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?

Almost a Conversation

I have not really, not yet, talked with otter about his life.

He has so many teeth, he has trouble with vowels.

Wherefore our understanding is all body expression-

he swims like the sleekest fish,

he dives and exhales and lifts a trail of bubbles.

Little by little he trusts my eyes

and my curious body sitting on the shore.

Sometimes he comes close.

I admire his whiskers and his dark fur which I would rather die than wear.

He has no words, still what he tells about his life is clear.

He does not own a computer.

He imagines the river will last forever.

He does not envy the dry house I live in.

He does not wonder who or what it is that I worship.

He wonders, morning after morning, that the river is so cold and fresh and alive, and still

I don't jump in.

I have spoken often of the Ichetucknee, a spring fed river that in the summer is so cold that you have to clamp down on all fear and just jump in.  If one does so, there are great rewards.

Under the surface there are the sleek fish that with grace, you can sometimes touch.

At the surface are the croaking limpkins and the murmuring wood ducks who do not startle as you swim by them, listening.

Above the surface the Osprey look at you and you imagine you might fool them into thinking that you are a fish, so wondrous it feels to be part of the river for hour after hour.  Or perhaps the eagle could mistake you for a bird and take you away from all your trouble with firm talons.

Finally near the last bend is where the otters can be seen.  Yes, there is awe and gratitude, but I admit to discontent.  For I want to dive with them, root around for mussels with them, play with them, touch them, and be them.  It will not happen and soon one must exit the river at the end of the run.

It's all I can do to not drive back up to the entry point and jump in again. But what good would that accomplish?  For at least another two hours I could do  more than imagine that I am one with this world, my body would confirm that I am.

With this knowing, would not this river last forever?  If all humans could shed their clothes and join our brothers and sisters - in form or in dream - might we just forget our envy  and our religions? 

What a site - middle aged naked women recognizing each otter individually and seeing themselves.  How the people would marvel.

Go ahead and look, I've got whiskers too!

Where don't you jump in?

Pipefish

 

In the green and purple weeds called Zostera, loosely swinging in the shallows,

I waded, I reached my hands in that most human of gestures-to find,

to see, to hold whatever it is that's there-and what came up

wasn't much but it glittered and struggled, and it had eyes, and a body

like a wand, it had pouting lips.  No longer, all of it,

than any of my fingers, it wanted away from my strangeness, it wanted

to go back into that waving forest so quick and wet. I forget

when this happened, how many years ago I opened my hands-like a promise

i would keep my whole life, and have-and let it go.  I tell you this

in case you have yet to wade into the green and purple shallows where the diminutive

pipefish wants to go on living. I tell you this against everything you are-

your human heart, your hands passing over the world, gathering and closing, so dry and slow.

We soon approach the time of promises - the New Year's time of resolutions and the hope of will.  How do we make commitments against who we evolved to be?  For our hands were made to close so we could  gather in all that we can  - mates for children, kin for protection, foraged plants and hunted beings for food, and rocks and metals for weapons.  Our hands were also made to open so that they could fill again. Likewise our hearts were made to break open so that they could fill again and again.  How do we tip the scales so that our hands work more towards life, than for death? 

My answer:  letting go.

My promise:  letting go

What is your promise that you would keep your whole life?

Small Bodies

It is almost summer. In the pond

the pickerel leap,

and the delicate teal have brought forth

their many charming young,

and the turtle is ravenous.

It is hard sometimes, oh Lord,

to be faithful.

I am more boldly made

than the little ducks, paddling and laughing.

But not so bold

as the turtle

with his greasy mouth.

I know you know everything—

I rely on this.

Still, there are so many small bodies in the world,

for which I am afraid.

Buddhist teachings say we may rely on this, "There is suffering."  Little bodies will get trashed, and even the fierce tortoise with her protective shell, gets  mashed in our roads.  Now, tell me again, how might we rely on this truth?  Perhaps because death and tragedy is reality, and there is much of which to be afraid.  But who wants to go through the day embodying this knowing?

