In Your Hands

The dog, the donkey, surely they know they are alive.

Who would argue otherwise?...

What about the sunflowers?...

Listen, all you have to do is start and there'll be no stopping....

And, speaking of stones, what about the little ones you can

hold in your hands their heartbeats so secret

so hidden it make take years

before, finally you hear them?

In the recent interview with Mary Oliver, she was asked what she had done with her one wild and precious life. She responded, "I used up a lot of pencils...... What I have done is learn to love and learn to be loved. That didn't come easy. And I learned to consider my life an amazing gift. Those are the things."

The subtext of what I believe she has done with her life,  as this poem suggests, is to listen so that she could see, hear, feel, and know love. 

If we listen hard enough I believe that not only will we find beauty everywhere, but also love.  I don't know which comes first or which might be causal, I only know that as I listen in the night, the barred owl asks, "Who loves for you?"

May I answer, "I do."  May we answer, "We do."  Loving is after all in our hands.

How do you listen to love?  

Just Around the House, Early in the Morning - February 27, 2011

Though I have been scorned for it

let me never be afraid to use the world beautiful.

For with is the shining leaf

and the blossoms of the geranium at the window.

And the eyes of the happy puppy as he wakes.

The colors of the old and beloved afghan lying

by itself, on the couch, in the morning sun.

The hummingbirds' nest perched now in a

corner of the bookshelf, in front of so many

books of so many colors.

the two poached eggs.  The buttered toast.

The ream of brand-new paper just opened,

white as a block of snow.

The typewriter humming, ready to go.

Having read this poem, I just walked around the house this morning, taking inventory of the beauty I see. It was like a walking meditation, a prayer.

Into the kitchen I see the refrigerator, whose freezer is full of locally grown leafy foods converted into the soup that nourishes me through the winter, made by the hands of my beloved spouse.

Out the window I appraise the growing sand pile, the leavings for the recently refreshed gopher tortoise burrow.  Maybe I will see her today, maybe not. But I know she's there and I guess in her turtle way, she knows of us.

The living room carpet has a few kernels of popcorn, the leavings of our family  night last night - cards and movies with spouse and son.

Down the hall I quietly lurk, peeking into the reading/meditation room where my spouse sits in healing silence and where the sun shines through the sycamore leaf  in the window. This room, now mostly empty after adopted son #2 took his leaving of us, likely permanently.

Then into the last room, darkened as to son #1's preferences, piles of clothes on the floor and dishes on his desk, showing the signs of late night study sessions interspersed with his constant chatter on phone and computer.  He has left for the day, though he leaves behind in me a gratitude for his sprawling, unique presence.

And now back to my computer, it humming until I feed it the words of the song within me.

What does your list of beauty and gratitude look like as you go around your house?

Of Time

Don't even ask how rapidly the hummingbird lives his life.

You can't imagine.  A thousand flowers a day,

a little sleep, then the same again,

then he vanishes.

I adore him.

Yet I adore also the drowse of mountains.

And in the human world, what is time?

In my mind there is Rumi, dancing.

There is Li Po drinking from the winter stream.

There is Hafiz strolling through Shariz, his feet

loving the dust.

I reflect upon Mary today with the words of 3 timeless poets: Li Po 8th century, Rumi 13th century, Hafiz 14th century, and their parchment scribblings now dust in our eyes.

Does thinking of time free you, or bind you?

Li Po - The Old Dust

The living is a passing traveler;

The dead, a man come home.

One brief journey between heaven and earth,

Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.

The rabbit in the moon pounds the elixir in vain;

Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood.

Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word

While the green pines feel the coming of the spring.

Looking back, I sigh; looking before, I sigh again.

What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory?

Rumi

How should the soul not take wings
when from the Glory of God

It hears a sweet, kindly call:
"Why are you here, soul? Arise!"

How should a fish not leap fast
into the sea from dry land

When from the ocean so cool
the sound of the waves reaches its

How should the falcon not fly
back to his king from the hunt

When from the falconer's drum
it hears to call: "Oh, come back"?

Why should not every Sufi
begin to dance atom-like

Around the Sun of duration
that saves from impermanence?

What graciousness and what beauty?
What life-bestowing! What grace!

If anyone does without that, woe-
what err, what suffering!

Oh fly , of fly, O my soul-bird,
fly to your primordial home!

You have escaped from the cage now-
your wings are spread in the air.

Oh travel from brackish water
now to the fountain of life!

