David Whyte Wednesday - Loaves and Fishes

LOAVES AND FISHES
by David Whyte from  House of Belonging (Many Rivers Press)

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

As I may have said before, I love listening to David Whyte read poetry, his own and that of others.  And yes, a large part is the dulcet voice and delicious accent, but it's also because of the way he re-reads a line to highlight its importance.  In today's poem, he doesn't leave the question of what needs to be emphatically stated up to chance.  "This is not the age of information.  This is not the age of information."

I haven't heard him read this particular poem aloud, but when he does, I wonder if he reads that line four times.  It couldn't hurt.  In many ways this does seem like the age of information.  I realized just the other day that I'm addicted to my Android tablet and all the information it contains. 

I was reading a book with my Kindle application and came across a word I didn't recognize so I used the dictionary function to look it up.  That led me to a dictionary on the internet to look at the word origin.  The word origin led me to a Wikipedia article, that led me to another article, and yet another until an hour later I was reading about Nellie Bly and going back to the Kindle app to purchase books by and about her.  I completely forgot about the book I was originally reading.

One good word didn't so much feed the multitudes in this case, but it did provide a multitude of food for thought.  The thing is though, my brain already gets plenty of food.  Information is all around me, but I what I crave is a good word. 

I am fortunate in that I am surrounded by countless encouraging souls who, on their own journey, shower good words on the parched paths they encounter (my own included).  It makes me think about the question for today . . .

What good word do you have to share?

A Day in Bed with Aunt Maud

A DAY IN BED WITH AUNT MAUD
by Elizabeth Smither from The Year of Adverbs (Auckland University Press)

My dear high-foreheaded aunt, good
at sums and attentive to all that love
demands, loved a day in bed.

No illness drove her there, or fever
no drenched nightgown, twisted
but the bliss of a day in bed.

She lay, she slept, she reached out
a hand towards an improving book
she closed its covers on her day in bed.

She contemplated the plaster ceiling rose
and all the world that swam around it
a spider web from her day in bed.

She lay like someone in a shroud, proud
of her stretched toes, her spine
bearing not this day on her day in bed.

She took some rations, delicate things
and a jug of fresh-made squash
she dined daintily on her day in bed.

What did you get? the others asked.
A firmer view of the world, she said
through lying down on my day in bed

and love and anything you care to ask.
They never did. Away they sped
She contemplated them from her day in bed.

Here is the promised "day in bed" poem.  This idea might seem like an indulgence in what many churches deem a "penitential" season but as I mentioned in an earlier post, Lent to me has always been more about perspective than penance.  Sometimes being fed on a diet of bread and water in the silence of the desert provides the right conditions to survey the landscape of our lives.  But other times, we need to feed our souls with a good book, comfort food and, perhaps, a day in bed to give us a firmer view of not only the world, but also our place in it.

What do you need to feed your soul now?  Is it a time to feast a little or fast a little?