One of the Butterflies

The trouble with pleasure is the timing

it can overtake me without warning

and be gone before I know it is here

it can stand facing me unrecognized

while I am remembering somewhere else

in another age or someone not seen

for years and never to be seen again

in this world and it seems that I cherish

only now a joy I was not aware of

when it was here although it remains

out of reach and will not be caught or named

or called back and if I could make it stay

as I want to it would turn to pain.

--W. S. Merwin

A Spiritual Journey

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,

no matter how long,

but only by a spiritual journey,

a journey of one inch,

very arduous and humbling and joyful,

by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,

and learn to be at home.

--Wendell Berry

I have been to the end of the earth, I have been to the end of the waters, I have been to the end of the sky, I have been to the end of the mountains; I have found none that are not my friends.

- Navajo [Dine] Proverb

As if to Demonstrate an Eclipse

I pick an orange from a wicker basket

and place it on the table

to represent the sun.

Then down at the other end

a blue and white marble

becomes the earth

and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

I get a glass from a cabinet,

open a bottle of wine,

then I sit in a ladder-back chair,

a benevolent god presiding

over a miniature creation myth,

and I begin to sing

a homemade canticle of thanks

for this perfect little arrangement,

for not making the earth too hot or cold

not making it spin too fast or slow

so that the grove of orange trees

and the owl become possible,

not to mention the rolling wave,

the play of clouds, geese in flight,

and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.

Then I fill my glass again

and give thanks for the trout,

the oak, and the yellow feather,

singing the room full of shadows,

as sun and earth and moon

circle one another in their impeccable orbits

and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.

--Billy Collins

 "It will be alright," he says. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.

--Madeline Miller, from "Circe"

Commencement speech delivered to a herd of walrus calves

Young walruses, we all must adapt! For example, 

some of your ancestors gouged the world 

with four tusks, but you can grow only two. 

It’s hard to say what evolution plans for your kind, 

but if given a choice,

you should put in a request for thumbs. 

Anyway, congratulations! You’re entering 

a world that’s increasingly hostile and cruel 

and full of people who’ll never take you seriously

though that will be a mistake on their end. 

You are more tenacious than they know. 

You’ll be a fierce and loyal defender 

of those you love. You will fight polar bears 

when they attack your friends and sometimes you’ll win.

Of course, odds always favor the polar bear, 

but that’s not the point. The point is courage.

The point is bravery. The point is you are all fighters

even when the fight in which you find yourself

ensures unpleasant things will happen to you. 

For example, the bear will gnaw apart your skull 

or neck until you stop that persistent twitching; 

it will eat your skin, all of it, then blubber, then muscle, 

then the tears of your loved ones, in that order; 

it will savor every bite, and you will just 

suffer and suffer until the emptiness can wash over you. 

The good news is: things change! 

For example: the environment. 

Climate change, indeed, is bad for you, 

but it’s worse for polar bears whose conservation status 

is now listed as “vulnerable” which is one step removed 

from “endangered” which is one step removed 

from “extinct” which is a synonym 

for Hooray! None of you get eaten! 

I suppose this will make some people sad. 

Even now, they’re posting pictures

of disconsolate polar bears on melting ice floes 

drifting toward a well-deserved oblivion. 

They say, We need to stop this! 

They say, We need to do something, now!

These people are not your friends. 

One cannot be on both Team Walrus and Team Polar Bear 

at the same time. I’m not saying these people are evil; 

I’m saying, it’s time to choose a side. 

I’m saying sharpen your tusks, young calves; 

your enemies are devious. You need to train 

yourself to do what they won’t expect. 

For example: use computers, invest 

in renewable energies, read Zbigniew Herbert. 

Unrelatedly: your whiskers make you appear 

to have mustaches, which, seeing as you’re 

not even toddlers, is remarkably unsettling. 

Babies that look like grown men freak me out.

Like those medieval paintings by so-called masters

where they’d make the face of little baby Jesus

look like an ancient constipated banker.  

If that’s what God really looks like, 

it’s no wonder we’ve done what we’ve done to the Earth.    

Maybe you can repair what we spent lifetimes taking apart. 

Replace some screws. Oil some hinges. 

This might sound impossible, but have you ever 

looked at yourselves? Seriously—take a quick look 

and tell me how a walrus face is possible; 

everything about it defies the laws of physics. 

You will exist beyond the reach of nature.

You will learn to slow your own heartbeat to preserve oxygen 

while diving to depths of over 900 feet. 

You will stay awake for up to three consecutive days 

while swimming on the open sea.  

