Even the Beast of the Nile Needs Some Fun Every Once in a While

Hippos on Holiday by Billy Collins from Ballistics (Random House)
is not really the title of a movie
but if it was I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn


in the dark of a neighborhood theater.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?


That hippo isn't the only one who could use a holiday . . .I'm off to New York for a long weekend with a couple friends where we'll do a little of this . . .

And a little of this . . .

And hopefully return home looking like this . . .

Walking a Fine Line . . . Inspiration or Plagiarism

I hadn't intended on writing a post about inspiration or plagiarism this morning.  But there I was, going through my morning blog readings when I came across a poem that sounded familiar to me . . . very familiar.  I knew I hadn't read anything by the author before, but the more I re-read the poem, the more I was convinced I'd encountered very similar words and sentiments in the David Whyte poem below:

SELF PORTRAIT
by David Whyte from Fire in the Earth (Many Rivers Press)

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God. 

David Whyte's poem was published in 1992.  The other poem was published in 1999, by HarperOne no less.  The book in which it was published had recommendations from folks like Wayne Dyer and John O'Donohue, who also was a good friend of David Whyte's.  How, I wondered, could he not see the similarities?  Here I sit, with no personal connection to either poet, feeling conflicted about my moral duty as a reader (and writer) yet John O'Donohue called this other writer's book "remarkable."  "Yeah, remarkably similar to David Whyte," I thought to myself.

In doing more research (via the Amazon.com comments section) one particular one star reviewer said it was "watered down David Whyte."*  That prompted a comment from another reader that the author said the poem based on a writing exercise given to her by David Whyte.  And sure enough, using the Amazon's "search inside this book" tool there are a couple references (in the dedication and acknowledgements) saying that the poem upon which the book is based was inspired by David Whyte.  I didn't find this information on the author's website, where the poem is prominently placed on her home page, nor is there an acknowledgment in the title of the poem like some poets do when paying homage to another artist who has inspired their writing. 

A 21st century image of inspiration?

Which leads me to my conundrum.  Is that enough acknowledgment to move the poem across the line from plagiarism to inspiration?

 I can imagine David Whyte giving students the assignment to try writing a poem or prose piece using the formula, "It doesn't interest me . . . I want to know . . .  (the other poem follows this pattern and also includes some remarkably similar lines to David Whyte's version).  When I lead writing workshops or retreats I often ease people into putting words on paper by giving them some poems for inspiration and inviting them to use one as a trellis onto which they can graft their own images, words, ideas . . . write an ode to an everyday object como Pablo Neruda, write about what might have been "otherwise" like Jane Kenyon, or try a litany of what pleases you, like Taliesin. 

The purpose of these exercises is to get pens moving on paper, to create a sense of safety and security by offering a form as guidance.  The instruction to "write a poem" can be daunting but "write an ode about something you encounter every day" leads me to think about the way my tea mug is comforting because it's the color of Campbell's tomato soup and, even though it's a smidge too big to fit comfortably in my hand, I will hold onto it for its orangey-red hue alone.

Writing exercises are like treasure maps.  They can lead us on the path to discover our voices as writers.  They help get us to a place where we can crack open the treasure chest of images and experiences that we each have inside of us, the one that our inner critic often sits on saying that what's inside is just paste and fool's gold.

And yes, we should acknowledge those who inspired us on the way, especially if we use their work as a basis for our own.  Which is why when I write my ode to my mug later this morning I will say very clearly in the title, "After Pablo Neruda."


*Actually unnecessarily padded is the description I would give it. The other poem is much longer than the David Whyte text and not as focused which to me, makes the kernel of the poem lose its import, unlike the original text which cuts like a knife to the center of my being.

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me - A Poem for Earth Day

LAST NIGHT THE RAIN SPOKE TO ME                                                                                         by Mary Oliver from What Do We Know:  Poems and Prose Poems (De Capo Press)

After a rain shower, gardens at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

 

Today is Earth Day and here in the DC area, Mother Earth is getting just what she needs:  a good soaking rain.  I'd hoped the showers would hold off long enough for me to take a walk in Rock Creek Park this morning but no such luck. 

