December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve . . .actually Christmas morning, but really early.  Everything that can be done is done, the house is quiet and it's time to sleep.  I wanted to send my traditional Christmas eve poem, and so . . . here it is.  It says nearly everything I wish to say . . .

It's nice to know that some good things have not changed in 500 years, that people still are sending out love and good wishes to those they care about, that those wishes are still the same, and are not likely to change over the years.  I send this letter to you . . . history and the present come together in this moment, a moment to remember the joy of the season!

Written on Christmas Eve, 1513

I salute you.  I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. 

There is nothing I can give you which you have not.  But there is much,

very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.  No heaven can

come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.  Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within

our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. 

And to see, we have only to look.  I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver.  But we, judging its gifts by their covering,

cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.  Remove the covering, and you

will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there.

The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.  Your joys, too,

be not content with them as joys.  They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering,

that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.  Courage then to claim it; that is all!

But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together,

wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and
forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.

~ Fra Giovanni ~

So, take all those things, peace, and heaven, and joy.  The gloom of the world is but a shadow, beneath that shadow is the joy we seek, we've only to wait until the light moves round to expose it, we must be ready to seize that joy and use it for ourselves and others. And so, I greet you, not quite as the world does, but with love and respect, wishing you joy and beauty, wishing you a new vision of all there is that is lovely and sweet here and now.  Things have not changed in all the times past since this letter was written.  People still love, and hope, and search for beauty and meaning.  I wish for you all of that however you may discover it, however you may embrace all the world offers.  I hope you and your family have peace and joy for this season and all the year around.
 

December 14, 2012

A new life has entered the world and our family, Claire Elayne, born to the daughter of my sister and her husband and joining their son, Fletcher.  We are glad to welcome her, and relieved that things went well and everyone is safe and happy, though I suspect everyone is tired even with all that joy!  There can be nothing in the world so wondrous as a new baby, nothing as amazing, or if truth be known as frightening either.  It takes a while to settle down and realize that they are not as fragile as they look, though I suspect that being a nurse, Winonah has some idea about that, and Claire having an older brother to break the parents in will probably enjoy a little more relaxed attitude.  Your first baby is more frightening than any successive one, as you find out they are . . . what is that truck commercial phrase . . . they are built tough!  At least tougher than they appear!

And so this morning, a poem for a new life, for a daughter . . .

Tempo

In the first month I think
it’s a drop in a spider web’s
necklace of dew
 
at the second a hazel-nut; after,
a slim Black-eyed Susan demurely folded
asleep on a cloudy day
 
then a bush–baby silent as sap
in a jacaranda tree, but blinking
with mischief
 
at five months it’s an almost-caught
flounder flapping back
to the glorious water
 
six, it’s a song
with a chorus of basses: seven, five grapefruit
in a mesh bag that bounces on the hip
on a hot morning down at the shops
 
a water melon next – green oval
of pink flesh and black seeds, ripe
waiting to be split by the knife
 
nine months it goes faster, it’s a bicycle
pedalling for life over paddocks
of sun
no, a money-box filled with silver half-crowns
a sunflower following the clock
with its wide-open grin
a storm in the mountains, spinning rocks
down to the beech trees
three hundred feet below
- old outrageous Queen Bess’s best dress
starched ruff and opulent tent of a skirt
packed with ruffles and lace
no no, I’ve remembered, it’s a map
of intricate distinctions
 
purples for high ground burnt umber
for foothills green for the plains
and the staggering blue
of the ocean beyond
waiting and waiting and
aching
with waiting
 
no more alternatives!  Suddenly now
you can see my small bag of eternity
pattern of power
my ace my adventure
my sweet-smelling atom
my planet, my grain of miraculous dust
my green leaf, my feather
my lily my lark
look at her, angels –
this is my daughter.

Lauris Edmond

Ah the waiting through all the invisible growing, then the not so invisible growing where you feel you've swallowed the entire world.  And then . . . they arrive, every bit of that . . . small bag of eternity!  I love the idea of . . .  my ace, my adventure, my planet as we do so revolve around them in their lovely gravity of spirit!  That a baby is all that is fresh and new and joyful, flower, bird, green leaf, the essence of the natural world, and the we want even the angels to notice and take care of her, to watch over her, and be kind to her. 

