An Arden Season

~ Mia Pharaoh

Greta Garbo Poster, Paris, 1932 — Photographer Ilse Bing

 

An Arden Season


Tempest, you are as death
Autumn’s diminished smoke;
Leaves the eve of winter
Fragile and bitter.
I wait for the thaw:
Resurrection in hope;
Let not temptation malign me
In tepid thought of naught.
Temperament of the heart
Fickle, full of folly;
Its pain, resilient
Holding to the last
Burr of love unfounded:
The sweetness of pepper,
The sting of salt.

 

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones      Deprive

Wolf Larsen — “Kitchen Door”

 

106 thoughts on “An Arden Season”

  2. Sometimes you’re meant to fall in love with someone only for the lesson 🙂
    It happens to everyone fall in love but still worth with all the madness that is in the world 🙂
    Much LOVE for you from Rome lovely Mia ❤

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    1. Soul, così perspicace, ‘sei destinato a cadere in amore con qualcuno solo per la lezione’. Assolutamente! Credo che ci piace per l’esperienza di tutti i misteri e ‘follia’ che è nel mondo. Non c’è altro modo di vivere e di amare, è lì? Grazie per il vostro costante sostegno e parole sempre gentile. Amore, Mia ❤

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    1. Thank you Carisa, you’re always so kind and beautiful with your words. I’m delighted you enjoyed this piece. I enjoyed your photos from this morning, they certainly brought back memories. 🙂 Wishing you a great week as well. Please take good care. ~ Mia ❤

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  8. Mia, you rock! Your writing always reaches out and drags me in. ‘Autumn’s diminished smoke’ is divine. Despite the hurt, despite the pain we still must love for no one makes it out alone. Dark and bleak but tinged with hope. From Garbo’s faded beauty to Shakespeare’s declining forest, all things have their season but nothing is made to last. You have a beautiful mind and such a talent for combing many art forms to create a complete atmosphere. A stunning post, dear Mia. May I reblog? I hope you are well and your world is bright. R

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    1. Ryan, thank you for sharing your wonderful thoughts and marvelous words. Your comments are always a pleasure to read. You are spot on with your interpretation, delighted the layers are of some value and that you recognized “Arden” *smiling*. Yes, you may reblog this, that’s very kind of you. I’m well, hoping you’re well too. Please take care, thank you again. ~ Mia

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  9. Reblogged this on days of stone and commented:
    Mia has a habit of grabbing my mind and flying away with it. I frequently find myself lost in contemplation after reading her beautiful posts. She combines stunning poetry with thought-provoking images, quotes and music to create a powerful and often surreal atmosphere that I love. I am under no illusion about the time and effort that she invests into each post – every word earns its place and complements the whole with precision and grace. Out of many fine pieces, this one reverberates with me on a whole other level. Mia’s site – Copper Cranes – is an amazing place and well worth a visit. I hope this rocks your world the way it did mine. Enjoy 🙂

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    1. Thank you Shadeau for your kindness. I’m so pleased to read that you enjoyed this. Ryan is absolutely wonderful and I’m beyond flattered that he reblogged this post. Please take care. ~ Mia

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  11. Mia I haven’t came across a single post from u that is short of being wow…..like this one too. ‘An Arden Season’ seems just flawless right from its title…..beautifully penned.

    ‘resurrection in hope;……..sweetness of pepper
    And the sting of salt’…fabulous

    Horrible…yes it is…… Gaiman is appraisable and I loved the ‘Kitchen door’

    Keep writing my friend ….its a pleasure being at here always 🙂

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    1. Saaransh, you must know that I’m smiling, thank you. Your words are truly generous and most gracious. I’m so pleased to read that you felt that everything came together. Delighted that you loved “Kitchen Door”. It’s always a pleasure for me when you visit, thank you again. Please be well and enjoy! ~ Mia

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  12. In Love? I told my friend, ‘if I EVER say THAT again, SHOOT ME!’ I dunno, sometimes that idea has been an excuse for really insane interactions. Now though, I do not think in retrospect that I have experienced ‘true love’. Love my puppy though, that’s real! I coined phrase awhile back, FUPPY which is a fucked up puppy. Tempest, Shakespeare.

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    1. Ted, I thought you were married to your guitar? Ha-ha, “FUPPY”. 🙂 Glad your getting and giving some real love! 😉 Yup, good eye, you got it, Tempest. I hope you’ve been having a good day, please have a wonderful evening. ~ Mia 🙂

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  14. Mia this was absolutely wonderful. “I wait for the thaw, Resurrection in hope;” So many waiting for this. This is one of those writes that resonates. Your contrasting finale was the perfect ending. Bravo. You are an amazing writer.

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  15. Mia,

    “An Arden Season” is such a raw yet passionate piece. Heartbreaks are inevitable, but “the river” keeps flowing, and overflowing.
    I am listening to the song right now. Such a soft and nostalgic voice. Smiling as I am reading this and listening to the words.
    Whatever the season.. we must keep on, keeping on.