Return from the place of the sandals
now to the high seat of souls!

Go on! Go on! we are going,
and we are coming, O soul, 

From this world of separation
to union, a world beyond worlds!

How long shall we here in the dust-world
like children fill our skirts

With earth and with stones without value,
with broken shards without worth?
Let's take our hand from the dust grove,
let's fly to the heavens' high,

Let's fly from our childish behaviour
and join the banquet of men!

Call out, O soul, to proclaim now
that you are rules and king!

You have the grace of the answer,
you know the question as well!

Hafiz - Wake up Winebringer!

Wake up Winebringer! And pour me a glass of wine.
Throw dust on the head of this sad earth man.

I’ve taken off my snazzy blue coat and bare-chested
I clutch this full cup.

Even though the rich or the politicians call us “trash,”
To us their blue blood or fame means nothing.

Give me more wine! All their dust blowing around in the wind of pride
And desire is as worthless as a hole.

The smoke from my burning heart
Gags all those with ignorance as their goal.

My mad heart has a secret
That no one knows.

The Beloved has stolen even the sweet solitude from my heart,
And I am content.

No one who has ever laid eyes on this silver-limbed Cypress,
Would ever go looking in the woods for a cypress again.

“Hafez,” the voice of inner wine will say;
“Be careful what you ask for, you may just get what you want!”

First Days in San Miguel de Allende

1.

The flagellated Christ

is being carried

to San Miguel de Allende.

He must be very heavy

yet the carriers persist

upon the sun flashed road

and the people follow

in the same way that people would seek

a river heard of but never yet found.

they are that thirsty...

2.

I have come, for the first time, to Mexico.

And what has happened

to that intense ambition

with which I always wake?

Soaked up

in the colors, stolen

by the blood Christs.

I am feeling something, incredibly,

like peace...

3.

the tops of the northbound trains are dangerous.

Still, they are heaped with hopefuls.

I understand their necessity.

Understanding, however, it not sharing.

Oh, let there be a wedding of the

mind and the heart, if not today

then soon.

Meanwhile, let me change my own life

into something better.

Meanwhile, on the streets of San Miguel de Allende

it is easy to smile.

"Hola," I say to the children.

"Hi," they say, as I pass

with my passport, and money, in my pocket.

For many years I lived with the shame of being able to come and go from Mesoamerica, while I left my friends behind. They suffered violence, poverty, illness, brokenness, alcoholism, and dying children.  I could leave and they could not.  Now some of them are dead.

It is for that reason, in part, that we took into our homes two young men from Honduras who came up through Mexico on top of one of the trains that Mary speaks of - the Death Train.

Yes I know that all of life is journey towards death!  Yes I know that I can't save every child, bird, and tree!  Yes I know that there are pretty flowers to view along the dangerous path!

I know much and can learn more.

But for today, let there be a wedding of my heart and head.

May I vow with every breath, "I do!"

What is your vow today?

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....

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 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, the ambition.

2.

If God exists he isn't just butter and good luck. 
He's also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke… 

If God exists he isn't just 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 Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert Motherwell. 
He's the 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....

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.

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.

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.

A quick review on the internet shows this to be one of Mary's more popular later poems.  For me, I enjoy it so very much because it speaks of an answer to old age, death, loss, and suffering.  What can we do but to remember that we receive, and that our response is to give back? For God is in my arthritic knees, my mother's dementia, my sister's cancer, and in the extinction of the parrots and the people.  I'm going to have to listen very, very hard to hear the singing in such times as these.

Is your house full of ideas? Doubts?  Hesitations? Prayer? Singing?

Evidence

I.

Where do I live? If I had no address, as many people
do not, I could nevertheless say that I lived in the
same town as the lilies of the field, and the still
waters.

Spring, and all through the neighborhood now there are
strong men tending flowers.

Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue. But
all beautiful things, inherently, have this function -
to excite the viewers toward sublime thought. Glory
to the world, that good teacher.

Among the swans there is none called the least, or
the greatest.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in
singing, especially when singing is not necessarily
prescribed.

As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious
and full of detail; it wants to polish itself; it
wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in
the world that can hold, in a mix of power and
sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,
ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

2.

There are many ways to perish, or to flourish.

How old pain, for example, can stall us at the threshold of function….

Still friends, consider stone, that is without the fret of gravity, and water that is without anxiety. 

And the pine trees that never forget their recipe for renewal. 