 Instead of living a life based on  the suffering before us, the left hemisphere of our brain gains dominance.  The processes there do not wish to give into the emotions that the right side of our  brain is processing from our fear center - the amygdala in the limbic system.  Instead we tell stories that there "should not be suffering" and do our best to end the suffering, or perhaps more often, end our discomfort over witnessing it.  We might say that it must be someone's fault that baby ducks get eaten by voracious fish and tortured by kids at the city pond.  Or we forget that ducks fear, feel, and know pain and loneliness, and don't recall how hard their lives are in the brutal farms in which we as a species cage them until slaughter.  Don't get me wrong.  I make tragic choices all the time that result in suffering - mine and others.  I forget the beauty that gets swept away by the disdainful and painful, or I forget the hurt in favor of beauty.  How can I know everything and hold both poles of this tension?

I don't have an answer, but I do believe that I have a choice; we can lived based on the fear that won't go away, or live based on the beauty and love, that too, won't go away.

In your day, where are you motivated by fear, and when by love?  Or are motivations always arise from both?

Night and the River

I have seen the great feet

leaping into the river

and I have seen moonlight

milky along the long muzzle

and I have seen the body

of something scaled and wonderful

slumped in the sudden fire of it mouth,

and I could not tell which fit me

more comfortably, the power,

or the powerlessness:

neither would have me

entirely; I was divided,

consumed, by sympathy,

pity, admiration.

After a while it was done,

the fish had vanished, the bear

lumped away

to the green shore

and into the trees. And then there was only

this story.

It followed me home

and entered my house-

a difficult guest

with a single tune

which it hums all day and through the night-

slowly, or briskly,

it doesn't matter,

it sounds like a river leaping and falling; it sounds like a body

falling apart

Being a prey item myself, you would think that I would root for the fish in this story, or the small dove loosing feathers in a explosion as the falcon hits. I am also a predator and have, and I admit it only a few times, been hungry in my life. Mostly I know how hard it is to be a predator, being a wildlife veterinarian who has treated the young raptors who have not learned the difficult task of hunting or fishing. So I root for the predator.

In short, I am torn. Seeing an Eagle scoop down over the river I whisper "careful" to the Pintail ducks on the water. Then my breath stills and when the Eagle's talons are full of meaty feathers, I should, "Wow! Well done!" Then I think of the eggs to grow cold on the nest and what will not come to be for the sake of dinner. I ache.

What a mess this life is. I awake this morning so pleased that I have the resources to contribute to life through writing, speaking, and consulting. As a predator I have hunted well in my life, accruing resources so that I may rest in my nest lined with feathers. But they are feathers of others. Just yesterday I awoke, weepy, thinking of the masses whose children will die of dysentery before the day is over, one who might have an older brother here in the U.S., perhaps even the one who cooked a burrito for me over the weekend. I am for the prey, and I am for the predator. I am for power, I am for sharing power so that it does not accumulate in the upper echelons of the food chain.

Being on the team of life, also means cheering for death.

I wonder if the only sane response is the crazy one - to go through this day with a broken heart, open to what is and letting in everything, so that my heart grows bigger and stronger.

Who do you root for, prey, predator, both, neither?

Six Recognitions of the Lord

1.

I know a lot of fancy words.

I tear them from my heart and my tongue.

Then I pray…..

3
I lounge on the grass, that's all. So
simple. Then I lie back until I am
inside the cloud that is just above me
but very high, and shaped like a fish.
Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
But I go back, the threshold is always
near. Over and back, over and back. Then
I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
have been asleep. But I have not been
asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
on the water. Then I go back to town
to my own house, my own life, which has
now become brighter and simpler, some-where I have never been before….

4.

Of course I have always known you

Are present in the clouds, and the

Black oak I especially adore, and the

Wings of birds. But you are present

Too in the body, listening to the body,

Teaching it to live, instead of all

That touching, with disembodied joy.

We do not do this easily….

6.

