Daisies

It is possible, I suppose that sometime

we will learn everything

there is to learn: what the world is, for example,

and what it means. I think this as I am crossing

from one field to another, in summer, and the

mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either

knows enough already or knows enough to be

perfectly content not knowing. Song being born

of quest he knows this: he must turn silent

were he suddenly assaulted with answers. Instead

oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly

unanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies display

the small suns of their center piece, their - if you don't

mind my saying so - their hearts. Of course

I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and

narrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?

But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,

to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;

for example - I think this

as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch -

the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the

daisies for the field.

--Mary Oliver

Could It Happen Anywhere?

Listen to the rhythm of things that never die.

                  —Mark Nepo, “For a Long Time”

Worried about what was to come, I went to the river

and listened to the constant song as water met stone,

met log, met wall. The endless white hush of it.

Song of building up banks. Song of tearing them down.

Song of surrender to invisible force. Song of change

that is ever the same and not the same. And in the listening,

I found refuge—not in the longing to hide, not in the sound—

I found refuge in the listening. Refuge in the opening

of the senses. In attuning to what is here. Wave and current

and eddy and flow and the attentiveness that lives

through this woman. And I listened and listened, listened

to it all, and was opened by listening. At some point

the listener disappeared. What was left was

listening itself. For a time, peace found me there.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Camas Lilies

Consider the lilies of the field,

the blue banks of camas opening

into acres of sky along the road.

Would the longing to lie down

and be washed by that beauty

abate if you knew their usefulness,

how the native women boiled

the bulbs for food?

And you — what of your rushed and

useful life? Imagine setting it all down —

papers, plans, appointments, everything,

leaving only a note:

"Gone to the fields to be lovely.

Be back when I’m through

with blooming."

--Lynn Ungar

Medicinal

I start accepting food from the neighbors:

Handful of tomatoes before they rot.

Annual s’more at the bonfire. I savor

odd things—quick knock at the door, apricot

pit in the window. Small shrines appear.

There are flats of strawberries. Homemade

broth to help a harmed esophagus heal.

We all mend, somewhere, in the exchange.

Little gifts evolve into meals, board games

after lunch. One day my son is with grand-

mother neighbors, pulling weeds in the yard.

I’m at their side before I understand.

We kneel together, chewing on mint leaves,

like it’s no miracle, like it’s ordinary.

--Megan Nichols

Keep Reaching

The trick is to keep reaching

for the light you will never touch,

and to be nourished by the stretch

toward impossible things.

The trick is to bloom where you are,

not calling it a failure because

you wanted a different outcome.

Live each day devoted to awe, 

so that when a monarch lands 

on the tip of a coneflower, seeming 

to swell with that sudden infusion 

of sweetness, you don’t miss it. 

So that, while you watch, a pair 

of hard-won wings seems to open 

and close and open again in you.

—James Crews

Beyond Patience

If I knew another word for patience,

would it open me to the act?

Perhaps something that invokes the patience

in the zinnias after first central flower has died

and before the next buds are formed.

Something that speaks to the patience of winter

while the field is greening more deeply every day.

To be patient is to believe there is a moment

beyond now that will be better than now. 

So perhaps instead of patience, the word

I’m longing for is presence. The capacity

to be only here. Only now. Here in the garden

where the zinnia row is thick with leaves.

Here in the meadow where it’s warm and

the tall grass tickles my bare thighs. Now

in the week before my sweet girl arrives.

Ah, there it is, back to the anticipation.

Try again. Presence, as in now, in this moment

when swallows swoop and skate and swirl.

Now, when my breath opens in my chest,

opens like a zinnia, many petalled and red.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Heron rises from the dark, summer pond

So heavy

is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,

always it is a surprise

when her smoke-colored wings

open

and she turns

from the thick water,

from the black sticks

of the summer pond,

and slowly

rises into the air

and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,

I take the deep breath

of happiness, and I think

how unlikely it is

that death is a hole in the ground,

how improbable

that ascension is not possible,

though everything seems so inert, so 

nailed

back into itself —

the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,

the turtle,

the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful

that the summers are long

and the ponds so dark and so many,

and therefore it isn’t a miracle

but the common thing,

this decision,

this trailing of the long legs in the water,

this opening up of the heavy body

into a new life: see how the sudden

gray-blue sheets of her wings

strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing

takes her in.

—Mary Oliver

One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call ‘the thing itself’. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is a name or an idea.

— A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes

--Stanley Kunitz