So instead this evening I have contented myself by reading some Wendell Berry poetry and then various poems about rain.  I finally settled on the Mary Oliver poem above as my offering for this Sunday.  Maybe tomorrow if it clears up, I'll go stand under a tree (I'll make sure it's one with happy leaves) but for now, I'm off to snuggle up in my bed with a cup of peppermint tea and a book. . . . just what I need this Sunday night.

 

 

 

 

Carpe Libris

When I first dipped my toe in the waters of the blog-o-sphere it was as a reader, an indulgence I still partake in a few mornings a week.  I'll wake up, check my e-mail and the latest headlines on BBC News (because I feel I need to be well versed in what's happening in the UK while maintaining a blissful ignorance about what's going on in my own neck of the woods), and then start working my way through my blog bookmarks. 

I never cease to find inspiration from the web pages of this creative community.  From craft projects and recipes found on Sweet Paul and Creature Comforts to beauty tips from make up artist Lisa Eldridge (finally-- black eyeliner that stays put!) and fashion know-how from The Sartorialist and Nicolette Mason, after I'm through reading I'm ready to face the day.  Even when I just throw on my favorite jeans and cardigan, dab a bit of Smith's Rosebud salve onto my lips, and make my same old Greek yogurt and fruit for breakfast, the inspiration still lingers with me like the scent of yesterday's April showers.

My favorite posts, however, come from the bloggers share what they're reading and invite their readers to do the same.  While I may not try the latest fashion trend or arugula recipe (OK so I probably will try any recipe featuring arugula-- bad example) I will and do take book recommendations to heart.  When I click on The English Muse and discover she has posted one of her periodic "What book are you reading?" entries, I get a pen and paper and start making a list of all the wonderful suggestions her readers recommend in the comment section.  Likewise, when I read about a book on Ill Seen, Ill Said , Le Project D'Amour or From the Hatchery, I take note because these women are such gifted, thoughtful and talented writers themselves. 

So in keeping with the spirit of my favorite posts on other blogs, I decided to periodically post what I'm reading.  I preface this with the warning that I rarely read one book at a time.  Like a well balanced diet for the body, I believe in a well-balanced diet of reading material for the mind, with a sweet treat thrown in every now and again.   Here it goes . . .

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal 
This book first came up as a recommendation for me on Amazon last year and it wasn't until after I'd read the description and was hooked that I realized it was written by the son of a dear friend and my mentor in all things Celtic and poetic, Esther de Waal.  Even if I didn't know Esther, I still would have purchased the book.  Not only is it a history of a fascinating family and their journey through the anti-semitic Europe of the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, it's also a treatise on the place of objects in our lives and an ode to the sense of touch.  Edmund is a potter and perhaps this is one reason he is able to write so eloquently and viscerally about handling.  I also admire the way he imagines the story of his ancestors through the objects they possessed and the places they lived, teasing out the metaphysical through the physical. 


Sacred Place, Chosen People:  Land and National Identity in Welsh Spirituality by Dorain Llywelyn
This is a book you probably won't find listed as a "must read" on many blogs.  And the fact that I'm reading it for the second time (the first was in Gladstone's Library the summer of 2009 while doing research for a paper on how landscape impacts poetic expression) doesn't mean I think it is a must read for everyone . . . just for those of us who are planning on leading a pilgrimage to Wales in 2013.  Meaning me.  Although the focus is on the Welsh experience, Llywelyn raises some interesting points for those of us non-Welsh readers as well.  In the first chapters he discusses the sense of exile felt by many people in today's world.  "Many people in modern Western cultures-- Wales is something of an exception to this-- express a loss of an organic sense of place."  (p. 22)  It made me wonder if what I feel is loss or devaluation?  For those of us who are products of a suburban or urban place, or "the new world", do we discount this experience, and somehow give more import to the impact rugged, rural, foreign landscapes have on the spirituality of their inhabitants?  Just the tip of the iceberg in terms of questions raised by this book . . .

And speaking of icebergs, I just finished A Night to Remember by Walter Lord.  I raced through this non-fiction account of the sinking of the Titanic, captivated by the "perfect storm" of occurrences that led to the disaste,r and the stories of the passengers and crew.  It's a quick read . . . I finished it in about the time it would take to watch the re-released film without having to put on a pair of specially crafted glasses to do so.

