Water

What is the vitality and necessity

Of clean water?

Ask the man who is ill, who is lifting

His lips to the cup.

Ask the forest.

Ah, Environmental Justice in poetry.  What befalls one of us, befalls us all.  If there not clean water on this earth, then we all become ill:  the fishes in the rivers, the herons on the banks, the children on dusty roads, and the planet itself.

But I speak for myself.

Let me ask the forest, which from my upper story hotel room in Denver is several miles away.  The trees don’t really start to populate the rising terrain until the upper reaches of the of the brown shrouded mountain.  The snow is scant on the peaks, which are graced with low clouds.  I don’t know why, but is just feels “dry” out there.  Perhaps this is just my Florida self speaking who is accustomed to the over 93% humidity reported last week.  Even at home with all that water, there isn’t enough. Many springs are ill, and several have already died.

The pine forests here and at home answer with crashing limb and trunk, or with a crackle of fire.  If I could but take the cup of poisoned water from the lips of this wondrous world, and refill it with loving purity I would.

What shall you put in your cup today to offer the world?

August

Our neighbor, tall and blonde and vigorous, the m other of many children, is sick..;.

All summer the children, grown now and some of them with children, of their own, come to visit...

They all smile.

June, July, August. Every day, we hear their laughter. I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes.

So appropriate this piece on the eve of June, July, August and with the news today that the oil will continue to flow into the Gulf unto August. All summer. Everything seems wrong about this, and there is nowhere for the oil to go, safely, with health. If we cover our eyes to this tragedy, however, we would miss the laughter, the smile that is part of the oil, part of us, part of cancer, part of death. Some days though, what can we do but sit with our heads bowed, or held in the laps of others, silent with the ache of abundance in the midst of loss.

What is "wrong" before you this summer?

Three Poems for James Wright - February 5, 2010

1. Hearing of Your Illness

I went out

from the news of your illness

like a broken bone...

...Then I lay down in a rank and spring-sweet field...

...small creatures rustling about, living their lives

as they do, moment by moment.

I felt better, telling them about you.

They know what pain is, and they knew you,...

..They...

merely loved you and waited

to take you back...

...meanwhile not missing one shred of their own

assignments of song

and muscle-

what I learned there, so I

got up finally, with a grief

worthy of you, and went home.

2. Early Morning in Ohio

...I remember

what you said.

And think how somewhere in Tuscany

a small spider might eve now

be stepping forth, testing

the silks of her web, the morning air,

the possibilities; maybe even, who knows,

singing a tiny song.

3. The Rose

...the news came

that nothing

could come to you

in time

anymore

ever.

I put down the phone

and I thought I saw, on the floor of the room, suddenly,

a large box,...

...but what it was-the voice

of a small bird singing inside, Lord,

how it sang, and kept singing!

how it keeps singing!

in its deep

and miraculous

composure

There is a song behind death and grief, which seems we can only hear if we know the sorrow of our hearts as they beat with the rhythm of the world. All things singing, all things shining. I am hear to listen, to sing, and to be the mirror that reflects back all things shining. So clear is this note of life's passionate melody for me after reading this poem. Thank you Mary.

Do you hear a song behind your pain and grief?