February 29, 2012

Leap year day, an regular if somewhat infrequent occurrence.  This morning again we have fog, so it's hard to see the leap year day.  Everything except the dark bodies of the trees and the streetlight is erased, again.  It's not quite as bad as yesterday as i can see out into the yard, but again it's a silent morning, no birds up yet, and except for lots of fog nothing much to see.  Joggers are not likely to run in this soup, it could be hazardous.  The one thing you can hear is the occasional fog horn, nothing steady just the intermittant call of safety going out into the dark.

Now the light steals in and shows that the fog is more whisp than anything, the overcast buttoned across the sky is more cloud rising than fog.  Stepping slowly out of those whisps are familiar houses and the trunks of trees, cars and the flash of school bus.  Time to start the day.

Every moment what I see changes, it's hard to stop watching . . .

In the Moment

every moment muddled with color
is turning into another moment
is turning into another chance
is turning into another image

every moment muddled with questions
what do you see between colors
what do you see between seconds
what do you see between breaths

every moment muddled with meaning
your eye sees in the light a reflection
your mind sees in the light a portrait
your heart sees in the light new questions

tears or wonder
sorrow or longing
shadows or sunlight

every moment
we make connections
every moment
we make
every moment ours
every moment
we are reading
between the lines

S. Crowson

It seems I like reading between the morning lines, seeing everything change from moment to moment.  This morning I will ask my girls what they see when they look at . . . art, how do they define it, how do they decide what is art.  It should be an interesting discussion, they have been making cards for weeks, will be curious to know if they, by their own definition, have been making art.  Some of them surely have, and some, not so much.  But either way it's been interesting to see how they approach the work, for whether it is art or not, it is surely work, work assigned and evaluated.  While I made them make an attempt at definition, I would not want to be held to any definition I might make, as there would then be something I would see, or experience, that I would conside art and that would fall outside what ever definition I might give it.

There are random birds out there starting up several conversations with the morning.  Surely one is a mockingbird; they seem to be early risers.  Enough light now to see the branches of the sawtooth oak, and the yellow-green of its flower shine even in this half light, color that shouts spring and the earliest abundance we know.

Here we have all kinds of signs for spring, other places are still waiting, but soon, everyone will soften into the thaw and have what we have!

February 28, 2012

Still dark, not much to see at this hour, though I can hear a soft rain or a heavy fog dripping off the trees, and even the birds are still asleep.  Everyone in the house asleep as well, it's quiet, and I am glad of it for a little while.  Some nights are so restless that it's worth getting up to have a little peace, and the quiet is soothing.  I imagine the sky thick with clouds, and somewhere the moon making the backs of them shine like silver foil.  If you could see the moon tonight, it would be more than a fingernail, a slice of white, growing larger.

There is this poem about getting up and leaving your beloved in bed, I liked it for the title as well.

Intensities of Emphasis and Wonder
    
The sleeping one is erect and mumbles.
The room went Arctic overnight

and his foot peeks outside the covers.
You leave his warm slumber

five minutes before the new hour,
stomach growling, and possible

moon somewhere. There's slight moisture
still. He'll later say he saw you leave.

The day will happen soon enough—
peanut butter sandwich, dropped knife,

tote bag of graded papers.
Flossing in a colder room,

planning Jefferson myth-debunking,
washing hair—the man's sleep stretches

without boundaries, rolled to middle,
as if it were his bed, thick lashes,

even beard, and no concern for pillow.
He doesn't know it's October and you are happy.

Farrah Field

There are so many poems about daily things because what is our life but these daily things that make it up.  We wake up, try not to disturb others sleeping, make plans, listen to the drip of a slow rain.  Some mornings it's that extra sleep that you need to be able to do what is necessary, some mornings it's getting up so you can settle down that's needed.  Either way, it's all happened before, some other morning, sleep through the house stretching without boundaries, awake you listen to the creaks of the floor, people snoring softly, all the quiet sounds that drift through rooms where you are the only one awake. There is always that wonder of looking down into the sleeping face of someone you love, child, husband, anyone, so vulnerable to the world, and yet trusting, the perfect trust of sleeping that makes you want to keep them safe so they can continue sleeping in that trust. Soon enough, as the poet says, peanut butter sandwiches and papers to grade, but for now it's sitting listening to the quiet and the rain, anticipating the light, which will be late filtering through so much cloud, to finally arrive, subdued and sleepy, only to slowly grow through the mostly still-bare trees, and the rain.

February 27, 2012

Well, the sunshine did not last until today . . . drizzle is what we have today, gray, cloudy, drizzly, breezy, generally dull and wet day.   It's not hard enough to be real rain but definitely too hard for fog or mist, so drizzle it is.  The birds have gone silent again, and there is nothing moving out there, too late in the day for the early joggers, too wet for the cat, even the hardy squirrels are taking a nap, which sounds like a great idea, if I didn't have a bunch of stuff to do this afternoon.

Here is a poem that feels like today . . .

Three kinds of sudden equal three

Three kinds of sudden equal three
windows in a second-story room.
And birds oblivious out there, the way
we borrow something and forget

the kindness, the loss at the other end.
Birds do not suffer. I say that so lightly.
How can you think such a thing?
every mother cries out to me, mother

cloud, mother sideways and thunder,
mother cut with a knife not swiftly,
not clean. Day of almost rain, almost
whoever it was, which of us,

as children. Hidden. Pressed forward
and back. Remote, the urgent
start of it as a door locking distant,
the hinge shuddering up here.