    May your day be breezed with love and smiles.
    ❤ Love you,
    Dajena

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    1. Dajena, thank you for sharing your wonderful words. I’m very happy that you listened to the song, I felt it really echoed the sentiment of heartbreak and the strength to move on, just like the river. Glad it made you smile. Wishing you a wonderful weekend, enjoy! Love, Mia ❤

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      1. 🙂 You are welcome dear Mia.

        The weekend has started with a fresh breeze and I am happily waiting how it will unfold surrounded by my loves.

        Please enjoy yours as well, especially fireworks when they come 🙂

        Love, Dajena ❤

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        1. Dajena, the fireworks started here days ago. We have a nice breeze today, the weather has been wonderful the last few days. Wishing you and your family a fantastic weekend, hoping that you all enjoy the fireworks. Please take good care. Love, Mia ❤

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  16. I mean – I get this whole #express it and get it out and then it won’t bite so hard# thing – I do. Really. But then I think of the way that misery reinforces itself and the way that a scratch becomes a groove becomes a canyon. I want to rattle your bones. But I can’t and I wouldn’t anyway. Shaking begets stubborn begets why don’t you understand? I can feel the frustration running through my veins and I have to stave it off, fight the demons, eat the cheese sandwiches that calm me down, lay off the chocolate that pries me away fingernail by fingernail to be washed away by the raging torrent.
    Old heart, young body, old soul, young understanding.
    And always time, time, time – dying, maligned and heart pained. In the first – the last. In the youth – the age. In the love – the loss. He was never there at the beginning that was never there at the end and yet, and yet the fear of loss feeds the loss further and pushes it downhill faster than it would have gone – if ever.
    Shake and shiver – shrug it off. A night without the sweetness of forgetting gives a morn without regret. Hold on.
    For all that a drop of sweet, cool, pure rain gives – you have it here.
    Kindness – Robert.

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  17. Bravo! A well presented and thought provoking article. I especially enjoyed the music interlude. When I was a university student I travelled across the country via trains (many times on one labelled a “cattle car” during the late 1960’s).

    Hippies and other transients were offered the chance to travel from point A to point B. The only problem was that there was no food service and you had to seat yourself on hard backed benches. There was limited lavatory facilities that needed cleaning at times.

    With time the noise of the train rumbling over each and every track and bump made an indelible impression on your mind.Devestating at the time but it helped me to appreciate the many comforts in life that I had previously taken for granted. I did not have that many because I was a lowly student of modest financial means. 🙂

    I made this journey three times. Once was not enough. 🙂

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    1. Thank you gc for sharing your kind and generous words. From your comment it appears you’re familiar with the poem, “Cold Blue Nights” by Larsen Bowker. Great poem, especially as an intro for the beginning of the song, “Kitchen Door”, quite emotional.

      Brave of you to travel in a “cattle car”, sounds like quite an adventure, most memorable I’m sure. A good foundation for the appreciation of comfort for sure. “Once was not enough”, made me smile! 🙂

      Wishing you a wonderful Sunday, please have a good week ahead. Take care. ~ Mia

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  20. You´re good, you know this stuff, why woud you read me is a ? mark, I do try to learn from all you guys, but when I write in the blog it just comes off out quickly and out of my strange mind. I ll p$ay you 7$ an hour for some lessons, but you have to pay me back 5$ that hour for….. just being me.
    Deal sealed?

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      1. Still not got the singing done. I keep adding bits and pieces to the melodies (all 3 composed so far) trying to get them as perfect as I can. I’ve been ready to go for days, but want everything just right as these are not just songs but also niche products. I’ll keep you posted, George

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  26. I read the poem and liked it very much as I understood it. I have been in love and out of love. (Truthfully I don’t understand them all! In fact I don’t always understand the comments, so I am generally quiet here.) I have been in love and out of love. I can now say I am in love after many years–thought I was done with it! It is joyful torture of the heart to say the least.

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    1. Hi Greg, I’m so thrilled to read your words, thank you. I don’t understand all the intricacies of the heart, I don’t know if anyone can. So true, “It is joyful torture of the heart to say the least.” Right?! I think wiggle room is important, leaving the door open to and for opportunities can offer some amazing things, how wonderful it is to be in love. ~ Mia

      (Honestly, I don’t know about “likes” anymore. I’m getting so much garbage from one venue in particular. Please know I do like your comment!)

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  27. The number of comments I receive jumped quite a bit after i removed the “Like” button! I can’t talk to a “Like”anyway and that is the fun. I also wasted time looking who they are, just like they wanted, to up their “stats”. I will never turn them back on! Turn them off just on your next post and see what happens?! I am bursting to tell my incredible love story but I don’t want to jinx us! I will tell one day but I don’t know when so stay tuned. It would make a best seller if someone could write it and a great film. I wonder if Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are still available? Ha ha! I should have added to my last comment here, “I’m a technician and not an intellectual”! Cats are all sleeping, I am rambling on, remember the song “Wasting Away in Margaritaville” that’s today!

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    1. Greg, I’ve been bombarded with likes and messed up comments from “anything in front of dot XYZ”. I’m not alone, it’s making the rounds. I even read a post about it today. There’s that, then of course there are all the fake likes, which it sounds like you are familiar with too, all in order to increase numbers.

