Logan International

In the city called Wait,
also known as the airport,
you might think about your life --
there is not much else to do.
For one thing,
there is too much luggage,
and you're truly lugging it --
you and, it seems, everyone.

What is it, that you need so badly?
Think about this.

Earlier, in another city,
you're on the tarmac, a lost hour.
You're going to miss your connection, and you know it,
and you do.
You're headed for five hours of nothing.
And how long can you think about your own life?

What I did, to save myself,
was to look for children, the very young ones
who couldn't even know where they were going, or why.
Some of them were fussing, of course.
Many of them were beautifully Hispanic.

The storm was still busy outside, and snow falling
anywhere, any time, is a wonder.
But even more wonderful, and maybe the only thing
to put your own life in proportion,
were the babies, the little ones, hot and tired,
but still
gurgling, chuckling, as they looked --
wherever they were going, or not yet going,
in their weary parents' arms (no!
their lucky parents' arms) --
upon this broken world.

Mary asks what is it that we need so badly. I desire that children would not be looking upon a broken world. Yet, if the world is such a bad place how is that that gurgling, wondrous babies came into being? Airports are such places where we look at the baggage of our lives, open it up, and perhaps leave some of it behind. Or take home more to ponder at some later date.

A few years ago I was in a busy airport when I saw a bat flying at people level on the walkway between gates. People were ducking and darting. I set down my baggage, took of my jacket to use as a net, and set off to catch the bat. I was not having much success when one man took a swipe at the bat to harm it. I told him that I would catch the bat and let it go outside. I almost had the bat when the same man took off his shoe, threw it, and the bat fell to the floor. I just stared at the man. Why would he kill an innocent being when he knew that I would take care of her? I scooped up the bat, still alive, and went to the airline attendant at the gate and asked if she could let me outside so I could let the bat die in peace, or perhaps recover. She just started at me and asked, "What are you, a veterinarian?" She did let me out side and I placed the bat on the connector walkway on the tarmac.

Returning inside, many eyes were on me. I wanted to shout, "What are we, humans?" In that moment the world indeed seemed so very broken.

When have you experienced "brokenness" and what reminded you of wholeness?

The Fist

There are days
when the sun goes down
like a fist,
though of course

if you see anything
in the heavens this way
you had better get

your eyes checked
or, better still,
your diminished spirit.
The heavens

have no fist,
or wouldn't they have been
shaking it
for a thousand years now,

and even
longer than that,
at the dull, brutish
ways of mankind -

heaven's own
creation?
Instead: such patience!
Such willingness

to let us continue!
To hear,
little by little,
the voices -

only, so far, in
pockets of the world -
suggesting the possibilities

of peace?

Keep looking.
Behold, how the fist opens
with invitation.

The sun sets, closing the fist of light so that in the dark we may reflect upon the shadows of our souls. Each night we have the opportunity to review the day and where we have participated in harm in the world. Also too how our celebrations have given life to others. We have the day blind stars above us who do not judge, but hold witness to what we have done. Then, in the morning, after a night of reckoning, the rising sun opens a fist and the fingers of heaven might even wiggle beckoning us in a come hither motion. “You may begin anew” invites the burgeoning light. Oh how I love these mornings – a new start. Every 24 hours a reckoning and a beckoning.

What would you begin again this day?

Gethsemane - October 5, 2010

The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.

Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn't move,
maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.

In the movie, JC Superstar, Jesus sings:

Will no one stay awake with me

Peter, John, James

Will none of you wait with me

Peter, John, James

This has always haunted me. What would I do? Sleep through the night while Jesus asks "Why should I die?" I am also haunted by the question - what will I do today? Will I be asleep as the multitudes ask "Why should I die?" What if I were to awake and ponder that question throughout the day with all beings?

Towards the end of Jesus' prayer to God, he says:

Just watch me die!

See how I die!

Take me now, before I change my mind.

How many times today will I change my mind and not ask this question, wanting reasons for dying instead of looking to the beauty and tragedy of those around me, and knowing that is enough of an answer.

The Poet Thinks About the Donkey - October 4, 2010

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

Mary is telling a parable about one of the chief parable tellers of all time. A parable is a story that often uses a device where statements are made, and then knocked down. This is known as a qal wahomer. Here Mary is setting up a tension between wild, freedom and captured obedience. Which do we prefer we wonder as we go through the poem? Are we tied to religion and only able to take one step forward in our duties as human beings? Yet in this role we can feel love and courage. Or do we have to choose between this and delight in our choosing? If we choose, though, our own paths in unbounded freedom, we will never be able to serve the whole? Confused? Undecided? Yes then, the parable has worked. In our uncertainty, we give ourselves over to a better, bigger thing.

