The Storm (Bear)

 

Now through the white orchard my little dog

        romps, breaking the new snow

        with wild feet.

Running here running there, excited,

        hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins

until the white snow is written upon

        in large, exuberant letters,

a long sentence, expressing

        the pleasures of the body in this world.

Oh, I could not have said it better

        myself.

--Mary Oliver

[Trekker's first snow,  3.5 months]

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

—Derek Walcott

[Sitting on Ke'e Beach in Kauai.]

Synchronicity (quote)

 When things become desperate, we can easily find ourselves waiting for a greater leader to rescue us.  Through all of this, we totally miss the bigger question:  What are we, collectively, able to create?  

Because of our obsessions with how leaders behave and with the interactions of leaders and followers, we forget that, in its essence, leadership is about learning how to shape the future.  Leadership exists when people are no longer victims of circumstances but participate in creating new circumstances.

--Peter Senge, introduction to Synchronicity:  The Inner Path of Leadership, by Joseph Jaworski

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac (Part 3)

 

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

--Mary Oliver

[Photo of granddaughter Ella Lynn at 3 months]

From a Country Overlooked

There are no creatures you cannot love.
A frog calling at God
From the moon-filled ditch
As you stand on the country road in the June night.
The sound is enough to make the stars weep
With happiness.
In the morning the landscape green
Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass.
The day is carried across its hours
Without any effort by the shining insects
That are living their secret lives.
The space between the prairie horizons
Makes us ache with its beauty.
Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue
To the farthest cold dark in the universe.
The cottonwood also talks to you
Of breeze and speckled sunlight.
You are at home in these
great empty places
along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs.
You are comfortable in this spot
so full of grace and being
that it sparkles like jewels
spilled on water.

                                                                                    --Tom Hennen

Citizen of Dark Times

Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid.
When things go wrong, do right.
Set out by the half-light of the seeker.
For the well-lit problem begins to heal.

Learn tropism toward the difficult.
We have not arrived to explain, but to sing.
Young idealism ripens into an ethical life.
Prune back regret to let faith grow.

When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down.
Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song.
Keep seeing what you are not saying.
Plunder your reticence.

Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song.

—Kim Stafford 

[Bluebirds in our garden]

Blackberries for Amelia

Fringing the woods, the stone walls, and the lanes,
Old thickets everywhere have come alive,
Their new leaves reaching out in fans of five
From tangles overarched by this year’s canes.

They have their flowers too, it being June,
And here or there in brambled dark-and-light
Are small, five-petaled blooms of chalky white,
As random-clustered and as loosely strewn

As the far stars, of which we now are told
That ever faster do they bolt away,
And that a night may come in which, some say,
We shall have only blackness to behold.

I have no time for any change so great,
But I shall see the August weather spur
Berries to ripen where the flowers were—
Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait—

And there will come the moment to be quick
And save some from the birds, and I shall need
Two pails, old clothes in which to stain and bleed,
And a grandchild to talk with while we pick.

--Richard Wilbur

[Berry picking with grandson Killian in 2019].

A Franciscan Blessing

 May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Wordless Jubilation

 We observe and ponder all this and then are moved to rejoice as we become aware again and acknowledge anew that among all the various kinds of music today there still exists, also and especially, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach!

Obviously, this implies a challenge to ourselves, a challenge not easily nor “automatically” satisfied. That we are willing to listen attentively to the essential message of this music and that we let this message find an echo, as if on reverberating strings, within the immediacy of our soul is decisive. This will lead to new and rekindled clarity, authenticity, and vigor of our inward existence; to the dissatisfaction with entertaining but hollow achievements; and to a sober and perceptive alertness that is not distracted from the realities of actual life by the promise of easy pleasure proffered in superficial harmonies. Above all, this will guide us to turn with resolve, constancy, courage, and hope toward the one and only Good by whose grace our inner existential yearning finds fulfillment; the one Good praised and exalted particularly in Bach’s music with such ever-present “wordless jubilation.”

--Josef Pieper

[Family photo taken in Leipzig, Germany]

Poetry is not a Luxury (excerpt from essay)

" Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives."

--Audre Lorde

The Last Election

Suppose there are no returns, 
and the candidates, one 
by one, drop off in the polls, 
as the voters turn away, 
each to his inner persuasion. 

The frontrunners, the dark horses, 
begin to look elsewhere, 
and even the President admits 
he has nothing new to say; 
it is best to be silent now. 

No more conventions, no donors, 
no more hats in the ring; 
no ghost-written speeches, 
no promises we always knew 
were never meant to be kept. 

And something like the truth, 
or what we knew by that name- 
that for which no corporate 
sponsor was ever offered- 
takes hold in the public mind. 

Each subdued and thoughtful 
citizen closes his door, turns 
off the news. He opens a book, 
speaks quietly to his children, 
begins to live once more. 

--John Haines  (1999) 

Dog Songs (quotes)

 “Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?”

“And it is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old—or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give. ”

― Mary Oliver

from her book Dog Songs

[Photo of Riley, Anya, Maui, Tsali, and Cali]

Pity the Nation

 (after Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty!

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2007)

Becoming

 

Water becomes rain,

And then becomes stream,

Which then becomes river,

Becomes ocean,

Becomes mist,

Becomes fog,

Becomes rain,

Which slides down the rocks,

And is taken into the ground,

And then taken up by the plants,

Animals and birds and people.

It becomes the sweat of the brow,

And the tears slipping down,

Upon a shirt that has been slept in.

Evaporating into air,

It remains invisible for a while. Then,

After a time,

It becomes dew which burns off

As the liquid sun rises,

Becoming mist,

Becoming cloud,

Becoming rain.

Nothing is ever really gone,

It only transforms.

--carrie newcomer

Kindness

 

Kindness is human size,

Honest and doable,

Softening even the hardest of days,

The country cousin to love,

Unpretentious,

And daily,

And completely possible.

It takes out its earbuds

And listens to your story.

It gives up its seat on the bus

And hums in the kitchen,

Washing dishes when nobody asked it to.

And more often than not,

If I start with a little kindness

Love is usually following

Just a few steps behind,

Nodding and smiling

And saying,

"That's the way it's done."

"Yes, honey,

That's the way it is done."

--carrie newcomer

Democracy

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a hole in the air,

from those nights in Tiananmen Square.

It's coming from the feel

that this ain't exactly real,

or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

From the wars against disorder,

from the sirens night and day,

from the fires of the homeless,

from the ashes of the gay:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;

on a visionary flood of alcohol;

from the staggering account

of the Sermon on the Mount

which I don't pretend to understand at all.

It's coming from the silence

on the dock of the bay,

from the brave, the bold, the battered

heart of Chevrolet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,

the holy places where the races meet;

from the homicidal bitchin'

that goes down in every kitchen

to determine who will serve and who will eat.

From the wells of disappointment

where the women kneel to pray

for the grace of God in the desert here

and the desert far away:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,

the cradle of the best and of the worst.

It's here they got the range

and the machinery for change

and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.

It's here the family's broken

and it's here the lonely say

that the heart has got to open

in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.

We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on ...

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

--Leonard Cohen