Flicker

"What a small flicker is given

To each of us to know."  

--Naomi Shihab Nye

You go around all day guarding the flicker

you found again that morning. Cupping a hand

to protect it from wind, holding it close

to the chest, so no wayward breath blows it out.

This flame, shaky and uncertain, is how you

light the rooms behind your eyes that no one

has ever seen. The wick may be frayed,

and the wax will last for just an hour or two

at best, but it is enough. It will always be

enough to look into the eyes of another

and pass the flicker on to them.

--James Crews

Halleluiah

 

Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.

--Mary Oliver

[Visiting Tupelo, MS]

O Tempo que Foge [The Time that Runs Away]

 

I counted my years and realized that I have less time to live by than I have lived so far.

I feel like a child who won a pack of candies. At first he ate them with pleasure, but when he realized that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings where the statutes, rules, procedures, and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience to stand absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.

My time is too short: I want the essence. My spirit is in a hurry. I do not have much candy in the package anymore.

I want to live next to humans, very realistic people who know how to laugh at their mistakes and who are not inflated by their own triumphs and who take responsibility for their actions. In this way, human dignity is defended and we live in truth and honesty.

It is the essentials that make life useful. I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch the hearts of those whom hard strokes of life have learned to grow with sweet touches of the soul.

Yes, I’m in a hurry. I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. 

I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts. I am sure they will be exquisite, much more than those eaten so far. 

My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.

--Ricardo Gondim 

   [translated from Portuguese and often falsely attributed to Mário de Andrade]

Photo with my granddaughters, Harper and Ella.

Darkest Before Dawn

Three days into the new year,
and despite the lack of adequate light,
our white phalaenopsis orchid
has eased open a third delicate bloom.
Perhaps coaxed by the warmth
of the woodstove a few feet away,
the orchid thrives in its tiny pot
shaped like the shell of a nautilus,
sending out new stems and glossy leaves,
its aerial roots—green at the tips—
reaching upward like tentacles
to sip the morning air. These blooms
stir something too long asleep in me,
proving with stillness and slow growth
what I haven’t wanted to believe
these past few months—that hope
and grace still reign in certain sectors
of the living world, that there are laws
which can never be overturned
by hateful words or the wishes
of power-hungry men. Be patient,
this orchid seems to say, and reveal
your deepest self even in the middle
of winter, even in the darkness
before the coming dawn.

--James Crews

Promise

 

Remember, the time of year 
when the future appears 
like a blank sheet of paper 
a clean calendar, a new chance. 
On thick white snow 

you vow fresh footprints 
then watch them go 
with the wind’s hearty gust. 
Fill your glass. Here’s tae us. Promises 
made to be broken, made to last. 

--Jackie Kay

The birthday of the world

 

On the birthday of the world
I begin to contemplate
what I have done and left
undone, but this year
not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged
psyche, shoring up eroding
friendships, digging out
stumps of old resentments
that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call
myself to task for what
I have done and not done
for peace. How much have
I dared in opposition?

How much have I put
on the line for freedom?
For mine and others?
As these freedoms are pared,
sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who
have I tried to move? In
this holy season, I stand
self-convicted of sloth
in a time when lies choke

the mind and rhetoric
bends reason to slithering
choking pythons. Here
I stand before the gates
opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach
what judges me, I judge
myself. Give me weapons
of minute destruction. Let
my words turn into sparks.

--Marge Piercy