Percy (2002-2009)

This - I said to Percy when I had left our bed and gone out onto the living room couch where he found me apparently doing nothing – this is called thinking. It’s something people do, not being entirely children of the earth, like a dog or a tree or a flower. His eyes questioned such an activity…Actually I like kissing better.

A Year's Rising with Mary Oliver's Poems 

January 1, 2010 - April 23, 2011

Oh Mary and readers, we are at our last poem together and it is one where I resist her words.  This happens so rarely.  For I feel that people are entirely children of this earth. Our thinking is as the sap rising in the tree and a dog drooling.  Maybe if I had the gift of genius of words that Mary had, I too would feel a separation from life around me.  For how can words capture the kiss of the morning sun upon one’s face and the caress of the wind or a feathered wing?

I suppose they can’t, but they do remind us where the path is.

So I thank you Mary for this time together, for keeping me on the path to see beauty, tragedy, interconnection - reality - in all moments.

And now I think I will lay down my pen, and go and kiss the ground and hug a tree  - my future and always daily nature meditation.

What might you share with others here about your experience of Mary’s poems and our shared reflections?

What is your daily nature meditation?

More Evidence - Part 1

1.

The grosbeak sings with a completely cherishable roughness..

With what words can I convince you of the casualness with which the white swans fly..

Do you give a thought now and again to the essential sparrow, the necessary toad?

Just as truly as the earth is ours, we belong to it. The tissue of our minds is made of it, and the soles of our feet, as fully as the tiger’s claw, the branch of the whitebark pine, the voices of the bird, the dog-tooth violet and the tooth of the dog….

This morning I took a hike with our ectourist group in Guyana up to some caves with bats. Along the way we walked through a forest teaming with thousands of species biting, singing, crawling, hooting, growing, and photosynthesizing.  I love the tropical forest and after days and days in one, I begin to know I belong, as do all beings.  However, I am guessing that for you, like me, there are certain special places in your life that more clearly and strongly say, “You belong.”  For me it is swimming in natural body of water.

After this hike I mentioned I jumped off a bank of a forest river into clear cool water.  With fish swimming all around me, I circled round to see a Pygmy Kingfisher perched on a branch and below him, my species washing their clothes.   Clothes, fur, feathers  no matter how roughly or finely we are clad, we are the skin of the earth emerging from the mixing of mud with water. 

Belonging is the first step, and a hard one to be sure. I believe there is more struggles before us all - knowing we are necessary, and also not.

Where do you gain your greatest sense of belonging?

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?

I Worried

I worried a lot.  Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direct, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not, how shall

I correct it?

Was I right or wrong...

Will I ever be able to sing...

Is my eyesight fading....

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing

And give it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

I imagine that all over the world, minds awake with worry, often long before the sun rises and long before enough rest has been gained.  Just this morning I was up in the wee hours, thinking of final arrangements for my trip to Guyana. 

What I wonder is that beyond worrying there exist greater possibilites of what we could do with this day, and all our days.  First off - learn a new song and a new dance step.  Second, go outside and try to outcompete even the melodious thrasher who waltzes over the ground.  Third, repeat as necessary and as often as possible throughout day.

Let us join together and vow to drop one "worry" off our list, and replace it with praise.

How many days have you spent worrying about something, and have missed the chance for greater possibility?

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain

Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.

I want to climb some old gray mountain, slowly, taking

the rest of my lifetime to do it....

I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,

and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.

All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!...

In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

As so often happens when reading Mary's poem, the coincidence of her words with my life events startles me.  For instance, just this morning I was reviewing my itinerary for my trip to Guyana next week, and there in the middle of it is an overnight hike that gains 6,000 feet in elevation and ends at Jordan falls. 

Then not even 5 minutes later I read this poem about a slow, long climb up a mountain.

That image of me, walking up a winding path of a mountain path with nothing to do but to look, think, remember, and place one foot in front of the other brings me solace this Monday morning. 

How did Mary know that we ache for the sense of eternal wholeness that a long slow hike or a long slow life can bring?

Do you have this ache too?  How do you respond to it?

Beans Green and Yellow

In fall it is mushrooms

gathered from dampness

under the pines:

in spring I have known

the taste of the lamb

full of milk and spring grass;

today it is beans green and yellow

 and lettuce and basil from my friends' garden-

how calmly, as though it were an ordinary thing,

we eat the blessed earth.

Just last week Mary spoke of eating a pine cone that had passed through the digestive system of a bear. Is there nothing she won't eat and be grateful for?