So today our prayers and hopes have been answered by the arrival of Claire, who is already loved by us all, and who comes at a season where the whole world is engaged in a conspiracy of love, as the quote by Hamilton Mabie suggests.  Her family, all of us, are ready to enjoy her, take care of her, teach and protect her, what else is love?  We are grateful beyond words for her arrival in the safe haven of her parent's arms, to say nothing of all the holding the grandparents will be doing, and the generous spirit of fun and sharing from her older brother!  Now that she has "busted out" I am sure he will take care of her as well!

December 13, 2012

I'd say winter has settled in, it's a bright, sunny, frigid-for-here morning, windy and dry, very dry.  Everything from my hair to plastic wrappers is full of static, which is not usually a problem.  My hair looks kind of like white dandelion fluff this morning, standing out from my head as if repelled by its usual placement!  I know that for other places it's not all that cold, and it will get warmer today, into the 60s but for now it feels like the winter we have been expecting.  Still my maple tree is green, and my oak has its scattering of new leaves.  Since we are so close to the water, we don't generally have hard freezes, but this morning may give those trees the hint that it really is winter!

Today is going to be full of all kinds of work, finishing up presents to be mailed, wrapping, taking things to be mailed, (yes, I know it's late but I've been waiting on that shipment of books).  When I decided to give everyone one of my favorite books for Christmas, I had a lot of fun matching the people to the books, and I didn't have to worry about running out of favorite books, I have LOTS of favorites, kind of like favorite poems <smile>!  And I have to go to the market or we won't have any dinner <chuckle>!  I'm hoping it does get warmer later and that the wind dies down a bit.

When I read this poem, I thought about how hard it is to say what it is we want from our lives, from the world, from each other . . .

The Form of That Which Is Sought

It could fill and take the shape

of the multiple spaces in the pauses

and sliding shrills of a coyote's

long yodel, or it might match

in measure the pieces of the jagged

sky crossed once and split twice

by the screeching tin bells

of two green hummingbirds fighting

in flight. Perhaps, standing alone

in a field of winter grasses,

my back to the gorged and robust

moon, it assumes the configuration

of all the vacancies not silver-

white with light.

Maybe its structure is like the quick

erratic descent and collapse

of the licks of black that allow

the leaping of flames at night,

or maybe it is the shape fitting

exactly the circle sizes created

inside the atom by its theory.

Its form might be the one difference

between the plump red-gold pulp

of a nectarine and the hard wrinkle

of the pit of its living heart,

or it might possess the form

of the similarity held in common

by a gray-speckled longhorn grazing

in rain and a splintered crack

spreading in the glass of an Arctic

iceberg and the final lingering

chord of a requiem mass.

If it could just be put in the mouth,

then one might know it by the tongue,

feeling all the edges and folds,

the dimensions and horizons

of the shuddering bittersweet shape

of its word. Or, how about this:

it is like love in total darkness,

its form moment by moment becoming itself

and tangible through the gentleness

and finesse upon which the blind

will always depend.

Pattiann Rogers

What is the shape of what I seek?  I don't know . . . first I would have to be aware of seeking something, I suppose.  Perhaps I am too content, perhaps I don't seek anything with the hunger of youthful ambition, perhaps I can think of nothing more I want than what I have already . . . perhaps.  Still, perhaps I just have not found the bittersweet shape of the word for what it is I seek, perhaps it is something that I am still uncovering like love in total darkness.  The images in this poem all seem to ring like a chime in my heart, from the tin bell of the fighting hummingbirds, to the sliding sounds of the coyote, the moon gorged and robust, the plum nectarine, even the iceberg that reminds me of Annie Dillard writing of the Arctic explorers.  Any of them could be part of what it is I might be seeking, or none, the sound of the words describing them is a joy though, a deep pleasure and mystery.  Perhaps there is nothing else needed this morning, the sun clear and light, the smooth distant blue overhead, the fitful rush of the wind, and a poem full of images that bring back memories and experiences I treasure, and a chance to share all of it.

December 11, 2012

I believe winter has arrived.  It's as cold as it usually gets here, 36 degrees, and windy so that it feels like 27 . . . Brrrr!  But I do believe this may turn the trick and convince the remaining trees that it's winter.  My maple is looking decidedly yellow and frail this morning.  When I went out to the airport this morning, it was full dark still and the moon was setting, a crescent moon cradling the pale disk of the whole moon.   There was a bright a little above and to the left of it, bright enough so it might have been a planet, Venus, I think.  It was fascinating to see, and I watched it until I had to turn and then couldn't see it any more.  There is something deep about seeing an unusual vision of the moon, something connected to a more primitive place in us, a time when the season's ruled us in a way they do not now.  It was lovely and fair trade for getting up so very early. 

