Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike;
This harpsichord pavane by Purcell
And the racer’s twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell’s chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante’s heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn’t, of course, I’ve fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

Michael Donaghy

CultFit Serene


Green Canoe

I don’t often get the chance any longer
to go out alone in the green canoe
and, lying in the bottom of the boat,
just drift where the breeze takes me,
down to the other end of the lake
or into some cove without my knowing
because I can’t see anything over
the gunwales but sky as I lie there,
feeling the ribs of the boat as my own,
this floating pod with a body inside it …

also a mind, that drifts among clouds
and the sounds that carry over water—
a flutter of birdsong, a screen door
slamming shut—as well as the usual stuff
that clutters it, but slowed down, opened up,
like the fluff of milkweed tugged
from its husk and floating over the lake,
to be mistaken for mayflies at dusk
by feeding trout, or be carried away
to a place where the seeds might sprout.

Jeffrey Harrison

CultFit Alone


Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

Percy Bysshe Shelley

CultFit Sunset


The Kindness of Others

...
The kindness of others
is all they ever wanted,
the laughter of neighbors
prospering in the blue light of summer.

Those of the small sputtering flame
and the sudden white sprung hair,
who feed off envy and grow old quickly,
desire largesse.

The role of poor relation
evokes a lack
they are not apt to admit,
or unbearable pity.

They prefer to penetrate the giver’s
effortless knack of giving
they perceive as vitality,
a pulsating entity

that rewards the kindness of others
tenfold.
This they have witnessed.
This they have tabulated relentlessly.

The generosity of others
whose spirits, like their long-legged
children blossoming into a progeny
of orchards and fields, flourish.

Those who have never known kindness
drag into the privacy of their smallness
the baskets of fruit
appearing year after year on their porches,

to be picked apart
in the hushed posture of thieves.
They peel skin, probe flesh
the color of honey

as if the seeds will yield something
other than a glimmer of sweet air
rising from the roots of trees
and licorice-laced, half-opened leaves.

Those of the small flame,
who feed off envy and grow old quickly,
live out their lives
hungry,

glaring at themselves across the table,
wife of the cruel mouth,
husband of the thin broth
trickling like spittle.

- Cathy Song

Cultfit Here

Hornear con CultFit

A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing-

I remember the events as though they happened yesterday afternoon I was confident that healing my battered body would be easy and competing at a high level once again would be a cinch, but then, I tried myself once again. I thought of myself as impervious to illness and injury, but then I destroyed my back and ruined my 35-year-old knee. I believed that I had put these injuries behind me, then recently I experienced a painful event like so many that happened in the past. Injuries and setbacks can be humbling experiences, if we listen and pay attention to them.

Humble Pie” is as good for your body and soul, more so than organic food, yoga, riding a uni-cycle and running at 6am. Do you feel like discussing humility in the most positive sense this morning? The self-effacing, not self-abasing sense? If so please leave a comment below

Notes:

Real folks, real passionate – authentic folks (the exact opposite of fitspiration) find it challenging to shed a few pounds in a healthy manner, learning to quit abusing their bodies is even harder. I thought it would be easy because of this “thing” called willpower, the very same willpower that kept my broke ass – well broke, for so many years.

If your ego has been damaged by the setback(s) life likes to serves our way, a little “Humble Pie” may serve as a more preferable flavour …  

Be well and please take care!

CultFit Broke