Every summer the lilies rise
and open their white hands until they almost
cover the black waters of the pond. And I give
thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,
it doesn't seem
festive enough or constant enough, nor does the
name of the Lord or the words of thanksgiving come
into it often enough Everywhere I go I am
treated like royalty, which I am not. I thirst and
am given water. My eyes thirst and I am given
the white lilies on the black water. My heart
sings but the apparatus of singing doesn't convey
half what it feels and means. In spring there's hope,
in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in
winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its
leafy cave, but in summer there is
everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
the hospitality of the Lord and my
inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body
through this water-lily world.

Harold Bloom in American Religious Poems says that there is a particular powerful theme in American poetry, especially the poetry that relates to nature. In these poems there appears over and over again the idea of humans as the risen Christ. We each are divinity, and this is reflected back to us from trees, birds, mountains, lakes, and flowers around us. Harold Bloom only briefly mentions Mary Oliver, but he wrote his volume before Thirst came out. If he had seen this poem I believe that he would have said, “I told you so.” In these astonishing lands through which I have travelled aplenty, we dissolve the self and yet build up the self at the same time. We humans are glorious only because we are everything else (and perhaps more depending on your theology), including the offspring of God, or God herself. I don’t know if this is a shift for Mary in her older years and after loss of loved ones, or if pain, confusion, love, and beauty has peeled back a layer that was always there behind her previous poems. As I turn the page to go on to the next poem, it is as if I am helping Mary peel back the layers in these leaves of poems, praying that I might do the same until there is nothing left but everything.

Where do you recognize divinity?

A Note Left on the Door - September 20, 2010

There are these; the blue

Skirts of the ocean walking in now, almost

To the edge of town,

And a thousand birds, in their incredible wings

Which they think nothing of, crying out

That the day is long, the fish are plentiful.

And friends, being as kind as friends can be,

Striving to lift the darkness.

Forgive me, Lord of honeysuckle, of trees,

Of notebooks, of typewriters, of music,

That there are also these:

The lover, the singer, the poet

Asleep in the shadows.

We humans - mourning that we mourn, regretting that our nights are long, looking deep into the shadows, hoping not for dancing wings or flash of fish, but for what sleeps in our memory. I know not of Mary’s loss, but I feel it within me. For how many times today will I glance over the breakfast table and not see son, spouse, or the lightening day that still has not greeted the sun. May I not forget to greet sun or sun, and wake to what is here now.

What is your prayer today?

Comorants

All afternoon the sea was a muddle of birds

Black and spiky,

Long-neced,slippery

Down they went

Into the waters of the poor

Blunt-headed silver

They live on, for a little while.

God, how did it every come to you to invent Time?

I dream at night

Of the birds, of the beautiful dark seas

They push through.

I am thinking of the movie, The Hours. The story is of Virginia Woolf a gifted writer who is also depressed. The movie is dark , the woman forlorn. In the end she takes her life, weigthed down by the burdens of the world, she places stones in her pockets to weight her down as she steps into the dark waters. The indeterminable hours of her life could not be born a moment longer.

Is this where Mary is on this day? She can see beauty, yes, but she feels so alone. The embrace of beauty, of the dark seas, calls to her like a sieren to save her from the long march of time . Am I anywhere close to right Mary? Or am I writing for all of us in this long night, only the dying cicadas with me while others dream. But soon it will be morning, and there is just another hour to push through before a decent hour emerges to start drinking coffee. Even in the light, I’ll be haunted by the call of union, the light going ever deeper into the dark, for the two were made of each other. Two of which? You tell me.

After Her Death

I am trying to find the lesson for tomorrow.
Matthew something. Which lectionary?
I have not forgotten the Way, but a little,
the way to the Way.
the trees keep whispering peace, peace,
and the birds in the shallows are full of the
bodies of small fish and are content.
They open their wings so easily, and fly.
So. It is still possible.

I open the book
which the strange, difficult, beautiful church
has given me. To Matthew. Anywhere.