The sky is clear and pale, a winter sky, and the wind from the north keeps making the wind chimes sing.  They make music in fits and starts because the wind has to be just right, so you keep listening for it, and noticing it, where if they played all the time you would soon tune them out without realizing it.  The mind is good at, ignoring the commonplace, making sure you are not overwhelmed by too much "ordinary" input.  I am always amazed at the adaptability of the human mind.

This morning the poem that appealed to me was about seeing . . .

Seeing, in Three Pieces

Somehow we must see
through the shimmering cloth
of daily life, its painted,
evasive facings of what to eat,
to wear? Which work
matters? Is a bird more
or less than a man? 

* 

There have been people
who helped the world. Named
or not named. They weren't interested
in what might matter,
doubled over as they were
with compassion. Laden
branches, bright rivers. 

* 

When a bulb burns out
we just change it--
it's not the bulb we love;
it's the light. 

 Kate Knapp

Yes, this morning it's by the light of that moon, that I could see the edge of brightness reflecting over the whole old moon, the way new lives reflect on ones gone before.  All the ways of seeing, past the ordinary to the more than occasional beauty that inhabits the life we also inhabit, the sound of my chimes, the clear cold blue, the oceanic sound of the wind in the last of the leaves.  Seeing something so lovely jolts me out of the ordinary round of routine, makes me glad to be part of it.  No birds in the yard this morning, all sheltering someplace warmer and out of the wind, but on the way home, just as the sky lightened into its morning blue, a hawk, which had been sitting on a wire, took off as I got close and spreading its barred wings and beginning its morning search for food.  I know that wherever it goes silence follows it, birds hush and small creatures hunker down waiting for it to disappear again.  Both the hunter and the hunted belong in this morning world, each have their own lives, their own needs.  I need the shelter that home gives me, in all the ways it shelters me, the furnace of warmth, the pick-me-up of coffee, and the window on the world, and a space of time to notice it all.  It's not the house I love so much as the place it provides me to make it home, to make of it what I need, what I love, to discover the light of joy in all the ordinary and extra-ordinary things that make up the day.

December 8, 2012

Rain is sneaking in, a few drops, and a few more, and now a downpour from the dark sky turning white with all the water falling down.  The angry squirrel I heard earlier is gone now, and there have been no birds, maybe they knew what was coming.  The early morning light was washed with orange and a deep pink; I could not see the sun but am willing to bet if I could it would be a red rising.  The slapping of rain on the hard ground, the rushing sound of it pouring off the roof, the occasional snap of a twig falling, are sounds of the drought being staved off for a little while longer.  It doesn't seem like it will last but whatever we get is welcome.

There has been no thunder or lightning, just rain, and there is not any wind either, a little wind earlier but now the rain falls straight down and except for the twitching of leaves hit by the cataract of water, everything is still.  The coffee is done . . . what smells better than coffee?  I know what Michael would say . . . bacon!

This morning's poem is wet, about a river we all know . . .

The Name of a Fish

If winter is a house then summer is a window

in the bedroom of that house. Sorrow is a river

behind the house and happiness is the name

of a fish who swims downstream. The unborn child

who plays the fragrant garden is named Mavis:

her red hair is made of future and her sleek feet

are wet with dreams. The cat who naps

in the bedroom has his paws in the sun of summer

and his tail in the moonlight of change. You and I

spend years walking up and down the dusty stairs

of the house. Sometimes we stand in the bedroom

and the cat walks towards us like a message.

Sometimes we pick dandelions from the garden

and watch the white heads blow open

in our hands. We are learning to fish in the river

of sorrow; we are undressing for a swim.

Faith Shearin

I have read this poem and read it over again.  There is something quiet and peaceful about it, about all it notices.  It has one of my favorite things in it . . . a window, and the images are like ones from a dream, where you know sorrow but the fish of happiness is what you remember.  I want to be that napping cat with my paws in the sun of summer and my tail in the moonlight of change.  I have plenty of tail and change!  The unborn child reminds me that Winona's baby girl is due to arrive this week, and I dreamed of her the other night, she too was red-haired with the Woody knees and the most startling blue eyes like the deep ocean, that rich turquoise turning navy in the deep, her eyes the color about half way down where you could see a hints of each.  She was picking flowers, black-eyed susans in a huge field of them as far as you could see.  She had a straw hat and a straw basket and was giggling as she moved from flower to flower picking them and piling them up in it.  Her yellow dress was like sunshine and her face dusted with freckles.  She looked happy, happy as only a child who is always loved can look.  I loved seeing her there.   

