Month: June 2020

A HAIKU POEM FOR TODAY

colors in the sky –

lovely colors in our thoughts –

life always aglow

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The sky was a vast sheet of shifting colors this morning.

Shortly after 5:00 a.m., we sat together at the glass table on the patio, and, in almost steady silence, we observed the sky as it restyled itself, moment by moment. It was a ceremony of soft colors, shifting so smoothly that it was easy to miss the changes. We could even see the sky and its reshaping of colors on the glass tabletop where we sat in the silent presence of St. Francis and his petunias.

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BEING CAREFUL

(Braelynn J., 52, Blessings, CT)
 
One day, 
she felt forlorn and lost, 
so she decided to be careful
about everything.
She moved around the house, 
in a meticulous manner,
loving the look of her shoes 
as she stepped along the carpets. 
She was very particular 
about praising the style of the sky’s color
and the curl of leaves 
of the little tree by the back fence. 
On this friendless day, 
she decided to be considerate 
to all things - 
to step aside so a squirrel could pass, 
and to share her gracious thoughts 
with a few birds
who seemed surprisingly lost.  
On this day of feeling hopeless,
she stayed on the lookout 
for signs of light everywhere – 
the shine in her shirt sleeve 
when she noticed it in the sunlight,
the dazzle of two small stones in the garden.
In her life that seemed so lonesome today,
 she stayed watchful for wonders - 
even the slight squeak 
of her desk chair 
as she turned to notice
light green leaves 
silent in the morning light.  

A HAIKU POEM FOR TODAY

Biking this morning,

we rested while working hard –

just like sunlight does.

I was resting my elbows on the arms of my desk chair just moments ago, and it made me think about how many other things are available to help me loosen up and relax a little. The chairs set around our house, for instance, are simply places for pausing for rest. When I’m sitting in a comfortable chair, it’s like the chair is saying, Stay with me and rest awhile. Even our carpeted floors are places for easing up and slowing down – soft foot-beds, you might say, where worn-out feet can find some useful rest. I guess, honestly, resting places are presented to me almost everywhere – my shoes, those cozy homes for my creaky old feet; the sidewalks that are more restful for my feet than the often rutted roads; the cushioned seat in our car that cares for me while I drive; and even, I suppose, the whole earth that’s been holding me pleasantly and faithfully up for 78 years. I never have to search to find a place to pause and rest, for the reliable, homey earth is always there for me.

And here’s my Delycia, the master gardener of Mystic., after several good hours of gardening, resting in well deserved sleep on her beloved hammock.

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AFTER MOWING THE LAWN

After mowing the lawn, he made the journey
into restfulness and fairytale lightheartedness.
He held his old life in his arms
and let some songs flow easily over it.
In his comfy chair, be blessed the breeze
coming through the window and the daring curtains
that undulated in complicated, well-designed ways.
Wandering was what he wanted to do,
and he did it like a happy river
rolling along and belonging everywhere.

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And here’s a slideshow of some of Delycia’s flowers today …

A HAIKU POEM FOR TODAY

walking among trees

I was found by the forest 

and also by me

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Over the long years of my life, I have written maybe close to a thousand poems, but I always hesitate to say that I ‘wrote’ them, because what I really did was ‘find’ them. When Delycia and I are doing one of our walks together, we always find interesting things along the road or trail, and, when I’m walking along the minutes of a morning or afternoon at my desk, I often find words that seem perfect for a poem. It’s as if they are lying beside the trails of my mental wanderings, and – luckily – I just happen to notice them, then pause, then pick them up and set them somewhere inside a poem.

This morning we did a memorable walk at the Oswegatchie Nature Preserve in Niantic (CT), and somewhere along the trail, I ‘found’ an idea inside me that said I could ‘find’ a poem just by talking as I’m walking. Seemed like a fine idea, so, as we walked, I occasionally pulled out my phone and said a few words into the microphone – words I just happened to ‘find’ waiting on the tip of my tongue. Truly, it doesn’t feel like I ‘made’ the words I spoke, but that I simply discovered them and put them to use. It was a light-hearted and relaxed adventure – discovering beautiful words while walking a beautiful trail. If you have 4+ minutes, take a listen:

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THE POWER OF GRATITUDE (written during Covid-19)

He sat beside a vase of flowers
and felt filled up with gentleness.
The seeming chaos and distress
of all the world was gone. The powers
 
he felt were soft and reassuring.
The sunshine through the windows flowed
into him like streams, and slowed
him down, and helped him start to sing.
 
