August 9, 2012

It was a slow morning, everything about it slowed to a crawl.  The yard quiet, the sky typical summer, the occasional jay squawking, and the cat walking the ditch, disappearing down the grass into the depths near the road for some reason known only to cats.  I hear a chain saw revving up, sawing through some kind of wood, probably drought-killed tree or maybe it's the power company making room for the lines.  No cicadas this morning, I guess they are pretty much over for this summer.  I kind of miss their noise, the irregular chirring.  It's certainly warm enough for them to be singing if there were any still in need of a mate.  A little breeze is just moving through the trees, leaves ruffling, the cane swaying gently.  I hear a squirrel hollering at something, most likely another squirrel or the cat.  Earlier the black dog from the guy behind us was out, sniffing around each tree then heading off across the street out of sight. 
 

Praise What Comes

surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved

of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health

that lets you work in many kinds of weather.  Praise

talk with just about anyone.  And quiet intervals, books

that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks

before sleep.  Praising these for practice, perhaps

you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs

you never intended.  At the end there may be no answers

and only a few very simple questions: did I love,

finish my task in the world?  Learn at least one

of the many names of God?  At the intersections,

the boundaries where one life began and another

ended, the jumping-off places between fear and

possibility, at the ragged edges of pain,

did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?

 Jeanne Lohmann

Today I am praising for practice as the poem suggests, praising the ever-changing sky, the stalks of swaying cane, the slow rhythm of a morning gone already into early afternoon.  I'm praising all the poems I have read so far that did not seem to be useful for today.  I am praising the time I have to do all this searching, and looking out the window, praising the way every day is different, even though you would think they would be more the same, all routine with no place to go for wonder.   Since I am still here, I don't think I have finished my task in the world, though some days I would like more than a hint of what that task might be, and of the many names of God there are some I am beginning to recognize.  Sometimes, in looking out the window, in sitting to do this ordinary work, and all the other ordinary things that fill the days, I glimpse the holy, and it's enough for me to go on looking, and working, and even getting filled up with joy, however slowly, however the day may seem to be falling forward into just so much routine.Love always,