We may all be learning to fish in the river of sorrow, perhaps swimming in it, but the fish of happiness is there too, in the cat asleep in the sun, in the flowers that bloom and go to seed with the changing seasons, with the children, their feet wet with dreams.  We are spending our years quietly walking up and down our own dusty stairs and looking out the window of every season on a world worth seeing.

December 7, 2012

Too early to see much, just now beginning to be my favorite color, slowly the trees are standing out in their silhouettes, some leafy, some bare.  Yesterday I said I had not heard much from the birds lately, but last night one made himself heard, a mockingbird at about 2 am started singing, and then just chattered for the longest time.  I woke up from a sound sleep because I thought I had overslept hearing birds already, but he finally went silent about 2:30 and I went back to sleep as well.  So, today I can't complain about not hearing the birds!

When I was looking for a poem yesterday, I found one I liked, and realized it was a tribute to a poet I liked, Ruth Stone.  She had written many books of poetry over the years and taught at a lot of colleges, but did not get a whole lot of recognition.  When she was 86, she won the National Book Award for her book In the Next Galaxy, and published her last book of poems in 2008 when she was 93.  Her poems often speak of ordinary things, daily life, and all the small and large tragedies and joys that come into an ordinary life.  I admire that she kept writing and sharing her stories even when she was not noticed, that all through her long itinerant life she just kept writing and sending her work out into the world.  I have liked her poems for a long time and did not know or care if she were recognized or not, but I was glad to think some other poet valued her enough to write a poem for her passing.

The Gift

In memory of Ruth Stone

(June 8th, 1915-November 19th, 2011)

"All I did was write them down

wherever I was at the time, hanging

laundry, baking bread, driving to Illinois.

My name was attached to them

on the page but not in my head

because the bird I listened to outside

my window said I couldn't complain

about the blank in place of my name

if I wished to hold both ends of the wire

like a wire and continue to sing instead

of complain. It was my plight, my thorn,

my gift-the one word in three I was

permitted to call it by the Muse who took

mercy on me as long as I didn't explain."

Chard deNiord

I have heard several interviews with her online and think perhaps this poet used Stone's own words and shaped them into this poem.  Here is one of Ruth Stone's poems I like . . .

The Cabbage

You have rented an apartment.

You come to this enclosure with physical relief,

your heavy body climbing the stairs in the dark,

the hall bulb burned out, the landlord

of Greek extraction and possibly a fatalist.

In the apartment leaning against one wall,

your daughter's painting of a large frilled cabbage

against a dark sky with pinpoints of stars.

The eager vegetable, opening itself

as if to eat the air, or speak in cabbage

language of the meanings within meanings;

while the points of stars hide their massive

violence in the dark upper half of the painting.

You can live with this.

Ruth Stone

Because she taught in many places, I'm sure she lived in many different apartments; several other of her poems deal with landlords and strategies for living in other people's places.  I love this one because it was a combination of the work of her daughter and her work.  Because it made me want to find a painting of a cabbage for my walls, made me appreciate more the living I have where I can see the view out my own window.  Ruth Stone lived in a cabin in Vermont her later years, when she taught at a university in New York.  She fixed it up with money that came as prizes for her work, plumbing and a new roof, and made it her own place.   

Everyone should have a place to call home, a place they can look out the window and see something lovely, a cabbage maybe, or the stars.

December 6, 2012

A gray uncertain morning, overcast and subdued.  There is no fog because there is a breeze, but things still look dim and blurred because of the deep clouds.  I have not heard many birds for several days now, the quiet is eerie and unsettling.  Cats have been roaming through, but not staying long enough to scare the birds; everything seems restless and uneasy today. 

The trees are changing every day now, some think its fall some don't, some think it's spring and are making new leaves.  This weather, warm and cool by turns, humid and occasionally very dry, deep clouds or deep blue, it seems to be confusing to just about everything.  The trees are confused .  . . unlike the one in this poem . . .

The Maple Tree

The maple tree that night
Without a wind or rain
Let go its leaves
Because its time had come.
Brown veined, spotted,
Like old hands, fluttering in blessing,
They fell upon my head
And shoulders, and then
Down to the quiet at my feet.
I stood, and stood
Until the tree was bare
And have told no one
But you that I was there.

