The two faced god of Not-Yet

Not-Yet by Jane Hirshfield from Lives of the Heart (Harper Collins)
Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out of the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch –
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-

Not-yet-not.
I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.

Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings
One face looks into the past, one into the future

I imagine the god of Not-Yet is a cousin of the Roman god Janus.  The two-faced family resemblance is certainly there, but instead of looking into opposite directions, both of Not-Yet's faces look into the future.

One is as Hirshfield describes-- the Not-Yet face that sees our future and in reminding us that we are not-yet-lost, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-dead, and reminds us that we should embrace our lives while we still can.

The other face, though, looks at the things we haven't accomplished yet, the not-yets that we use as excuses, that keep us from embracing the present-- not yet rich, not yet successful, not yet thin, not yet partnered, not yet patient, not yet forgiving, not yet healthy, not yet whole, not yet holy. 

That's the god of Not-Yet who has overstayed his welcome.  The one I won't be inviting to stay. 

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?

OPTIMISM
by Jane Hirshfield from Given Sugar, Given Salt (Harper Collins)

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and
over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the
light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs—
all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Today is the Ides of March . . . and the forecasted temperature for DC is in the mid 80's.  The spring equinox for the northern hemisphere is still a week away, yet it feels more like the belly of mid-summer than the tip of winter's tail. 

Late last week I did what I always do when the first few warm days arrive in a bouquet predicting spring:  I packed up (most of) my winter clothes.  Woolens are awaiting a trip to the dry cleaners before going into storage.  Turtlenecks and some heavier sweaters are packed away in airtight containers.  There's a lightness to my closet now, both in fabric and hue. 

I realize this is optimistic.  The strongest nor'easterner of the 20th century occurred in March, 1962 bringing heavy snow in the mountains and major flooding on the eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia.   Although I wasn't born when that storm struck, I do remember a few instances of snow in March and in recent years, accessorizing my Easter dress with tights and a winter coat. 

Around this time last year, I packed away my warm wardrobe and then shivered through the end of the month.  Swathed in layers of cotton t-shirts and sweaters, I told myself that next year I would wait until April to change out my clothes.  But I didn't.

 

I blame the magnolia and cherry trees.  If they are adorned in their spring attire so early in the season, surely I can follow suit.  The optimism of nature is contagious.

 

Where do you see signs of optimism or resilience in the world around you?