The Poet is Told to Fill Up More Pages

But, where are the words?

Not in my pocket….

So I sit, harassed, with my notebook….

Nothing happens.

So this is all I can give you,

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

Make of it what you will.

I have been writing this blog now for 15.5 months and I have only one more page upon which to reflect.  At least this day, I sit a bit frustrated as to what to write. The words before have always come easy, a gift to reflect with Mary and with you on the beauty of this world and the human spirit. Perhaps it is because I am on a 5.5 hour flight from Guyana to JFK airport.  The ride is bumpy, and I don’t mean the plane – I mean our lives struggling to live always in love with beauty.  How many times can I write this same thing over and over...

                We are all interconnected in beauty, and let our response be love..

I guess I will write this as long as I must.

So make of this blog what you will, and all the words yet to come. In me, and in you.

Do you ever experience “writers block?”  “Parent block?” “working block?”  “loving block?

Four Sonnets - Part 4

4.

This morning what I am thinking of is circles:

The sun, the earth, the moon;

The life of each of us that begins then returns

To our home, the circular world,

Even as in our cleverness we have invented

Invention – the straight line…

This morning what I am thinking about is circles

And the straight lines that rule us

While earth abides in all sorts of splendors,

Knowing its limitations. The light

Of every morning curls forth,

Oh beautifully, then circles toward the dark.

Obama works, prays, then grabs his scrim of sleep.

For five days I have seen every sunrise, and every sunset.  Round each day goes and I don’t know what day of the week it is.  Roundness, wholeness, belonging suffuses the air.  The rivers upon which we travel, the Rupununi and the Rewa, resist the straight and narrow of human culture as they curve around the hidden splendors of the forests, macaws, toucans, orchids, and Amerindian children.  Yet, I cannot keep my mind from work, from thought, from inventing some kind of project to keep this beauty safe.  I write here for this blog, I keep a bird species list, I journal.  What if I were to just breathe?  Would I find the rhythm of these 500 year old trees around me?

What happens if you were to just breathe with those you love and admire?

It is Early - March 7, 2011

It is early, still the darkest of the dark.

And already I have killed (in exasperation)

two mosquitoes and (inadvertently)

one spider.

All the same, the sun will rise

in its sweeps of pink and red clouds.

Not for me does it rise and not in haste does it rise

but step by step, neither

with exasperation nor inadvertently, and not with

any intended attention to

any one thing, but to all, like a god

That takes its instructions from another, even greater,

whose name, even, we do not know.  The one

that made the mosquito, and the spider; the one

that made me as I am:  easy to exasperation, then penitent.

I have recently been watching bit and pieces of various programs about the nature of the universe.  My spouse is doing a sermon series on this topic, so I join him in his musings.

Just last night we watched Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe," that shows us the universe through the lens of mathematics and physics.  Last week I saw bits part of the series, "Cosmos" starring Carl Sagan. I never watched it when it first came out in the 1980's. As I see it now, I marvel how the words spoken there reveal to our kind how much the suns are like gods.  They are such a miracle in a vast ocean of mystery, and they bring so much life.  We are so small compared to the billions and billions of stars in the universe.  Yet, knowing this, we grow large and beautiful, for we are made of star dust.  We are stars.

Carl Sagan produced a fictional movie and book, "Contact," which is about how humans are stars, and also so childlike and fallible.  In this mix, always, is the awe and wonder of existence.  It is in my top ten favorite movies because the beauty there and the possibility of healing calls me to my better self.  Towards the end of the movie when the main character is hurtling towards other galaxies, she looks out on the birth and death of stars and says, "They should have sent a poet."

Well, they did.  The universe sent us Mary.  She calls me to my better self this morning.

What is the universe to you?

Just Around the House, Early in the Morning - February 27, 2011

Though I have been scorned for it

let me never be afraid to use the world beautiful.

For with is the shining leaf

and the blossoms of the geranium at the window.

And the eyes of the happy puppy as he wakes.

The colors of the old and beloved afghan lying

by itself, on the couch, in the morning sun.

The hummingbirds' nest perched now in a

corner of the bookshelf, in front of so many

books of so many colors.

the two poached eggs.  The buttered toast.

The ream of brand-new paper just opened,

white as a block of snow.

The typewriter humming, ready to go.

Having read this poem, I just walked around the house this morning, taking inventory of the beauty I see. It was like a walking meditation, a prayer.

Into the kitchen I see the refrigerator, whose freezer is full of locally grown leafy foods converted into the soup that nourishes me through the winter, made by the hands of my beloved spouse.

Out the window I appraise the growing sand pile, the leavings for the recently refreshed gopher tortoise burrow.  Maybe I will see her today, maybe not. But I know she's there and I guess in her turtle way, she knows of us.

The living room carpet has a few kernels of popcorn, the leavings of our family  night last night - cards and movies with spouse and son.

Down the hall I quietly lurk, peeking into the reading/meditation room where my spouse sits in healing silence and where the sun shines through the sycamore leaf  in the window. This room, now mostly empty after adopted son #2 took his leaving of us, likely permanently.