Marianne Boruch

There have been all kinds of sudden today, sirens for some haz-mat spill on Bay Area, the gusts of wind, the speckles of rain you can almost not see, the white blooms that were not open Friday on trees I pass while driving.  Dawn's jasmine is so abundant and lush, a sudden opening of scent, intoxicating, making you want to go up and down the walk and just breath!  This is a day of almost rain, I'm not sure what else you can call it, and was glad to have words to put to it.  Do children always feel like they are being drawn forward to be presented to the world, or pressed back to escape notice?  Doors, open or closed, always seem to bring with them that instant of possibility, open it, close it, stand outside and wait, always so many choices embodied in the concept of door.  The rain still seems to be almost rain, perhaps it will be sideways and thunder later, or it will cease and there will be sun.  Either way, today I am taking what comes, and being grateful, even if it is only grateful for yesterday's beautiful sunshine, and today's rountines that keep me going.

February 26, 2012

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day!  Too bad now I will be hearing that song in my head the whole day, but it was worth it to be able to say that!  There is an abundance of blue skies smiling at me and sunshine, and birds.  A single mockingbird has make a whole flock of songs, and one of the cardinals is out there with its chew, chew, chew, birdie, birdie, birdie song.  The sawtooth oak is just bursting with yellow flowers along nearly every limb, and there is an occasional rain of red helicopters in the breeze from the maple!  It's so gorgeous out, it just makes you smile and smile!  The cat has stalked across the yard, slunk into the cane, and shot out and back across the yard in a blur.  Either Jim rattled the food dish or something back there in the dark shadows scared it!  Perhaps a truly ferocious rabbit, maybe two!  That is one really happy mockingbird, just singing away, he must know every song in the neighborhood.  The only ones I don't hear him making are the owl and the crow, and I am pretty sure I understand that!

Welcome Morning

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.

Anne Sexton

The holy birds at my window, the daily things I so often forget to be thankful for, the smile on my face this morning at seeing such an abundance of sunshine, a true embarrassment of riches, in the church of my back yard!  All the things I see and hear make up the joy, this laughter of the morning, and I don't want it to go unspoken, I feel like hugging the world.  It's amazing what a little clear light can do for my spirit, amazing all the joys I have and so I am sitting here writing a thank-you with my tapping fingers!  And so this lovely joy won't die young, or die at all, I am sharing it!  It reminds me of an Emily Dickinson poem that tells about keeping the Sabbath at home, with the bobolink as the chorister, and God giving the sermon which is always short!  I might disagree with that, this sermon, with its lovely light and making a cheerful heart might last all day.  What an opportunity it presents for grace and gratitude!

February 25, 2012

A morning in transition, gray and getting grayer . . . After yesterday's wind, it's so still this morning not a leaf is twitching.  It has that breathless awarness that is poised at the moment between two states.  I hear an owl still up, and the cat is rummaging through the leaves at the feet of the cane.  Without the wind chime chorus, it seems very silent this morning.  A couple of women running in rumpled track suits, round the corner, followed by a large brown dog, its tongue lolling out and what looks like a grin on its face.  It stops to sniff around then lopes off to catch up.  A small stripe of red sun is slowly appearing through the trees.  Red sun in the morning . . . a change in the weather.

Morning

morning;

in my bowl

green light.

sky burns

turns through

blue silence.

every real sound

falls

on open ears.

i go down now

to the sea

without doubts.

Stef Pixnar 

Well, this morning in the bowl is only gray light, but the sky is burning at the horizon, a fire the trees can live with.  And the silence is now breached by a sudden gust of wind, and the far off sleepy who of that owl.  I don't know about the sea, but I can't even go down to the bay without doubts, which are like questions, not to be given up lightly.  Once you have complete certainty you forget to grow.  Perhaps the poet meant the sea has no doubts, which I can believe in.  The sea with its change, still probably never doubts the shore, or the depths of its reach, only the weather above it, stirring things up.   This morning it looks like change and a lot of stirring up might be happening.  We all wait, accepting weather like nothing else, with no control over it only stray prediction, we learn that acceptance, and make do with it. 

Whatever the weather you have today, you can find a cozy spot and watch it come.  When it arrives, welcome it, another day to live in the world, change we accept, and move through, adapting to whatever it brings.

February 24, 2012

Wind, a lot of really noisy wind in the trees, does not make for peaceful sleeping.  At times it sounded like an ocean crashing overheard, other times with all the neighborhood chimes, it sounded like a wild symphony of demons and demi-gods, all fury and noise and deep bell tones tolling out over all the yards. It is still windy, though now there are patches of sun and white clouds racing to cover them, sometimes they miss and the sun shines through for a few minutes.

Today I took my daughter shopping for her birthday presents, black flat shoes, and a big comforter for her bed.  She is picky about her blankets, they have to be soft and really big and really snuggly!  And we found the cutest shoes with classy bows to one side.  They are just adorable!  Good thing birthdays only come once a year, otherwise I might discover I rather like shopping more than I think I do and that would be not a good thing. 

