I wonder and then I wonder again
The seas part their ways
The angels have a song to sing
All is giggling in this sacred place
Mountains rise and fall under the touch of a finger
I hear the sighs of babies
And see the shuffle of the ancient ones
The sun keeps rising ... it needs to be with us
And the blue is royal
There is much to learn I 'spose
But now that is passing away
The petals stretch out upon the linen
And eyes say hello
Not knowing anything except the breath in my body
Seeing two lovers on the Kraanlei, arms around and heads leaning in
The silver sky above the steeple of the Post
Eyes that linger on the companion
What has gone before - the bones of food and drink on the tray
"Would you like another coffee?" > "Yes"
Warm water showing up in the shower
Lying sideways on the pillow, welcoming morning gulls
A single candle sparkling the night of my room
Shafts of sun seeking to find me
A silent "yes" to the life I've been given
Wondering about the order of these words > "Who cares?"
The words bubbling up and disappearing in the air
A blast of cold shocks the cozy of breakfast
Rectangles of green on the wall, standing proud above the white tiles
Falling into the next moment, smiling as each comes
Feeling the webs of together as twenty of us inhabit the world
Ending when the end comes to say "Bye"
Dancing past the daylight
And over the skyline
Dancing beyond the sights and sounds of the day
To the fullness of black
Perhaps we will live here
Under the shroud of night
Forsaking the shine of bright things
And the comings and goings of people on their way
It may be a hearing
Rather than a seeing
A call to walk into the darkened mist
A call to the rhythm of the spheres
Let us travel together at dusk
As our bodies sway to the melody
There are no steps
Our feet know the way
Not knowing anything, not even a wee bit
How’s that for a place to start?
Emptied of all that’s important
Happily ignorant of the worldly things
Lost when faced with polite conversation
Lost in the battle that so easily arrives
No home in the rapid, or the well planned
Not knowing what to say when
You flood me with right/wrong
“I have this toy, far better than yours”
Echoes in the ether, sounding silly
There must be another way
I stand in the silence that’s shining
Wavering sweetly in the nightly breeze
Passing right through the solid and dark
Feeling around inside the mist
Come join me on a journey that whispers
Come laugh with me as we stumble and fall
I like what I see in you
I’m refreshed by your smell
Let’s wander, meander and generally skip
I can’t think of a better day
I feel like writing a poem. The challenge is that I have no topic in mind … no plan. No rhyme or reason. (Wait a minute, I think I just made a poetry joke!) I’m sitting here with bits of snow falling through the sun. Special enough to let fly with unpremeditated verse. And I don’t even care if you like it!
So here goes:
Underwater there is no understanding
The breathing is fine as the bubbles rise up
Suspended, gyrating and upside down
I lean into the wayward current
Down here I don’t have to be smart
Being witty and eloquent is a waste of time
As the water surrounding me, the words flow by
Unknown as the source, unknown as a goal
The arms straight out, rounding their tiny circles
The legs straight down, reaching for the core
The eyes wide open, so very well lubricated
And the heart sloshing away in the wetness of it all
I could live down here with some lessons from fish
I could thrive down here as the seaweeds wave greenly
And if I die down here, all will be swept away
As I retreat to the pebbles below
Perhaps I’ll burst above the surface of the sea
And arch my back to the rising sun
Propelled to the up and off to the sides
The horizon says “Hi!” on my way
Why not the middle, lying on the waves?
Ticked underneath, shone upon from above
On my back, feeling the massage of all time
In my smile as I’m cradled to sleep
That’ll do nicely.
Will you walk with me now to the far horizon?
Following the scent of a creature unknown
Will you gaze from on high to a vista sublime?
And feel other bones alongside your own
Is there a reason to venture far afield in the evening?
Is there a plan of your own mind’s creative aplomb?
Or is there launching of caution to the billowing wind?
And a glimpsing of what truly is home
It’s tempting for the journey to be a sole expedition
The lonely survivor of a world deemed unfair
Being right and strong and controlling the outcome
Who wouldn’t say yes to such a true dare?