      I’m looking forward to reading you incredible love story once you’re out of the “jinx” zone. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were terrific in, “Sleepless in Seattle”, maybe they are available.

      I remember reading that you are/were an aircraft mechanic, I’m really impressed, did I remember correctly? Maybe because I hate to fly and keeping “those things” in the air is amazing, it’s very important to be technical.

      That sounds like a nice afternoon, cat naps and Margaritaville. Wishing you a terrific late afternoon and evening, Greg. ~ Mia

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      1. No, never a pilot. I love the old airliner disaster movies. I always wish I were a passenger so I could jump up and say, i can fix that! With the exception of helicopters, knowing all the controls and what they do and how things work, I could set even a jumbo down with a little direction over the radio I believe– I could on “Microsoft Flight Simulator” the old game. Hopefully it won’t come to that! I will be cruising the skies later this year–Seattle to NYC? Maybe!!!

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        1. You would definitely be the passenger I would want to sit next to on my next flight. I heard or read somewhere that games and flight simulators are a big deal for US Air Force recruiters looking for pilots and specifically drone pilots, so there must be a reasonable amount of similarity between the simulators and the actual. Trip by air to NYC, sounds special!!!

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          1. I did take the Air Force Pilot and Navigator aptitude tests and passed in 1969. Weighing the odds, I declined those jobs as I didn’t want to risk being shot down over North Vietnam. I’m a lover not a fighter! No free flight school for me! So I ended up fixing air force aircraft instead during the war. Not a hero. That’s all the info I have on me to offer. There is a lot because I lived a lot and a long time. Comes with the territory I guess.

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    1. Dear Brian, affairs of the heart are so unique and individual. I don’t imagine two people can share a common response. Ilse Bing is a favorite photographer of mine, so glad you like her Garbo. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.” from Macbeth? If so, I adore this heartbreaking scene.

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      1. True, but then we all want to be unique and maybe aren’t? Or what if what one feels is universal? Then it is (has to be) shared by many?
        Ilse Bing I’m not familiar with. Need to work on that. You have featured some of her work before, right?
        …creeps in this petty pace till the last syllable of recorded time.
        And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
        Out! Out! Brief candle.
        Life is but a walking shadow and so forth.
        One of the texts I know by heart. When I tell in… “society”, I get mixed responses. Some don’t want to be reminded…
        Have a great day Mia.

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        1. Hi dear Brian, so true we all hope to be unique and in many ways are. I think generalized feelings are shared, such as things under the umbrella of happy and sad. To take it further, each individual experiences their happy/sad moments based on their foundation and individual experiences. I fear if everyone, or even two people have a shared identical detailed feeling or experience it might be more of a case of Folie à deux. But that’s just me, you know (laughing and joking) I’m ‘dark’. 😉

          I have featured Ilse Bing several times. Her works fall into a category of photography that shakes me, creates strong emotions and sends me into the past. Really, I think I was born 50 years too soon, maybe even 100 years!

          Now again, just me, I wonder why you would get mixed responses. What’s wrong with people? I’m impressed you know the passage from that particular scene by heart, and it’s a fantastic scene which implies so much more than just the obvious. I would applaud you in person gladly!

          Have a lovely evening and a terrific Saturday!

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          1. Isn’t Passion the perfect example of a Folie à deux? Getting utterly lost in the other? 🙂
            Too soon or too late? 😉
            Mixed responses? Are too be expected. People (some) are in bad shape. But then, I’m grateful we are (all) on WP and not on Twitter. There is a certain courtesy here not found on other networks. 🙂 It’s been my experience that some may disagree, even strongly, but just let it pass… Which is a mark of wisdom (and frienship maybe?)

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          2. Thank you, I say this with a chuckle and you’re absolutely right about passion being the perfect example of Folie à deux! How could I have overlooked this?! 😉

            Oh, I don’t do Twitter, a waste of my time. Yes, time and letting things pass allows those things to become unimportant. I like that, ‘wisdom (and friendship maybe?)” Wishing you a terrific evening. 🙂

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          3. Or Folie à un? Passion was the determinant of great artists, statesmen, Steve Jobs…
            Passion was my key question at the end of the interview when I was hiring executives for my Research firm. You would be surprised how many people have no Passion…
            Bon week-end.

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          4. I think there can be a beautiful brilliance and rhythm to madness, it all depends on who’s mad. 😉 And of course there’s always a good and not so good sort of madness.

            “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
            “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
            “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
            “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
            ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

            Brain, what a terrific question to conclude an interview. I can’t even know what it’s like to have no passion, how desperately heartbreaking.

            Enjoy the rest of your evening, wishing you a good week ahead.

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          5. Some of the best novels have been written about madness. Think Conrad, Dostoïewsky…
            Need to re-read Alice.
            Passion (or lack thereof) was a perfect selection tool. 😉
            Thank you Mia. You too.

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          6. You’re right, there’s wonderful literature written about madness. I think at a distance madness is intriguing, perhaps it becomes uncomfortable if it’s too close to home. 😉

            Thank you. 🙂

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