I for one have not been very grateful for the kinds of food that come in the form "green leaves."  I have not been able to eat kale, mustard greens, and spinach, even when covered in cheese such as in lasagna.  It took me years to be able to eat artichokes and Brussels spouts without gagging.  Maybe this has something to do with my mother serving canned spinach that was only slightly warmed up for dinner and became increasingly slimy as the meal progressed.  I was not able to leave the table until "...it's all gone! Don't you know children are starving in India?"

Then this winter my spouse and I joined a food coop at an organic farm.  Winter vegetables in this part of the world are nearly synonymous with leafy vegetables.  "Oh my gosh"  I moaned when we picked up the first bag, "How will you eat this before it all goes bad?"   He answered this with a weekly ritual of cooking a pot of beans and vegetables, and adding some of the green leaves.  I love his vegetable stews normally, so I agreed to give it a go.  It looked and smelled terrible, but that first spoonful was doable, as long as I didn't look to closely at what was going in the gullet.  Each week since then he has been slowly adding a greater percentage of the organic vegetables, including turnips, radishes, and various things with big leaves we don't know the name of.  Each week I eat more and more of it and that pot's contents has become my major source of nutrition.  We are almost into spring and I have not tired of it, and am ever so grateful for it. 

Maybe the difference is that these vegetables come straight out of earth that I live upon. They are sturdy, firm, and fierce in my eyes.  For they bring me health and interconnection in ways I never knew was possible. Once a food nonbeliever, now I am saved.  What amazing grace is this world that we eat. Blessings to my spouse and all those others who make this possible.  

Are there foods for which you are not grateful? 

The Singular and Cheerful Life

The singular and cheerful life

of any flower

in anyone's garden

or any still unowned field-

if there are any-

catches me

by the heart,

by its color

by its obedience

to the holiest of laws:

be alive

until you are not...

those princes of everything green-

the grasses

of which there are truly

an uncountable company,

each on its singular stem

striving

to rise and ripen.

What, in the earth world,

is there not to be amazed by

and to be steadied by

and to cherish?

Oh, my dear heart,

my own dear heart,

full of hesitations,

questions, choice of directions,

look at the world.

Behold the morning glory,

the meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.

Look at the grass.

What in the earth is there not to cherish?

The meanest human - Hitler?  The drug dealer?  The psychopath?

The full moon, with all its bright welcome in the dark night is down now and the owls are silent.  Danger roams the woods, at least I know it's possible, so I hesitate to go for a walk alone in the black pre-dawn.

There is gore and glory before me this day.

May my dear heart know of both, and remember to look at both...

The flowers boastful upon the tulip tree..

The surprised bones half buried in the back woods

But I think I will always hesitate, waiting for just a little more light before risking knowing the world, loving the world. 

Oh how my souls strives to rise up and my heart to open!

What in this earth do you cherish? Not cherish?

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?

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?

Deep Summer

The mockingbird opens his throat among the thorns for his own reasons

but doesn't mind if we pause to listen and learn something

for ourselves; he doesn't stop, he nods his gray head

with the frightfully bright eyes, he flirts his supple tail, he says:

listen, if you would listen.  There's no  end to good talk, to passion songs,

to the melodies that say this branch, this tree is mine,

to the wholesome happiness of being alive on a patch

of this green earth in the deep pleasures of summer. What a bird!

Your clocks, he says plainly,

which are always ticking,

do not have to be listened to.

The spirit of his every word.

We are in deep winter in North America.  The mockingbirds are here, but not as flamboyant as they will be come this summer.  I suppose that if I listened hard enough I would hear the happiness of being alive from other sources, whether it's on a patch of urban sidewalk, suburban strip mall, or brown fields of last year's harvest. 

I step outside and I hear street traffic, a dog barking, some identified bird, my own heart, and a ringing in my ears.  I have hearing loss accompanied by a constant ringing and have for years. So  I don't always hear the bird calls that others might.  Instead I let my imagination wonder, for I know that beauty flits among the wet branches this grey morning.

Whatever our perceived flaws or losses, don't we each have to find our way to compensate, to be able to listen to the spirit of this world?

What do you hear when you walk out this morning?  In what ways do you compensate for who you are so that you may know happiness?

More Honey Locust

Any day now the branches of the honey locust will be filled with white fountains;

in my hands I will see the holy seeds and a sweetness will rise up

from those petal-bundles so heavy I must close my eyes to take it in,

to bear such generosity....

I hope that you too will pause to admire the slender trunk,

the leaves, the holy seeds, the ground they grow from year after year

with striving and patience;

and I hope that you too will say a word of thanks for such creation

out of the wholesome earth,  which would be, and dearly is it needed,

a prayer for all of us.

Dogwood, magnolia, hickory, cedar, and oak

Every day you greet me out my windows

With patience you remind me of

           beauty

                  growth

                       death

myself, no self, all ourselves

I bow in gratitude

What do you give thanks for today, which is a prayer for all beings?