sea less wavy. For a moment of the hours we read out loud The Waves in Jamaica Plain I would do almost anything. This passage we always recited in unison:

“We will gallop together over desert hills where the swallow dips her wings in dark pools and the pillars stand entire. Into the wave that dashes upon the shore, into the wave that flings its white foam to the uttermost corners of the earth I throw my violets, my offering to Percival.”

I am outside the room at Mass General watching you dance, birds in your hands. by @robin.flicker

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11 days ago

“But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not . . . “

- from “I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing,” by Walt Whitman

In loving memory, Heidi Louise Schulz
March 4, 1962 - September 29, 2007 by @robin.flicker

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11 days ago