So now for light reading I'm onto The Seance by John Harwood.  One of my other guilty pleasures (besides blogs) are Victorian Gothic and ghost stories.  Maybe it's because I used to borrow Gothic romances from my mother and aunt's bookshelves (Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, Barbara Michaels, Dorothy Eden).  Reading these atmospheric tales, be they modern like Susan Hill's The Woman in Black or classic such as The Turn of the Screw, takes me back to rainy days spent curled up in the basement with a musty smelling paperback and an imagination full of remote manor houses, down and out plucky heroines (usually governesses), and the brooding men with secrets that eventually win their trust and hearts.  I started The Seance last night, only to realize I think I've read it before. The heroine here isn't a governess but a young woman who, in an attempt to pull her mother out of a decade long depression brought on by the death of her youngest child, pretends to go into a trance so her sister can "speak" to her mother and reassure her she's at peace.  This well intentioned act starts a chain of events that leads to . . . I can't remember where, which is why I'll keep reading this book again. 

Illustration from the original text,
"Please sir, I want some more."

Finally, the last book on my plate right now is a story I know well but one I've never actually read:  Oliver Twist.  It's not only Victorian ghost stories that I'm reading lately, but also a host of Victorian novels of all sorts for a writing project (a novel) on which I've been working for the past 18 months or so.  After filling my Kindle with dozens of free books (three cheers for public domain texts), I finally limited myself to three authors:  Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Dickens.  Although I've read some Dickens in the past, the 1968 film Oliver! has always been my go-to telling of the story.  I've enjoyed reading the original text not only for the humor of Dickens, but more for the insights into the lives of  those in the Victorian era who didn't live in haunted castles and manor houses.  They had a much more frightening and dangerous existence than any Gothic   
                                                  novelist could imagine.


So that's what I'm reading.  How about you?  What are you reading?  Any recommendations?

Mary Oliver Monday - Deep Summer

DEEP SUMMER
by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)

The mockingbird
opens his throat
among the thorns
for his own reasons

but doesn't mind
if we pause
to listen
and learn something

for ourselves;
he doesn't stop,
he nods
his gray head

with the frightfully bright eyes,
he flirts
his supple tail,
he says:

listen, if you would listen.
There's no end
to good talk,
to passion songs,

to the melodies
that say
this branch,
this tree is mine,

to the wholesome
happiness
of being alive
on a patch

of this green earth
in the deep
pleasures of summer.
What a bird!

Your clocks, he says plainly,
which are always ticking,
do not have to be listened to.
The spirit of his every word.

I realize that it isn't even shallow summer much less deep summer yet, although the rising red on the thermometer might lead those of us in the DC area to believe otherwise.  An afternoon in the mid-high 80s means my plans for afternoon gardening will be modified by the word "sweltering."  I can already imagine the dusty earth sticking to sunscreen and sweat as I toil to get my herb garden replenished and my moon garden reclaimed from the neighbor's ivy that is choking the few plants that the deer didn't eat this winter.

Mondays are meant to be my writing day and a bit of writing might happen in between taking my parents to doctors' appointments, grocery shopping, and gardening.  A few weeks ago if I hadn't been able to stick to my "work" schedule -- Writing Monday, Cathedral Tuesday, Anam Cara Wednesday, Cleaning and Errands Thursday, Reading and more Writing Friday-- I would move through my week feeling a frenetic sort of off-kilter, like a novice lumberjack in a logrolling competition. 

Lately, I've come to realize that the clock and calendar don't necessarily have to be listened to.  Instead, I listen to what I need, and I try to listen to what those around me need (although I still need to work on this). 

So instead of feeling like I'm trying to stay upright on the log, I feel more like this . . .

Surrendering my need to control allows me to sink into being rather than doing and bask in the moment.

Mary Oliver . . Tuesday - Messenger

Messenger

Lamb in pasture - Hawarden, Wales

by Mary Oliver from Thirst (Beacon Press)

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
  equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
   keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
   astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
   and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
   to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
   that we live forever.

I've been having an issue with my work lately.  I've spent the past two years basically floating in the breeze as I finished my doctoral degree and all the work that entailed, while letting the work that pays the bills ebb and flow.  That cycle carried me through graduation in May, but then May became June, and June became December and there I was, still anchored in the same place. 