Then into the last room, darkened as to son #1's preferences, piles of clothes on the floor and dishes on his desk, showing the signs of late night study sessions interspersed with his constant chatter on phone and computer.  He has left for the day, though he leaves behind in me a gratitude for his sprawling, unique presence.

And now back to my computer, it humming until I feed it the words of the song within me.

What does your list of beauty and gratitude look like as you go around your house?

How Perfectly

How perfectly and neatly opens the pink rose

This bright morning, the sun warm on my shoulders,

Its heat on the opening petals.

Possibly it is the smallest, the least important event at this moment

In the whole world.

Yet I stand there, utterly happy. 

This dawn opened rather pink this morning up here in the cold north of Albany, New York.  I am attending the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Association Annual Symposium and I have a presentation to give this evening.  After arriving here and checking out the crowd and the room, I discovered that I needed to restructure this presentation.  So after a night of tossing and turning I have spent this morning “perfecting” my talk while watching the sun rise out the hotel window.  The irony doesn’t escape me that my seminar is about affirming how perfectly beautiful we humans already are.  What’s left to do is just tweaking, and grace in our lives.

Whatever slides I end up with, whatever jokes or points I make or don’t make, my strongest desire is that I can stand before the audience, utterly happy to behold their perfection, and mine.  Ours.

May grace so visit you and yours today.

How are you perfect?

On the Beach

On the beach, at dawn:

four small stones clearly

hugging each other.

How many kinds of love

might there be in the world,

and how many formations might they make

and who am I ever

 to imagine I could know

such a marvelous business?

When the sun broke

it poured willingly its light

over the stones

that did not move, not at all,

just as, to its always generous term,

it shed its light on me,

my own body that loves

equally to hug another body

As a biologist, and a veterinarian, I have seen amazing variety in how animals express their bonding, gender, and sexuality, and I am learning all the time how this is true too in the human animal.  Just last night I saw a program about transgendered people, and a few years back I married a transgender couple and gave a sermon on the topic at my congregation.  Bodies and minds are such fascinating, awesome conglomerations of physics, physiology, chemistry, and biology, and then the macro-output comes out as one body hungering for the touch and affection of another in apparent infinite possibility, much of it beauty beyond words. I say "much of it" because harm can be mixed in with the body's powerful emotions and desires. So much of our ever present subconscious wiring motivates us, and also evades our understanding resulting in actions that are regretable. I speak of deceit, physical harm, and sexual abuse.

There is risk to responding to the body's intent, however I for one am glad that we live in age where the light of understanding "human" has shed a light on how to nurture healthy relationships. We know that we are capable of great love and remarkable companionship, as well as tragic actions and mournful  decisions.

I pray that today I, and others, will choose love and beauty over tragedy.

What choices are before you this day?

Spring

Faith is the instructor. 

We need no other.

Guess what I am, he says in his incomparably lovely

Young-man voice.  Because I love the world I think of grass,

I think of leaves and the bold sun, I think of the rushes

In the black marshes just coming back from under the pure white

And now finally melting stubs of snow.

Whatever we know or don’t know

Leads us to say:

Teacher, what do you mean?

But faith is still there, and silent.

Then he who owns the incomparable voice suddenly flows upward

And out of the room and I follow, obedient and happy.

Of course I am thinking the Lord was once young and will never in fact be old.

And who else could this be, who goes off down the green path,

Carrying his sandals, and singing?

What if the grass were to sprout tall one day, and the seeds as they take to the wind, whisper, “follow me.”

Would you go?

What if instead a mighty wave came to shore and then in gentleness, ever so slowly, flowed in streets and alley ways and even right up to your front porch, and just as the wave turned to return to the sea, commanded “follow me.”

Would you go?

What if a bird came a calling to your window, tapping until you finally opened your life onto the world, and in a voice sweetly luring, sang, “follow me.”

Would you go?

What if a fierce eyed man you usually spy on one street corner or another emerges from the woods, and then walks past you (as you leisurely dine in a local restaurant) on his way to the bus terminal, alternating whistling with a face that pleads, “follow me.”

Would you spring up and step outside, spread your arms, and shout with tears to the bold sun and the sons and daughters of hominids, “Yes!  I will take your hand, wing, surge, and wind filled promises and follow you.”

What if we did this today?

I Don't Want to Live a Small Life

I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,

open your hands. I have just come

from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way

(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds

following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes

only to you. Look how many small

but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will bring to anyone in this

world of hope and risk, so do

Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

Who among us wishes to live a small life? Who among us opens our hands to have hope on one side, and risk on the other, willing to walk that knife edge of uncertainty? 

I ask you now to stretch out your arms and open your hands.  Look to the sky or perhaps to some living being in your range - a tree? A friend?  A snoring family member?   Do you like me feel the heart opening as arms stretch out? Do you like me feel your heart and life constricted when your hands and arms refuse to embrace all that is and hang by your side, clutch themselves nervously, or grasp themselves in a false sense of security?

