Over the Hill She Came

Over the hill she came, her long legs very scarcely

touching the ground, the cups of her ears listening, with obvious pleasure,

to the wind as it stroked the dark arms of the pines;

once or twice she lingered and browsed some moist patch

of half-wrapped leaves, then came along to where I was-or nearly-

and then, among the thousand bodies of the trees, their splashes of light and their shadows, she was gone;

and I, who was heave that day with thoughts as small as my whole life would ever be, and especially

compared to the thousand shining trees, gave thanks to whatever sent her in my direction that I might see, and strive to be,

as clearly she was, beyond sorrow, soft-lipped angel walking on air.

I see a deer coming over the hill and imagine her internal dialog, perhaps expressed as brain firings of emotions, images, and memories.

"Oh there is a human there, so peaceful there, so safe, so centered. I wish I could be like her, but I am full of sorrow. My mate was taken by a hunter last year, my sister died of tuberculosis, and my fawn never made it across that country road. There is plenty to eat this day, but that last winter I really wanted to just curl up in the snow and join my family in the Great Forest in the Sky. But now I look up to that sky, and although I cannot see the reasons for such great suffering, I do see my cousin the trees who offer me shade and my brother sun who warms my back in the early morning hours. If I could but write, as does this poet, I would share with the world the love that grows in my heart, though the winds of time threaten to take the memories of those I have cuddled within the thicket from me. Let the wind come then, and may I fly upon it, leaving behind for a moment the loss and the pain. Perhaps she'll write of our encounter and guide the world towards the joy that comes when we each strive to be the other and share our gifts. She writes, I pine, and together we go beyond sorrow."

What helps you go beyond sorrow?

Terns

Don’t think just now of the trudging forward of thought,

But of the wing-drive of unquestioning affirmation.

It’s summer, you never saw such a blue sky,

And here they are, those white birds with quick wings,

Sweeping over the waves, chattering and plunging,

Their thin beaks snapping, their hard eyes

Happy as little nails

The years to come-this is a promise-

Will grant you ample time

To try the difficult steps in the empire of thought

Where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.

But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,

Than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.

The flock thickens

Over the rolling, salt brightness. Listen,

Maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world

In the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,

But it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt,

Is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,

But of pure submission. Tell me, what else

Could beauty be for? And now the tide

Is at its very crown,

The white birds =sprinkle down,

Gathering up the loose silver rising

As if weightless. It isn’t instruction, or parable.

It isn’t for any vanity or ambition

Except for the one allowed, to stay alive.

It’s only a nimble frolic

Over the waves. And you find, for hours,

You cannot even remember the questions

That weigh so in your mind.

I wonder what beauty is for? Why did we evolve with such a close affinity to what is beautiful in this world, or to make things of beauty? I have heard some say we move towards beauty so that we can stand to be in the world. Otherwise the pain and the loss would be too great. Some trigger needs to soothe the aching brain that must hold how harm is all around us, some of it performed by our very words and hands. This leads me to suggest indeed religion, or meditation, or nature walks, or whatever intentional practice you cultivate for the awareness of interconnection, is perhaps an opiate of the masses. We adhere ourselves to faith claims of interdependence so that we know we will always survive and all we see before us continues on in one form or another. Said another way, if we as isolated ego driven individuals never exist, how can we disappear?

Here I spin in the realm of doubt and thought, and right now, I see the sun filtering through the trees in the nearly fall like air. Soon I will be holding a cup of coffee graciously prepared by my hosts, and then have a walk down by Lake Erie before heading to a veterinary clinic to watch how people fumble with their love of birds and their draw towards their beauty. Perhaps my faith is misguided, but I know not what else to do but to submit to these blessings, this merger of life coming to me and through me. I am a tern going fishing.

What do you have faith in? Where do you doubt?

The Soul at Last

The Lord's terrifying kindness has come to me.

It was only a small silvery thing-say a piece of silver cloth, or a thousand spider webs woven together, or a small handful of aspen leaves, with their silver backs shimmering. And it came leaping out of the closed coffin; it flew into the air, it danced snappingly around the church rafters, it vanished through the ceiling.

