In Your Hands

The dog, the donkey, surely they know they are alive.

Who would argue otherwise?...

What about the sunflowers?...

Listen, all you have to do is start and there'll be no stopping....

And, speaking of stones, what about the little ones you can

hold in your hands their heartbeats so secret

so hidden it make take years

before, finally you hear them?

In the recent interview with Mary Oliver, she was asked what she had done with her one wild and precious life. She responded, "I used up a lot of pencils...... What I have done is learn to love and learn to be loved. That didn't come easy. And I learned to consider my life an amazing gift. Those are the things."

The subtext of what I believe she has done with her life,  as this poem suggests, is to listen so that she could see, hear, feel, and know love. 

If we listen hard enough I believe that not only will we find beauty everywhere, but also love.  I don't know which comes first or which might be causal, I only know that as I listen in the night, the barred owl asks, "Who loves for you?"

May I answer, "I do."  May we answer, "We do."  Loving is after all in our hands.

How do you listen to love?  

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?

Of Time

Don't even ask how rapidly the hummingbird lives his life.

You can't imagine.  A thousand flowers a day,

a little sleep, then the same again,

then he vanishes.

I adore him.

Yet I adore also the drowse of mountains.

And in the human world, what is time?

In my mind there is Rumi, dancing.

There is Li Po drinking from the winter stream.

There is Hafiz strolling through Shariz, his feet

loving the dust.

I reflect upon Mary today with the words of 3 timeless poets: Li Po 8th century, Rumi 13th century, Hafiz 14th century, and their parchment scribblings now dust in our eyes.

Does thinking of time free you, or bind you?

Li Po - The Old Dust

The living is a passing traveler;

The dead, a man come home.

One brief journey between heaven and earth,

Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.

The rabbit in the moon pounds the elixir in vain;

Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood.

Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word

While the green pines feel the coming of the spring.

Looking back, I sigh; looking before, I sigh again.

What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory?

Rumi

How should the soul not take wings
when from the Glory of God

It hears a sweet, kindly call:
"Why are you here, soul? Arise!"

How should a fish not leap fast
into the sea from dry land

When from the ocean so cool
the sound of the waves reaches its

How should the falcon not fly
back to his king from the hunt

When from the falconer's drum
it hears to call: "Oh, come back"?

Why should not every Sufi
begin to dance atom-like

Around the Sun of duration
that saves from impermanence?

What graciousness and what beauty?
What life-bestowing! What grace!

If anyone does without that, woe-
what err, what suffering!

Oh fly , of fly, O my soul-bird,
fly to your primordial home!

You have escaped from the cage now-
your wings are spread in the air.

Oh travel from brackish water
now to the fountain of life!

Return from the place of the sandals
now to the high seat of souls!

Go on! Go on! we are going,
and we are coming, O soul, 

From this world of separation
to union, a world beyond worlds!

How long shall we here in the dust-world
like children fill our skirts

With earth and with stones without value,
with broken shards without worth?
Let's take our hand from the dust grove,
let's fly to the heavens' high,

Let's fly from our childish behaviour
and join the banquet of men!

Call out, O soul, to proclaim now
that you are rules and king!

You have the grace of the answer,
you know the question as well!

Hafiz - Wake up Winebringer!

Wake up Winebringer! And pour me a glass of wine.
Throw dust on the head of this sad earth man.

I’ve taken off my snazzy blue coat and bare-chested
I clutch this full cup.

Even though the rich or the politicians call us “trash,”
To us their blue blood or fame means nothing.

Give me more wine! All their dust blowing around in the wind of pride
And desire is as worthless as a hole.

The smoke from my burning heart
Gags all those with ignorance as their goal.

My mad heart has a secret
That no one knows.

The Beloved has stolen even the sweet solitude from my heart,
And I am content.

No one who has ever laid eyes on this silver-limbed Cypress,
Would ever go looking in the woods for a cypress again.

“Hafez,” the voice of inner wine will say;
“Be careful what you ask for, you may just get what you want!”

Hannah's Children

They will come in their own time,

probably in the black

funnel of the night,

and probably in secret-

No one will see

their marvelous coming

But the other goats,

and Maple the pony.

Now, on the evening

of the last counted day,

We latch the stable door.

As the white moon rises

She settles to her knees.

Her curious yellow eyes-

Old as the stones

of Greece, of the mountains

That were born with the world-

Look at us in friendship,

and then look away,

Inward, Inward

to the sacred groves

In Jewish stories there are two prominent Hannahs. One is the mother of Samuel, who was the last of the Hebrew Judges, the first of the major prophets, and the anointer of the first  kings of Israel, Saul and David.  He warns the people of how kings should be held to account.

The other has sevens sons who along with her were arrested shortly before the revolt of Judas Maccabees (2 Maccabees 8).  Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to force them to eat pork, and when they refused, he executed all 7 sons before the mother's eyes. 

What will happen to Hannah's children?  Will her kids know boredom, captivity, and slaughter?  Through their eyes will we see into other kingdoms, and refuse to eat of their flesh and sacrifice others?  Will they ask us to hold ourselves to account?  Out of the oceans, out of Africa, out of the sacred groves we come - let us not kingdoms rue but friendship rule. 

What prophecy do you hear in this poem?     