The flowers were his audience.
He sang a song he'd never heard,
and felt just like a grateful bird
who sat upon a simple fence 
 
and couldn't find a reason to complain.
The flowers seemed to like his song
and shined with golden light. Along
the western hills a single lane
 
of birds was slowing down to hear
a guy sing out with mellowness and praise.
A squirrel on the lawn in rays
of sunlight stopped and raised its ear.
 
 
 
 

A HAIKU POEM FOR TODAY

on lantern hill road

two gray-haired best friends on bikes

riding through joy’s doors

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This morning, sitting with Delycia on the patio for our early breakfast (around 6:00 a.m.), the thought came to me, as it occasionally does, that death opens the door into life. I’m not talking about life in some far-off, make-believe heaven, but just life itself – or Life, uppercase, because it’s truly never-ending. Only because of death is the circle of life able to carry on forever.

I guess I started thinking about this again this morning because I was looking at some of Delycia’s early daylilies.

I must have known this before, but for some reason I found it somewhat astonishing when Delycia told me a few years ago that daylilies actually bloom for only a single day.  All that work, I thought — all those frozen February weeks, then all those spring and summer days of patiently pushing up through soil and air – all that for just a few short hours of splendor! As she was speaking, I recall, I was looking at a particularly remarkable yellow lily near us (like the blossoms above) and found it startling to realize it would be colorless and shriveled tomorrow. I remember that we strolled among her lilies that day, admiring the intense colors of some, as if they were softly shouting at us about how handsome they were on this single day of their lives. It seemed strange, as we sat at breakfast this morning, that these beautiful blossoms I was looking at would wither and waste away by tomorrow morning, but I couldn’t help thinking, too, that that’s also sort of the glory of life – that things are continually leaving us so that others can come and take their places. New lily blossoms are born each day, but only because yesterday’s blossoms bowed down and departed. We see death each day in Delycia’s garden – the death of dozens of beautiful blossoms – but precisely because of the deaths, we also see, each morning, the delivery of brand new blossoms, fresh and mint-condition miracles of color. I guess it’s part of the strange magnificence of life on this planet, that death, the most feared of all foes, is what opens the door into life.  

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HEY, HAM

(a voice I heard in a dream)
 
Hey Ham, are you too busy 
to believe in summer?
Are you running too fast
to follow the footsteps of your heart?
Are you panting 
instead of praising?
Have you signed up 
for the race to confusion and sorrow?
 
How about taking a break 
from killing yourself?
Kindness is standing on your doorstep,
and wisdom's in the shade of every tree. 
Try a morning among birds,
or a day of doing what rivers do. 
Don't talk or plan. 
Praise this moment and that. 
Think the kind of thoughts 
that take your hand. 
Hold still for holiness.  

Doors into Peace:

a slideshow of some of Delycia’s latest miracles …

I sometimes slip into my old practice of listing things I need – another shirt, some better boots, more stamina when working out – but the truth is that something bigger than me makes a much better list. Call it God, or the Universe, or Life, or just Inspiration – there’s a power, I sense, that sees what I need and somehow supplies it. When I occasionally get my busybody self out of the way, and just listen to what this wiser power is saying to me, the things I really need (as opposed to want) seem to unmistakably shine in my thoughts. This morning, for instance, when I was doing some of this silent listening, it became obvious that I didn’t actually need another shirt, but instead, perhaps I needed just those moments of silence during which I was carefully watching Delycia’s flower blossoms bend in the morning winds. Whenever I can set aside my persistent and restless ego, and simply listen to this soft but measureless voice from somewhere, I sometimes understand that all I really need is the revitalized blood my good heart is constantly giving me and the thoroughly new thoughts my mind is always making. I sometimes see that this particular moment – any moment – is all I really ever need. 

On our bike ride this morning, about six miles on lovely Wheeler Road in Stonington, we paused at this scene,

and all I really needed to do at that moment was simply look at what was there – the grass, the old hallowed wall, the luminous meadow, and the barn sitting in venerable silence. Something said to me that looking was what I needed right then – and so I looked.

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ALL WE NEED TO KNOW

Overheard as some bicyclists passed:
“We know all we need to know.”
 