So come mid-February I decided it was time to get down to business-- to make a change, get organized, develop a plan, envision goals, create to do lists . . . basically get my act together.  I spent weeks on the project . . . dreaming, scheming, filling my walls with a festive patchwork of post-it notes and sheets of paper with headings like "Communications and Marketing" and "Potential Income Streams."  Eventually the post it notes and newsprint came unstuck, raining on my desk like a spring shower until I gathered them up and organized them into on-line notebooks via One Note.

My desk during the planning

At the end of the second week I double checked my  notes to make sure I'd captured everything electronically, put the paper out for recycling, and turned off my computer, breathing the sigh of satisfaction that comes from a job well done.  I had a plan, I had goals, I had tasks to do to achieve those goals. I'm not a very detail oriented person but I was beginning to understand why some people find making lists or adhering to directions comforting.  Seeing the storm of ideas that usually were swirling around in my head set concretely on paper, even virtual paper, was like settling into the eye of the storm. The energy was still there but I was able to gain some perspective on the maelstrom around me rather than being being caught up in the chaos.  On Monday morning, I told myself, I would get up early and get to work.

And then my computer crashed.  And then a family crisis took center stage.  And two external deadlines loomed large.  And life has yet to go back to "normal" . . . or has it?

At one point during the writing retreat I facilitated on St. Patrick's Day, we started talking about the phrase, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans."  And that's exactly what happened to me. 

By the start of April I had planned to have my website up and running, some future retreats penciled on the calendar, a few essays in the mail to potential publication venues.  Instead I've been running to the grocery store and pharmacy, have doctors' appointments for my parents scheduled, and a host of essays to still be edited (although I have managed to finish a new piece and a poem that needed very little editing appeared when I was in the shower one morning). 

I yearn for more than a couple hours here or there to delve into "my work" but as I read this familiar Mary Oliver poem on Monday morning, it brought back a conversation I had several years ago with my former boss/mentor/friend.  We were discussing vocation and he said that vocation isn't your job but rather your work.  For some people it's building things or fixing things, for others it's nurturing or teaching or encouraging, or loving the world. 

For me, my vocation came to me one night in the shower.  (A lot of good thinking happens when I'm bathing, and while a lot of vocations seem to be gerunds, I don't know if bathing is a vocation although I have no doubt thinking is.)

My vocation is feeding people.  All the jobs I've ever seriously considered making a career fall under this heading-- pastry chef, teacher, writer, retreat leader, combination book store/tea shop owner (one of my fantasy lives).  My work is giving people food for their mind/body/spirit. 

The question I've been asking myself is has my work really been interrupted these past few weeks?  Or am I just living out my vocation in a different way than I planned when life happened . .

What is your vocation and how are you living that out in your current circumstances?

Resurrection Angels



Easter Lillies blooming at Holyrood House, Edinburgh

Resurrection Angels

by Ruth Bidgood from Time Being (Seren)

(Poet’s Note:  The diarist Kilvert was told that people used to come to the Wild Duck Pool on Easter morning ‘to see the sun dance and play in the water and the angels who were at the Resurrection playing backwards and forwards before the sun.’)

These were not troubling the waters                          

to bring healing.  They were serving

no purpose.  After the watch at the tomb,
the giving of the good news, they were at play.
To and fro went the wings, to and fro
over the water, playing before the sun.

Stolid-seeming villagers stared

enchanted, watching sun dance and play,
light-slivers splinter water’s dark.
In dazzle they half-saw
Great shining shapes swoop frolicking
to and fro, to and fro.
 
                                     This much was shared,
expected; day and place had their
appropriateness, their certainties.
The people had no words to tell
the astonishment, the individual bounty—
for each his own dance in the veins,
brush wings on the soul.


Billy Collins Sunday will return next week.  That's right, next week.  Despite the fact that today is Easter Sunday and thus, the Lenten practices can be put aside, I will continue posting poems and reflections and sometimes just poems and sometimes just reflections . . . but probably not quite every day.  My journal has been missing me, and I it, these past six weeks. 

For today, however, I offer you this Easter poem by Ruth Bidgood.  It's not the fact that it is a poem written about an Easter morning tradition that makes me think of this as the perfect poem for this Easter morning, although that doesn't hurt.  