Eugene McCarthy

And I am not sure my trees recognize the time has come, and they all have different responses to the world this fall.  The silly sawtooth oak thinks it's spring and is pushing off the dead brown leaves and making new ones.  The maple has one yellow leaf at the bottom and a few at the crown so it is not letting go of summer.  Trees seem to be like people, all have their own times and their own reactions to things.  This morning I'm with the maple who is not letting go of summer, because I know it's not spring yet, but though it's December I still have a hard time thinking of this as winter.  I know it will be cold later, February is often our coldest month, but for the moment I will take the long warm fall as a treasure.  

This poem reminds me of watching the mulberry trees shed their leaves one morning at Mom's.  Dawn and I were there for her birthday and Dawn came in and said, "You've got to see this!"  And when I went out on the front porch the mulberry trees at the edge of the road had decided it was time to let go, and in the space of an hour, every leaf was on the ground.  They fell in clumps, they fell singly, but they fell quickly and just kept falling until there were none left.  Dawn and I watched in a kind of weird fascination, never having seen trees decide in a moment that they were done with leaves.  But I'm glad she had me come look, it is one of those strange experiences that stick with you.

No matter what the weather today, I hope your day is sunny with kindness and beauty!

December 5, 2012

Fog again, starting out the morning, and hanging around making the sky white and the trees muffled to the eye.  It's odd because there is a gentle breeze and usually if fog lasts this long into the morning, there is not a breath stirring.  Jets overhead recall the long rolling thunders of yesterday, rumbling most of the day as a long curving front of cooler air moved down from the north and tried to bring us winter.  It is cooler but not winter yet, and it's supposed to be warmer again tomorrow.  I saw this morning that the Panhandle had weather near freezing, reminding me how big Texas is to have so many varieties of climate, a source of amazement not only for me but for many in other places not familiar with such a vast landscape.

Yesterday I learned to make a little wreath of folded paper.  I was amazed at how simple it was to do, the shapes and the putting together, of course it was only simple after I did it every wrong way there was to do it <chuckle> but once I got the idea, it was like the proverbial lightbulb, the comprehension clicked on just like that!  Now what I want to know is who figured out how to make it, how did they come up with something that would fit together like that and make such a lovely thing out of scraps.  I have seen complicated origami, and while impressive, it somehow doesn't amaze me the way a very simple pattern can be used in a variety of ways to make something so elegant.  Anyway, while I slept last night, I dreamed of origami stars and wreaths being folded by thousands of hands, people were sitting on porches, in parks, even in palaces folding up paper.  At red lights people were making little stars, at school kids were making wreaths of old punch cards, origami cranes flew across the cafeteria, even the guys in suits were standing on the corner were folding up paper from their briefcases while waiting for a taxi.  I guess my brain was innundated by folded paper and just had to process it somehow!  And when I looked for a poem this morning, what should I find . . .

Little God Origami

The number of corners in the soul can’t

compare with the universe’s dimensions folded

neatly into swans.  Into the soul’s

space, one word on a thousand pieces

of paper the size of cookie fortunes falls

from the heavens.  At last, the miracle

cure, you cry, pawing at scraps that twirl

like seed-pod helicopters.  Alas, the window

to your soul needs a good scrubbing, so

the letters doodle into indecipherables just

like every remedy that has rained

down through history, and you realize in

your little smog of thought that death

will simply be the cessation of asking, a thousand

cranes unfolding themselves and returning to the trees.

Stefi Weisburd

Someone else's brain had too much paper folding . . . I love the number of corners in the soul . . . I am sure there are corners there as it contains all we are and we surely have corners <smile>!  I also think that the miracle cure is like that, just beyond our grasp or understanding.  The helicopter seeds are familiar from our maple tree every spring, and I am sure the window to my soul needs a lot of scrubbing.  Why should it be any different from the rest of my windows?!  When we stop asking questions, that would be a kind of little death, withdrawing from the world, until there was no curiosity left.  I'm not giving up my curiosity until they pry it from my cold dead fingers, and maybe not then!  I have not made too many cranes, but the stars in my dream sparkled down from the heavens, all folded neatly with five points and puffy bodies!  It was wonderful to see them there, and funny too, all the people in the dream flinging stars up into the sky by the handfuls!  Wreaths went sailing around like "Frisbees" and I am sure somewhere there is a pattern for a folded swan, and the thousand cranes that bring luck and wishes wish they would end up sparkling like stars in the trees.  I am glad to find out that another poet must have dreamed of origami, makes me feel less . . . strange! 

