Swans

They appeared
over the dunes,
they skimmed the trees
and hurried on

to the sea
or some lonely pond
or wherever it is
that swans go,

urgent, immaculate,
the heat of their eyes
staring down
and then away,

the thick spans
of their wings
as bright as snow,
their shoulder-power

echoing
inside my own body.
How could I help but adore them?
How could I help but wish

that one of them might drop
a white feather
that I should have
something in my hand

to tell me
that they were real?
Of course
this was foolish.

What we love, shapely and pure,
is not to be held,
but to be believed in.
And then they vanished, into the unreachable distance.

I once had a dream that turned into a music video with the refrain, "love ain't enough, but it ain't dead yet."  In the dream, a couple who had once loved each other passionately could not stay together.  They were so disappointed that love could die so easily.  Yet, they had a beautiful daughter together who was the embodiment of their love. When she grew up she gave her love to millions through the gift of music and song.

What I learned from this dream (or was I teaching myself?) was that love cannot be imprisoned, it must fly free which means that it can, and will, leave you.  But then if we just keep our hearts open, the love surprises us in amazing ways.

So we are to have faith that love exists and can, but not in the exact ways that love manifests.

Oh that I was so strong to have this be enough.  But like Mary, I am foolish. So at home I have a white wing feather from a Snowy Owl that I place before me as I meditate daily.  This feather helps draw me into this practice, which I might otherwise neglect.  Being of flesh and of this world, it helps to hold love now and then, and be likewise held.

Where are you foolish in love?

I Wish I Loved No One

I wish I loved no one,

I said, one long day.

You are  fool then,

said the old cripple

from the poorhouse.

You are a fool then,

said the young woman

tramping the road

with nothing, nothing.

I wish I loved no one,

I said on yet another long day.

You are a fool then,

said a wrinkled face

at the boarding house,

and she laughed.

a pitiful fool!

How do we wish to not love one another? Let me count the ways.

When I arise in the morning and find dishes and socks scattered, my heart rumbles with discontent and disconnection.

When I tire of yet another organization's conflict and confusing practices, my mind seeks solace, alone again naturally.

When the news speaks of violent and ignorant acts, my hands pick up a novel into which I play hide and seek, mostly hiding.

Because I have everything but what others "should do", I have nothing.

What a pitiful fool!

I think I'd rather have nothing, so I have everything.

Including loving you, me, the whole shebang.

Let's meet at the shelter, the garbage dump, the cardboard house, and the refugee's dangerous highway, shall we?

Limping in love this long day.

How do you deny love?

The Book

Lilies – as tall as ourselves and more lovely,

And full of fragrance, and long orange tongues,

And those plaything the bees-stood in

A neighbor’s yard, a thick, ramping

Hedge of them. You could not help but see

That to be beautiful is also to be simple

And brief; is to rise up and be glorious, and then vanish;

Is to be silent but as though a song was in you only it

Hasn’t yet been heard

At least in a garden of real earth and sparrows and wrens,

And people hurrying by, pausing then hurrying on

To the usual daily foolishness that comes to so little

So far as the real things matter: eternity,

The unseen, the unrecognized, the filing of the heart

With goodness, as if it were a hive

In which nothing corrupt could live. And I thought

If any one of them could write

The story of their lives, who wouldn’t

Stand in line and hand over the last of their

Shining money-oh, the very end of their shining money-

To buy it.

In Mary’s poems I often wait for the phrase that clinches at the heart, both wringing it and opening it at the same time. Not all poems cause this reaction, but most do. Can you guess what phrase brought me the “kick” or the “surprise” that she can still do after nearly 8 months of writing about one of her poems a day? For me, today, I hung my doubts up when she wrote “real things matter…the filing of the heart with goodness, as if it were a hive.” When I read this I resonate and my deepest soul, which is also yours, says, “ah yes, there I see you my friend.” This is the story I long to her in others, and the story I ache to tell, and to live – to spend my days filling my heart with goodness, awareness, love, and yes, all the doubts too must fly in as well. They stretch my heart so that there is even more room for all.

How do you fill your heart with goodness?

Beans

They’re not like peaces or squash. Plumpness isn’t for them. They like being lean, as if for the narrow path. The beans themselves sit quietly inside their green pods. Instinctively one picks with care, never tearing down he fine vine, never not noticing their rips bodies, or feeling their willingness for the pot, for the fire.

I have thought sometimes that something-I can’t name it- - watches as I walk the rows, accepting the gift of their lives to assist mine.

I know what you think: this is foolishness. They’re only vegetables. Even the blossoms with which they begin are small and pale, hardly significant. Our hands, or minds, our feet hold more intelligence. With this I have no quarrel.

But, what about virtue?

I am working with a group of philosophers who are developing the understanding of animals as having virtue, for nonhumans can be compassionate, kind, nurturing, and empathetic. By looking through a lens of virtue ethics at other beings we may break down our preconceived notions that humans are separate from nonhumans and that we are alone on the evolutionary tree. Now Mary here goes a step farther. What about the virtue of beans? What about the virtue of the earth, the sun, the universe, the “watcher” of our lives? Virtue, it may be argued, is something we intentionally create within our characters over a life time. What then of a young toddler who gives her toy to her friend? I do not see much preconceived intention in that act, or a lifetime of refinement. I am not saying that we can’t change who we are as we strive towards the future, in fact, I’d say the blessing of life is that each of us, where we are, can change and move towards the virtue we wish in the world. Yet at the same time there is virtue with which we are born. So why cannot virtue be born in plant and pig? Which virtues might that be? The one that comes to mind is the virtue of interconnection. Interconnecting is not a classic virtue, yet it seems to be the one I hold in common with bean and beaver. We are born interconnected, the gift we give to one another, the silent embrace that watches over us all.

What virtues do you see in nonhuman life? In your own life?