On the Longest Day of the Year

There is comfort in knowing

that every year

since the earth was made

there has been

a longest day of the year—

a day when half of all life

wakes to an abundance of light

and then in that moment

of greatness leans again

toward the dark.

There is comfort in knowing

the light comes, the light leaves,

the light comes, the light leaves,

comfort in knowing

all the light that is

reaches toward us,

whether we can see it or not.

It is simply a matter

of staying out of our own way,

and if we can’t do that,

well, that is what patience is for.

-- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,

earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake

and look out––no guarantees

in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,

like right now, like noon,

like evening.

- William Stafford

I open the windows

What I wanted

wasn’t to let in the wetness.

That can be mopped.

 

Nor the cold.

There are blankets.

 

What I wanted was

the siren, the thunder, the neighbor,

the fireworks, the dog bark.

 

Which of them didn’t matter?

 

Yes, this world is perfect,

all things as they are.

 

But I wanted

not to be

the one sleeping soundly, on a soft pillow,

clean sheets untroubled,

dreaming there still might be time,

 

while this everywhere crying.

--Jane Hirshfield

Memory Sack

That first cry opens the earth door. 

We join the ancestor road. 

With our pack of memories 

Slung slack on our backs 

We venture into the circle 

Of destruction, 

Which is the circle 

Of creation 

And make more-

--Joy Harjo

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid, like iron?

Or is it tender and breakable, like

the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?

Who has it, and who doesn’t?

I keep looking around me.

The face of the moose is as sad

as the face of Jesus.

The swan opens her white wings slowly.

In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.

One question leads to another.

Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?

Like the eye of a hummingbird?

Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?

Why should I have it, and not the anteater

who loves her children?

Why should I have it, and not the camel?

Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?

What about the blue iris?

What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?

What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?

What about the grass?

--Mary Oliver

 Death is love's sister, the sister with the shadowed face. 

— Ursula K. Le Guin

Before spring

Bless the buds that have yet to open,

the bare branches turning red.

Bless the green noses of bulbs

as they push through the soil,

and the raucous starlings 

in their tree conventions.

Bless the quince that blooms early--

no one wants its fruit. Bless

the days of rain and the days of fog,

the mud and the mess of it.

Bless the first dandelions, raising

brave, unwelcome, golden heads.

Bless this time when the world

is not yet beautiful, but you

can smell change in the air.

--Lynn Ungar

I don’t ask for the sights in front of me to change, 

only the depth of my seeing.

– Mary Oliver

It is said that before entering the sea

a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,

from the peaks of the mountains,

the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,

she sees an ocean so vast,

that to enter

there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk

of entering the ocean

because only then will fear disappear,

because that’s where the river will know

it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,

but of becoming the ocean.

-- Kahlil Gibran

My grandma was a seamstress 

before she left this world.

Now she stitches together stars

that long to be

part of a constellation.

In the right moonlight

I can spot her up there

mending all the loneliness

in the universe.

--Andrea Gibson

Beginners

Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

“From too much love of living,

Hope and desire set free,

Even the weariest river

Winds somewhere to the sea -“

But we have only begun

To love the earth.

We have only begun

To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?

- so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?

- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,

only begun to envision

how it might be

to live as siblings with beast and flower,

not as oppressors.

Surely our river

cannot already be hastening

into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot

drag, in the silt,

all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet -

there is too much broken

that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other

that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know

the power that is in us if we would join

our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must

complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

--Denise Levertov

 No story can contain you.

--Ivan M. Granger

Evening

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors

which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look,

and soon these two worlds both leave you,

one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,

not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,

not so unswervingly given to the eternal as

that thing that turns to a star each night and climbs-

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads) 

your own life, timid and standing high and growing, 

so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out, 

one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

Original German:

Der Abend wechselt langsam die Gewänder,

die ihm ein Rand von alten Bäumen hält;

du schaust: und von dir scheiden sich die Länder,

ein himmelfahrendes und eins, das fällt;

und lassen dich, zu keinem ganz gehörend,

nicht ganz so dunkel wie das Haus, das schweigt,

nicht ganz so sicher Ewiges beschwörend wie das,

was Stern wird jede Nacht und steigt -

und lassen dir (unsäglich zu entwirrn) dein Leben

bang und riesenhaft und reifend, so daß es,

bald begrenzt und bald begreifend, abwechselnd 

Stein in dir wird und Gestirn.

There is deep beauty in not averting our gaze. No matter how hard it is, no matter how heartbreaking it can be. It is about presence. It is about bearing witness.