Fold up your day's joy and fling it to the heavens!  Perhaps it will rain down when you need it, and make you smile! 

December 4, 2012

Very dark out for a long time as there is fog this morning, and, now that the fog is lifting, light just seeps in quietly, no dawn coming up like thunder this morning, though we may be in for thunder later.  The sky is a washed out blue, more white than blue yet you can tell the blue is out there somewhere waiting to sneak in.  The air is still, not a breath stirring which is keeping the fog close to the ground.  Fog makes everything look strange, some things look farther away and some blurred but closer.  Earlier I heard the ships fog horns but now they are silent, as are the birds.  Fog does seem to have a dampening, yes pun intended, effect on the bird song, I'm not sure why.  Usually by this time the morning chorus is just about done, today it's been a very quiet chorus, a mourning dove, and very early a mockingbird trying out a soft run of song near the window.

The sawtooth oak that usually keeps most of its dry brown leaves through the winter is letting them fall now; they curl up at the edges like dampened paper, a drift of pages from some antique book whose pages were not made of sterner stuff.  I suppose with all the weather in the low 80s lately the trees may be confused.  The maple tree still has 90% of its leaves, a thinner green going gold at the top, but still mostly green.  It's the first week in December, most places are done with fall now, their leaves gone till spring.  I'd say we might just now be heading into full fall, maybe.  The ash trees started turning their clear bright yellow this week.  By the time we have fall, it will be spring again, and we will have skipped winter altogether.

The day seems to be getting . . . dimmer, the blue further away, the sky blank and expectant, something will be written there, perhaps rain.  I found a poem about fog that is full of lush words, and startling views.

Fog   

A vagueness comes over everything,

as though proving color and contour

alike dispensable: the lighthouse

extinct, the islands' spruce-tips

drunk up like milk in the

universal emulsion; houses

reverting into the lost

and forgotten; granite

subsumed, a rumor

in a mumble of ocean.

                      Tactile

definition, however, has not been

totally banished: hanging

tassel by tassel, panicled

foxtail and needlegrass,

dropseed, furred hawkweed,

and last season's rose-hips

are vested in silenced

chimes of the finest,

clearest sea-crystal.

                       Opacity

opens up rooms, a showcase

for the hueless moonflower

corolla, as Georgia

O'Keefe might have seen it,

of foghorns; the nodding

campanula of bell buoys;

the ticking, linear

filigree of bird voices.

Amy Clampitt

It's amazing to me how a little water vapor can rob things of their usual vibrant color, everything fades.  The leaves are sifting down one by one, and it looks like the fog is thickening, perhaps it is just the growing clouds descending making it dimmer instead of lighter.  Here I am missing the "ticking, linear filigree of bird voices", everything is too quiet, and just now a little wind begins.  Perhaps the "universal emulsion" will grow thicker, enough to rain later, for which we will all be grateful.

Now it's time to go and do things.  It's the season of lots of things to do, I hope everyone today does something they enjoy, or enjoys something they need to do.  More joy is always a good thing!

December 3, 2012

Oh, it's Monday all over today, <BIG SIGH>!  Trains on the way to school, not one but two of them, not late but later than I have ever been.  Left my glasses in the truck and had to go out and get them after class started, no way to thread a needle or undo a knot without them.  New stitch today, the peyote stitch, and the students did great, it was me who felt frazzled and out of sorts the whole morning.  Came home to realize I did not know what day my eye appointment was, well, was is the operative word here, it was last Friday instead of this Thursday like I thought.  So made a new appointment.  Next week on Wednesday I have jury duty and couldn't find my form, good thing you can print one from the district clerk's web site. 

From all of this you would think Monday would be a total washout, but . . . on my way to school I saw the widest rainbow I have ever seen!  It looked like a fat striped ribbon rising straight up from the ground and disappearing into the clouds.  It did not curve at all, could be it was a slide of color coming down from the heavens.  I have never seen such vivid colors, and what was truly weird, it had indigo or violet on both sides of the rainbow.  The other colors were in proper order from right to left but instead of starting with red it started violet, purply-blue on both sides.   I was not so curious about it at the time, because I was so amazed; it had not been raining, but there were lots of clouds ahead of me and sun behind me and I got to enjoy it for a few minutes as it looked like I might drive right through it.  Slowly it faded, the streak of reddish orange the last to be seen.  It was such a lift to my spirits, I think because it surprised me so!  I can't remember the last time I saw a rainbow but I will remember this one a long time.  It was a spectacular gift complete in its own wrapping!

