Can’t take my eyes off of you
I follow you, like you are a woodsy deer, and I am your tail.
There is no movement I do not feel and see, for I and my eyes are fixed on you,
the way these shiny black stones are fixed in the path’s snow.
With each leap over a log, each delicate side-step around a foot-sized hole I can’t see, with each hand stroke of a low branch held until I am clear,
I am one with your movement - protected, because you are ahead of me.
The scratches that scar your face, don’t scar mine.
As Leonard Cohen’s hunchback says, you say:
Your pain is the shadow of my wound.
Who is becoming my tail?
And what follower is bearing the shadow of my wound?
We are all. We are one.
-
I follow you, like you are a woodsy deer, and I am your tail.
There is no movement I do not feel and see, for I and my eyes are fixed on you,
the way these shiny black stones are fixed in the path’s snow.
With each leap over a log, each delicate side-step around a foot-sized hole I can’t see, with each hand stroke of a low branch held until I am clear,
I am one with your movement - protected, because you are ahead of me.
The scratches that scar your face, don’t scar mine.
As Leonard Cohen’s hunchback says, you say:
Your pain is the shadow of my wound.
Who is becoming my tail?
And what follower is bearing the shadow of my wound?
We are all. We are one.
-
37 comments:
footprints are awesome...and snow .Sigh!!
Absolutely beautiful post. Thank you for sharing.
hen
xx
Best New Year prayer to date.
Footprints are just my all time favorite. These are incredible. I just pulled some out from last year. Can't wait to share. : )
I love your footprint photo...and the poem is beautiful...
Very thought provoking, Ruth...
...such a coincidence as I read your lines, and came to Leonard Cohen's quote.. I was listening to him ...
am I your Shadow?
LOVE the footprints!!!
It's obvious that you love your husband very much. Beautiful poem.
Thank you, All.
Gwen, that's cool you were listening. Yes, you are mine, and I'm yours.
Yes, I do, Susan. And how. He really does go ahead of me and protect me.
And what's so wonderful is that what I wrote is yes personal, individual, but I believe it is also universal. We need to understand our connectedness more than ever.
Like yours and mine, Susan. :) I should start a list of all the things you and I share in common.
Two perfect illustrations to a wonderful poem!
You are obviously not only talented, also lucky!
Just lovely Ruth. Thank you.
To do list
Read again a thousand times
Beautiful poem, Ruth, full of tenderness. The pictures are stunning, mind-bending!
(I love Cohen; can't believe I only just discovered him recently)
I know, I think I've already lost track of all the ways. It's uncanny or kismet or something un-nameable. But I embrace it, whatever it is.
Very beautifully written and photographed!! N..i..c..e...
Peter, I feel that I am very fortunate. I don't take it for granted.
Thank you, my friends. Cathy, we need to remember it remember it remember it. Everything we do is because of someone else and affects someone else.
Laura, I only just discovered Cohen too, after seeing him everywhere as so many's favorite. But then he's had a resurge in his career, which is good for the likes of us.
Ah Ruth, i don't agree with the tail part. It is very Islamic and Very very Biblical. Husband and wife walk shoulder to shoulder, soul mates best friends and are the two wheels of a cart. They need each other. Equal partners equal rights and equal wages too. It is the duty of both to protect each other. You are proud to have a husband like Don and Don is proud to have a wife like you. And both of you generate such love and affection which is evident from the non stop stream of guests who visit you all through the year. Yours is a picture perfect family Ruth, i think i told you that before.
Its a beautiful prayer and i am deeply touched. i wish your prayer reaches all the families of the world.
It's funny, rauf, because all the time I was writing this, and reading it again since, I never once thought of what you wrote. Being the tail never occurred to me in the context of traditional views of women. You are so right, of course, and now I wonder how I didn't notice it.
The only thing I can guess is that it is a non-issue for Don and me. For as long as we've been together, we have been equals, and yes I am very proud of him. I don't know another man like him.
In the universal sense, we are all tails and heads. We each represent different parts of the body of humanity, which is also biblical, except that I don't think men are the head. And we are different parts with different people, I think. We need those who teach and lead us, and we also lead and teach some.
What's funny, Ruth, is that I never once thought you were talking about Don, though others assumed it. It did come through to me as a "universal" poem. Because I didn't think of Don, the head/tail or inequality interpretation never entered my mind. So, I take it at its face value and see it as a beautiful paean of praise.
I'm glad, Boots. I do want it to be a prayer for all of us.
That is beautiful! Oh my, there's that word again :O)
I've just realized why I always use that word on your blog! It's because I believe you have true beauty inside you, and it emanates through everything you do. Of course you're beautiful on the outside too ;O)
Ruth, when I read it I just felt the harmony of our existence...head/tail, yin/yang. I guess each person takes what their interpretation of any poem they read.
And the pics were perfect with the poem....:)
Awesome pictures Ruth. Its a very challenging prayer you offer. Truly beautiful.
Lovely.
And Leonard Cohen is a wizard.
Babs, don't know what to say to that except thank you, and there's lots of other stuff in me too. xoxo
Sue, I think we have to figure out how to submit to each other.
Yes, Pamela. I watched him sing "Hallelujah" again last night with a choir of young people. I was awestruck.
Hi Ruthy
Also a happy new year and much blogging, a wonderfull prayer.
i am praying right now for my mom's heartsurgery THIS hour 13.00pm. I am so scared.
Greetings JoAnn/Holland
Oh dear, JoAnn. Sending all my best wishes for her successful recovery.
Beautiful Ruth and perfect images, You get a pair of 3D glasses for knowing it all Ruth, lol. Just email me your address.
ahh, nice words to help me see where to go.
sometimes you go first, sometimes i go first, sometimes we don't go anywhere
(from "Best in Show": and sometimes we can sit and not talk about anything for hours.) :)
Bob, ha! Lucky me!! Sometimes it pays to be cheeky. :D
Don, a lot we don't go anywhere. And that's usually the best part.
I am your movement - protected because you are ahead of me.
The scratches that scar your face, don't scar mine...
That is sooo beautiful, Ruth!
I definitely feel Damien Rice in it.
Thank you for coming here, Tiffany. I'm glad you like it.
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