More and more trees are beginning to bloom, leaf out, and otherwise announce spring!  The ash trees have joined the oaks, and the blooming fruit trees are covered with white or pink or fuscia flowers lining every branch and twig.  I wait every year for the couple of white flowering trees near the credit union to bloom, they are so spectacular in their showy splendor!

A poem for how trees make me feel . . . for their beauty and endurance and each spring's renewal that allows me to share such gladness.

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

Mary Oliver

It doesn't matter the kind of tree, my maple makes me glad to see its red helicopters, the oaks in their shining green, the ashes with their perfect shape, the little fruit trees in their glory, and later the bald cypress will again clothe itself in its tiny needles of green.  Even in winter the crepe myrtles are lovely because of their smooth golden wood, they don't even need leaves except to keep living, coins of green spent in the sunshine of summer.

So today, after all the errands and school this morning, I am taking the trees up on their call . . . I am sitting here, easy and filled with light.  I could swear my skin might begin its own greening, or perhaps shine with white flowers, or I could just sit here and drink in the sounds of the wind, the sunshine coming and going, and the cane in its limber dance.  Some days just have their own heart, their own joys, and this day has been a pleasure!

February 23, 2012

Thin fog, enough to obscure the sky without being so thick you can't see the trees.  There is just enough wind to keep it from settling in and causing hazardous conditions.  A north wind, a change in the weather . . . since they predicted more than 80 degrees today perhaps the little cool front came in early.  Every time that weather man talks about winter, I wonder where he lives, since we have not had so much winter here, even I wouldn't mind a few normal winter days sometime before it's spring for certain, but though it looks pretty wintery out there this morning, I know it's just face not fact.

The wind has shredded the little bit of fog, the sky is lowering and darkening, as if the day does not know whether it is coming or going.

 “Between Going and Staying the Day Wavers”

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

Octavio Paz

And outside the pause is between night and day, between fog and storm, between wind and its falling off.  The school bus, bright yellow blur, keeps its routine, the cars carry people out to their daily work.  I am the pause, sitting here, listening to all the chimes, watching the day try to make up its mind.  Perhaps all day the sky will change, perhaps the only thing that will not change is how the light changes at each moment, that light near as breathing and no way to touch it, or hold it, or keep it from changing.  No one names the changes of light, perhaps that is why we cannot hold them, we have no name for their infinite variety and so they slip away, they keep scattering, as the wind scatters fog.  That might be their blessing to us, something we cannot name . . .

February 22, 2012

Change of season means change of light, now when it would usually still be too dark to see anything outside, I begin to see the shadows of trees against that deep and lovely blue, as if they were rising from the depths of some lightless lake.  The little moon of the orange streetlight is softened by air laden with water, not quite fog but close.  No birds are awake yet, and the road is empty still, and there is not a stirring of wind.

In the bathroom this morning, there is a moth, small and speckled brown and gray.  Against a tree, you would not be able to see it, but against the orangey cream of the walls, it stands out like a smudge of dirt, or a chip of wet bark stuck to the wall.  The arrowheads of its wings so thin I believe you could see light through it.  It's motionless, just resting there, doing no harm, lost inside a place where stillness and color do not hide it from prying eyes.  I leave it on the wall, doing no harm, but it reminds me of a poem I have saved.

Luna Moth

I thought it was a bat, looking for trouble,
but it was only a luna moth clutching the screen.
When it settled on my pillow, closing its wings,

I left the room and waited for it to fly out
but it remained in the cavity of my pillow
until I slipped a piece of cardboard

under the speckled body.
Then in anger it flew wildly through the rooms of our house,
a blessing gone awry, and before I could swat it

it vanished into some crack or
hidden place. Then I lay down again
and waited for you to open your eyes

but you gripped the sheets and held fast to sleep,
and the luna moth scudded through our bedroom, reading
my horoscope on the dust of the blinds.

Jeff Friedman

Sometimes such visitors remind us of the world we seldom experience, more vast than our enclosed spaces.  Sometimes we are fascinated by them, sometimes repelled, sometimes they drag in wild we aren't comfortable with, sometimes they frighten us, sometimes they astonish us.  A luna moth, large and pale as kite against the dark would be a fascination, and a distraction from routine, but a small gray moth can be noticed and at once forgotten, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing frightening or mysterious.  Yet, here I am, writing to remember it, including it in my morning routine, accepting it, and wishing it no harm, a tiny wildness in civilized room, a small reminder of all I miss living this enclosed life.

Perhaps there will be some tiny wildness in your day, a blessing of beauty, some small astonishment reading your horoscope in a moment's brush of its fragile wings, or the notes of its song.

February 21, 2012

The sky is again gray and flat and close, nothing mars its sameness, the distant light, come all this way from the sun, is dulled and faded by a film of water we can't live without.  Necessary, but it makes a morning without sun, soft light, not even any shadows, everything tentative and delicately resting, damp and chill.  The cat slinks its way across the yard and under the shed, hunting something or merely practicing.
  
This morning the poem has to do with an expanding universe, and I will include this wonderful photo by Mikko Lagerstedt that was posted on Tumblr in devidsketchbook.

Life in an Expanding Universe

It’s not only all those
cosmic pinwheels with their charging solar
luminosities, the way they spin around
like the paper kind tacked to a tree trunk,
the way they expel matter and light
like fields of dandelions throwing off
waves of summer sparks in the wind,
the way they speed outward,
receding, creating new distances
simply by soaring into them.

