Blackbirds

I am 52 years old, and have spent
truly the better part
of my life out-of-doors
but yesterday I heard a new sound above my head
a rustling, ruffling quietness in the spring air

and when I turned my face upward
I saw a flock of blackbirds
rounding a curve I didn't know was there
and the sound was simply all those wings
just feathers against air, against gravity
and such a beautiful winning
the whole flock taking a long, wide turn
as if of one body and one mind.

How do they do that?

Oh if we lived only in human society
with its cruelty and fear
its apathy and exhaustion
what a puny existence that would be

but instead we live and move and have our being
here, in this curving and soaring world
so that when, every now and then, mercy and tenderness triumph in our lives
and when, even more rarely, we manage to unite and move together
toward a common good,

we can think to ourselves:

ah yes, this is how it's meant to be.

--Julie Cadwallader-Staub

[Photo from Commons Wikipedia]

Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

--Barbara Crooker

Circles in the Wilderness

I have filled myself with beauty against you
Matisse blue in the museum
Bougainvillea climbing the concrete wall
Light on the Bay reflecting, reflecting

I have filled my mind with the beauty of words
The story of the people of Judea
Who crossed the deserts and gave their offerings
They too survived evil

I have filled my ears with the music
Of healing love, the voice of the tribes woman
Singing the long song of outliving the beast
And rejoicing the child newborn

I have filled my mouth
With the food of the angels, honey and lemon,
The fruit that grows from the womb of the earth,
Its seed containing all that is good in our world

I have looked again to the stars, to the sea,
To the beautiful things that man has made,
The voice of the children from the schoolyard
The light filling the window, the small bird
Perched on the last leaves of autumn

Darkness is nothing new on this planet
We lurch from sweet times to bitter
The world reveals our struggle and our strength
Tomorrow and tomorrow as long as we are here

We turn our backs on those who curdle the milk
Who sour the day with their stark greed
Together tomorrow and tomorrow we take a hand
Give our coins to the beggar in the train station

We are the conundrum ourselves, our shadow
And our light, the fig and date, the poison hemlock
Which is your future, your past, dear hearts
As the year unwinds, and resistance ripens

Even in darkness.

     For Ruth Stone, Royal Barnard Nov. 21, 2017

--Yvonne Daley

Introductions

Let’s not say our names
or what we do for a living.
If we are married
and how many times.
Single, gay, or vegan.

Let’s not mention
how far we got in school.
Who we know,
what we’re good at
or no good at, at all.

Let’s not hint at
how much money we have
or how little.
Where we go to church
or that we don’t.
What our Sun Sign is
our Enneagram number
our personality type according to Jung
or whether we’ve ever been
Rolfed, arrested, psychoanalyzed,
or artificially suntanned.

Let’s refrain, too, from stating any ills.
What meds we’re on
including probiotics.
How many surgeries we’ve survived
or our children’s children’s problems.
And, please—
let’s not mention
who we voted for
in the last election.

Let’s do this instead:
Let’s start by telling
just one small thing
that costs us nothing
but our attention.

Something simple
that nourishes
the soul of our bones.
How it was this morning
stooping to pet the sleeping dog’s muzzle
before going off to work.

Or
yesterday,
walking in the woods
spotting that fungus on the stump
of a maple
so astonishingly orange
it glowed like a lamp.

Or just now,
the sound
of your
own breath
rising
or sinking
at the end
of this
sentence.

--Susan Glassmeyer

Great Things and Big Plans

I am done with great things and big plans, 

great institutions and big successes. 

I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces 

that work from individual to individual, 

creeping through the crannies of the world 

like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, 

yet which, given time, will rend 

the hardest monuments of human pride.

--William James

Their Slow Way

Let these woods have their

slow way with you.  Patient

pines that hold their green

through all the frozen seasons,

lichen-covered rocks that live

indifferent to time's passage--

these will teach you how to

bring your life to ground.

The fractal chaos of the forest

floor, its white anemones,

spiked grasses and dead leaves,

the fallen trunks and branches

splayed out like pick-up sticks--

these will teach you how

to live freely, with abandon,

and feed the roots of new growth

when your time has come.

--Parker J. Palmer