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?

I Own a House

I own a house, a small but comfortable.  In it is a bed, a desk, a kitchen, a closet, a telephone.  And so forth you know how it is: things collect.

…there is the mockingbird; over and over he rises from this thorn-tree and dances-he actually dances, in the air. And there are days I wish I owned nothing, like the grass.

Okay, time for true confessions. I own a house too, well mostly.  When we signed the papers to purchase the house, my heart  felt an ache, a heavy burden.  I did not want to own things.  Yet also I heard the mind saying with its middle-class ways, “Be prudent, be safe, be careful – buying a home will give you a place to live, will guard your finances, and offer security in the future.”

It’s now been nearly 4 years, and things continue to collect in our home.

Things also collect in terms of gear for my wildlife and conservation work. I leave for Guyana in 2 days and I have so looked forward to only taking 25 pounds of luggage, the suggested limit for the small planes and boats upon which we will travel.  With all the cameras and binoculars I am coming closer to 50 pounds.

I wonder, do I really need all this stuff to watch birds dance in the forests of South America?  Then the mind comes in and says, “Take the gear so as to keep the birds safe, and offer security that they and their kind will be there for the future.”

It’s a dance to be sure, this owning, not owning.

How do you dance to this melody?

It is Early - March 7, 2011

It is early, still the darkest of the dark.

And already I have killed (in exasperation)

two mosquitoes and (inadvertently)

one spider.

All the same, the sun will rise

in its sweeps of pink and red clouds.

Not for me does it rise and not in haste does it rise

but step by step, neither

with exasperation nor inadvertently, and not with

any intended attention to

any one thing, but to all, like a god

That takes its instructions from another, even greater,

whose name, even, we do not know.  The one

that made the mosquito, and the spider; the one

that made me as I am:  easy to exasperation, then penitent.

I have recently been watching bit and pieces of various programs about the nature of the universe.  My spouse is doing a sermon series on this topic, so I join him in his musings.

Just last night we watched Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe," that shows us the universe through the lens of mathematics and physics.  Last week I saw bits part of the series, "Cosmos" starring Carl Sagan. I never watched it when it first came out in the 1980's. As I see it now, I marvel how the words spoken there reveal to our kind how much the suns are like gods.  They are such a miracle in a vast ocean of mystery, and they bring so much life.  We are so small compared to the billions and billions of stars in the universe.  Yet, knowing this, we grow large and beautiful, for we are made of star dust.  We are stars.

Carl Sagan produced a fictional movie and book, "Contact," which is about how humans are stars, and also so childlike and fallible.  In this mix, always, is the awe and wonder of existence.  It is in my top ten favorite movies because the beauty there and the possibility of healing calls me to my better self.  Towards the end of the movie when the main character is hurtling towards other galaxies, she looks out on the birth and death of stars and says, "They should have sent a poet."

Well, they did.  The universe sent us Mary.  She calls me to my better self this morning.

What is the universe to you?

Today

Today is a day of

dark clouds and slow rain.

The little blades of corn

are so happy

Today is a day of darkened homes amongst the  terrorized citizenry, 

slowing revolutions, and assassinations of the brave.

Dare we be happy in such a world?

Just Rain

The clouds did not say soon,

but who can tell for sure, it wasn't

the first time I had been fooled;

the sky-doors opened and the rain began

to fall upon all of us...

and then the birds joined in

and I too felt called toward such throat praise. Well,

the whole afternoon went on that way

 until I thought I could feel the almost born things

in the earth rejoicing. As for myself, I just kept walking, thinking: 

once more I am grateful to be present.

How many times today will I say, "just?"

When I see the sun's light move the owl in the leaves into focus -

ah, it's just the early morning light that is a prayer

When my son awakes and trudges towards the coffee machine-

ah, it's just a young man, miracle of birth and circumstance,

and ah, yes, just love

When my spouse sings hymns in the shower,

ah, it's just a man who loves so much that he'll give his life just for me, and ah, yes, just for you too

When I write these words,

ah, they're just me aching to be present

Just for today

just for the next moment

Is there anything you take for granted for which you would like to sing praise for today?

There you were and it was like spring

There you were, and it was like spring-

Like the first fair water with the light on it,

Hitting the eyes,

Why are we made the way we are made, that to love

Is to want?

Well, you are gone now, and this morning I have walked out

To the back shore,

To the ocean which, even if we think we have measured it,

Has not final measure.

Sometimes you can see the great whales there,

Breaching and playing.

Sometimes the swans linger just long enough

For us to be astonished.

Then they lift their wings, they become again

A part of the untouchable clouds.

We are the ideas of God, we are not, and we are the clouds – so sayeth Mary in the last 3 poems.

What I hear is that we are like the ocean and we have no final measure.

We are not just this, or only that.

I am not woman, mother, veterinarian, minister, middle-aged, nuts for birds, lonely, or in love

I am not

I am

Untouchable

What are you or are you not?

I Don't Want to Live a Small Life

I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,

open your hands. I have just come

from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way

(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds

following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes

only to you. Look how many small

but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will bring to anyone in this

world of hope and risk, so do

Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

Who among us wishes to live a small life? Who among us opens our hands to have hope on one side, and risk on the other, willing to walk that knife edge of uncertainty? 

I ask you now to stretch out your arms and open your hands.  Look to the sky or perhaps to some living being in your range - a tree? A friend?  A snoring family member?   Do you like me feel the heart opening as arms stretch out? Do you like me feel your heart and life constricted when your hands and arms refuse to embrace all that is and hang by your side, clutch themselves nervously, or grasp themselves in a false sense of security?

Given the amount of time I spend on a computer, I wonder if the keyboard should not be as long as my desk, guiding my life to be open to what is and what shall come. 

Instead, see my arms open now (well at the end of this sentence) looking at you. What a gift.

How might you open your life today?

Of Goodness

How good

That the clouds travel, as they do,

Like the long dresses of the angels

Of our imagination,

Or gather in storm masses, then break

With their gifts of replenishment,

And how good

That the trees shelter the patient birds

In their thick leaves,

And how good that that in the field

The next morning

Red bird frolics again, his throat full of song,

 And how good

That the dark ponds, refreshed,

Are holding the white cups of the lilies

So that each is an eye that can look upward,

And how good that the little blue-winged teal

Comes paddling among them, as cheerful as ever

And so on, and so on.

How good it is that we travel from one side of the family to the other

On this Thanksgiving weekend

Disappearing fathers on one wing and diminishing mothers on the other

We soar down Interstate 20 and 95

Like an eagle, seeing, and taking in all

Cheer, yes, there is some to replenish the spirit

But what I would give to see a teal to deal

With the heartache and the loss

And so on and so on.

What would you see today to replenish your life?