Reckless Poem - August 23, 2010

Today again I am hardly myself.

It happens over and over.

It is heaven-sent.

It flows through me

Like the blue wave.

Green leaves-you may believe this or not-

Have once or twice

Burst from the tips of my fingers

Somewhere

Deep in the woods,

In the reckless seizure of spring.

Though, of course, I also know that other song,

The sweet passion of one-ness.

Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the tumbled pine seeds she toiled. And I thought: she will never live another life but this one. And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength is she not wonderful and wise? And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything until I came to myself.

And still, even in those northern woods, on these hills of sand I have flown from the window of myself to become white heron, gray whale, fox, hedgehog, camel. Oh sometimes already my body has felt like he body of a flower~ Sometimes already my heart is a red parrot, perched among strange, dark trees, flapping and screaming.

Just last night I was telling my spouse how these days I go to bed thinking of parrots, and get up in the morning thinking of parrots.. It is like an old friend has come to keep me company once again. For many years I had not had much to do with parrots directly, turning my spirit hope to seeing the wisdom and strength of my own species. This took a while, for returning from years working in Central America, my image of myself amongst humans was that of John the Baptist, screaming mad and spitting locusts. This role came to be I suppose because of the harm I had seen done to the earth and her feathered beings, and the subsequent alternating rage and depression. I found it hard to see anything miraculous about humans who consider themselves atop the pyramid, but eventually I did. That accomplished, more or less and as much as anyone can be fully accepting of our kind, I spend more and more of my days and thoughts back in the avian world. Parrots are not just a flapping and screaming species, nor are humans. Though alas dear heart, some days I long to exchange wisdom for recklessness, and squawk out pure defiance, and yes joy. Perhaps I do as these words sprout from my fingers.

Who are you when you are not yourself?

The Faces of Deer

When for too long I don’t go deep enough into the woods to see them, they being to enter my dreams. Yes, there they are, in the pinewoods of my inner life. I want to live a life full of modesty and praise. Each hoof of each animal makes the sign of a heart as it touches then lefts away from the ground. Unless you believe that heaven is very near, how will you find it? Their eyes are pools in which one would be content, on any summer afternoon, to swim away through the door of the world. Then, love and its blessing. Then: heaven.

In the movie, Princess Mononoke, there is a Forest Spirit that appears as the great stag of the forest. This magical being represents wisdom and hope, and the other characters have fear of him. Towards the end of the movie we finally glimpse this being and wonder if suddenly the world will be made right by his presence. Each time he places his hoof upon the ground, a bounty of flowers and plants emerge from his hoof prints, and then they die and shrivel as he lifts his foot. This forest wisdom manifests as a cycle of life and death with every step. Heaven indeed is everywhere, and it encompasses suffering, harm, and death. Wisdom comes from seeing beauty in death and life, everywhere.

I know this is hard to live with. It’s hard for me. When I see the young fawn dead on the side of the road from a car impact, I cringe. Surely it isn’t right that such a soft and innocent being should go through this tragedy, so young? When I hear of the millions of dollars of damage that comes from cars hitting deer each year in the U.S. and the loss of human and deer life because of these collisions, I am stunned. We want deer in our lives, and the results is death and suffering. I think of the great Forest Spirit, so powerful, so achingly beautiful, and so clearly the bringer of life and death. What is love but the foolishness to see blessings in such a frightening, lovely world?

What kind of life do you wish to live – one of modesty and praise as Mary suggests?

The Measure

I stopped the car and ran back and across the road

and picked up the box turtle, who only

hissed and withdrew herself into her pretty shell.

Well, goodness, it was early in the morning, not too much traffic.

Rather an adventure than a risk, and anyway

who would give aid to such a shy citizen?

Who wouldn't complete the journey for it, taking it of course

in the direction of its desire: a pinewoods

where, as I learned, the blueberries ripen early.

Probably she had thought, in the middle of the night-

Ah, it's time.

Sometimes I think our own lives are watched over like that.

Out of the mystery of the hours and the days

Something says-Let's give this one a little trial.

Let's say, put a turtle in the road she's traveling on, and

in a hurry.

Let's see how her life is measuring up, that lucky girl.

So much happiness, so much good fortune. Ah, it's time.

Not even a month ago coming back from a day swimming in the springs on my birthday my spouse and I moved a large female gopher tortoise from the middle of the road. We took a little risk to scamper quickly to save such a precious life along a fast paced road. That same month we moved a box turtle as well into safety. Yet, in our own yard, a small girl tortoise I found dead, smashed by an exiting car in our own driveway. We live at the end of a dirt road in the woods, and it seemed such a rare thing that tortoise just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. She was not as lucky as the other two.

Maybe that's why we humans stay within our shells and do not travel about or journey from our sameness and tameness into wild sacredness. In the night a dream comes to us and with the sun's rising we feel perky with possibility. Then what happens? Somewhere along the line we falsely intuit that we don't measure up, or other's don't, or reality doesn't. Don't you think that it's time to cross that road and get into that field beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing?

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child's training wheels

To be laid aside

When you finally live

With veracity

And love.

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time for you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is sacred.

-Hafiz, A Sufi Poet

What might you do or where might you go if you knew that everything you do is sacred?

Encounter - January 21, 2010

I lift the small brown mouse..

..He has no more to say..

.."Poor creature" I might say,

but what's the use of that.

The clock in him is broken.

And for ceremony,

Already the leaves have swirled

Over, the wind has spoken.

So many speaking, not speaking. The mouse is quiet, the poet is quiet in the poem, the wind speaks, the poet speaks in writing the poem, I speak now, and you listen. Maybe there isn't really anything to say, for no matter what we say our bodies keep track of the passing of the seasons and our lives. The great orator and poet of this existence is not any of us singled out on the path, dead, not-dead, but the winds of change that move us in our daily encounters with one another and a harsh, exciting reality.

How does the wind of change, chaos, and death move you? For you, today, is it a fierce wind or gentle breeze, or are you becalmed?