ངར་དྲགས གངས་ཅན
in the mystical Himalaya utopia of Gangkhar Puensum
I journey to the unexplored center of the earth
traversing the home of her thunder dragon
trekking the sacred mountain of enlightenment,
cosmic mother of inspiration and perseverance,
painted with the prosody of blue poppies
sambar deer and snow leopards twist with linguistic delight
beyond the nival zone where meta-language rains down
high velocity clouds upon my grand-design spiral galaxy
I pass orchids with angelic authority
producing quantum fluctuations
in these pleasure grounds of the immortals
searching cobalt, alizarin crimson, and marigold skies
to light paths to heaven limned by terre verte steppes
burnt sienna cliffs adrift in flurries of dioxazine peaks
here the spiritual embraces mythic potential
coruscant intellect entwines deepening emotion
melodies skip along jagged thresholds between worlds
intimating my life is an art form, creating meaning
in the liminal spaces, semi-permeable membranes
across a constitutive defensible line
poiesis arises in my being, an action that
transforms and continues the universe
transmutes experience into aesthetic bliss
in my union with the unknowable, a gestalt entity
forms upon this untamable, niveous mountain
a memento mori of ars poetica
Linked at and written for Gay Cannon’s fabulous prompt Ars Poetica http://dversepoets.com/2012/07/12/poetry-on-poetry/ at dVerse Poets Pub.
Chromapoetica 
very cool.. i was so curious how you would write about poetry…really loved it anna…nice on using the german word gestalt…and esp. loved..
sambar deer and snow leopards twist with linguistic delight
beyond the nival zone where meta-language rains down
high velocity clouds upon my grand-design spiral galaxy…so very, very cool..
Claudia, your curiosity and lovely words have brightened my day, thank you! I loved your poem too.
here the spiritual embraces mythic potential
coruscate intellect entwines deepening emotion
melodies skip along jagged thresholds between worlds
well you just summed up your poetry pretty well in a few words…love all the visuals and def would not mind a visit to you versical utopia….fun piece anna
Yeah, it gets pretty wild, but that’s why we’re poets and not technical writers, right :)? Thanks for your kind words, they’re like poetic oxygen, they help me when the altitude threatens to take my breath away.
I was also curious as to how you would write about poetry too Anna. Loved this. Shangri-La indeed. Here be dragons, and a whole host of other magical and mystical things.
Oooo, now you’ve refueled my wanderlust and desire to find more of those magical things, thank you!
Beautiful, Anna! I love the melodies of the art form.
Thanks Laurie, you so well captured the wild spirit in yours!
You really catch the feel of communing with an unknown world, full of unknown spirits, a paradise or, perhaps something else, but something forever beyond our own limits that nonetheless creeps into our ‘liminal spaces’ and speaks through us. I esp loved this:
I pass orchids with angelic authority
producing quantum fluctuations
in these pleasure grounds of the immortals
good stuff, Anna.
Yes, heaven knows what they want with us and what the price is for being a conduit but the joy of creating keeps me searching for the unkenned :).
Oh my, yes:
“trekking the sacred mountain of enlightenment,
cosmic mother of inspiration and perseverance,
painted with the prosody of blue poppies”
“I pass orchids with angelic authority
producing quantum fluctuations
in these pleasure grounds of the immortals”
What a sensually delicious bag of sweet glitter-flick you have thrown at the skin of my paper.
Wonderful descriptor! Very nice to meet you.
Oh we’ve met. It’s Shawna/Rosemary Mint … with a new blog. 🙂
Oh, sorry about that – congrats on the new blog Shawna! Lovely to see you again.
“meaning in liminal spaces”–“semi-permeable membranes” –exactly! Beautiful, magical poem.
Oh, so glad that rang true for you! Thank you.
What a lovely mystical journey…lush of images of nature…this stanza was specially striking to me:
here the spiritual embraces mythic potential
coruscate intellect entwines deepening emotion
melodies skip along jagged thresholds between worlds
Thank you, I wanted to capture some of the majestic splendor of the Himalayas, I would love to see them.
I love how this verges on Feeling so real, a part ifbthis phenomenal world, though it is your poetic imagination flying in the places the gods of earth and heaven inhabit. The mastery of color, words, the translucent line between thought and emotion shines thru your poem so clearly. I also enjoyed the evocation of the transcendent, so difficult to conceive yet your work here brings us to that borderland.
I was trying to keep the wild thing grounded so it’s good to know it worked (part of why I came to my senses and didn’t write an untamed, spiraling, stream of consciousness, experimental piece :)). Thank you for your beautiful comment.
“melodies skip along jagged thresholds between worlds” and reality alters the fantastical, but did you see a dragon? I rather think “you” became one and at home in movement beyond the edge.