It's so warm you would swear it's spring except for the falling leaves.  December and today we may hit 83, we started the day at our usual high temperature for this time of year, 75, and now that we have mostly sun, it will only go up from there.  Hardly feels like December, maybe April just didn't want to go away this year and decided to loop around one last time.

Today I have no trouble remembering I am human . . .

You Are Human

But why not be this lake instead,
icy blue, and the little white curls
of waves, its absolute refusal
to be human?  Why not be a thing?

Why not be a place
you'd go to get away
from your mother's frontal lobe eroding
as the faxed medical report has it?

Why not a lovely blue-turning-green
and why not the removal of all feeling?

Maybe she'd rather you be a lake,
a way to lie still in the world,
a melted-down pool of snow,
a place to rest.

You could let yourself wash up on foreign shores.
Or be the surface across which boats might ply their trade,
taking humans from one shore in the sun
to the other side in shade.

You remember humans, don't you?
The ones who row the boat,
who act for all the world
as if they know where they are going?

Jim Moore

Some days you would like to escape all the humanness we are heir to, surely a placid cool blue lake has things easier than humans, calmer and more remote, with great depths and a surface that responds to the wind and makes a way to cross those depths.  But even all the human things that are painful are not one teaspoon to the beauty of any ordinary day.  Some days we will forget that, sometimes for a long time, but once you see it again, see anything with that deep indrawing breath of wonder you will know you would not give up being human, you remember where your place is.  We may not know where we are rowing to, where we are going now or in the future, but no one ever said that was a necessary thing.  The idea we must know where we are going seems to make the end of the journey a goal, where I am of the opinion, however human, that it is the journey that is essential, and what we do along the way necessary.  Whatever beauty we experience, whatever kindness we can do, whoever we love and by whom we are beloved, that is the rowing we are doing, and we are just going to keep doing it, and have the wonder of it all.

So, all right, it's Monday, keep rowing!

December 2, 2012

A beautiful morning, sunny, blue, warm, the kind of day people from the frozen North come down here to enjoy.  There isn't a cloud in the sky and the blue is deep and vivid.  I'm starting to worry about drought, even with the gift of this lovely day; we are 10 inches behind in rain and this is our rainiest time of the year, except for the occasional tropical storm.  Which reminds me, hurricane season was over December 1, and while we escaped this year,  Superstorm Sandy created so much havoc that I feel particularly blessed that kind of storm,  essentially a cold hurricane, can not happen here.  I can't imagine dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane in freezing weather, though I know a few people who think dealing with them in the heat is hell, but still . . . the cold for me would be more devastating.

Lots of the roadside weeds are beginning to turn finally.  One weed with oval jagged-edged leaves in pairs along the stem is turning into a fountain of eye-aching yellow!  It stands out against the greener, browner weeds.   The leaves have been falling steadily, one or two at a time every little bit; they catch my eye and I think it's a bird.  Two squirrels have been romping through the trees causing leaves to shower down behind them.  After watching them leap from tree to tree and run up and down the branches, I am wondering if they are doing it because they make the leaves fall, for the flash of color and the sound of it.  They seem to be having a terrific time.

It's Sunday, the day for the blessing.  Does it seem odd we have to set aside a day for remembering our blessings when they shower down on us like those leaves every day?  Still it is nice to take time to realize how blessed we are.

Matins

 I

Somewhere, out at the edges, the night

Is turning and the waves of darkness

Begin to brighten the shore of dawn.

The heavy dark falls back to earth

And the freed air goes wild with light,

The heart fills with fresh, bright breath

And thoughts stir to give birth to colour.