We do, but we don’t know it.
We don’t know that we do know
the sheer dominance of this moment
right now, the endless inner sunshine
and storms and starlight and awards
of this very moment, the way a brand
new universe is waking up inside 
this moment and making music no one 
has ever heard before, the music
of freshness and inventiveness,
the effervescent and indestructible 
harmonies of here and now. We know 
this moment because it is all there 
truly is, and, as she said as she 
rode past us, all we need to know.
 
 
 

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Two poems my grandson Louie and I wrote yesterday, during our two-person poetry class:

THE MOON ROSE 

The moon rose, 

filling the air with mystery, 

the stars surrounding it like its children,

the light leaning down over the earth,

wanting to escape

the bond of partial invisibility. 

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LOUIE THE DUDE

Louie, a boy with 

bright eyes,

a smile of endless curiosity, 

thoughts that throw themselves into the sky, 

and nerves that sometimes drive him crazy, 

is cool.  

“O mountain friends!         

With mine your solemn spirit blends,         

And life no more hath separate ends.”           

— John Greenleaf Whittier, “Lake Winnipesaukee” 

Since I often feel like I’m seeking separate objectives from everyone else, as if my goals, or ends, were given to me alone and I must make my way toward them on my own, it was wonderful to come upon these words of Whittier yesterday. On the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, the poet came to understand the truth that, in fact, there are no “separate ends” anywhere – that all of us who share this universe also share the same goals. We are all seeking, every second, a stronger sense of being simply what or who we are.

On our walk this morning, we saw this lone rower out on the Mystic River,

seemingly alone on the empty and silent river, but Whittier would say to him, “With mine your solemn spirit blends.” All of us – all people, animals, winds, and stars – are steering, in our special ways, toward being the best possible people, animals, winds, and stars. All of us are looking for light in a sometimes dark world, for comfort where comfort often seems distant. I can pretend that my goals are solely mine, but that’s a pretense that surely diminishes me. The truth is, as Whittier discovered beside the lake, that not one of us strives separately from others – that all of us who share this impressively mystifying universe strive step by step in a sometimes unseen but everlasting togetherness.  This Mystic River rower was one with us and we were one with him, as together as the countless drops of water in the freely rolling river.

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HER ACT

(about Sharon Z., 82, Blessings, CT)

Her dad always said

she should get her act together,

and suddenly,

at 68,

while shopping at McQuades,

she saw that

it had always been together,

and that it wasn’t just her act,

but that each moment

she performs with countless friends,

like the flowing sky,

and her talented lungs,

and the skillful movements

of sunshine and starlight.

She saw that even her thoughts

are daring dancers

that swirl and sway

with the limitless thoughts

that prance through the universe

as part of an act

that has neither starts nor endings,

and she and all things

are the clever performers,

even when wondering

which cucumbers

to choose.

On our walk today in the lovely Peace Sanctuary on the Mystic River, we paused to study some of the pleasing strangeness that we almost always see on our walks and rides. There were trees and enormous stones that seemed to be sharing their lives like friends …

and there were trees whose faces stared at us as we walked …

and there was one very serious student who studied leaves and flowers and ancient silent trees beside the trail.

(from an application)

The more I studied, the more I 
understood the stars in their homes, 
and the winds that sing across roads. 
I watched the wings of birds, the 
running rivers, the clouds like friends 
together, and the brave brotherhood
of trees. I heard the hearts of books 
beating, listened to the voices of 
pencils, and studied the conversations 
of computer keys. I attended the school 
of tears, the summer camp of friendship, 
and the college of chaos and love. The 
sunrise showed me wisdom, and all the 
bends in all the roads were my teachers. 
I turned the pages of silence each day. 
My grades were set in the sky at night.   
 

BLUE SKYING

Several years ago, when Delycia was sharing some suggestions about placement of our new patio furniture, she said I shouldn’t take her too seriously, because she was just “blue skying”. When I asked her to explain, she said when there’s a blue sky, she likes to think that airplane pilots feel more free to follow their whims and wander wherever they wish, just like she was letting her thoughts do. When you “blue sky”, she said, you sort of think – and live – without laws, at least for a while. As I’ve thought about it since then, it seems a good way to live – to sometimes let your life lift off the runway and be on the loose, like a plane in a sunny sky. Thoughts, especially, should be sometimes set free to veer and swerve and stray in this direction or that, as Delycia was doing so delightfully. In a way, life brings “blue skies” to me constantly, if only I could notice. Most of the limitations I live by are built by my own beliefs, and once I see this, the sky of my life can clear and I can chart my own course. In a sky or life that’s blue, the clouds are gone and I can dare to be brave, both with ideas for patio furniture and directions for my life.   