But it's also how the noisy
crow enlarges the territory
above the landscape at dawn, making
new multiple canyon spires in the sky
by the sharp towers and ledges
of its calling; and how the bighorn
expand the alpine meadows by repeating
inside their watching eyes every foil
of columbine and bell rue, all
the stretches of sedges, the candescences
of jagged slopes and crevices existing there.

And though there isn't a method
to measure it yet, by finding
a golden-banded skipper on a buttonbush,
by seeing a blue whiptail streak
through desert scrub, by looking up
one night and imagining the fleeing
motions of the stars themselves, I know
my presence must swell one flutter-width
wider, accelerate one lizard-slip farther,
descend many stellar-fathoms deeper
than it ever was before.

Pattiann Rogers

It's the perfect poem because I can hear the crows calling in their rough voices, not conversational this morning, but calling to each other like long lost friends, wanting to get together and get up to some mischief.  Cardinals and blue jays have turned up in the yard, and everywhere the sound of lawn mowers, like big hearts turning and turning, row on row, make every inch of green into another growling beat.  You can smell the onions and the almost suffocating green scent of new grass.

I think I like pictures of crowded night skies because here we get so little of  night sky.  It has to be really dry and clear to see any but the brightest stars because we live surrounded by lights of all kinds, from the plants, and the port, and the boardwalk with its rides and neon.  It's sometimes photographs that give me the "many stellar-fathoms deeper" feeling for lots of different things, so many absolutely gorgeous photos in the world, but especially photos of the night sky, views I envy and seem to crave!

Even though I can't see it, I know our star is throwing off its dandelion sparks of light that mean life for us.  And at night we are visited by light from other centuries, from places that have moved on, from so far away we have to take pictures of it to save it to savor.


Mikko Lagerstedt  Black Swan September 2011

February 20, 2012

This is a between morning, between wind and stillness, between cloud and sun, between chill now and warmer later.  It may be making up its mind about what to do with the day, like a lot of us, a holiday at a strange time, making a short week of work, making me wake up this morning in a panic about being late before I remembered that there was not any school today!  Silly brain remembered Monday but not holiday, should try to remember both at the same time, would save on adrenalin.

I believe there is pollen happening, watery eyes, itchy face . . . the oaks are leafing out and there are all kinds of new grasses, and onions, and the new cane has grown a foot since yesterday.  That stuff is kind of scary for how quickly it grows and for its tenacity, but it's sure something interesting to watch out the window.  The big iron plant that had nearly died under cover of the cane is now expanding its territory, since the cane got cut back some last year.  Its dark green oval leaves are a deep contrast to the lighter cane.  It looks like a plant war skirmish <chuckle>

This morning's poem is for Mikayla as it has Amsterdam in it and is funny!  Since she has to go to work on the holiday, I thought she might need a smile, and it's a different way of looking at spring.  Each time Mikayla has gone to the Netherlands, she has missed the flower market.  Some day she is going to be there for it, for thousands of Dutch tulips and other flowers.

Why Things Burn

My fire-eating career came to an end
when I could no longer tell
when to spit and when

to swallow.
Last night in Amsterdam,
1,000 tulips burned to death.

I have an alibi. When I walked by
your garden, your hand
grenades were in bloom.

You caught me playing
loves me, loves me
not, metal pins between my teeth.

I forget the difference
between seduction
and arson,

ignition and cognition. I am a girl
with incendiary
vices and you have a filthy never

mind. If you say no, twice,
it’s a four-letter word.
You are so dirty, people have planted

flowers on you: heliotropes. sun-
flowers. You’ll take
anything. Loves me,

loves me not.
I want to bend you over
and whisper: “potting soil,” “fresh

cut.” When you made
the urgent fists of peonies
a proposition, I stole a pair of botanists’

hands. Green. Confident. All thumbs.
I look sharp in garden
shears and it rained spring

all night. 1,000 tulips
burned to death
in Amsterdam.

We didn’t hear the sirens.
All night, you held my alibis
so softly, like taboos

already broken.

Daphne Gottlieb

I never thought of botanists' hands as all thumbs, all green thumbs <smile> or that tulips in their lovely blaze of colors burn to death, but when you see pictures of fields of red and orange and yellow tulips, it's easy to imagine the fire.  The rich dark images of fertile ground and the fire of flowers makes for a stunning poem about the hazards and joys of spring, the little rituals, the tenderness, the explosive passion and alibis of love, all wrapped up in a warm embrace.  How often do you find a fresh raft of images about love and spring?  An occasion worth celebrating!

When I went to swap cars to let Mikayla out I heard all kinds of birds this morning, a noisy jungle of cheeps and whistles and song, even the sorrowful who-who-who of the mourning dove.  The air is soft and moist and leans gently against the skin.  The clouds look like they are winning at the moment, spreading a soft gray, thickening in places until you can see the water piling up, hesitating to make the descent.

Perhaps there will be a shower of rain, or tulips or peonies in your day, or a little ritual of love, or an alibi or two! 