Rather, it is because it describes a particular event that occurs in a particular place on a particular morning, yet somehow one that is not bound in time or place.  It tells of an experience shared by a community, yet one that each person must experience, internalize and interpret in her own way, "for each his own dance in the veins, brush wings on the soul." 

And isn't that how we must all approach the story of Easter . . . or Passover, or the birth of Buddha (today is his birthday BTW), or any of the stories of our faith anew each time we hear them?

How are you experiencing familiar stories anew today?

Anagrammer

ANAGRAMMER

by Peter Pereira from What's Written on the Body (Copper Canyon Press)

 

If you believe in the magic of language,

then Elvis really Lives

and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.

 

If you believe the letters themselves

contain a power within them,

then you understand

what makes outside tedious,

how desperation becomes a rope ends it.

 

The circular logic that allows senator to become treason,

and treason to become atoners.

 

That eleven plus two is twelve plus one,

and an admirer is also married.

 

That if you could just rearrange things the right way

you’d find your true life,

the right path, the answer to your questions:

you’d understand how the Titanic

turns into that ice tin,

and debit card becomes bad credit.

 

How listen is the same as silent,

and not one letter separates stained from sainted.

 

    I do believe in the magic of words, especially when those words are strung together to create a poem or woven together to tell a story.  If I didn't believe in this magic, I wouldn't be sitting at my computer early on a Saturday morning typing this . . . I'd still be in bed, or drinking a cup of coffee listening to the birds sing, or getting dressed to head to the farmer's market. 

 

    You'd think believing the power of words would cause me to choose my words carefully.  And while sometimes I do, more often I do not.  I too often speak without thinking, spit out the first words that fall onto my tongue rather than swallowing them to remain silent or holding onto them until they melt into softer utterances.  Maybe the problem is I don't believe strongly enough in the magic of ordinary words spoken in the course of my daily life. 

 

    Again, I am reminded of the words of John of the Cross as translated by Daniel Ladinsky, "They can be like a sun, words.  They can do for the heart what light can for a field."

 

    Today I will look for ways my words can be light.  I invite you to do the same.

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Ode

ODE

by Arthur O'Shaughnessy from Music and Moonlight 

 [Video:  Music Makers by Edgar Elgar, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir]

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers, 
  On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,    
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure  
  Can trample a kingdom down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;    
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
A breath of our inspiration    
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming—
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,    
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.
They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing    
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.    
And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,  
  Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.
But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!    
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,  
  A little apart from ye.
For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry—    
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.
Great hail! we cry to the comers  
  From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:    
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.

For those who have watched "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" as many times as I have (is at least once a year for the past 20 plus years too often?  I think not . . . ), you'll probably recognize the first two lines of today's poem.  The rest of the text is just as lyrical, although not as whimsical, as the familar opening words; thus, I offer it as today's poem, along with a version of the text set to music by English composer Edward Elgar. 

There is so much I could write about this poem . . . why I've come to love all its lines, not just the first two,  and why I chose it for today (Good Friday on the western church calendar and, after sun down, the beginning of Passover). 

But I won't. 

I think it's a day to let the words of O'Shaughnessy and the music of Elgar speak to you, in the way that many participating in the rituals of their respective traditions this day will let the poetry and music speak to them-- without interpretation. 

But if you'd care to share your interpretation or experiences, I'd love to read them . . .

Bees

BEES

by Jane Hirshfield from The Lives of the Heart (Harper Perennial)

In every instant, two gates.
One opens to fragrant paradise, one to hell.
Mostly we go through neither.

Mostly we nod to our neighbor,
lean down to pick up the paper,
go back into the house.

But the faint cries—ecstasy? horror?
Or did you think it the sound
of distant bees,
making only the thick honey of this good life?

I'm not quite sure why I picked this poem for today, other than today seems to be a day where I am thinking about the next few days (Good Friday and Easter in particular) and how I feel called to mark those days in a way that feels meaningful and authentic to my experience while at the same time remembering and respecting the tradition in which I was raised. 