And when the ocean is too rough—

so terrible with longing, so ruptured with heartache—

you’ll find a small island of stone or ice offering refuge. 

It will be difficult to climb from the water, 

but because there’s hope for us all, 

you will hoist yourself up,

using only your front teeth to drag your body 

onto the shore.

--Matthew Olzmann

Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?

There are things you can’t reach. But

But you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snakes slides away, the fish jumps, like a little lily,

out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing

from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around

as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some

shining coil of wind,

or a few leaves from any old tree —

they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.

Everything in the world

comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.

Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold

fluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

--Mary Oliver

Sadness

Sooner or later it comes to everyone:

the beautiful prom queen who has lost a breast,

the Don Juan of the tenth grade who has

turned up impotent, the fleet chiropodist

who has developed a limp. Sooner or later it comes,

and you are never prepared for it quite yet,

you who had hoped to be spared through another epoch

of your rightful happiness, you who had always

given to charity. Like a gargantuan tackle

lumbering toward you, it comes and comes,

and—though you may double lateral all you wish,

though you may throw a perfect spiral

up the middle to some ecstatic receiver

and be blessed blue-green some night

by the ministrations of strangers—it will not

spare you. It comes and comes, inevitable

as sunrise, palpable as longing,

and we must go on

laughing it right in the face

until it learns to sing again.

--Michael Blumenthal

...the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters to a young poet"

Death Comes Knocking at My Door

When I saw Death standing at my doorstep

I thought of the speech I long prepared.

“Why did you take them away, why so many?

Did you have to take Keith and Bill and Frederic

and Mahlon and Tim and Hunter and Kerry –

I could go on with the names all day.”

Sometimes when I compose this long rehearsed

speech, I also ask, “Why them and not me?”

All these words hung in the air unspoken

as I watched how tired Death looked.

Death's bones bowed with weariness.

“So, do you want to come in?” I asked.

Death gave no answer but walked in

and sat in my living room chair.

I dropped over the tired bones my favorite

afghan quilt knitted by my grandma.

I almost said, you are now wrapped by the

love of one more you stole, but held my tongue.

I made Death a cup of tea, who took it

gratefully. And we sat. In silence.

The strangeness of Death sitting in

my living room, covered by my grandma's

wool afghan, sipping tea wore off.

We were not strangers to each other.

Then Death stood, handed me the tea cup,

the afghan dropping to the chair.

As Death crossed my threshold I said,

“I suppose I will see you again one day.”

--Michael Kiesow Moore

From The Song Castle. Nodin Press © 2019.

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star's stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother's, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

--Joy Harjo

From SHE HAD SOME HORSES by Joy Harjo, copyright © 2008 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

One day I was born. Then everything bothered me. And that brings us up to date.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out

of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s

almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving

their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate

sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees

that really gets to me. When all the shock of white

and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave

the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,

the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin

growing over whatever winter did to us, a return

to the strange idea of continuous living despite

the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,

I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf

unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

Ada Limón - 1976-

Sometimes things don't go, after all,

from bad to worse. Some years, the vine

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,

sometimes someone aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;

elect someone honest, decide they care

enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.

Some people become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go

amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

-- Sheenagh Pugh

from “Selected Poems”, 1990

Brooding

Winter,

rising from mature darkness,

offers its faithful bidding

for brooding reflection…

a time to pause

for deep stories to find my lips,

a time to gather

around a hearth of friendship,

a time to surrender,

fully exposed,

to the north light of winter.

Curiously,

I find myself longing

for this blackness of Solstice,

for the peace it brings.

I am raw with musing,

searching deep understandings;

my life’s autumn is complete,

like a last chapter’s page

damp with ink,

drying…

ready to turn for the next.

What shards of light

are found in darkness?

What stunning stories

will a final season bring?

l sigh into deep pause,

I quiet…

my soul waits to be heard,

as I draw in replenishment

with brooding renewal,

taking in this clean, pristine

breath of my winter.

--Marilyn Loy Every, from Tending the Heart

Blackberries

In the early morning an old woman

is picking blackberries in the shade.

It will be too hot later

but right now there's dew.

Some berries fall: those are for squirrels.

Some are unripe, reserved for bears.

Some go into the metal bowl.

Those are for you, so you may taste them

just for a moment.

That's good times: one little sweetness

after another, then quickly gone.

Once, this old woman

I'm conjuring up for you

would have been my grandmother.

Today it's me.

Years from now it might be you,

if you're quite lucky.

The hands reaching in

among the leaves and spines

were once my mother's.

I've passed them on.

