Commas, Conjunctions and Being Present

Call the Periods Call the Commas by Kalli Dakos from If You're Not Here, Please Raise Your Hand:  Poems about School (Simon and Schuster)

Call the doctors Call the nurses Give me a breath of
air I've been reading all your stories but the periods
aren't there Call the policemen Call the traffic guards
Give me a STOP sign quick Your sentences are running
when they need a walking stick Call the commas Call
the question marks Give me a single clue Tell me
where to breathe with a punctuation mark or two


Last night I had a dream about punctuation.  Actually it was a dream about lack of punctuation.  I was listening to critique from a writing professional (editor, agent, professor, something along those lines) who sat me down and told me I tended to jump from one idea or phrase to another too quickly and that my writing would benefit from learning how to properly use commas and periods in order to give myself and my reader the opportunity to pause and take a breath.  Case in point:  the previous sentence.

And while it may be a bit frenetic, at least my example demonstrating the need for commas isn't nearly as sinister as the one seen in the illustration below:

That's one 30 Minute Meal I don't want to try.

 

I remember in my dream agreeing with the editor/teacher/agent woman, confessing that it wasn't just in my writing that I needed to learn this lesson.  So when I awoke this morning and my thoughts started spinning,  I forced myself to think about conjunctions and ellipses . . . commas, and periods. 

Part of this processing of learning to be in the present moment is trying to dismantle the internal programs that lure my thoughts down the path to explore future scenarios or revisit the past to have a poke around.  Most of the great spiritual teachers I've studied-- Jesus, Buddha, Rumi, Mary Poppins (the books as well as the movie)-- remind me that it's all about being in the present moment. 

 

 



"Stay awake," Mary sang to Jane and Michael .  Alas, they didn't listen and then 

that whole fiasco at the bank happened because Michael acted out of a place of fear.

But that's another post for another day.



 

 

Back to punctuation and conjunctions.  Too often when something happens, good or bad, I want to turn a single event into a compound sentence with compound emotions and attachments rather than just letting whatever stand PERIOD.  I add and to move it into the future or but to try to make sense of what has occurred.  Even ellipses create a sense of expectation that nudges me out of being fully present and show I'm waiting for something to unfold . . .

  

 

Just like the advice I received about my writing in my dream, as I go through my daily life I need to be aware of the moments that call for a pause, and those moments that stand alone.  Period. 

What I miss when I don't wake early

Looking, Walking, Being by Denise Levertov from Sands of the Well (New Directions)

"The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in."
Mark Rudman

I look and look.
Looking's a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.
World and the past of it,
not only
visible present, solid and shadow
that looks at one looking.

And language? Rhythms
of echo and interruption?
That's
a way of breathing.

breathing to sustain
looking,
walking and looking,
through the world,
in it.


I rarely wake up and know what poem I'm going to post.  Usually it takes some musing, flipping through volumes of poems, surfing poetry sites on the internet, and lots of typing and deleting until I find that something that plucks at my heart strings and vibrates in my soul.  But then again, rarely do I wake up early, jump out of bed, throw on clothes and am out walking on the beach by 6:30 am.  This morning both happened.  Maybe it was the inspiration of the big pink sun rising in the east.  Maybe it was the pod of dolphins accompanying me as I walked along the shore.  (They were in the water, not on the beach of course.)

As I was watching the sun unfold above a horizon of purple clouds, I didn't think about how far I'd been, how far I had to go.  I was only aware of the present moment-- looking, walking, being.

A touch of Frost for a frosty morning

DUST OF SNOW by Robert Frost from New Hampshire (Henry Holt)

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued

A dust of snow is about all we've had this winter in the DC area, a baker's dozen of days with enough snow to make it look like the grass has been covered with powdered sugar.  This morning's snow/sleet mix has left the landscape glazed like a pound cake.  But even that drizzle of snow was enough to lift my spirits.

I'm in the minority that loves snow.  I strain to catch a glimpse of the first flakes of the winter once the autumn wind turns cold and damp.   That first discernible snow always seems to me like the universe is throwing a party, tossing about handfuls of white confetti and inviting me to join in the celebration. 

Last week in the Celtic spirituality class at the Cathedral that I was co-teaching with the wise and wonderful Sue Mosher, we wrapped the series with a session on celebrating the seasons.  During the group discussion time, the idea of harbingers came up-- those signs that let us know that the season is about to turn.   

I'm good at noticing the harbingers.  I keep an eye out for the crocuses and daffodils stretching their stalks up through the earth after their winter slumber.  I scan the summer twilight for the first flash of lightning bugs and gaze at the October trees waiting for them to spark and catch fire.  And of course, there's the snow.

What I'm not so good at, is appreciating a season when I'm in the thick of it.  And that's when I need reminders of what is rather than harbingers of what's to come.  I need a dusting of snow to help me recapture those feelings of delight, joy, gratitude that I feel when I spy the first snowflakes.  I need to be reminded that today and every day there's something to celebrate.








 

Mary Oliver Monday - Breakage

BREAKAGE by Mary Oliver from Poetry (August 2003)

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

“Seek no farther concerning God; for those who wish to know the great deep must first review the natural world . . . If then a man wishes to know the deepest ocean of divine understanding, let him first, if he is able, scan the visible sea . . .” Columbanus

I've been looking at the book of creation lately, not the part set by the sea (although I am having major beach withdrawal and long to get to that chapter soon) but the part of the story that takes place among the grass and garden and trees. 

For some reason this weekend I found myself spending a lot of time either staring out the window or taking a turn around the yard just to look at things . . . the tips of branches that have fallen off the maple tree as the female cicada lay their eggs there, the rosemary and parsley thriving in the neglected herb garden overrun by violets and morning glory vines, the twiggy legs of the young rabbit made visible as he stretches to reach a leaf or lifts a hind leg to scratch behind his ear, the furry bumblebees jumping from blossom to blossom in the wildflower garden, the swirl of fireflies that light up the backyard at like a twinkling cloud at dusk. 

As I walked and looked, stood and viewed, I found myself simply observing, not looking for metaphors and meanings as I so often do.  I was simply present. 

Mary Oliver and Columbanus are right about creation being a book to be read . . . but on some days, there are no words.  It is all a big picture book and I'm like a child, simply enjoying the shapes and colors.