II

I arise today

In the name of Silence

Womb of the Word,

In the name of Stillness

Home of Belonging,

In the name of the Solitude

Of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,

Delight of eyes,

Wonder of whisper,

Intimacy of touch,

Eternity of soul,

Urgency of thought,

Miracle of health,

Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Gentle in word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

John O'Donohue

  

Now there is a prayer that covers it all, yes?  I love the part about "thoughts stir to give birth to color" because there is so much color this morning, and it is certainly "wild with light" out!  The idea that silence is the womb of the word, now that is something I can understand.  If I don't get a little quiet time, I really feel the difference.  Some mornings driving to school, that's what I have silence.  It can be refreshing when you know if you turn on the radio they are going to give you all the ills of the world and very few of the joys.  Even music, which can be deeply affecting, doesn't fill up the places a little silence does.   As much as we don't like to admit it most of the time, we are all in a sense solitary creatures, alone in our minds, which is why love is so important, it gives us a way out, a way to connect to others other than simply rubbing shoulders with them as we go about in the world.  The embrace of God is another way of not feeling alone, of being part of something grander, larger, more perfect than we can achieve, and it works best when we embrace God right back, after all, a one-sided hug is very unsatisfying, it's much better if both side participate.  You can imagine God however you want to, you do anyway, no two ideas of God are the same, and never will be, but it seems to work for me if I imagine someone more loving and more accepting and more hopeful than is possible for a human being to be.  The "may I live this day" part of the poem is certainly a lot to live up to, compassionate, gentle, gracious, courageous and generous in love.  How about that, a perfectly lovely concept of the Divine!

December 1, 2012

All right, it's December first, and 70 degrees, headed up to 80 today, a near record high, who knows since the record is 82 we might surpass it.  It's odd and unsettling that it feels more like spring but looks more and more like fall, so much brown and gold now.  When I drove through League City yesterday, I noticed the pecan trees are turning that dark greeny gold they get before they go completely vibrantly yellow!  Still I am wondering what the trees are experiencing when the temperatures and humidity are very spring like and their natures are telling them "Let go, it's fall."
This morning there are not many birds out but I have heard the crows in the distance.  Their voices carry a long way, deeper and rougher than the jays, more cawing than squawking.  Closer to the window there are not birds at the moment and only the tiniest of breezes.  The big sycamore down the street has lost most of its leaves, the remaining ones mostly brown now.  Even the white pines are looking yellower, but that could be drought and not fall, though they do lose needles and their cones are still opening. 

The sky is such . . . perfection, blue with just enough white fluffy clouds to be interesting.  Reminds me of a line from Richard Bach's Illusions, "Did you ever see the sky when it wasn't perfect?"  Well for me, sunny is preferable to gray and overcast, but no, I don't believe I have ever seen a sky that wasn't perfect for that moment.  Even stormy skies, that peculiar "tornado" green, even the darkest, most thundery clouds are somehow perfect for the moment they exist.  But today, well, I am enjoying the high bright blue, the sunshine, and the smattering of clouds.

I sent a poem a while back by poet Jim Moore.  I liked his poem so much I ordered one of his books.  His poems seem so familiar, like something I have read a hundred times, or might have written in another life.  I guess I am trying to say, his poems talk to me on a very personal level and you all will probably be seeing them in the future.  He notices a lot of the same things I notice, and says things I wish I had said, or seen, or experienced.  He is generous in his sharing, and I'm glad to have discovered his work.   Here is one that talked to me of crows and children . . .

What Works for Me

                         for Mira, age 9

The day's first sparrows work for me,
and bats on summer nights
coming near, then veering away.
And the morning's first suspicious crow--
fearful, greedy--
when it come slowly cawing down
to its favorite branch.
You point at its glowing eyes
and when it caws three times,
break out laughing.
When the crow flies away,
you look at me astonished,
as if to say, what happens next,
after greed and fear
just give it up and fly away?

Jim Moore

When I get to school sometimes, a crow will be sitting at the point of the brick porch roof over the entrance.  He often says nothing, but sometimes will caw, and continue cawing while I walk from the truck into school.  Sometimes he is there when I come out, still on the roof, or moved to one of the light poles in the parking lot near the entrance.  It may not be the same one all the time, but looks the same to me.  I find the big birds, the ones easily seen and recognized, fascinating.  Vultures, crows, egrets, pelicans, all live in the area and all have secret lives and some public days.  Vultures can be seen along the roads, and pelicans near the bay, egrets rarely in my own yard, but crows are everywhere, telephone lines, fences, parking lots, schools, malls, a common sight yet still one that will make me take notice, so not common enough to be ignored.  Don't you wish greed and fear would just give it up and fly away?  Look at what's happening in the world, in our government, in our own lives, yep, I wish greed and fear would just up and fly away, but somehow I can never see the crow as greedy or fearful, but I can see in it the darkness we are uneasy about, the harsh voice telling us to straighten up and fly right.