What is this better, bigger thing for you?

Letter to ______________ - October 3, 2010

You have broken my heart.

Just as well. Now

I am learning to rise

Above all that, learning

The thin life, waking up

Simply to praise

Everything in this world that is

Strong and beautiful

Always-the trees, the rocks,

The fields, the news

From heaven, the laughter

That comes back

All the same. Just as well. Time

To read books, rake the lawn

In peace, sweep the floor, scour

The faces of the pans,

Anything .And I have been so

Diligent it is almost

Over, I am growing myself

As strong as rock, as a tree

Which, if I put my arms around it, does not

Lean away. It is a

Wonderful life. Comfortable.

I read the papers. Maybe

I will go on a cruise, maybe I will

Cross the entire ocean, more than once.

Whatever you think, I have scarcely

Thought of you. Whatever you imagine,

It never really happened. Only a few

Evenings of nonsense. Whatever you believe-

Dear one, dear one-

Do not believe this letter.

I wonder how many people each of us would like a letter like this to. I am thinking of one or two. How, after our parting I did not know how to deal with the pain and my heart that had broken open. So I turned without and as my heart mended it healed a little bit larger to take in the beauty of the world around me, and in me. I was determined that love would not destroy me, but grow me. If I could but just let those of past now how well I’ve done without them – my parrot companions, my father, my Mayan. What I would also tell them that still in the night, they come to me in dreams, and in the morning the heart sighs and I must rewrite that letter and the story of my life.

To whom would you send such a letter?

Doesn’t Every Poet Write a Poem about Unrequited Love - October 2, 2010

The flowers

I wanted to bring to you,

Wild and wet,

From the pale dunes

And still smelling

Of the summer night,

And still holding a moment or two

Of the night’s cricket’s

Humble prayer,

Would have been

So handsome

In you hands-

So happy-I dare to say it-

In your hands­

Yet your smile

Would have been nowhere

And maybe you would have tossed them

Onto the ground,

Or maybe, for tenderness,

You would have taken them

Into your house

And given them water

And put them in a dark corner

Out of reach.

In matters of love

Of this kind

There are things we long to do

But must not do.

I would not want to see

Your smile diminished.

And the flowers, anyway,

Are happy just where they are,

On the pale dunes,

Above the cricket’s humble nest,

Under the blue sky

That loves us all

I am thinking of the days when I have risen and either forgotten about the sky above, or having seen it, not noticed the grandeur of that above because I was concentrating on what was before me, or in me. I am not saying I was “wrong” for not seeing bird in tree or flower in field or cloud in sky, I’m just saying:

There is beauty ever ready to be loved

It is all around us

And we are like the mad poets, writing about love unreturned when if we but look, the love will return.

For it is in us, connected to the beauty without.

So may I today look up, see the sky, and speak not of unrequited love, but of love fulfilled.

Where has love not returned to you?

News of Percy (Five)

In the morning of his days he is in the afternoon of his life.

It’s some news about kidneys those bean-shaped necessities,

Of which, of his given two, he has one working, and

That not well.

We named him for the poet, who died young, in the blue

Waters off Italy.

Maybe we should have named him William, since Wordsworth

Almost never died.

We must laugh a little at this rich and unequal world,

So they say, so they say.

And let them keep saying it.

Percy and I are going out now, to the beach, to join

His friends-

The afghan, the lab, the beautiful basset.

And let me go with good cheer in his company.

For though he is young he is beloved,

He is all but famous as he runs

Across the shining beach, that faces the sea.

Oh now, Mary is going to lose Percy as well as Molly, her partner! But Percy is young and it must seem unfair or “unequal” as Mary says. Yet, she is in love with him as is the world, no matter the course of his life. Yes! No matter our future, there is life to love now. If ever there was a chance to love now, it is to look over a pack of playing dogs. Our eyes take in the energy and sheer force of beings who share their lives with us, but with whom we are never quite dog enough. So our canine companions find other dogs and suddenly we are on the outside looking in, and inward. Who knew that beauty was so possible in sharing the mundane experiences of those with whom we live? Who knew that the holy other is right in our midst? The tragedy is that we often don’t realize this until that particular beauty has gone. So bark now beauty, howl your holy presence, now.

Whose life/beauty have you known that has been too fleeting?