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?

The Sweetness of Dogs (Fifteen)

What do you say Percy?  I am thinking

of sitting out on the sand to watch the moon rise. Full tonight. 

So we go

as the moon rises, so beautiful...

makes me take measure of myself: one iota pondering heaven....

How grateful I am for the moon's perfect beauty and also, oh! how rich

it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,

leans against me and gazes up into

my face. As though I were his perfect moon.

I've got physics on the brain, hard not to given that my spouse the preacher has been doing a series on physics and spirituality.  Just this morning we marveled at how we can change the outcome of an event by watching it.  So I think of Percy watching Mary in his sweet way.  Does Mary change?  Does she become more loving, more beautiful, more open to the beauty of herself, dogs, and the moon?  What if I were to open my heart and see everyone today as perfect just the way they are. Would this change their behavior?  Would it change the world?

It might if we all did it.

Shall we?

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?

Mink

A mink, jointless as heat, was

tip-toeing along the edge of the creek,

which was still in its coat of snow, yet singing-I could hear it!-

the old song of brightness....

the mink had a hunger in him

bigger than his shadow, which was gathered

like a sheet of darkness under his

neat feet which were busy

making dents in the snow. 

He sniffed slowly and thoroughly in all

four directions, as though

it was a payer to the whole world...

For me, it was a the gift of the winter

 to see him.  Once, like a hot, dark-brown pillar,

he stood up-and then he ran forward, and was gone. 

I stood awhile and then walked on

over the white snow:  the terrible, gleaming

loneliness.  I took me, I suppose,

something like six more weeks to reach

finally a patch of green, I paused so often

to be glad, and grateful, and even then carefully across

 the vast, deep woods I kept looking back.

In the winter of our lives, are there patches of experience for which we can be grateful? And the ultimate test, can we see beauty in the harshness and the dying back?  My sister recently was diagnosed with bone cancer, probably metastasized from a previous bout of breast cancer.  For me, this is devastating news.  There are some hard years for her coming up, and I'm guessing, not too many of them either.  Yet, in our phone calls she has times of laughing, nearly giggling.  Yesterday her retort to the mess her affairs are in, was, "At least I got to see a hawk."  She had seen a Sharp-shinned hawk foraging around in her snow covered bushes for sparrows, and fly away talons empty. 

She is like a beautiful sleek mink, and now is the time for me to look at how her life is a prayer to the whole world.

Who or what is your mink in the winter time?

Sometimes

1.

Something came up

out of the dark.

It wasn't anything I had ever seen before.

It wasn't an animal

or a flower,

unless it was both.

Something came up out of the water,

a head the size of a cat

but muddy and without ears.

I don't know what God is.

I don't know what death is.

But I believe they have between them

some fervent and necessary arrangement.

2.

Sometime

melancholy leaves me breathless...

3.

Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source!

Both of them mad to create something!

The lighting brighter than any flower.

The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.

4.

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

5.

Two or three times in my life I discovered love.

Each time it seemed to solve everything.

Each time it solved a great many things

but not everything.

Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and

thoroughly, solved everything.

6.

God, rest in  my heart

and fortify me,

take away my hunger for answers,

let the hours play upon my body

like the hands of my beloved.

Let the cathead appear again-

the smallest of your mysteries,

some wild cousin of my own blood probably-

some cousin of my own wild blood probably,

in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.

7.

Death waits for me, I know it, around

one corner or another.

This doesn't amuse me.

Neither does it frighten me.

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.

It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.

I walked slowly, and listened

to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing.

Step One: Question

What is it that comes out of the dark?

Is it God?

Is it death?

What is the necessary arrangement between the two?

Step Two: Answer

Love

Step Three: Action

Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.

Listen

Be crazy

Laugh

Grow

Step Four:  Repeat steps 1-3 as necessary

I summarized Mary's poem with these 4 steps. How would you? What are your "4 steps" to life?