Look what happens

Someone from my high school posted this on facebook and it really struck me somewhere inside, especially that last phrase.


Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, “you owe me.” 

Look what happens with a love like that. 

It lights the whole sky. 


This quote appears to be attributed to Hafez, Persian poet.

I Love

This song.  So waily-awesome.  Sadly, I haven't listened to it in a long time because my hard drive got baleeted.  




And the pregger banjo player.  OF COURSE the pregger banjo player.  Here's an excerpt from an email:

I basically love when pregnant women do anything.  It's like you take any activity and it is ~10x cooler when a pregnant person does it.  Shooting an arrow?  Pretty cool.  Shooting an arrow while pregnant?  Effing. Bad. Ass.  

This post is hereby publicly dedicated to Kaci.  

New Word

Numinous.  I like its definition, though I'm not sold yet on its aesthetic/auditory appeal. I probably need to hear it in more sentences before I can fully embrace it. 


I do like numen in both contexts, though, both aesthetically and semantically. 

The Captain

Perched atop his electric wheelchair
the captain of this tiny vessel in a bustling park
grasped the pole with his aged fingers

And his little grey dog
sniffed the dried leaves and gum behind him.

With a quiet whir
he began to reel it in.
A fluttering,
colorful fish
across the deep
blue Atlantic sky.

The wind picked up a bit. Tore at the ladies' skirts
and nipped at the scuttling leaves.

And he let out the line
and the kite shrank
smaller
and smaller
to a tiny speck.

Floating over the city. 

Candle

Bulbs shining from within, exactly nine windows.
Nine points of light, and I raise the candle to make ten.

Stars in the night
Souls in the deep

Each gleaming from a neighbor's apartment, near,
but not so near at all.
We'd have to descend and ascend to even touch.

Lashes droop and everything fades, blurs,
through slitted eyes, everything but those lights.
Images disintegrate.
Words multiply and divide.
Fractals of meaning. Apart. Ment.

Shafts between worlds, universes.

And from the same source stream the light and the shadow
All of us light and shadow
Dancing off of glass
flickering, skipping
somersaulting.

There, across the gulf, reflected in the pane, in the pane, in their pane, in their pain
Is my flame.


And everything just aches into one.

Beauty is Healing

Raven, raven, raven
Oh, tell me why do you dress all in black?

I was so pupped out today after work. I didn't even go to dance class. Instead, I gathered up some special items... blueberries, rye bread, almond butter, an old journal from a couple years ago, that exceedingly impractical glass water bottle I've been lugging all over creation lately... and climbed to the park at the top of the hill to Just. Be. Still.

The air was cool and damp. I spread my belongings under a large oak tree with soft whispering leaves. And tried for a few moments to figure out if these droplets were rain or just very low-lying fog.

It didn't matter, I concluded and wrapped myself up in that brown woolen blanket and breathed and listened and felt and nestled. After a few minutes, I opened the old journal. It struck me, really, how much calmer, more centered I've become, even in the couple years since I wrote that. How much more clarity with which I see things, how much more comfortable I am being myself. What a broken little songbird I was...

As I was leaving, three adults and approximately five kids of different sizes and shades were in the process of launching a rocket driven by vinegar and baking powder or soda or whichever it is. I took my time gathering everything up, in hopes that I would get to witness the launch, but it was taking a long time and I didn't want to be a creeper.

I walked back down the hill with water sloshing around inside that great glass container with every step. As I opened the front door to our building, I noticed how it had grown dark. A sacred dark.

Oak tree, oak tree, oak tree
Oh, take me down where roots begin.

QUICK

Tell me the best word that comes into your head when you look at the following picture:



I feel like I oughta write a serious post or a poem or something. I haven't done either of those recently. I am really working through some heavy stuff in my non-blog universe. I guess I just don't feel like writing something serious right now.

Train Operator

Over the intercom came the sound of the driver's hearty voice:

Park Streeeeeeet - have a nice day.
Sunshiiiiiiiiiiiiine is on its way.

And the meteorologists seem to agree with him. If their forecasts are accurate, I think a lot of people in Boston will be crying tears of joy tomorrow. I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt the sun.

You know somebody is in a good mood when he makes the effort to RHYME.

Reflections on the Season

Love is born
with a dark and troubled face
when hope is dead
and in the most unlikely place
Love is born:
Love is always born.
God help us to live slowly:
To move simply:
To look softly:
To allow emptiness:
To let the heart create for us.
Amen

(A prayer, from one of my new favorite books). The theme for this time of my life seems to be grace. Grace, in a transcendent, transformative sense, not just the opposite of clumsiness, though they are likely related.

