Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled

Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know.  But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

How to Tell The Truth

When you just have to talk,
try being silent.

When you feel reluctant to say anything,
make the effort
to put what you’re feeling into words.

This is a place to begin.

Pushing gently
against the current
of your own impulses
is an effective technique
for dislodging
and discovering
your truth.

How to tell the truth?

Taste it
and remember the taste in your heart.

Risk it
from the bottom of your love.

Take the risk
of telling the truth
about what you’re feeling.

Take the risk
of telling your loved one
your secrets.

It’s true
you might be misunderstood.

Look and see
if you’re willing to trust
yourselves
to misunderstand each other
and go on from there.

When someone speaks to you
and you feel yourself not wanting to hear it
try letting it in.
You don’t have to agree that they’re right.
Just take the risk
of listening as if they could possibly be speaking
some truth—
and see what happens.

Listen as if.
Listen as if you can’t always tell
what the truth is.
Listen as if you might be wrong,
especially when you know you’re right.
Listen as if
you were willing to take the risk
of growing beyond
your righteousness.
Listen as if
love mattered.

--by Paul Williams
from “Nation of Lawyers”

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

--Billy Collins

At the River Clarion

1.
I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a
water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices
of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck the stone it had
something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing
under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me
what they were saying,
Said the river: I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered
the moss beneath the the water.
I’d been to the river before, a few times.
Don’t blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don’t hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don’t hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.
And it’s difficult to hear anything anyway, through
all the traffic, and ambitions.

2.
If God exists he isn’t just butter and good luck.
He’s also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then
keep on going.
Imagine how the lily (who may also be part of God)
would sing to you if it could sing, if
you would pause to hear it.
And how are you so certain anyway that it doesn’t sing?
If God exists he isn’t just in churches and mathematics.
He’s the forest, He’s the desert.
He’s the ice caps, that are dying.
He’s the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.
He’s van Gough and Allen Ginsberg and Robert
Motherwell.
He’s many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing
their weapons
He’s every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politician,
the poet.
And if this is true, isn’t it something very important?
Yes, it could be that I am a tiny piece of God, and
each of you too, or at least,
of his intention and his hope.
Which is delight beyond measure.
I don’t know how you get to suspect such an idea.
I only know that the river kept singing.
It wasn’t a persuasion, it was all the river’s own
constant joy
which was better by far than a lecture, which was
comfortable, exciting, unforgettable.

3.
Of course for each of us, there is the daily life.
Let us live it, gesture by gesture.
When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks?
And should we not thank the knife also?
We do not live in a simple world.

4.
There was someone I loved who grew old and ill.
One by one I watched the fires go out.
There was nothing I could do
except to remember
that we receive
then we give back.

5.
My dog Luke lies in a grave in the forest,
she is given back.
But the river Clarion still flows
from wherever it comes from
to where it has been told to go.
I pray for the desperate earth.
I pray for the desperate world.
I do the little each person can do, it isn’t much.
Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

6.
Along its shores were, may I say, very intense
cardinal flowers.
And trees, and birds that have wings to uphold them,
for heaven’s sakes–
the lucky ones: they have such deep natures,
they are so happily obedient.
While I sit here in a house filled with books,
ideas, doubts, hesitations.

7.
And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river
keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its
long journey, its pale, infallible voice
singing.

—Mary Oliver

Photo taken September 2018
Schönalmjoch, Tirol, Austria

Our True Heritage

The cosmos is filled with precious gems.
I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.
Each moment you are alive is a gem,
shining through and containing earth and sky,
water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently
for the miracles to be displayed.
Suddenly you hear the birds singing,
the pines chanting,
see the flowers blooming,
the blue sky,
the white clouds,
the smile and the marvelous look
of your beloved.

You, the richest person on Earth,
who have been going around begging for a living,
stop being the destitute child.
Come back and claim your heritage.
We should enjoy our happiness
and offer it to everyone.
Cherish this very moment.
Let go of the stream of distress
and embrace life fully in your arms.

From "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Burlington, Vermont

In the lovely free public library

only library I ever met

that loans out garden tools

as well as books

rakes & long-handled clippers

from large buckets by the counter

I sat in a peaceful room

with citizens I will never know

reading about far-away war

war I am paying for

war I don’t want & never wanted

& put my head down

on the smooth wooden table

wishing to weep loudly or quietly

it did not matter

in the purifying presence of

women & men

shovels & hoes

devoted to growing

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

--Mary Oliver

(Sunrise in Wallingford, VT 4-7-19)