Given the amount of time I spend on a computer, I wonder if the keyboard should not be as long as my desk, guiding my life to be open to what is and what shall come. 

Instead, see my arms open now (well at the end of this sentence) looking at you. What a gift.

How might you open your life today?

Of Love

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.”

I am startled that Mary knows that love was the core of her life.  How many of us can say this?  I imagine that you strive to make it so, but do you sense that you fall short? For if you truly touched love with your very essence your life would be lived in bliss. Right?

I think not.  For to be in love is to ache with the separation that is ever present.  To be in love is to know the intimate caress of loss. To be in love is to give oneself over completely to that which is loved.  This doesn't sound like happiness to me, but torture. 

Oh Lord, who would want it any other way?

May we begin this day with the innocence of first love, so hungry to love that we do not take our eyes from the sun or the infinite beloveds that surround our days in beauty.

With whom have you been in love?

Percy Books (Eight)

Percy does not like it when I read a book.

He puts his face over the top of it and moans,

He roils is eyes, sometimes he sneezes.

The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.

The tide is out and the neighbor's dogs are playing.

But Percy, I say. Ideas! The elegance of language!...

Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough.

Let's go.

Oh dear Percy, are you Mary's wise teacher? Mine too?

I am reminded of a famous Zen Buddist Koan:

A monk asked Chao-chou, "Has the dog Buddha nature or not?" Chao-chou said, "Mu."

Here "Mu" means, more or less, "No." And yet, Chao-Chou says that all sentient beings have Buddha nature. What is going on here?

Without getting tangled up in Buddhist paradox which takes a life time to get untangled up in the web of interdependence, here's my quick take. Understanding being is beyond words, beyond teaching, beyond books, beyond scripture, beyond dogs, and beyond you and me. Inter-being is. There is nothing to understand. I suppose that is why there is another Buddhist saying, "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him."

So if Percy was to meet Buddha on the road, what would happen?

The Fist

There are days
when the sun goes down
like a fist,
though of course

if you see anything
in the heavens this way
you had better get

your eyes checked
or, better still,
your diminished spirit.
The heavens

have no fist,
or wouldn't they have been
shaking it
for a thousand years now,

and even
longer than that,
at the dull, brutish
ways of mankind -

heaven's own
creation?
Instead: such patience!
Such willingness

to let us continue!
To hear,
little by little,
the voices -

only, so far, in
pockets of the world -
suggesting the possibilities

of peace?

Keep looking.
Behold, how the fist opens
with invitation.

The sun sets, closing the fist of light so that in the dark we may reflect upon the shadows of our souls. Each night we have the opportunity to review the day and where we have participated in harm in the world. Also too how our celebrations have given life to others. We have the day blind stars above us who do not judge, but hold witness to what we have done. Then, in the morning, after a night of reckoning, the rising sun opens a fist and the fingers of heaven might even wiggle beckoning us in a come hither motion. “You may begin anew” invites the burgeoning light. Oh how I love these mornings – a new start. Every 24 hours a reckoning and a beckoning.

What would you begin again this day?

Those Days

When I think of her I think of the long summer days

She lay in the sun, how she loved the sun, how we

Spread our blanket, and friends came, and

The dogs played, and then I would get restless and

Get up and go off to the woods

And the fields, and the afternoon would

Soften gradually and finally I would come

Home, through the long shadows, and into the house

Where she would be

My glorious welcoming, tan and hungry and ready to tell

The hurtles gossips of the day and how I

Listened leisurely while I put

Around the room flowers in jars of water-

Daisies, butter-and-eggs, and everlasting-

Until like our lives they trembled and shimmered

Everywhere.

We become what we love. Mary’s partner, loved the sun, and now she shimmers everywhere. My dream is that my ashes, or perhaps my unchemicaled body in the ground, will grow into a towering tree. Birds will eat the seeds of my soul, will nest in the hollowed cavities of my body, and fledglings will tremble as they grab one last time my upper branches before they fly away. The trick is how to become tree now. And the ultimate magic is to know I am the tree now. This means though that I must mourn not just the death of my friends and lovers, but also the tree felled and the bird captured. For we live everywhere, in everything, and everyone welcomes us home to our planet.

Where do you feel the most welcome?

Hum

What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that's all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They're small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing. I have found them-haven't you?—
stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings
a little tattered-so much flying about, to the hive,
then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,
should the task be to be a scout-sweet, dancing bee.
I think there isn't anything in this world I don't
admire. If there is, I don't know what it is. I
haven't met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,
and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic and
read books, I have to
take them off and bend close to study and
understand what is happening. It's not hard, it's in fact
as instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,
it's love almost too fierce to endure, the bee
nuzzling like that into the blouse
of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course
the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over
all of us.

Love too fierce to endure

To see life as a blessing, no matter what!

To admire everything in life

….To seek understanding of what is happening, now, this moment

….To dance under the sun as One.

….To bee, to be.

Where the light of love too almost too fierce to endure for you?