Mary has lost her partner of many years I have learned. So, we have our first poem of this difficult time for her. She turns to birds and trees and her beloved pond, and something more. Always something more. For surely, such love, and such pain cannot be contained in poems or mere telling of the past. She yearns for something more, something new, just as long as it is something. It can be anywhere, just so there is peace and understanding, a way to fly towards the melding of self with love. If we could just lose ourselves totally, which we have already done greatly when a loved one dies, but long to do completely, we might just survive the loss and make sense of life's grandeur. It is difficult in our cultural context to come up with words that hold death, life, love, awe, wonder, loss, beauty, the ache of separation, and the ecstasy of interconnection. So why not God I say?

What is your Way? How do you get there?

After Her Death

I am trying to find the lesson for tomorrow.
Matthew something. Which lectionary?
I have not forgotten the Way, but a little,
the way to the Way.
the trees keep whispering peace, peace,
and the birds in the shallows are full of the
bodies of small fish and are content.
They open their wings so easily, and fly.
So. It is still possible.

I open the book
which the strange, difficult, beautiful church
has given me. To Matthew. Anywhere.

keywords: death, religion, peace, birds, fish, hunt, wings, fly, book, difficult, beautiful

Mary has lost her partner of many years I have learned. So, we have our first poem of this difficult time for her. She turns to birds and trees and her beloved pond, and something more. Always something more. For surely, such love, and such pain cannot be contained in poems or mere telling of the past. She yearns for something more, something new, just as long as it is something. It can be anywhere, just so there is peace and understanding, a way to fly towards the melding of self with love. If we could just lose ourselves totally, which we have already done greatly when a loved one dies, but long to do completely, we might just survive the loss and make sense of life's grandeur. It is difficult in our cultural context to come up with words that hold death, life, love, awe, wonder, loss, beauty, the ache of separation, and the ecstasy of interconnection. So why not God I say?

What is your Way? How do you get there?

Some Herons - April 12, 2010

A blue preacher

flew toward the swamp,

in slow motion.

On the leafy banks,

and old Chinese poet,

hunched in the white gown of his wings,

was waiting...

The preacher

made his difficult landing,

his skirts up around his knees.

The poet's eyes

flared, just as poet's eyes

are said to do

when the poet is awakened

from the forest of meditation...

They greeted each other,

rumpling their gowns for an instant,

and then smoothing them.

They entered the water,

and instantly two more herons-

equally as beautiful-

joined them and stood jut beneath them

in the black, published water

where they fished, all day.

I imagine myself, approaching a pond in New England, and discover that Mary is sitting on the bank, watching the water. She is disturbed by my presence, me with my robes of organized church swirling around my head and in my head, thoughts of "maybe this will preach." Is she so different, as she studies bird and fish, wondering "maybe this will make a good poem." Either way we are both fishing for beauty, for answers, and perhaps even more so, for questions. Whatever we catch, we are no different than those up river, down river, across the river, in the river and above the river. We all go down to the river to pray.

If herons are poets and preachers, what are ospreys? Eagles? Ducks? Cranes? What are you?

Dogfish - March 16, 2010

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing

kept flickering in with the tide

...I wanted the past to go away

...I wanted

to hurry into the work of my life, I wanted to know

whoever I was, I was

alive

for a little while

...Also I wanted

to be able to love

...Mostly I want to be kind.

...And nobody gets out of it, having to

swim through the fires to stay in

this world.

And look! look! look! I think those little fish

better wake up and dash themselves away

from the hopeless future that is

bulging toward them.

And probably,

if they don't waste time

looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

I awoke this morning and watched a movie about Buddhism in southeast Asia. The theme running through my watching was awaken, awaken! The fire of the sun is rising, this day, this moment, this breath. We are the little fish stalked by the bigger fish, and we can but awaken and bring hope to the future. In the meantime we do as Mary reports here - we smile, work, survive and try to be kind, all pointing to the wakefulness of this given day.

Do you waste time looking for an easier world? What would an easier world look like?