And the female wood duck who is looking this way and that way for her children. And the snapping turtle who is looking this way and that way also. This is the world. 

And consider, always, every day, the determination of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles. 

3. 

I ask you again: if you have not been enchanted by this adventure--your life--what would do for you? 

And, where are you, with your ears bagged down as if with packets of sand? Listen. We all have much more listening to do. Tear the sand away. And listen. The river is singing. …

For myself, I have walked in these woods for

More than forty years, and I am the only

thing, it seems, that is about to be used up.

Or, to be less extravagant, will, in the

Foreseeable future, be used up.

First, though, I want to step out into some

fresh morning and look around and hear myself

crying out:  "The house of money is falling! The house of money is falling! The weeds are rising! The weeds are rising!"

In this day today, do you imagine there will be much evidence? Evidence for what?

Consider the lilies then and the birds as Mary does.  She's been reading the Christian Scriptures that one! (Matthew 6:25-34)

I read it much like she does.  There is so much contradiction in the passage, which points to the opposed tensions in life, we are left to turn to the infallible, but which can be hidden. So we go through our days as sleuths to discover. What you ask?  More importantly, how,  when we know that we are marching towards the point of being used up?  Or like the ducklings, hunted by pain for the good of the world?

I don't have the answer of how we listen for the evidence all around us.  

I only know that beauty is everywhere. It's my job to find it and praise the world accordingly, and to respond to the glory of every being with in the world, which are also within me.

What evidence do you long for today?

Violets - January 13, 2011

Down by the rumbling creek and the tall trees-

Where I went truant from school three days a week

And therefore broke the record-

There were violets as easy in their lives

As anything you have ever seen

Or leaned down to intake the sweet breath of.

Later, when the necessary houses were built

They were gone, and who give significance

To their absence.

Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take

Your place?

The necessary houses have been built on the island of Puerto Rico where I now awaken.  I can’t see the sun’s rising because I’m up high in a rain forest and mist clings all around.  This forest is a remnant of once was, and so is the population of the Puerto Rican Parrot, one of the most endangered birds in the world.  I have spent the night at one of the aviaries, and hear through the swirling cloud the chattering of those in captivity who raise young to be released to the wild flock, which  is now growing.  Millions upon millions have been spent to save this bird, and decades of dedicated work by hundreds of conservationists is now bearing fruit.  It is clear to me that this bird signifies a great deal and its absence would be sorely missed.

What might disappear from your world and could anything take its place?  How?

Prince Buzzard - January 9, 2010

Prince Buzzard,

I took you, so high in the air,

For a narrow boat and two black sails.

You were drifting

In the depths of the air

Wherever you wanted to go,

And when you came down

With your spoony mouth

And your read head

And your creaking wings

To the lamb

Dead, dead, dead

In the fields of spring

I knew it was hunger

That brought you’

Yet you went about it

So slowly,

Settling with hunched wings

And silent

As the grass itself

Over the lambs’s white body-

It seemed

a ceremony,

A pause

As though something

In the quick of your own body

Had come out

To give thanks

For the dark work

That was yours,

Which wasn’t to be done easily or quickly,

But thoroughly-

And indeed by time summer

Opened its green harbors

The fields was nothing but flower, flowers, flowers,

From shore to shore.

I am out on the edge of water this morning, the sun barely awake.  Over the Calooshatcee River in Ft. Myers the first Turkey Vultures begin to sail by around 9 a.m.  It’s cool, perhaps this is why .They await the heating of the day to form the thermals that bare them aloft. Or maybe, there just isn’t that much death so early in the day.

This is probably just another human delusion.  Beings and dreams have died all through the night, we just can’t see it.  Migrants of all kinds won’t make it to the next morning, whether it is blackbirds and doves falling from the sky or humans  from Mesoamerica, seeking a better life.  I am reminded of them as I went out this morning to buy coffee, finding it in a convenience store where I was the only non-native Spanish speaker.  They are here, and how many thousands are not, or will never know a life that flowers into full possibility? 

If I were brave, I would go out into the darkness with my flashlight and look for death to remind me that it all around, happening constantly though I sit here comfortable and pleasured, sipping coffee, on a deck of a house with a pool, Jacuzzi, multiple couches, and an HDTV.  No wait a minute. If I were truly brave, I would go out in the darkness with no light at all, and give myself over to death, so that there would be even more flowers on the morrow.  If I, if we, did this, then we might return to a world where the spattering of ducks and coots now on this river near me would cover this river from shore to shore?