Choice

 

There isn’t a right answer.
There just isn’t. The game show
where the bells ring and the points
go up and the confetti falls
because you got the answer
is a lie. The preacher who would assure you
of how to attain salvation
is making it all up. The doctor
who knows just how to fix
what ails you will be sure
of something else tomorrow.
Every choice will
wound someone, heal someone,
build a wall and open a conversation.
Things will always happen
that you can’t foresee.
But you have to choose.
It’s all we have—that little rudder
that we employ in the midst
of all the eddies and rapids,
the current that pulls us
inexorably toward the sea.
The fact that you are swept along
by the river is no excuse.
Watch where you are going.
Lean in toward what you love.
When in doubt, tell the truth.

–Lynn Ungar

[Photo from Grey Glacier in Patagonia]

The Way It Is

 

One morning you might wake up

to realize that the knot in your stomach

had loosened itself and slipped away,

and that the pit of unfilled longing in your heart

had gradually, and without your really noticing,

been filled in--patched like a pothole, not quite

the same as it was, but good enough.

And in that moment it might occur to you

that your life, though not the way

you planned it, and maybe not even entirely

the way you wanted it, is nonetheless--

persistently, abundantly, miraculously--

exactly what it is.

--Lynn Ungar

[Photo taken in Clifden, County Galway, Ireland]

Pandemic

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
 
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
 
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
 
–Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

Groundhog Day

Celebrate this unlikely oracle,

this ball of fat and fur,

whom we so mysteriously endow

with the power to predict spring.

Let’s hear it for the improbable heroes who,

frightened at their own shadows,

nonetheless unwittingly work miracles.

Why shouldn’t we believe

this peculiar rodent holds power

over sun and seasons in his stubby paw?

Who says that God is all grandeur and glory?

Unnoticed in the earth, worms

are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil.

Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered

seeds that will take root and grow.

Grape hyacinths, against all reason,

have been holding up green shoots beneath the snow.

How do you think spring arrives?

There is nothing quieter, nothing

more secret, miraculous, mundane.

Do you want to play your part

in bringing it to birth? Nothing simpler.

Find a spot not too far from the ground

and wait.

-- Lynn Ungar

Camas Lilies

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers’ hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

--Lynn Ungar