Here’s a wondrous sky we saw this morning on our shoreline walk in Noank (CT). Under a sky like this, a person could easily do ‘blue skying’ for hours.   

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BRIGHTNESS AND BIGNESS

(Andy H., 70, Blessings, Ct)
 
One day
Andy saw how big he actually was,
and how brightly he shined,
as if his life flowed 
among the limitless stars.
He started to shout, 
because he somehow knew 
he shared this brightness and bigness 
with everything.
Even his smallest thought 
was enormous, he knew, 
and even the smallest passing scene
was colossal
and called out to him 
in its simple, immeasurable flawlessness. 
Instantly, he helped a small word 
find a place in a poem, 
and the word was as wonderful
as the sky. 
 

On another beautiful bike ride this morning, we stopped for a few minutes in this very old cemetery,

and, strangely enough, the phrase ‘easing up’ came to me as I wandered among the old stones. I am easing up in these elder years, partly because I’m retired, but partly also because I’m finally understanding a significant fact about life. I grew up with the belief that the nature of reality was what might be called ‘manyness’, but now I see that it’s much closer to ‘oneness’. From my earliest memory, it was impressed upon me (by family, friends, the media, and the overall culture) that life is basically a struggle among innumerable separate elements. My main task, I learned, is to save myself from harm and try to triumph in as many of the daily contests as possible. Now, however, in my eighth decade of trying to figure things out, I’ve come to understand that the manyness approach to reality is simply inaccurate. Instead of being many, the Universe is just one. It’s not a confused collection of disparate material entities, but rather a single, cohesive, and harmonious expression of Itself. The entire Universe, I see now, is as unified as a single cell. As in a cell, everything that happens in the Universe happens for the good of Itself. What this means for me is that I should give up stressing and struggling, because there’s no other person or other thing that’s out to hurt “me”. In fact, there’s no “other” at all, and no separate “me”. There’s just the one shared and always successful Universe, of which I and everyone and all of our so-called problems are a part. We’re all part of a single impressive enterprise called Life (of which death is an integral part), as closely interlaced with each other as the insides of a cell. This realization, to me, calls for a lot more loosening up in life than struggling. As I walked among the gravestones this morning, I felt closely in tune with the oneness of the universe – gravestones, grass, sky, death, bumblebees, bicycles – all endlessly interweaving in easygoing, wonderful ways.

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IN THE CEMETERY

(about Braelynn J., 52, Blessings, CT)
 
She shares herself most fully
in the cemetery near her house.
She lends herself as a gift
as she walks among the gravesites,
feely bestowing the steady light
she shares with everything.
Her thoughts in the cemetery
are silent and immense,
as if spread inside her
by all the endless stars.
Visiting the cemetery,
her elderly life looks larger
than a sunlit sea,
and she presents the luster of it
to the stones and sticks and winds.

If the word ‘abeyance’ means temporary inactivity, as one dictionary says, then I’m a believer in abeyance. I’d like to hold everything in abeyance about once every hour – just breathing in and out for a few minutes and letting the planet spin where it will without me moving a muscle or thinking a thought. On our bike ride this morning, we stopped at this old cemetery for a break, and, as I looked at these stones,

it struck me with almost a sense of envy that they are always in abeyance. They simply sit in silence where they have for probably several hundred years, doing nothing but being proper gravestones. They’re not restless, not checking off a list, not flying from one activity to the next. No, they seemed to be holding restlessness and frenzy in abeyance. The world and my life seemed quite peaceful as I watched those stones. In fact, I’ve decided to imitate them for the next few minutes. I’m holding this writing in abeyance. Back later . . . maybe!   

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SITTING STILL

He finds it hard to sit still,

in silence and peace,

so sometimes he practices.

He goes outside and sits

beside stones that have sat

in stillness for years and years,

or beside a tree

that understands staying power

and remains right there.

He sits and sees the world

that stays where it is —

grass that silently remains,

air that seems in no hurry,

the sky that’s simply the sky

day after day.

He sits and uncomplainingly holds

his life in his hands,

while life holds him,

with love and reliability,

right where he is.

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Our fridge magnetic poem for today …