Mountain Lion on East Hill Road, Austerlitz, NY

Once, years ago, I saw

the mountain cat. She stepped

from under a cloud

of birch trees and padded

along the edge of the field. When she saw

that I saw her, instantly

flames leaped

in her eyes, it was that

distasteful to her to be

seen. Her wide face

was a plate of gold,

her black lip

curled as though she had come

to a terrible place in the long movie, her shoulders

shook like water, her tail

swung at the grass

as she turned back under the trees,

just leaving me time to guess

that she was not a cat at all

but a lean and perfect mystery.

that perhaps I didn't really see,

but simply understood belong here

like all other perfections

that still, occasionally, emerge

out of the last waterfalls, forests,

the last unviolated mountains, hurrying

day after day, year after year

through the cage of the world.

Once a wild cat stepped out of a cloud of mist and saw me. I was in Tikal, Guatemala - a magical place of Mayan ruins suggesting unheard of possibilities. It was early morning and as I walked along an ancient promenade between temples, an ocelot stepped upon the same path facing me. Such mystery, such beauty, and such a brief moment of a gift I instantly appreciated. Then the unexpected happened. The cat started walking towards me, closer and closer. I grew alarmed - perhaps the cat was sick, or had rabies because this was certainly atypical behavior. I also held onto the hope that somehow I had been chosen by the wild world as one fit to be in relationship with non human animals, that I was not a cager, but a liberator. I could be trusted. While thinking this the ocelot came to within touching distance and I squatted to put our eyes on the same level. She stared at me, and then jumped into my lap! She purred, rubbed her head on my hand, and every time she stole glimpses in my eyes my heart leaped. Ever the wildlife rescuer, I walked around the ruins with her in my arms until she grew tired of this, and then she followed us for a while, and then she disappeared. Later that morning I discovered that she was frequently seen being friendly to tourists, for she had been raised as a kitten by humans, her mother killed. She was now free to roam the forests, and still she choose to interact with her possible cages. I know, I know. She was probably still able to obtain food more easily than hunting and that is what kept her close to us. But what if, we are as wild as her, and as free as her, and there are no such things as cages, human made or otherwise. We, like her, have a choice to be free and in so doing, liberate others.

Where do you feel caged, or cage others?

Climbing Pinnacle

It is only a small mountain

as mountains go,

too stubby for any map.

But still, in my boots,

I climbed and climbed until at last there was nothing

but the blue sky

and a single final pasture

and a few not-very -tall trees-

and from under these came running

a fawn on its tumbly legs,

the sound of its wanting falling

from its pink, pursed mouth.

But I knew the rule:

Don't touch it, or the doe

might never come back!

So what could I do? It almost

reached me

before I slung myself into a tree.

And there I was

higher even than the mountain,

perched for hours

while beauty held me tightly...

I didn't move

until the doe came back,

angry and snorting

and she and the fawn tiptoed away.

And so I was free.

And there was nothing to do,

as there is never anything to do,

after rapture,

but to swing down

bough after bough-

to hurry down, field after field,

through the pale twilight,

to be greeted by the people

who loved me, far below.

I read recently in a book about wildlife that humans evolved to focus on wildlife - either responding in fear or awe. We did so because we needed to run away or to hunt, so it behooves us to be caught up in other life. Perhaps also we evolved to be caught by wildlife so that we might cooperate - paying attention to life helps life. For instance, in this same book, "Who Cares About Wildlife," there are studies that show it is nearly impossible to keep people from feeding the wildlife. The authors suggest that we evolved to care for wildlife.

Mary in the tree is our wild heart - caring, hunting, and fearing. She, like us, is caught by our evolved natures. She, like us, is also freed by our evolved natures and our intention. For we may constantly strive to remember that there is never anything better to do than to be in rapture and to love and to be loved. We can bring ourselves into this possibility by climbing each our own kind of mountain, be it small or looming impossibly high. With the sun squeaking through my back yard pines, oaks, and magnolias I set my sight on climbing this day so that I, by day's end, may greet the sunset with love.

What mountain do you climb?

The Old Poets of China

Wherever I am, the world comes after me.

It offers me its busyness. It does not believe

that I do not want it. Now I understand

why the old poets of China went so far and high

into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.

As the morning heat's tentative fingers probe deeper into our house with the sun not even risen yet, I imagine myself wrapped in saffron robes atop a cool mountain. Above the heat, above the fray, and beyond the internet my only goal for the day would to be present to the sun's first and last rays and know they were me. I wonder now how this noble goal is not doable in the heat, in the fray, and held by the internet. To gain this peak experience of interconnection, I suppose I must believe that I do not want busyness, but be-ness. Indeed, I long for it.

What do you long for?

Spring - April 6, 2010

Somewhere

a black bear

has just risen from sleep

and is staring

down the mountain.

All night

in the brisk and shallow restlessness

of early spring

I think of her..

There is only one question:

how to love this world.

I think of her

rising

like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against

the silence

of the trees

Whatever else

my life is

with its poems

and its music

and its glass cities,

It is also this dazzling darkness

coming

down the mountain,

breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her-

her white teeth,

her wordlessness,

her perfect love.

Okay, Mary, you've nailed it down to one question, although just a few poems ago, your question was, what is a soul? Perhaps this comes out of the question, "how to love the world." The question is not how to be loved? Why me? Why not me? Or how shall I die and when? How shall I best meet my needs? In the asking, I feel empowerment. In the asking, we give ourselves a choice. Now, this moment, we choose how to love. Shall it be wordlessly like the bear? Watching like in so many of Mary's poems? Reading this poem?

How do you love the world?