I often wondered what my daughters experienced while away from the home visiting grandparents. Now, I wonder where they are, now that they are away. When they return will each bring a little note of love filled with x's and o's like they wrote when they were young? "xo I miss you very much. But I'm having a blast. xo” These words fill the space in between the longing to have time for myself and missing them so terribly, like I often do now. The mystics claim that the soul finds its perfection in what is absent and, uniting with absence, somehow the magic of soul-filling happens. I have yet to see that magic. I was once a man of faith believing that all things are possible. Now I try not to spend so much effort understanding the ineffable mystery so often fallen back upon by those in the know. Unmoving, I move towards the ash tree growing outside my window where years ago a seed dropped to the ground. I do not ask for it to fill me with wonder. I do not desire to place a swing around its largest limb. It is and I am. My daughter sat up straight in bed one night crying out after a large crack of thunder as lightning tore the tree apart. I spent the next day picking up pieces of bark from my neighbor's yard. Some believe that fences make good neighbors. I apologized for the mess my tree had made. I guess meaning depends upon whether or not we believe stories must have a beginning and an end. One implies the continuity of life; the other, the inevitability of death. I try to live in between where often the space is small and sometimes crowded with memories. There, there, is the place where I have a chance to be taken by surprise.
Tag Archives: Life
A Birthday Present
It's not like I need to begin again. So many years have already passed, full of burdens and bursts of possibilities. I should applaud myself for no longer falling into the trap of substituting new illusions for the abandoned ones. And, yes, there remains a sublime madness in the soul. In this birthday season of ice and cold when the wind blows with an edge, the amaryllis blooms, sending color to the outermost rim of consciousness. Now, I am more and more sure of grace. I have watched those most close to me fall and then get up to brush off debris from their knees. Some have chosen to sit for a while and I often think, Should I have joined them? Is the rim too fragile to hold both of us? But, there I go again, something I have done throughout my time alive, asking the questions which envision some sort of answer that ties a birthday present up with a bow.
Perishing
"...the bourgeois individual perishes ingloriously..." - Reinhold Niebuhr Nothing like going down in flames to warm the soul. Or, perhaps a slow decay should draw more attention as atom after atom zip off into the realm of the ether. One eternity becomes another in each moment in time; one particularity an opportunity for the next. We study some moments as if they were more eternal than others; points in time where death visited with fanfare and fingers pointed, astonished, like death had never happened before. The last act of God in history may very well be a fizzle but that does not mean that nothing in the here and now should not make some sort of sense to the ones perishing.
On Burnt Paper
I am a desert stranger filling the rooms of my house with my wandering presence. Standing naked under the stars once held an attraction for my eyes but too often starlight blinded me. I have been held in the arms of nightmares of old where the winds shook the branches of my life. No longer do I cede such power to the elements created by chance at the very beginning of time. The feeling of being complete fills me as I write these words from my past down on burnt paper.
The Upcoming Day
A myth and a symbol trade places on the pages of history. The absolute moves to the margin to create more space for the relative. Interpretation surprised everyone not familiar with how the words became written. The dance between simple and complex astounded all onlookers as one bowed to the other right before the music started. There was one who sat in a corner looking in at the grasping play exasperated with the showiness of it all. Most left early determined to get a good night's rest before attempting to take what was learned and form the light for the upcoming day.
Make the Way
The plum bonsai sits in the window not asking for the sunlight to wrap it in any treasured way nor to be special like the sailboat in the bay requiring wind to move across the water. To be on the fringe of things is not about being accepted or not accepted but requires a certain type of movement like the boat riding through waves. There is nothing forced about the prow separating the path it must follow through the water. The water parts to make the way.
Turning Hope
I turn the thoughts and prayers of journals written decades ago into these poems and hope with more attention and accommodation I do not wander off into the despair always waiting at the end of the previous evening's talk. The piece of learning I always hope for comes from the awareness that toes will always be stepped on even in the midst of the dance where everyone knows the next turn is to the middle. I am reminded of the paradox of fire where bringing life whirls in the midst of the turning of what is alive to hopeful ashes.
Just Fine
Make the audience believe you don't have anything yet you are still doing just fine.
Dance
The dance, from one dance to the next dance, circling around itself as generations abide on the edges, gazing into the circle of what cannot change and not ever end.
Fall Days
To return to the books of prophetic doom seems extreme on lazy fall days such as these. Don't worry about proper lunch companions. The messiah will return when we are ready. Too many ransom themselves to the futile ways inherited from their fathers and mothers. Honesty comes in many forms of complexity. Be the fire that raises beauty from the ashes.
A Thread You Follow 