Another voice waits in the depths of the canyon
“Just an echo of mine?” you casually ask
A nod says you’re sure there’s just one speaking
It’s crystal clear – your glorious task
But linger a bit, my friend of the journey
Pause with your basking in future applause
For there’s one, mostly hidden, curling his fingers toward you
Whispering a message of a far vaster cause
Walk through the canyon in the heat of the sun
Feel the eyes upon you, blessing your way
Revelation, exultation may be yours for the longing
Go on then to the shine of unknowable day
The notes soar to the morning sun
As the wings of democracy remember their flight
Captive too long within the bars of steel
We can sing again
Faces twisted into the lies of stolen things
Faces crushed as the family sinks low
The scourge of disease beside the list of “others”
And we sink into the morass
There is much to say about the morrow
There is more to touch when we can touch again
I look in your eyes of whatever hue
And see myself looking back
There is me and there is you among our unknowings
Your clothes, your religion, your party intrude
But we can look past the left/right, the red/blue
To see the purple dress of the arriving one
I’m not of your country … I’m of mine
But we share so much across the borderline
We see the face, we hear the words, we sense the soul
And know what’s true
On we all go through the stories of country and soul
On we go as friends or foes … but not enemies please
The listening will come, the speaking will be soft
And prevailing in peace will be ours
Two voices are having a conversation in my head …
Why don’t you write a poem today?
Huh?
You know, a poem – it’s like sentences but they flow better.
My dear friend, I’ve written one poem in my life and that was way back in the 1980’s.
That was then … this is now. Go for it!
I don’t know how to write a poem. Sounds like such a pain to make things rhyme.
It doesn’t have to rhyme. Besides, I don’t often hear the words “I don’t know how” coming from you.
Well, I guess you’re right about that. But I can’t think of anything to write about.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but that sounds like a lot of your evenings at the laptop.
Hmm. I suppose. But poems take a lot of time. As I remember, that one in the 80’s sure did.
Look, it’s 5:58. Why don’t you just dive in until 7:00 at the latest? Make it a stream of consciousness thing.
Nobody will understand that. I probably won’t understand it.
Who cares? Just do the darned thing. After you press “Publish” you’ll be able to say that you’ve written two poems!
You’re not going to give up, are you?
Hell, no! This is too much fun.
(Sigh)
Now it’s 6:03. Surely you realize that at 7:00 your carriage is going to turn back into a pumpkin.
Huh?
Cinderella, dear one. Now get going. Literary wonders await.
Right ∴ ∴ ∴ ∴ ∴ Okay … here goes:
***
Wandering through the world in this night of silence
Sensing the fairies beyond my window
I reach for the solid and simply find mist
I reach for the beloved and the smile comes by
Onward through the canyons
Onward across the sky
Beckoned by the spirit
Not knowing why … or who
There’s no direction to the flow of my life
Or is is it just no destination?
For the flow underground and all around is infinitely real
And the singing bowl sings out its song
The red within and the red without
Screams its joy in the moment
Blending now with the pinks of the world
Since white demands to be heard
What’s under the table?
What’s over the end of the world as I see it?
What’s the reason that these words appear?
Will they vanish as I fall away to dust?
I stand tall in the evening, not seeing the way
And not needing to see some direction
There is simply walking in the world and feeling the breeze
On the path that merges with the wood
A finger to the wind
A glance at the night sky
A sweet nod to life
And a smile that creases my face
***
Voilà!
Mary Oliver is a poet. She died last year. Perhaps I should ramble through the details of her life, the awards she’s won, a few choice words from those who appreciate her dearly. I could mention the scholarly papers which have analyzed her style and messages.
Or …
I could leave all that alone
And simply have Mary knock on your door …
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean
the one who has flung herself out of the grass
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Was it yesterday? Was it three days ago? I don’t know. I was driving home and listening to the CBC – Canada’s public radio network. I love the interviews, and here came one with familiar names. Rumi was a Sufi poet of the 13th century. Coleman Barks is a poet and translator of Rumi’s works. Andrew Harvey is a poet and a mystic. They all talked. I listened.
