“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
Matsuo Basho
The Heart of The Heel, Part II: Recycling Life Thematics
Then, as life will often have it, love entered, and the most crucial pivot of all landed her due north of her dreamed-of destination, in the heart of the heel. And just like that - the house expands. The work of being at home is now a lifelong project that involves the ongoing practice of take-off, landing, longing, and embracing the air space in between that allows for, and demands, a durable infrastructure of love.
The Heart (and The Tart) of The Heel, Part I: Evoking The Magic of Puglia
While probing the Pugliese playground with her two young, sunlit daughters in tow, Hilaree evokes the magic, the color, and very often, the humor of her adoptive habitat on the Italian Adriatic through her photography and storytelling, and the through the turning of local fruits and fixings into art: @tartoftheheel.
The Wanting Space (Revised)
Miles of trekking above the timberline to stockpile a vision
Tuned me in to the fertile valley of the deep,
Seasoned the endurance of my heart space,
And led me to this blooming meadow
Bending into Blue: Epilogue to The Edge of Somewhere Deep
At a familiar rest stop on the runway facing the rainbow:
That colored airway that frolics from the edge
and bends across the the gorge of somewhere deep,
I sat with my travels.
On my lap, a stack of maps and notes
About take off and landing
And the sensation of buoyancy
That memorializes flight.
Oxygen to Embers, Revisited
With what little you offer
I restore years of wandering
Neither are you oxygen nor ember
But your hollow outline, poses my muse
From some desolate shore you keep me tethered
While I work into the night, arranging lightwood and tinder
With the sole purpose of allowing space
To host heat to become fire
Ognissanti
I'm not ready for immersion but the feeling of these damp steps beneath me will become a perennial part of my being. I lift heavy hands to mouth thinking only about breaking suddenly into from veganism to vegetarianism. I taste nothing new. The sensation of being relinquished and forgotten here, deep in the fall, will stay with me for years.
Translucence (Revisited)
In my translucence
I gather kindling,
clean the fireplace,
and sweep the hearth
of a fire that needs no nurturing.
Envelope
I don’t want to kiss you
But the memory of a kiss lights our outline.
We are newborn friends with matching hips
And I feel your ascending exterior as we continue to turn.
Rounding each corner becomes better than the kiss
It becomes the kiss,
The opening of doors:
One at the cheek
One at the belly
Arrival Day, Tasting Puglia
The luminous atmosphere of that first evening of arrival would foreshadow our time together in coming 10 days. Good friends and family were about to embark on adventure and discovery in new territory.
Speaks Your Name
About longing for subtleties
(Because every sip of you stirs deep)
About experiencing dawn in slow motion
(Because knowing you reminds me to note every shift in color and light)
About yielding to the sweetness of beginning
(Because every song now speaks your name)
The Salt of You
Stories that remember your body
are new to me
but memory gravitates and I flirt
with the idea of dipping into you
one toe at a time until
at long last,
I am submerged in the dense salt of you.