February 19, 2012

After the rain, spotty sun and a great deal of wind.  You can see the white flames of clouds racing across the sky consuming the blue, leaving ragged holes the sun with its brighter flame burns through.  Later today that same sun is supposed to burn off all the remaining clouds leaving us with a lot more blue, though it seems to me that the wind will have more to do with that than the sun.  When the wind blows so strongly, it makes a noisy morning and almost as few birds out as when there is rain.  Perhaps wind makes of flight an uncertainty, in that you don't know what there is to push against from moment to moment, in some respects kind of like our lives that have so much change and uncertainty about things invisible and beyond us.

Today is the day of the blessing, and this one for equilibrium seems to be a good one for all the world, for so much that is unsettled, and for so many kinds of wind.

A Blessing for Equilibrium

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the music of laughter break through your soul.

As the wind wants to make everything dance,
May your gravity be lightened by grace.

Like the freedom of the monastery bell,
May clarity of mind make your eyes smile.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May a sense of irony give you perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May fear or worry never put you in chains.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
To hear in the distance the laughter of God.

John O'Donohue

 So much beauty in the wind making everything that is flexible and supple dance, so much grace in the sound of our chimes, and the rush of water pushed by that same wind and the tides of the moon-pull.  The blessings of today surely must make us laugh along with God, for the joy inherent in this world, all that beauty and grace, taking shape, continually created, and experienced daily, the mind reaching out to embrace it all, the heart accepting it, and the soul quietly infusing it all with meaning.

May there be an abundance of blessings in your week ahead; may there be joy and grace and love to celebrate every day!

February 18, 2012

It's was storming all night.  It is raining and going to rain, and we don't even have any blackbirds this morning.  A nod to Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" one of my very favorites.  I believe it's trying to catch up on all the rain we missed last summer in one night and morning.  In the night the rain came down like a firehose, or maybe several firehoses, were just above the roof trying to put out a terrible fire, and it rained like that for the better part of an hour.  I felt like Noah in the ark with the flood coming down.  We've had a short break where it was only sprinkling but now . . . it is pouring again.  During that break the thunder was like a large sleeping dragon had circled us and was breathing in and out at every window, rumbling and rhythmical, and in that circle of its body there was distant light and nearby noise.  Now the thunder has moved closer, heavier and sharper.  The gray lowering and getting darker and darker.  There is more power to a storm than we like to contemplate, and this hard rain and loud thunder reminds me how fragile our warm dry houses can seem in comparison!

I'm not complaining about the rain though, because we need it still, and I have no trouble recalling all the dead trees and brown grass and shrubs, water restrictions and some towns running out of water.  It's hard to imagine so many people in the world without a source of good clean water, though it got easier last summer to contemplate it, and we didn't even come close to being out of water.

Water Becomes You

This water coming into your hands,
it’s old—older than today,
older than you are,
older than the oldest people you know.

This water has been around:
playing over and under the world,
coming up in different wells,
turning through the air into nothing.

This water will make its home in you,
become a part of you,
moving in your very thoughts:
old water welling up in new hands.

Heidi Mordhorst

So this morning we have LOTS of water, old water come home again from it's invisible life in the outer reaches of sky.  It comes announced by its own brass band, as if we need to have our attention called to the miracle.  We welcome it, and its noisy heralds.  The ground softens in its embrace, the trees stand bare, sleeping, soaking it up and making it the sweet sap of spring.  The maple is already clothed in its sexy red dress, scattering seeds from its basket of branches, attending the perfect marriage, between rain and the earth. 

February 17, 2012

A Friday morning, dark and thick, the promise of rain, some wind moving in the the invisible trees.  The truck that goes out rumbling every morning has just left, and soon the paper will arrive, flung to land more softly than it used to, it's that thin now.  One mockingbird is up early singing quietly, probably in a neighbor's yard.  I am putting off getting ready for school, thinking I will be more awake in just a little while.  It's amazing to me how often you can wake up without actually being awake, to check the time, or suddenly from a dream, or awake for a moment barely aware you are awake.  When it is time to get up, sometimes you are glad to finally do it, sometimes you just want the covers and five more minutes.

An ordinary day . . .

Ordinary Life

Our life is ordinary,

I read in a crumpled paper

abandoned on a bench.

Our life is ordinary,

the philosophers told me.

Ordinary life, ordinary days and cares,

a concert, a conversation,

strolls on the town’s outskirts,

good news, bad—”

but objects and thoughts

were unfinished somehow,

rough drafts.

Houses and trees

desired something more

and in summer green meadows

covered the volcanic planet

like an overcoat tossed upon the ocean.

Black cinemas crave light.

Forests breathe feverishly,

clouds sing softly,

a golden oriole prays for rain.

Ordinary life desires.

Adam Zagajewski

(Translated by Clare Cavanagh

There is always something to be desired, five more minutes, a new book, sunshine, the list goes one.  That mockingbird probably wants one new song, the rain just wants to escape the clouds, my students want no assignment for the weekend <smile>.  We all desire something, that's one of the marks of living, the cravings, and the breath. and even the prayers.  When I begin to get ready, I will want to be on time, to leave the house, and arrive in time to set out art supplies, and watch those girls create something from their own lives to share with each other.  It's an experience I desire, wanting to know what young people think of the world, what they experience, what they wonder about.  Sometimes I discover they wonder about the same things adults do, and sometimes . . . they have their own wonders <smile>!