I spoke there, briefly, of the loved one gone. I gazed at the people in the pews, some of them weeping. I knew I must someday, write this down.

The Lord has been terribly kind to me, and I mean the sacred has been terribly-laden with beauty, power, and freedom. On some days there is fear, but mostly there is a humbleness that I am nothing but the will of life and love. Perhaps nowhere else does this come as strong except in church preaching and praying, and even more so at memorial services. The first time I preached at a church I thought, "Ah, this is what it means to fly free with love", with no bounds or constraints on that pure essence that flows through me to the people, and through the people to me. The world's soul holds me and sets me free. I give thanks to Lord Death who has a way of graciously awakening us to communal love.

What does the soul look like to you, and have you seen it?

Morning Poem - March 17, 2010

Every morning the world is created...

If it is in your nature

to be happy..

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn that is heavier than lead....

there is still somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted-

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

Deep within us, beyond conscious knowing, the beast within knows what a gift and prayer answered is each morning. Whether it is the life on the pond, the sleepy son, or the snoring form next to us. Even our long list of regrets flower upon still waters of grace and gratitude as the soft light rises upon the pool of our longing. In that organic muck of our mortality and fumbling and bumbling, a lotus flower blooms.

Do you pray? Do you consider yourself more happy than not?

The Family - January 30, 2010

The dark things of the wood

Are coming from their caves...

...We remember the cave.

In our dreams we go back

Or they come to visit.

They also like music,

We eat leaves together.

They are our brothers.

They are the family

We have run away from.

In the movie "Avatar" there is much running, and the overwhelming public response that echoes too in my heart is a running back towards the family of all things. Last night I saw the 1988 war movie, "The Thin Red Line," and it too has lots of running, fearful running away from "the bad guys," running from who we are and the darkness within. The last lines in that movie are "everything shining." In the dark cave of our inner being, everything shinning.

What are you running away from? Towards? How might this running fuel your sense of separation from the family that is this earth and her beings, and yes, human beings?

Winter in the Country - January 29, 2010

The Terror of the country

Is not the easy death,...

...The terror is that nothing

Laments the narrow span...

..The terror of the country

Is prey and hawk together,

Still flying, both exhausted,

In the blue sack of weather.

We, away from the country, so little know of the prey and hawk together. I dreamt last night of sleeping with tigers, of longing for that hunter to be close to my skin, in my skin, to be me. Yet it is that very longing that would kill me if I were in tiger's country. It seems too that if I were always to have a tiger on my tail, that fear itself would kill me. How can we live with predatory death echoing our every foot step forward?

We, here in the suburbs, have death all round us, but it's harder to see perhaps in these Florida winters. Along my path of gym, work, and home there is a dried out shell of a sea gull on the sidewalk's margin near a busy road. It's been there for over a month. Does anyone else notice it as they fly by? Do these battered feathers herald our own death, or a life lived on the edge of knowing that hardship is the standard of our evolved state, only now we can now it and lament our narrow years upon this planet. I wonder if Mary is saying that if we just fly, though it exhausts us, we would not have time for terror and fear except in the ultimate exquisite moment? That we should try to catch a tiger by the tail and let the wings of death liberate us.

What are you afraid of? Does this fear keep you from really living?

Swans of the River Ayr - January 10, 2010

...All swans are only relics of those birds

Who sail the tideless waters of the mind;

Who traveled once the waters of the earth,

Infecting dreams, helping the child to grow;

And who for age, seeing witless man

Deck the rocks with gifts to make them mild,

Sensed the disaster to their uncaught lives,

And streamed shoreward like a white armada

With heads reared back to strike and wings like knives.

As children we know of wildness and our hearts weep at how we are tamed, and how we tame those around us. We become safe within our walled fortress of cultures as we trade fierce swans for those grown up on white bread. Perhaps we should be feeding these swans, Wonder Bread, our lives, mana from the sky which is to be under the sky, free from castles of retreat and war. But we are never safe, for our wild hearts, unheeded, will break down our false sense of isolation, perhaps in violent and painful circumstances, and return us and all those waiting to be free to our natures.

What are you afraid of in nature? Your nature?