Dogfish (Excerpt)

You don’t want to hear the story of my life, and anyway I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it’s the same old story-- a few people just trying, one way or another, to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to swim through the fires to stay in this world.

—Mary Oliver

Thank You

Thank you for the coffee, thank you for the cup

Thank you for the morning and for waking me up

Thank you for the sugar, thank you for the cream

Thank you that the night was only but a dream

Ooooh, thank you

Thank you for the traffic and the menial job

For my baby crying and the craziest dog

For making me a button that says undo

Thank you for the way we make babies too

Ooooh, thank you

O mercy, O mercy

You are everywhere

You were always as close

As a whispering prayer

O mercy, O mercy

When the world doesn’t care

Be my bosom of Abraham

Be my rocking chair

Thank you for the rope that won’t ever let me go

Thank you for the yes when everybody else said no

Thank you for the seesaw, thank you for the swing

Thank you for the gloves in the boxing ring

Ooooh, thank you

O mercy, O mercy

You are everywhere

You were always as close

As a whispering prayer

O mercy, O mercy

When the world doesn’t care

Be my bosom of Abraham

Be my rocking chair

Thank you for a love that can overcome regret

Thank you for the joy that I haven’t found yet

Thank you for the apple, thank you for the tree

And thank you for dancing in the dark inside of me

Ooooh, thank you

--Tom Prasada-Rao

[Video of our friend Tom Prasada-Rao performing his song].

The Way We Love Something Small

 

The translucent claws of newborn mice

this pearl cast of color,

the barely perceptible

like a ghosted threshold of being:

here     not here.

The single breath we hold

on the thinnest verge of sight:

not there     there.

A curve nearly naked

an arc of almost,

a wisp of becoming

a wand__

tiny enough to change me. 

--Kimberly Blaeser

The Question

 

All day, I replay these words:

Is this the path of love?

I think of them as I rise, as

I wake my children, as I wash dishes,

as I drive too close behind the slow

blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?

Think of them as I stand in line

at the grocery store,

think of them as I sit on the couch

 with my daughter.  Amazing how

quickly six words become compass,

the new lens through which to see myself

in the world. I notice what the question is not.

Not, "Is this right?" Not,

"Is this wrong?" It just longs to know

how the action of existence

links us to the path to love.

And is it this? Is it this? All day

I let myself be led by the question.

All day I let myself not be too certain

of the answer. Is it this? I ask as I

argue with my son. Is it this? I ask

as I wait for the next word to come.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[David and grandson Killian deep in conversation].

Future

 

I can't see my future clearly.
It's a wash of color and light.

Maybe a glimpse of a house

with wood floors, the death

of a parent, a dog, a cat, a love,

but nothing certain.  I like its fog.

Inevitably something will happen, pieces

will fall into place if I keep breathing

and I'll eat, I'll work, I'll learn

and know and forget.  There'll be

another bowl full of berries, a hot cup

of tea, additional travel and sorrow.

There'll be a clean pair of pants,

the sun's good glow, a cut and blood,

a hole to dig, a bath to take, a mistake to mend.

What lies ahead is a promise

standing in shadow, one second

pasted to the next.  I don't need to call it

by name. A riddle ensues, a song of guessing,

a vow of risk. The road becomes itself

single stone after single stone

made of limitless possibility,

endless awe.

-- Jacqueline Suskin

[Foggy morning at Gale Meadows Pond in Londonderry, VT].

Only Love

 

"Only love is big enough to hold all the pain of this world." -- Sharon Salzberg

And so I imagine the entire earth

as one beating heart held in the space

of this universe, inside a larger body

we can't fathom, filling with enough

love to lead each of us out of the cave

of our personal pain and into the light--

enough love to lead all humans as one

out of collective fear, rage, and hate

into a place of peace that is found only

within our own hearts, beating in sync

with the pulse of this planet we were

born to inhabit, despite the daily storms

which overtake us and make us forget

we are the lifeblood pumped into these

veins, every particle of love we generate

running into rivers, lakes, and creeks,

evaporating into the air we breathe,

give back, and breathe again.

--James Crews

[Our son reading a favorite childhood story to his sons].

Merry

  

It’s a word which only comes out at Christmas.

 

As for the rest of the year,

it’s as if it has been packed away in the attic

with the decorations and the tinsel,

waiting for its own time to shine.

 

Rarely do we play well with it.

We do not let it loose for birthdays

or anniversaries; only in error does it intrude

on the happiness of a new year.

 

But at Christmas, it emerges blinking

into the light, red-cheeked and perky,

in a perfect state of mild inebriation,

writing itself into Christmas cards,

 

greeting friends on doorsteps,

embracing family before they take off their shoes,

warming strangers on icy pavements.

Merry Christmas, we say. Merry Christmas.

—Brian Bilston

[Merry Christmas Eve with friends and neighbors].