Decades ahead, you'll study your own

temporary hands, and you'll remember.

Don't cry, this is what happens.

Look! The steel bowl

is almost full. Enough for all of us.

The blackberries gleam like glass,

like the glass ornaments

we hang on trees in December

to remind ourselves to be grateful for snow.

Some berries occur in sun,

but they are smaller.

It's as I always told you:

the best ones grow in shadow.

--Margaret Atwood

When I Am Among The Trees

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

--Mary Oliver

I Am Standing

I am standing

on the dunes

in the heat of summer

and I am listening

to mockingbird again

who is tonguing

his embellishments

and, in the distance,

the shy

weed loving sparrow

who has but one

soft song

which he sings

again and again

and something

somewhere inside

my own unmusical self

begins humming:

thanks for the beauty of the world.

Thanks for my life.

--Mary Oliver

Antidotes to fear of death

Sometimes as an antidote

To fear of death,

I eat the stars.

Those nights, lying on my back,

I suck them from the quenching dark

Til they are all, all inside me,

Pepper hot and sharp.

Sometimes, instead, I stir myself

Into a universe still young,

Still warm as blood:

No outer space, just space,

The light of all the not yet stars

Drifting like a bright mist,

And all of us, and everything

Already there

But unconstrained by form.

And sometime it’s enough

To lie down here on earth

Beside our long ancestral bones:

To walk across the cobble fields

Of our discarded skulls,

Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,

Thinking: whatever left these husks

Flew off on bright wings.

--Rebecca Elson

One Day I Decided

One day I decided to not grow any older

lots of luck I said to myself

(my joking self)        then I looked up at the sky

which is wide       its blueness    its whiteness

low on my left    the steamy sun rose    moved

I placed my hand against it    my whole hand

which is broad from pinky to thumb   no   my

two hands   I bared my teeth to it    my teeth

are strong   secure on their gold posts   I breathed

deeply   I held my breath    I stood on my toes    ah

then I was taller   still the clouds sailed

through me   around me    it’s true    I’m just

like them   summertime water that the sun

sips and spits into this guzzling earth

Grace Paley (2000)

The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found 

a hedgehog jammed up against the blades,

Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world

Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind

While there is still time.

--Philip Larkin

Winter Morning

When I can no longer say thank you

for this new day and the waking into it,

for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair

and the ticking of the space heater glowing

orange as it warms the floor near my feet,

I know it’s because I’ve been fooled again

by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me

and believes he deserves only safety

and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,

and watch the streetlights outside flashing

off one by one like old men blinking their

cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors

slamming car doors hard against the morning

and see the steaming coffee in their mugs

kissing chapped lips as they sip and

exhale each of their worries white into

the icy air around their faces—then I can

remember this one life is a gift each of us

was handed and told to open: Untie the bow

and tear off the paper, look inside

and be grateful for whatever you find

even if it is only the scent of a tangerine

that lingers on the fingers long after

you’ve finished peeling it.

--James Crews

Notes on survival

You are allowed to break. Everything does.

The stars grow tired and fall.

The waves crash against rocks and shores.

Trees fall for both storms and the wind, leaving behind seeds

and saplings so a version of them can grow again.

Stormclouds part for the rain

and then part again for the sun to come through.

Night must break for the day and the day for the night.

The world is made of broken things piecing themselves back together

--this is what gives us the most resilient stories.

So why do you think that you were built any differently 

than the night and the stormclouds? 

You know how to put yourself back together again too,

just as well as they do.

Take heart. You have managed to rebuild yourself 

a thousand times over from every bad day.

That is no small thing.

--Nikita Gill

 “The only way to bury the past so that it will stay buried is to regard it with gratitude; otherwise it will come back to haunt us. Hatred binds us, gratitude frees us. And doubt is a form of self-hatred. Don’t doubt yourself. Regard your past with gratitude and give it a decent burial.”

—Kaz Iwaasa

November

Is there anything left to be said

about the blaze of autumn leaves --

the way they let go with such graciousness,

how they dance on the wind

and crunch under the feet and glow

in the afternoon light?

Maybe just this:

The colours fade. They turn sodden as

milky cereal in the gutters and sidewalk.

The trees look tattered, and then

vulnerable and exposed. It turns out 

that loss is really loss. Which is every bit

as much a part of the story as 

autumn's glamour. Listen.

You are not obliged to be beautiful.

You don't have to shine.

Blooming will happen when it happens.

If you can be still for a moment.

you might notice that

the roots that feed you

are still reaching silently through the dark. 

--Lynn Ungar November 18, 2020