When I Was Young and Poor - February 7, 2011

When I was young and poor,

when little was much,

when I was nimble and never tired,

and the hours of the day were deep and long,

where was the end that was already committed?...

nowhere, nowhere!

Just the gift of forgetfulness gracious and kind

while I ran up hills and drank the wind-

time out of mind.

Which is it?  Do we struggle to forget? Or not to forget?  In the older years, we seem not able to forget that our "self ending" is coming, though we might long too as we did in our younger years.  Paradoxically don't we also strive to remember that there really is "no self?" How glorious are the days when we merge into the river and the wind, our extinction into beauty a welcome relief.

If you could forget something, what might it be?

Walking Home from Oak-Head

There is something
about the snow-laden sky
in winter
in the late afternoon

that brings to the heart elation
and the lovely meaninglessness
of time.
Whenever I get home - whenever -

somebody loves me there.
Meanwhile
I stand in the same dark peace
as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly
like the still unhurried wind,
waiting,
as for a gift,

for the snow to begin
which it does
at first casually,
then, irrepressibly.

Wherever else I live -
in music, in words,
in the fires of the heart,
I abide just as deeply

in this nameless, indivisible place,
this world,
which is falling apart now,
which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,
our deepest prayers.
Don't worry, sooner or later I'll be home.
Red-cheeked from the roused wind,

I'll stand in the doorway
stamping my boots and slapping my hands,
my shoulders
covered with stars.

keywords: snow, sky, winter, time love, dark, peace, tree, wind, gift, music, word, fire, heart, world, star

I have been told that in this book we see a shift of Mary, perhaps towards religion or God. I'm not quite clear what discontent exactly some of my acquaintances portend when they say "Mary changes" in her later books. It's hard for me to imagine that she could be much more religious, much more of the suffering seeker, or more the one totally committed to growing her faith in the world than she has been. I certainly know that she brings out the hunger in me for faith in earth and her beings. Just beyond her words and often beyond my reach is the nameless, the indivisible, to which she temporarily gives the names of tree or bird. Maybe later she'll take the risk and call this God. It's all the same to me, for my struggle will not change. With this world falling apart now, how might I still see the light and grow a faith that is ultimately beyond me. For me, part of this answer is becoming, read a poem from Mary.

You who read Mary regularly, what is happening with your faith and in your prayers?

Circles

In the morning the blue heron is busy

stepping, slowly, around the edge of the

pond. He is tall and shining. His wings, folded

against his body, fit so neatly they

make of him, when he lifts his shoulders and begins to rise

into the air, a great surprise. Also

he carries so light the terrible sword-beak. Then

he is gone over the trees.

I am so happy to be alive in this world

I would like to live forever, but I am

content not to. Seeing what I have seen

has filled me; believing what I believe

has filled me.

The first words of this page are

hardly thought of when the bird

circles back over the trees; it floats down

like an armful of blue flowers, a bundle of light

coming to refresh itself again in the black water, and I think:

maybe it is or it isn't the same bird-maybe it's

the first one's child, or the child of its child.

What I mean is, our deliverance from Time

and the continuance, if we only steward them well,

of earthly things. So maybe it's myself still standing here, or

someone else, like myself hot with the joy of this world, and

filled with praise.

Yesterday a young coyote walked across our lawn in the ripening dawn. Along the way to kayak the Suwannee, families of turkeys and deer adorned the highways, as did one lone feral pig. In the water one gator swam under our boats and mighty sturgeons jumped to our joy nearby. Juvenile Red-shouldered hawks and immature Little Blue Herons Herons kept closer to us on the banks than their parents would have, and on the way back, a raccoon scampered in front of my speeding car, closer to me than s/he should have been. So maybe it's myself writing to you this morning, or the gator, or the turkey, or the coyote - our very being a joy of this world worthy of incessant praise.

What would you do differently if you lived forever?

The Swan – April 10, 2010

Across the wide waters

Something comes

floating– a slim

And delicate

Ship, filled

With white flowers

And it moves

On its miraculous muscles

As though time didn’t’ exist,

As though bringing such gifts

To the dry shore was a happiness…

Of course! The path to heaven

Doesn’t lie down in flat miles.

It’s in the imagination

With which you perceive

This world,

And the gestures

With which you honor it.

Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those

White wings

Touch the shore?

Mary has written of swans before in “Swans of the River Ayr.” There she speaks of the calamity of our kind in taming the wild, in taming ourselves. The child can see this fierce chaos, but somehow we domesticate our urges, and hence life around us. I wonder if it is true that the difference between vengeful swans and swans of beauty lies only in our imagination. What if we did keep the child’s nonlinear expansive story telling ability, the near magical dream world they live in, and bring that forward to our hearts and minds today? In other words, what if we were poets? Would we be creating a kinder, more loving world? One of stark reality where our imagination says, yes, death is yours sweet one, and my life, the swan’s life, is your life. Perhaps we don’t live in that world because it is too wondrous, too awesome, too powerful. If we did we’d be bowing in recognizing our self-less power all the time to ducks in the park, slugs in the garden, and trash in the street.

What would you do when the swans come to shore?