About Standing (in Kinship)

 

We all have the same little bones in our foot

twenty-six with funny names like navicular.

Together they build something strong--

our foot arch a pyramid holding us up.

The bones don't get casts when they break.

We tape them--one phalange to its neighbor for support.

(Other things like sorrow work that way, too--

find healing in the leaning, the closeness.)

Our feet have one quarter of all the bones in our body.

Maybe we should give more honor to feet

and to all those tiny but blessed cogs in the world--

communities, the forgotten architecture of friendship.

--Kimberly Blaeser

[Our grandson Soren]

A Blessing

 

[Posted for Father's Day]

May you know that absence is full of tender presence and 

    that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.

May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo.

May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which

    holds the presences that have left your life.

May you be generous in your embrace of loss.

May the sore well of grief turn into a well of seamless presence.

May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear

    from and may you have the courage to

    speak out for the excluded ones.

May you become the gracious and passionate

    subject of your own life

May you not disrespect your mystery through 

    brittle words or false belonging.

May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight

    are one, and may your belonging inhabit its deepest

    dreams within the shelter of the Great Belonging.

--John O'Donohue

[Photos of my father, grandfather, stepfather, and father-in-law--each an absence in our lives].

In the Company of Women

 

Make me laugh over coffee,

make it a double, make it frothy

so it seethes in our delight.

Make my cup overflow

with your small happiness.

I want to hoot and snort and cackle and chuckle.

Let your laughter fill me like a bell.

Let me listen to your ringing and singing

as Billie Holiday croons above our heads.

Sorry, the blues are nowhere to be found.

Not tonight. Not here.

No makeup. No tears.

Only contours. Only curves.

Each sip takes back a pound,

each dry-roasted swirl takes our soul.

Can I have a refill, just one more?

Let the bitterness sink to the bottom of our lives.

Let us take this joy to go.

--January Gill O'Neil

(Photo of Julie and me enjoying coffee and laughter in Iceland, June 2021)

What to Do

 

Wake up early, before the lights come on

in the houses on a street that was once

a farmer's field at the edge of a marsh.

Wander from room to room, hoping to find

words that could be enough to keep the soul

alive, words that might be useful or kind

in a world that is more wasteful and cruel

every day.  Remind us that we are

like grass that fades, fleeting clouds in the sky,

and then give us just one of those moments

when we were paying attention, when we gave

up everything to see the world in

a grain of sand or to behold

a rainbow in the sky, the heart

leaping up.

--Joyce Sutphen

[Photo of Indians Rocks Beach, FL]

Climbing the Golden Mountain

 

"Silence is the golden mountain."  Jack Kerouac

Listen. Turn

everything

off. When

the noise

of our lives

drifts away,

when the 

chatter of 

our minds

sinks into

that perfect

lake of nothing,

then, oh

then we can

apprehend

that golden

mountain,

always there,

waiting for

us to be

still enough

to hear it.

--Michael Kiesow Moore

[Photo of a natural cathedral on my daily commute.]

Hymn for the Hurting

 

Everything hurts,

Our hearts shadowed and strange,

Minds made muddied and mute.

We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.

And yet none of it is new;

We knew it as home,

As horror,

As heritage.

Even our children

Cannot be children,

Cannot be.

Everything hurts.

It's a hard time to be alive,

And even harder to stay that way.

We're burdened to live out these days,

While at the same time, blessed to

outlive them.

This alarm is how we know

We must be altered--

That we must differ or die,

That we must triumph or try.

Thus while hate cannot be terminated,

It can be transformed

Into a love that lets us live.

May we not just grieve, but give:

May we not just ache, but act;

May our signed right to bear arms

Never blind our sight from shared harm;

May we choose our children over chaos.

May another innocent never be lost.

Maybe everything hurts,

Our hearts shadowed & strange.

But only when everything hurts

May everything change.

--Amanda Gorman [Written after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas in May 2022]

For a Parent on the Death of a Child

 

No one knows the wonder

Your child awoke in you,

Your heart a perfect cradle

To hold its presence.

Inside and outside became one

As new waves of love

Kept surprising your soul.

Now you sit bereft

Inside a nightmare,

Your eyes numbed

By the sight of a grave

No parent should ever see.

You will wear this absence

Like a secret locket,

Always wondering why

Such a new soul

Was taken home so soon.

Let the silent tears flow

And when your eyes clear

Perhaps you will glimpse

How your eternal child

Has become the unseen angel

Who parents your heart

And persuades the moon

To send new gifts ashore.

--John O'Donohue 

[In honor of the children who were slaughtered yesterday at Robb Elementary School.]