Hope today you have something wonderful to share, or something ordinary, either way it's what life wants, something to desire.

February 16, 2012

A whole flock of tiny finches flew into the crepe myrtle tree where they sat fluffing their feathers and peeping, tiny gray-brown birds with cream underbellies, and a host of peeping and cheeping.  Sometimes I wish I knew just what they were saying, as they seemed to be so happy about everything.  After a minute or two they took off, swirling around until they were all flying, then making a moving cloud of little birds across the morning sky.  I guess they went to someone else's window for awhile, just cheering up the day.  Yesterday when I was out I noticed the whole line of old oaks down El Dorado are all making spring green haze, by Friday you will be able to see leaves.  The trees think it's spring and I think I believe them over that groundhog.  My oak in the back yard, the sawtoothed one, doesn't have green yet and the Mexican one is green all year so it doesn't count for this whole early spring thing.

Oh, a robin! Now there's an harbinger of spring!  Just one robin but you know there have to be more.  I don't know where our robins spend the winter, after all we are about as far south as you can get in this country, but I just saw the first one I've seen this year.  They don't stay here usually, they are only here for less than a month and then they go someplace else.   But it's nice to see them, they used to take over the little park spot across the street, spreading out like a brown and russet wave over the early grass, and roosting in the trees there.  We get them occasionally in the yard but not as often as I'd like.  It's been sprinkling rain off and on, and I'm surprised to see so many birds this morning, but it's fairly warm and there is no wind.  There are new white spears of cane among the older stalks, the white will slowly fade into green as they get taller.  All these signs of spring, such a mild winter we had this year.

Miracle Fair

The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.

The usual miracles:
invisible dogs barking
in the dead of night.

One of many miracles:
a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder is reflected in the water
and is reversed from left to right
and grows from crown to root
and never hits bottom
though the water isn't deep.

A run-of-the-mill miracle:
winds mild to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

A miracle in the first place:
cows will be cows.

Next but not least:
just this cherry orchard
from just this cherry pit.

A miracle minus top hat and tails:
fluttering white doves.

A miracle (what else can you call it):
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.
and will set tonight at one past eight.

A miracle that's lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it's got more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
  
Wislawa Szymborska

And what is more a miracle than the first robin, or white cane rising, or a tiny flock of tiny finches, so many miracles in such a morning, gray between storms, the stone heron standing still in the yard, and I am still here, looking out the window.  A most welcome miracle!  Have a day full of your own miracles! 

February 15, 2012

Dark just becoming light, everything outside so quiet.  Nothing going on this morning . . . just routine.  In the night, the owls were talking in their circle, but this morning no fog horns, but nothing visible in the sky so it must be cloudy.  The morning before light is generally very empty with everything still sleeping but the early risers.  More people out in the later spring and early summer trying to beat the heat but this time of year, only trucks and the school bus generally leave early.

Here is a poem for the really early morning, and the rest of the day as well. 
I love that you don't know who he is talking to, could be anyone, lover or friend or family, but it reminds me of how often one of the kids will come in and make me go out and look at something in the yard . . . the moon rising through the trees, the return of the owls and their babies.  They want me to come out and listen to some sound, or smell something blooming, or look at how red the maple is with its shimmer of seeds.  Sometimes it's a raccoon or armadillo, or a possum, though I am not so awfully fond of possums.  Sometimes it's me getting them to look at birds or the antics of squirrels.  See that I see . . . I am lucky that I often have people around me that make sure I see.  And I return the favor.

Summons

Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I’m half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I’m not too hard persuaded
Robert Francis

I rarely wonder why I went to bed at all but I do like to see what is out there, even in the dark, eclipse or full moon, owl or even possum, and in the early light sometimes a new bird, or the black dog playing in rain puddles.  Mornings like this one, dark and still, there is once in awhile a mockingbird greeting the day, or a little later the egret may stalk through the yard, and I want to see what I see, I want to notice patterns and songs, wildlife and tame, anything that I notice makes the day snap into focus and walking through it is a wonder.

February 14, 2012

The ships in the channel are bellowing through the fog like prehistoric beasts, calling to each other, only this is no mating call, as the day might imply.  This is the call of warning, the call to avoid touching, to avoid that collision that would wreck them beyond repair, and empty them into the bay.  In the blankness of air there is danger, in the foggy blindness these dangers are moving like shadows, like silhouettes behind a curtain, nothing recognizable, even the familiar strange and exotic.  The bare trees more skeletal in the half light, bony branches, weird lights, the grass grayed over, no one out who does not have to be, even the birds quiet and puffed up against the dampness.

It is Valentine's Day, and it seems there are more bad poems written about love than about any other topic.  Searching though them is often . . . enlightening and hilarious at the same time.  None seems to fit just right, mostly they just seem too idealistic and sappy to be about anything real.  After much searching, this one seems to say something about arriving at love that resonates with what I see of love around me . . .

Into Arrival

It will be in a station
with a glass roof
grimy with the soot
of every train and
they will embrace for every mile
of arrival. They will not
let go, not all the long way,
his arm in the curve of her longing. Walking in a city
neither knows too well,
watching women with satchels
giving coins to a priest for the war veterans;
finding the keyhole view of the church
from an old wall across the city, the dome
filling the keyhole precisely,
like an eye. In the home
of winter, under an earth
of blankets, he warms her skin
as she climbs in from the air.

