Four Sonnets - Part 4

4.

This morning what I am thinking of is circles:

The sun, the earth, the moon;

The life of each of us that begins then returns

To our home, the circular world,

Even as in our cleverness we have invented

Invention – the straight line…

This morning what I am thinking about is circles

And the straight lines that rule us

While earth abides in all sorts of splendors,

Knowing its limitations. The light

Of every morning curls forth,

Oh beautifully, then circles toward the dark.

Obama works, prays, then grabs his scrim of sleep.

For five days I have seen every sunrise, and every sunset.  Round each day goes and I don’t know what day of the week it is.  Roundness, wholeness, belonging suffuses the air.  The rivers upon which we travel, the Rupununi and the Rewa, resist the straight and narrow of human culture as they curve around the hidden splendors of the forests, macaws, toucans, orchids, and Amerindian children.  Yet, I cannot keep my mind from work, from thought, from inventing some kind of project to keep this beauty safe.  I write here for this blog, I keep a bird species list, I journal.  What if I were to just breathe?  Would I find the rhythm of these 500 year old trees around me?

What happens if you were to just breathe with those you love and admire?

Four Sonnets - Part 3

3.

The authors of history are among us still.

And believe me they believe what they believe

As sincerely as the millions who are simply looking for a life, a purpose.

Who are the good people? We are all good people

Except when we are not.  Meanwhile the forests are felled..

Who despises us and for what reason? Whom do we

Despise and for what reason?....

“What’s on your mind” we say to each other.

As though it’s some kind of weight.

.

I’m in a forest that we speak of in the day as being in danger of felling. As night falls it is too close to nightmares to bring into conscious thought.  If we do, our enemies might stalk us in the dark and keep our dreams of a beloved community from forming.  It’s hard to say who the enemy is – the oil companies that will come in to drill, and build roads and communities around them?  The government in Georgetown, Guyana that sold the mining rights out from underneath the Amerinians?  Or we consumers with our electricity eating gadgets and cars? 

This despising is a weight – I see it in the conservationists around me and I feel it in my heart.  If I could have the yellow breast of the macaw, perhaps I would be too delighted with myself and my kind to look at anything or anyone but in awe.

Whom do you despise and why?

Four Sonnets - Part 2

2.

The kingfisher hurrahs from a branch above the river.

Under it’s feet is a fish that will swim no more,

That has its story, for another time perhaps.

Now it is the bird’s, pounding the fish then hulking it down its open beak…

Thought does not create the soul, not entirely, but it plays its part.

Meanwhile the bird is flashy body and the fish was flashy body and each

Fulfills what it is, remember little and imagines less.

And thus the day passes into darkness undamaged.

The fish, slippery and delicious,

The kingfisher, so quick, so blue.

Out on the river last night there were two kinds of fishers; the birds of which the blue racous Ringed Kingfisher streaks by and then the Amazona Kingfisher, green as emerald.  Both loop in and out of and then over the water to low lying branches.  Out on the water are also two of boat guides throwing lures into the bow lake of the Rupununi River, again and again, until at last they come up with two Peacock Bass which will be cooked in an outdoor kitchen for our dinner tonight.

Who am I to say that either fisher is wrong or not beautiful, though damage to flesh and rivers comes as does the darkness.

Swinging in the hammock under the sparking stars, a stomach content with delicious bass, I wonder how to live with nature, rightly, graciously, abundantly.  If I had feathers, would these long nights be any easier?

What parts of your humanity do you cherish?

Four Sonnets - Part 1

1.       There appeared a darkly sparkling thin hardly bigger than a pin, that all afternoon  seemed to want my company,  It did me no hurt but wandered my shirt, my sleeve cuff, my wrist…

Oh, distant relative, we will never speak to each other a single kind word. And yet, in this world, it is no small thing to sparkle.

I am in Guyana and there are millions of things here I know not the name of – insects that bite and hum and chirp and whistle.  Along our walks today I hear a constant toning of a mediation bell, and it is a bee I am told.  Even if it is a large bee, it remains such a small thing to invoke the trees to bend in the wind as eaves in a chapel.  Out there with them I pray that I am aware that all beings sparkle.

What small things are with you in your life?

In the Darkness

At night the stars throw down their postcards of light.

Who are they that love me so much?...

I am grateful and faithful to this other romance

Though we will not ever know each other’s names, we will not ever

Touch.

.

I am reading John Donahue’s book, “Beauty – The Invisible Embrace.”  In the beginning pages he writes that if we can see beauty, we will feel like we belong on this planet and will be welcomed home with open arms.  He writes in prose as Mary does in poetry.

We are touched by beauty. Perhaps not as lovers in the night, or as friends on a walk, or children at bed time, but our soul is in contact with the All at times when wonder, awe, and splendor enter our days.  We are caressed, we are embraced, we are held.

At such times our faith is affirmed and feelings of gratitude emerge. 

How now can we open our eyes to see beauty more consistently, so that justice and peace may grow from our faith and gratitude?

Don't Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate.  Give in to it.  There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are no wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left.  Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches of power in the world. It could be anything, but very like you notice it in the instant when love begins…..

In my younger years I had a period where I was not proud of my behavior.  Though love was behind my actions, the strategies I picked to respond to the love had consequences for others.  A few days ago, after nearly 16 years I spoke with someone that had been negatively (and positively – ain’t that the way of things) impacted by me.  I was surprised to find her voice on the phone. After a few minutes I jumped right into expressing my regrets about my behavior in those days. She told me, “It has been forgotten.” 

Such a rich gift!  Such a joy! Not because I had been forgiven, but because I had a chance to redeem a time when my wisdom was not very apparent by speaking of harm.

Still I wonder, if we give into joy, may harm arise?  Is there any way to minimize the harm, or avoid it?  

Maybe not.

So my plan, dear Mary, is yes perhaps to let joy rule the day when it surprises me, but to communicate this with others and with my deeper wisdom so that we together come up with a plan where kindness and peace have a chance.

When have you give into joy with delight, or regret?

Lark Ascending - Back from Guyana

I am now back from Guyana, and this my first morning, spent some time looking at the pictures that do no real justice to the beauty there.  Two in particular are my favorites - Kaieteur Falls and a pair of Red and Green Macaws flying in front of the falls.  They are rising in the cloudy mists of the thunderous water.  As so frequently, such a coincidence that Mary's poem is of birds rising to the clouds. So I include those pictures here for you.  The rest of the poems that will finish out this 15.5 months of Mary's poems, were all written while in Guyana.

Lark Ascending

galloped up into the  morning air

then floated

a long way

whispering, I imagine,

to the same mystery

I try to speak to

down here. ...

if I could

carry a message of thanks

to the doors of the clouds.

I don't know whether it would be

of the or the mind. I know

it's the poem I have yet to make

There are so many ways to give thanks - poets do so with their words, birds perhaps in their own way with their songs, and children with their giggling runs.  Writing, singing, laughing - these are but just three ways to live the day in gratitude.  I imagine there are thousands of ways.  Here are some of mine:

Looking up at the stars and smiling

Bowing to the trees

Kissing the ground

Hugging a person

Identifying a bird species

Biking instead of driving the car

Writing this blog

What are some of your ways of giving thanks?