As I find myself reflecting recently, it seems that life - love - is so very much about the connection between sorrow and joy. Like in the cycles of nature, the decaying of old organic matter provides nutrients for new life to emerge. These tender green plants, nurtured by the sun's warmth, grow forth from the dark moist soil of life that has passed.


Anyway, that same process occurs within us. Over and over, sorrow wrenches from us that which we clutch. Over and over, loss increases our capacity. And grace, love as a force in the universe, restores and replenishes when we are certain we have run dry, each time, as we allow it. My focus during Lent was to empty myself, to allow the process to happen, to not hold back and to not push forward. Each time I denied myself (dessert or candy or cookies) served to remind me of this focus with which I entered the season. In many small ways, I learned to experience love - fierce, terrifying, joyful, surprising LOVE - at a greater depth and breadth.

A couple friends and I attended the Easter Eve service at Trinity Church. The ancient traditions, gently blended with modern sensibilities... the sacred decorations on the walls, windows, arches... the candles, the standing, the sitting, the kneeling at the altar and being blessed. The symbolism of the service truly resonated through my soul and body as we, strangers and friends, made the collective, symbolic journey from darkness to light, death to life.

The next morning, at my own faith's Easter service (LDS), the volunteer choir performed many carefully and sincerely prepared songs, and a few different members of the congregation shared their thoughts and feelings on the season. The final hymn was for the entire congregation to sing. For some reason, I wanted to stand to sing it. I wanted to feel the notes of praise and reverence coming from deep within me. I looked over at Julia and could tell that she wanted to stand up too. So we did. We stood up and began to sing so loudly and so joyfully and motioned to Rachel, who was sitting between us and stood up too. Nobody else joined, though.

For several lines of the hymn, at least. Then, out of the blue, the stake president and one of the members of the bishopric who were sitting at the front of the chapel, facing everyone, stood up. Then the rest of the bishopric. I don't know why they did it, maybe because they didn't want us to feel like we were standing alone. Since they were standing, though, everyone else in the entire meeting stood up as well. Feeling, seeing everybody rising up around us, joining together in this familiar song, made me feel so much a part of this congregation, something I had not felt in an LDS congregation in so long. So many things (doubts, questions, struggles with gender roles or gay marriage and other "official positions") make me feel separate from these brothers and sisters. That is not the point, though, for anyone to feel alone or separate, but to become whole, as individuals, and unified, collectively. And I know others struggle with these same things, but for once I felt a beautiful sense of belonging and support. Standing together, whole, different, unified. This is Zion.

I hope that I may continue to allow emptiness, to allow myself to be filled. I hope that I may continue to see small glimpses of the face of love which leave me trembling and blessed.

It Came

This little volume arrived in our lobby the other day:


I just love everything in this book. It is a collection of prayers and poems by an Australian comic artist. Every one is so freshly tender, each opens up your understanding in small and profound ways. Thank you ju for sharing the tiny bell poem.

God help us
If our world should grow dark;
And there is no way of seeing or knowing.
Grant us courage and trust
To touch and be touched
To find our way onwards
By feeling.
Amen

(Michael Leunig)

---

This post is part of the Blue-Beta Blog Coordination, a continuing series of content coordinated by theme or motif with posts from Confuzzled of I Keep Wondering, Gromit of The Dancing Newt, Redoubt of Redoubt Redux, Third Mango of Funkadelic Freestylings of Another Sort, Yarjka of Sour Mayonnaise, and Xanthippe of Let’s Save Our Hallmark Moment. This week's theme: 'touch'.

Prayer for Saturday, Late March, Near the Brighton-Brookline Border

I can't decide if I think this is dumb or love it. Maybe a little of both.

Bless the pavement, brick, and concrete.
Bless amber bottles redeemed at five cents apiece.
Bless the mail carrier.

Bless the brass penguin,
the painted gnome.
Bless the home they guard.
Bless its tiny yard, its lawn – still dead.
Yes, bless.

Bless this blinding birch, echo of the snow.
Bless the sun that makes it gleam.
Bless all the trees with their naked branches,
roots burrowing through swollen dark soil,
buds soon to adorn their tips.

Bless dead leaves from last fall.
Bless the fall. Bless it all. Bless it all.

Bless this sweat that's sharp and salty on my lips.
Bless lips
Bless tongue.

Bless kissing and tasting.
Bless my own blood
blood that bubbles and races through narrow veins
clear like wine, thick like mud.

Bless these lungs
this rhythm, these breaths, these steps
these calves and ankles and quadriceps.
Bless these sneakers.
Bless tying laces.

Bless this hill I climb.
Bless this child I carry inside.
Bless the wild.
Bless time.

Bless the winds – still cool
but mild.

Bless the rain that will come tomorrow.
Bless memories of snow and dreams of the oceans.
Bless joy and sorrow.

Bless all the Jews, families,
walking home from their devotions.