There is a way our bodies
are not our own, and when he finds her
there is room at last
for everyone they love,
the place he finds,
she finds, each word of skin
a decision.

There is earth
that never leaves your hands,
rain that never leaves
your bones. Words so old they are broken
from us, because they can only be
broken. They will not
let go, because some love
is broken from love,
like stones
from stone,
rain from rain,
like the sea
from the sea.

Ann Michaels

They will embrace and not let go, even when they have to be apart, he will warm her as she climbs in from the air, as in my experience men are furnaces, and women are the ones with cold hands and cold feet and the deep need to be warmed.   There is room at last for everyone they love, because once you have discovered that love that grounds you, there is always room for more of it, more from every place and person in your life.  In some recognition of that deep love, you come to know what other lovers know, the growing earth, the daily decisions that deepen that love, the joy in even rainy days, the sea a reflection of how deep you are to each other and by finding that depth you find it for the world.  This is more about the effects of love, how deep it goes, and what it means to arrive at it every day, than most of the poems that only seem to make romance out of something much more integral, out of something essential that has become that shelter from which it is possible to know more about everything.

Happy Valentine's Day!  A day not just for the celebration of romantic love, but for all the love we share, love for the lover, and everyone else, for the wonder of the world, even fog bound and gray, for arriving each morning at that place where love in us lives. 

February 13, 2012

Monday, the beginning of the week, of the work week, going back to the most entrenched routines, ones we can't function without.  Listening to the news, traffic, weather, we make our plans.  Today the forecast is 100% for rain, how often do you hear them say 100% of anything, so we are pretty sure to get wet sometime today.  It's just graying outside, the trees are stepping forth in their dark trunks, their branches streaks of ink against the flat sky.  The school bus rounds the corner, the paper is lying out in the yard, a single mocking bird is making a run of songs and cheeps somewhere close. This is the time of day people get up, bleary-eyed, and make something hot to drink, coffee or tea, or perhaps here in this neighborhood, it's Dr. Pepper in the morning or Coke, just a little something to open your eyes and get a kick start for the routine.  Honey is grinding the beans in the very noisy grinder as I write this, going through the ritual of the morning coffee, with gurgling water, and a raft of taps and bangs.

For work this morning, I found a poem this weekend that is a great way to start a Monday, for the sly way it puts a smile on my face, even while acknowledging that work, especially at this early hour is not always something we look forward to, even such small work as I do <grin>!

Self Employed

     For Harvey Shapiro

I stand and listen, head bowed,
to my inner complaint.
Persons passing by think
I am searching for a lost coin.
You're fired, I yell inside
after an especially bad episode.
I'm letting you go without notice
or terminal pay. You just lost
another chance to make good.
But then I watch myself standing at the exit,
depressed and about to leave,
and wave myself back in wearily,
for who else could I get in my place
to do the job in dark, airless conditions?

David Ignatow
So who does fire the self-employed?  And how many times have you given your work another chance, even though there are days you would be glad to fire it on the spot? Even the just routines are sometimes a little more acceptable if you break them occasionally.  I love . . . "and wave myself back in wearily"  and "who else could I get in my place" because there is no one so often, you just have to keep doing what you are doing, keep doing the job, wether it's working for someone, for yourself, for your family . . . just keep doing the daily work.

It's light now, gray flat light but time to leave, to do the morning work, because this morning I have waved myself on into the day, the fretwork of routine making it easier to keep doing what I am doing, what I often love to do, once I have gotten past going <smile>.

February 12, 2012

Cold, cold, cold, made colder by a strong wind.  All night the wind blew and even with the heat running you could feel the cold easing into the house.  The sky was clear, dark as it gets here, which is not often all that dark anymore, but this morning, the clear early blue is being slowly erased by high white clouds.  There is nothing moving in the yard but wind-stirred leaves of the Mexican oak and the dark, oily leaves of the ligustrum, and the cane bending before it, the dance looking more like a tarantella than the usual graceful waltz.  Again, the yard is bare of birds, they must have somewhere more sheltered to go with the wind is this strong and cold.

This is the day for the blessing, and there is so much to be blessed, and so much I am blessed with that sometimes I hardly know where to begin.  I have been thinking this morning, due to having some experience recently with songs stuck in my head, about songs from church, hymns and songs at Christmas, and the Salve Regina we used to sing when crowing the statue of Mary with flowers.  So many rituals of celebration of things holy, songs of blessing, songs of joy, there are songs in about every faith, or dances, or recitations of joyful words.  I often think of Rumi when I think of joy in the world; most of his work is a celebration of the joy of sacred love and earthly love, as if the two were one and inseparable, as if joy were meant to be part of every aspect of life, of the spirit, of the mind, of the body.  I would send one of his poems, but this morning I want to send this simple song, a Quaker song of joy . . .

My Life Flows On (How Can I Keep from Singing)

My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the real though far off hymn that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing!

What though the tempest ’round me roars, I know the truth, it liveth.
What though the darkness ’round me close, songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love prevails in heav’n and earth, how can I keep from singing!