And I’m still listening. No words of mine would add to what you’re about to read.
***
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
“The poet laureate of the planet Earth”
“The literary gifts of Shakespeare, the soul force of Christ or Buddha, the intellect of Plato”
“The supreme poet of love”
Your body’s height – six feet or so – but your soul rises through nine levels of sky.
“It makes me want to bow.”
God says I will lead you beyond this heaven and this earth to a purer heaven and earth you cannot imagine, whose nature is to expand the soul in joy.
“Why can’t people just learn how to grow silent and wait on the mystery?”
A palpable longing … all longings are one longing.
[Rumi and his teacher Shams] “Not a friendship but a storm front moving in”
“The two of them danced in the street.”
You will leave this Earth to enter, while you are still in the body, a vast expanse.
“What kinds of thinking could lead to opening onto these fields of quiet and majesty?”
Love is the soul’s light, the taste of morning … no me, no we.
“Absolute reverence for all beings”
“A caressing love”
These thousands of words that rise from nowhere … How does your face contain them?
“Rumi helps us realize that there is a love possible for us which is outrageously larger than any of the loves we think we know.”
What I had thought of before as God today I met in a human being [Shams].
“The rapture of the soul at seeing someone who is so holy that they are totally beautiful”
When two great lovers of God meet, they love the beauty of that love in the other.
“Anybody too happy and ecstatic will always freak people out … They saw two people absolutely alive in divine love for each other.”
:::
“He saw this wild and beautiful old man coming towards him. He knew instinctively that it must be Rumi. He prostrated himself in the dust before Rumi. When he stood up, he saw that Rumi had prostrated in the dust before him. And this went on for thirty-two times.
‘What are you doing? You’re the holiest man in the world.’
Rumi said ‘Why should I not bow before a servant of God? And how would I be useful if I did not show you my nothingness?'”
:::
“Human beings are lonesome for passion, and here’s a being whose every breath is sacred passion.”
It may be that God is the impulse to laugh, and that we are all the different kinds of laughter.
“They’d teach by going out into the square and laughing.”
I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons.
“It’s painful when we hide from intimacy. It’s fraudulent.”
We’re already inside of what we’re surrendering to.
“Reading Rumi’s poems, I went into this region that felt like home.”
“We will be guided by the Divine.”
Love cannot be said.
“He was possessed by the divine word. He never wrote anything down.”
Fall in love in such a way that it frees you from any connecting … You become love and you don’t ever miss love because love is in you.
“If the translator can get out of the way, the Presence is often clearly transmitted, from the 13th century.”
I see my beauty in you. I become a mirror that cannot close its eyes to your longing.
“To be one with the source from where the religions all come”
“I know the experience of love in myself. That’s enough. That is God.”
Everything is glowing with consciousness.
“Something in us recognizes beauty. That is what I’m calling God.”
My eyes wet with yours in the early light, my mind every moment giving birth, always conceiving, always in the ninth month
“I feel in me a source of love.”
Walk around, and love, and meet someone’s eyes.
“The Sufis say that when you meet the glance of another human being, you’re somehow blending your lineage with theirs. All the people that you have loved and have loved you – that’s your lineage … Just a glance, and some exchange happens there that metabolizes the soul growth of the planet.”
Nothing can teach you if you don’t unlearn everything. How learned I was before revelation made me dumb.
“I don’t know anything for sure except I’m here and I love.”
Glorious is the moment we sit in the palace – you and I
Two forms, two faces, but a single soul – you and I
The flowers will blaze and bird cries shower us with immortality
The moment we enter the garden – you and I
And all the stars of heaven will run out to gaze at us
As we burn like the full moon itself – you and I
The firewinged birds of heaven will rage with envy in that place
Where we laugh ecstatically – you and I
What a miracle, entwined in the same nest – you and I
What a miracle – you and I
One love, one lover, one fire … in this world and the next
In an ecstasy without end
Bruce's Blog 