Bless other joggers. Bless yuppies. Bless left turn only.

Bless dogs with jingling tags.
Bless $1 canvas bags.
Bless Washington Square.
Bless custom bridal alterations.
Bless the C-Line
and the B-Line too but maybe not as much
or maybe more because it probably needs all the blessings it can get.

Bless Jesse's Girl.
Bless a woman like that.

Bless parks with swings.
Bless croquet.
Bless today. Bless today. Bless today.

Bless cool water that hisses down my throat.
Bless these burning palms.

Bless no pants.
Bless going pee.

Bless me. Bless me. Bless me.

The Egg

I awoke dreamless; I couldn't sleep. For hours I tossed and turned. Three AM. Three-thirty, four. Got water, went to the bathroom. Nothing helped. So I wrote the second part to this egg poem. I wrote the original one awhile ago. I didn't even know it had a second part.


Egg No. 1

How delicate
how human
to grasp an egg without crushing.

How narrow the window
of force to exert.
How fragile the shell.

How precious.


These frightened fingers do not know
how to reach out and touch.

Like a panicked child's
they clutch, crush,
and the precious yolk
drips
between - slips
to the earth.

Ghosts of flight.



Egg No. 2
Take it, child. Beloved.

Gently
gently now.
Try it once more.

Kiss these trembling hands.
Dry the hot tears.
Quiet the storm.

Here, feel its form: the shell - smooth, curved.
Touch it. Still warm.
Take it. Try it once more.

These timid fingers reach out.

How defiant
how human
to reach out and touch once more.


Anyway I waited until morning to post it to be sure it actually made sense (I have to be wary of things that seem insightful or funny in that state between dreaming and wakefulness. Like the time I dreamt about a "hilarious" joke that I wanted to tell my friend. I never saw the friend in the dream, but I did awaken in the middle of the night and write the joke down so I wouldn't forget it the next time I saw him. I sent him an email about it when I awoke, but, needless to say, he did not think it was very funny.)

Getting Born

Their motions were silhouetted against the drapes, moving, bouncing toward the doors.
I cloaked myself in the shadow of the pines and waited.

With a clamor they burst open
and the light streamed and flickered lengthwise, blinding, across the snow.

The first one froze at the edge of the darkness
This threshold between womb and world
Held out a strong bunched arm that caught the other across the gut.

Spoken words snatched mid-syllable, sinking on the current and swirling at their feet
An instant suspended like a weightless orb

With only breath spurting in misty puffs into the night.

They turned to each other slowly, wide-eyed, maybe sisters or maybe lovers
and asked when it had gotten dark.

And the first one said
While we were laughing.

The second said
No.

Somehow we found ourselves inside out.
Found ourselves in Tomorrow before it was Today.
And yet here we are.

Let’s get born.
Let’s get born right now. Together.

They shrieked, and they hooted,
And – hand grasping mittened hand – they strode out into the darkness.

And I could only watch the two slowly vanish under the stars.
My own breath pouring slowly from tiny nostrils, rising silently, finally fading to darkness
Feel the cold, the air, dragging me downward
Could only begin to wonder.

Let’s get born, they said.
As though anyone could just choose that sort of thing.

Grace Enough

It's almost finished, I think. I might have read it too many times at this point, though. Please tell me what you think... if any parts seem weird or choppy.

Is there grace enough for me
in this wounded gleaming universe?
Am I too blind
to my own light to ever See?

Will these shadows, curtains ever fall
away?
And will we die
arise from ashes at the dawn's first light
and standing naked, embrace the day?

Which hand
which time, will stitch together every ache and seam:
which gesture?

Can all this gold within us glow?
We're just bounding through the galaxies.
And is it possible to know when we are streaming through molasses?
We tumbled headfirst into this World
caught by humans, loved and hated
we, these fragile human souls
dumb or brave or neither.


Oh fill me,
fill me with a greater love -
awareness, sight, and I dispense.

Teach me searing to feel again.
Tender aching joy begun
and filled with quiet miracles
of a raindrop
on a petal.

Deeper Silver

Two days before my twenty-third birthday
He left
tired months with silence and suddenly away
Left me with six grey hairs and terror at ever loving again.

Twenty-four-and-a-half years old
In the bathroom at work I see it has sprung back glistening alongside brown curls
snatch a single strand from my temple
with a tiny ping and successive echoes
that he could walk down those stairs
ping
how I now miss that youth
ping
how I miss that optimism and trust
ping
which were snatched from hoping fingers.

Fingers
between which the hair begins to smolder, transformed, burning I almost drop it
Purified by molten life.
I see years, sorrows of brothers and sisters
Pain transfigured into understanding
and finally awareness
Yes the roots of life reach deeper now than they did before.

Damn you, hair. Deeper.