When tyrants tremble as they hear the bells of freedom ringing,
when friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing!
To prison cell and dungeon vile our thoughts to them are winging;
when friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing!

early Quaker song

I don't know how I can keep from singing . . . now this is a song I don't mind having stuck in my head, and with the simple repetitive tune, it does seem to get lodged there, though for the longest time I only knew the first verse, and now that I have found words for other verses, they seem just perfect for the world today, especially the last verse.  How very current, with the Arab spring, with trouble in Syria, and even earlier with the demise of communism and the fall of the wall.  Even in the dark of the night it is saying that darkness has its own singing, and here it is true.  With the wind from the cold north, the chimes make music all night, from the cymbal-like hard-drive chime, to the deep tolling bell of the long tube chimes, and about everything in between, music from the dark, more noticeable when everything else is so quiet.  Love prevails, and this is the week where we celebrate romantic love, but all love prevails.  If it didn't the world would be a much more desperate place, and it would be love that was news, instead of hate or vice being the exception and so noteworthy.

My life flows on in endless song . . . music of all kinds blesses me, and love as well, for all such people in my life as I admire and give thanks for, all those I love and am loved by, for all that I am blessed with, including that my life flows on . . . how can I keep from singing!

February 11, 2012

Windy and cold, bright sun, pink and blue sky, the air cold and clear.  The north wind jangling all the chimes, making sparks of light in the yard as well as all the different notes.   Winter has returned for a visit, who knows how long it will stay but this morning it has arrived with all the fanfares the wind can provide.  The heat is running and running, a sure sign not only of greater cold but wind pushing that cold into every crevice.  You can feel it pouring off the windows and doors.  Good thing for us it's not all this cold all that often.  Not that this cold compares with cold up north, it's just cold for our semi-tropical envrionment.

After a week with few birds, this morning we have black and white.  Three crows inhabit the maple this morning, cawing over and over, their black bodies shining slick in the early sun.  They are like crabby old men with whiskey-and-smoke voices, grumbling at each other and complaining to the world that it's cold and windy and the sun is too bright.  They are loud and fascinating; you can't fail to notice them when they are around, as they call attention to themsleves with their talk.  According to old rhymes about crows, three crows together signify health, or mirth, a wedding, or a girl.  This morning I will take them to mean mirth as they seem to be enjoying themsleves.

The white was a large common egret sailing across the back yard to land for a moment near the cane and then walk out to the grass along the edge of the road and disappear into the ditch on the other side.  They are so lovely, silent on their broad white wings, they always surprise me when they arrive.   They are elegant and awkward, with their backward facing knees, and long graceful neck.  It is said that the common or great egret was hunted nearly to extinction by those who valued their lovely feather for hats.  I'm glad they have recovered; there are a lot of them here, common and cattle egrets both, but you rarely see them in the neighborhood, mostly of they inhabit the bayou and the water's edge.   I am glad every time I get to see them out the window.  It's like a blessing to the day, even if they stay only a few moments, they take your breath away when they lift into the air on those wide white wings.

I have found several poems about egrets, but today this one by John Ciardi says most how I feel being blessed by one this morning.  Egrets and herons are the same family, and the common egret is also called the great white heron.  I have a statue of one, stone still yet embodying the grace of neck and slender elegance.

White Heron

What lifts the heron leaning on the air
I praise without a name. A crouch, a flare,
a long stroke through the cumulus of trees,
a shaped thought at the sky — then gone. O rare!
Saint Francis, being happiest on his knees,
would have cried Father! Cry anything you please

But praise. By any name or none. But praise
the white original burst that lights
the heron on his two soft kissing kites.
When saints praise heaven lit by doves and rays,
I sit by pond scums till the air recites
It's heron back. And doubt all else. But praise.

John Ciardi

And so this morning I have had black and white blessings, crows and an egret, the racous, shining black, and the silent elegant white, and both were welcome, and both cherished.

February 10, 2012

Rain most of the night . . . a constant drip of rain, no big deluge, no rush of water from the roof, just drip and drip and more drip.  The sound of rain spattering anything solid, lots of different drip sounds, drips from leaves, from eaves, scattered by cars, the shush of wet roads.  Rain mutes all the normal sounds, so all you can hear is that constant splatter.  Such a slow steady rain is so good for trees and anything green, even the ground, like cement from the long drought, is beginning to soften up, beginning to hold on the the water instead of it flooding the ditches and bayous.  We have actually come up two categories, we are no longer in exceptional or extreme drought, now we are merely severe and may be coming out of that.  The La Nina is fading, and while it may not fade soon enough for normal spring rain, they hold out good hope for early summer.

This morning, for the daughter who returned, a poem about one of the most important things we learn . . .

First Lesson

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Philip Booth

I remember teaching all my children to swim.  Matthew didn't take to it so much, but Michael and Mikayla were fish, from the very first.  They seemed to trust the water, seemed to have little fear of it and expected it to hold them.  I love the gentleness of this poem, the slow work of trust between them, and between the daughter and the water.  And as a parent, you want to give your kids that sense of the world, that the trust they have will hold them up, the love and care they have experienced will keep them afloat.  The light-year stars . . . i often think of how long it takes light to travel such distances, how what we are seeing is the past, the very distant past.  And when we look at our grown children, what parent doesn't see the past as well as the present, what parent doesn't have that thrill of fear for their future, even if small and distantly felt.  I like to think that even for me, swimming though all these days, if I lie back, lie gently and wide open, the sea of this life will hold me.