Maybe it's because Good Friday and Easter have come to symbolize horror and ecstasy, hell and paradise, death and life, that I turned to this poem today.  And maybe it's because I don't feel like going through either gate this year.  I just want to be open to the holy moment that comes from hearing the bees and tasting the thick honey of this good life.

What are the faint cries you're hearing and where are they leading you?

David Whyte Wednesday - Everything is Waiting for You

EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU
by David Whyte from Everything is Waiting for You (Many Rivers Press)

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.


"Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity."  I love that line.  The invitation to pay attention to the ordinary things of our lives, and see in them invitation, wisdom, joy, the extraordinary. . . all those things that exist in each of us as well.

How will you ease into the conversation today?  Be alert to the familiar?

A Prayer in My Boot

A PRAYER IN MY BOOT
by Naomi Shihab Nye from 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Harper Collins)

For the wind no one expected

For the boy who does not know the answer

For the graceful handle I found in a field
attached to nothing
pray it is universally applicable

For our tracks which disappear
the moment we leave them

For the face peering through the cafe window
as we sip our soup

For cheerful American classrooms sparkling
with crisp colored alphabets
happy cat posters
the cage of the guinea pig
the dog with division flying out of his tail
and the classrooms of our cousins
on the other side of the earth
how solemn they are
how gray or green or plain
how there is nothing dangling
nothing striped or polka-dotted or cheery
no self-portraits or visions of cupids
and in these rooms the students raise their hands
and learn the stories of the world

For library books in alphabetical order
and family businesses that failed
and the house with the boarded windows
and the gap in the middle of a sentence
and the envelope we keep mailing ourselves

For every hopeful morning given and given
and every future rough edge
and every afternoon
turning over in its sleep


Yesterday I confessed to not being able to live in the moment lately.  Naomi Shihab Nye offers a good remedy for that.  By carrying a prayer in my boot (or, ballet flat as is more often the case), ordinary encounters become opportunities to pause for a moment of mindfulness, gratitude, grace . . .

For what are you carrying a prayer in your boot today?

Mary Oliver Monday - Morning Poem

MORNING POEM
by Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems:  Volume One  (Beacon Press)

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.


I'm usually one of those people who, as Mary Oliver describes in this poem, happily swims through the day.  Lately, however, I feel like I've been trudging, stumbling, lumbering along the path.  My imagination isn't flitting around from idea to idea like a sprightly sparrow or curious magpie; it's either pulling apart the past or looming over the future like a bird of prey. 

I try to remind myself to listen for what the beast inside me is shouting it wants and needs, to look for the prayers heard and answered.  The world isn't just created every morning, it's created every minute. 


How are you daring to be happy?  Daring to pray? 

Billy Collins Sunday - This Little Piggy Went to Market

THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO MARKET      
by Billy Collins from Ballistics (Random House)

is the usual thing to say when you begin
pulling on the toes of a small child,
and I have never had a problem with that.
I could easily picture the piggy with his basket
and his trotters kicking up the dust on an imaginary road.

What always stopped me in my tracks was
the middle toe -- this little piggy ate roast beef.
I mean I enjoy a roast beef sandwich
with lettuce and tomato and a dollop of horseradish,
but I cannot see a pig ordering that in a delicatessen.

I am probably being too literal-minded here --
I am even wondering why it's called "horseradish."
I should just go along with the beautiful nonsense
of the nursery, float downstream on its waters.
After all, Little Jack Horner speaks to me deeply.

I don't want to be the one to ruin the children's party
by asking unnecessary questions about Puss in Boots
or, again, the implications of a pig eating beef.
By the way, I am completely down with going
"Wee wee wee" all the way home,
having done that many times and knowing exactly how it feels.

When I woke up this morning and realized that April Fool's Day coincided with Billy Collins Sunday, I decided it was the perfect day for  a poem that contains the phrase "beautiful nonsense."
Although some nursery rhymes are thinly veiled political jibes or lessons in history, This Little Piggy is purely a nonsense rhyme written to delight children. 

Allowing ourselves to be delighted, to revel in beauty and nonsense, to put aside our critical thinking caps that  make us wonder why a pig would eat roast beef (and the one who didn't have any?  was it by choice?  was she a vegetarian sow?,  to be in the moment so we can be present and grateful for the things that make us go, "wee!"-- good aspirations for this April Fool's Sunday.