Yes, morphing is more fun :).
Anna, you manage such strong rhythms here in the midst of very clever and suggestive imagery. It is very impressive. I also liked the sambar deer parts! And the gestalt! Such great mixtures of words. k.
Keeping to some of the basic elements of poetry helped me fight my tendency to write an essay. I keep reminding myself I have another blog for that, in fact, I should write an essay about this poem and post it there :D.
Some how this sums up you your poetry for me. Some images as comfortable as marigold skies, some stretch me a bit but I can wrangle them. Others leave me dizzy and running to wikpedia. 🙂
Haha, like altitude sickness, cool.
Anna, this has to be the best way of describing a process of creation that I’ve ever read. So good that without the prompt, it would be so, so easy to get lost in the lush background you paint here, but in context, the metaphor is strong, well it’s strong regardless, but in context to the prompt, the reader, at least me, was able to perceive a layer that I may have missed just because of how good the piece is, layering aside. That is poetry. That’s how I like to layer, but wow, the subtlety and intricacies here, that is such a feat. Amazing piece. Thanks
Wow Fred, what a lovely compliment to wake up to; it will color my whole day! I always appreciate that you see the nuances, makes it worth my time to build these worlds :D.
The penultimate verse clinched it for me, Rabbits out of the hat, but this one was the dragon! Excellent.
Yes, it was all building to that and here be dragons of course is the cartographic equivalent of the unknown. An interesting aside, Druk is the Bhutanese thunder dragon, their national symbol. Bhutan in Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, translates to ʼbrug-yul’ or “Druk Yul”, meaning Land of the Thunder Dragon.
I figured it out! You memorized the dictionary! no… wait… you wrote the dang thing didn’t ya?
This great, Anna! I don’t understand all the words, but rather than look them up, I just imagine what they COULD mean!
Haha, yes, I wrote the dictionary, maybe that’s why I didn’t need to use one for this poem. I like your imaginative approach to new to you words, it never occured to me :).
Well, you keep using them, so I had to figure out a plan!
Works for me :)! Maybe I’ll just start creating neologisms and see if I can get away with them – haha!
Excuse if this just stops (ipad). I was hooked from the first, capturing my imagination and where my mind flew so did your poem…nice symmetry there. I have been amazed as photos come back from the hubble how nebulas and space pictures seem like flowers…at first roses and the chain of spirals that climb from electrons circling in an atom to the shape of galaxies, but now seeing other floral designs in space, and in these curves there is grace, rhythm, music..the ultimate poetry which transports us out into the ethers of the rare. All found here, brilliant Anna
How exciting that the poem and your imagination moved in parallel, like synchronized co-creation! I do love looking at the Hubble photographs; they always inspire me as my first aspiration was to be an astronaut. Thank you for your gracile words, they wend their way into my imagination and inspire!
Wonderful – ‘Here be dragons’ – oh yeah 🙂
Yes, a lovely phrase!
I love what you did here, Anna…and what an amazing journey you took us on…exactly where I would like to go!
Me too, though that probably goes without saying :). I’ve been thinking a lot of Saraswati and the tales of Parvati (whose father is Himalaya) and Shiva. Didn’t you name your daughters after Saraswati and Lakshmi? I was floored when I realized Shakti has been worshiped in one form or another continuously for 22,000 years!
Yes, my daughters are named after those Hindu goddesses. Goddesses of wealth and prosperity (Lakshmi) and knowledge and the arts (Saraswati). I’m fascinated by ancient myths and tales and spiritual images…22,000 years…amazing! Your poem spoke to my inner being…
Such beautiful names…
i am raptured by the colors and the melody. this is stunning wordery, Anna. it is, as you say, “aesthetic bliss”
Thank you Jane, how beautiful of you to say so!
bhutan sounds special
i am glad there is somewhere safe for dragons
blue tulips sound beautiful
Me too, here’s a picture of the poppies \http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BB&Date=20100330&Category=NEWS0107&ArtNo=3300308&Ref=AR&MaxW=570
vivid
This is like a magical journey through what I imagine your mind looks like.
A new favorite of mine, the rhythm and flow are just fabulous!
Yes, a wild imaginarium, full of mythic creatures. Thank you Kelly, that means so much to me!
Anna, this is so beautiful and has truly touched my heart. We have a piece of artwork in our home with the Himalayan mountains and Hindu deities sitting before them and we tell our little ones that that is the place which they lived before finding a passage through the womb into this realm. Thank you for sharing your place of serenity and magic.
Sorry for the late reply. I am new to dVerse Poets and I look forward to mingling with you more there! 🙂
Very nice to meet you. What a beautiful story; thank you for sharing it with me!
Reblogged this on My Bewildered Brain.