With Thanks to the Field Sparrow, Whose Voice is So Delicate and Humble - January 31, 2011

I do not live happily or comfortably
With the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
The news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
Having felt something more wonderful
Than all the electricity of New York City.

I too live with computers, bombs, violence, and a house that knows not darkness in the night because of all the LED lights from the various appliances.  Sometimes when I awake I at night and walk through the expanse of the house, I find myself loathing those lights.  Some nights, I start unplugging appliances so that the moon's brilliance has no competition.  Some nights, like last night, I wake to the Barred Owl call, which sounds like a crazy old woman in the woods laughing at human folly.   A smile comes to my lips, though in the darkness only I know the gift that comes to me - something more wonderful than this house with all its electrical comforts.

What gift comes to you in the night?

This Day, and Probably Tomorrow Also

Full of thought, regret, hope dashed or not dashed yet,

full of memory, pride, and more than enough

of spilled, personal grief,

I begin another page, another poem.

So many notions fill the day! I give them

gowns of words, sometimes I give them

little shoes that rhyme.

What an elite life!

While somewhere someone is kissing a face that is crying.

While somewhere women are walking out, at two in the morning –

many miles to find water.

While somewhere a bomb is getting ready to explode.

Newsweek’s cover story this week speaks about the “Dinner Divide.”  In this article they compare the nutritious, varied, and stimulating foods some can afford, and then how in the USA, 17% suffer from “food insecurity.”  They don’t know if they will have enough resources to secure food from month to month.   Also, the quality of their food is not of the nutritious kind, but of the fat/salt/carbohydrate kind.  I fall into the elite category, s I think of our choice of almond milk, high fiber cereal, mycoprotein “fake” turkey, and the recent purchase of 32 weeks of local, organic farm products. 

When out for a walk this morning visiting my spouse’s family in Carrollton, GA we passed a household where there was a recent addition to the home. The grandparents had added on to their home so their children and grandchildren could live with.  The parents though died in a car accident, so instead of 3 generations living in a home, there are two.

During our lunch Thanksgiving meal today, amidst our abundance, my spouse’s sister spoke of her difficulty in adopting a child from the Congo, Africa where there are 5 million orphans.

What are we to do with this privileged life in the midst of some many tragic stories happening to someone somewhere?

I believe that the grandparents and my sister-in-law have the response to which I wish to commit myself.  If I find myself with extra gifts – plenty of calories and nutrition and resources – may I find a way to give them in turn to someone somewhere.  This day, and probably, hopefully tomorrow.

What do you do with your elite life?

The Murderer's House - January 6, 2010

....This is our failure, that in all the world

Only the stricken have learned how to grieve.

Safe in our cars, we pause along the highway

AS one by one the leveling seasons fall:

And one by one we drive away, rejoicing

In such a distance as could strike us all.

So I imagine that in preschool we begin the practice of grieving. In coloring books we fill in the colors of our lost companion animals, grandparents, and friends who have left us behind. In art class throughout our growing years we free draw what we long for and make masks that are the demons and murderers within us all. At the end of each creative session that play dirges and hymns in the back ground we then chant, sing, dance, and beat drums and our chests in good company, and in drawing the evil within the circle, we may then rejoice in honest gratitude.