- Terry Tempest Williams

Thank You

If you find yourself half naked 

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing, 

again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that says 

you are the air of the now and gone, that says 

all you love will turn to dust, 

and will meet you there, do not 

raise your fist. Do not raise 

your small voice against it. And do not 

take cover. Instead, curl your toes 

into the grass, watch the cloud 

ascending from your lips. Walk 

through the garden’s dormant splendor. 

Say only, thank you. 

Thank you. 

From Against Which. Copyright © 2006 by Ross Gay.

Whoever now makes himself bigger, freer and more human in his own existence, is doing his part toward peace, — as yet it must be worked at in an inward direction, not until a few have it all big and ready within them can it let itself be brought into the world.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters, 1892-1910

It’s still possible

It’s still possible to fully understand

you have always been the place

where the miracle has happened:

that you have been since your birth,

the bread given and the wine lifted,

the change witnessed and the change itself,

that you have secretly been, all along,

a goodness that can continue

to be a goodness to itself.

It’s still possible in the end

to realize why you are here 

and why you have endured, 

and why you might have suffered 

so much, so that in the end, 

you could witness love, miraculously 

arriving from nowhere, crossing 

bravely as it does, out of darkness, 

from that great and spacious stillness 

inside you, to the simple, 

light-filled life of being said.

…

--David Whyte

Excerpt From STILL POSSIBLE

in ‘Still Possible’

Many Rivers Press Jan 1st 2022

the mississippi river empties into the gulf

and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,

none of them emptying anything,

all of them carrying yesterday

forever on their white tipped backs,

all of them dragging forward tomorrow.

it is the great circulation

of the earth’s body, like the blood

of the gods, this river in which the past

is always flowing. every water

is the same water coming round.

everyday someone is standing on the edge

of this river, staring into time,

whispering mistakenly:

only here. only now.

--Lucille Clifton

Life beckons us as a flicker. A tendril. A corner of darkness. A bell. A spark of the soul. And curiosity propels us to follow.

ROSE ZONETTI

The Journey

Above the mountains 

the geese turn into

the light again

painting their

black silhouettes

on an open sky.

Sometimes everything 

has to be

inscribed across 

the heavens

so you can find 

the one line

already written 

inside you.

Sometimes it takes 

a great sky

to find that

first, bright

and indescribable

wedge of freedom

in your own heart.

Sometimes with

the bones of the black

sticks left when the fire 

has gone out

someone has written 

something new

in the ashes

of your life.

You are not leaving,

even as the light 

fades quickly now,

in my eyes

you are always 

arriving.

--David Whyte : Essentials

Many Rivers Press. January. 2020

For Warmth

I hold my face in my two hands.

No, I am not crying. 

I hold my face in my two hands 

to keep the loneliness warm—

two hands protecting, 

two hands nourishing, 

two hands preventing 

my soul from leaving me 

in anger.

 

by Thich Nhat Hanh, written after the bombing of Ben Tre, Vietnam when an American military man made the comment, "We had to destroy the town in order to save it." 

From the book, Call Me By My True Names

The whole notion of reciprocity is the idea that every being has a gift. But that gift and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. "The strawberry was given the gift of juicy red sweetness; it was also given the responsibility to feed certain elements in the community. So asking how we participate in reciprocity is asking “what is our responsibility”—but it’s also asking “what is our gift?” What is the gift of the human people? That’s what we’re called to give in reciprocity, in return for everything that we have been given, more often than not in return for everything we have taken. What is it that we have to give back? The reason I love to think about that in terms of gift and responsibility is that each of us has a different gift. As a parent, as a teacher, as an artist, as a gardener—whatever your gift is, we’re called to give it in return for everything that we’ve been given. 

- Robin Wall Kimmerer

An environmentalist friend wrote to me feeling depressed and overwhelmed with all of the bad news, especially after seeing my photographs of birds filled with plastic. Her sentence that broke my heart was: "I think it's generally difficult once you know how hopeless things seem."

In this regard, the importance of connecting with beauty cannot be overstated. If we are going to face and acknowledge the darkness--as we must--then let us also face and integrate the light: the immense, astonishing miracle we are all part of. In every moment, at every scale from the microscopic to the cosmic, our world and our own lives are impossibly magnificent and complex artworks, or mandalas, or waveforms, or whatever the right word is-- being created in realtime by an unknowable artist. Our very existence, right here and now, is a mystery beyond all mysteries, beyond what any words could express. The gift of consciousness is the most magical and valuable thing imaginable, and in that way every one of us has won the lottery of the Universe.

When we can contain these experiences in balance: all of the bad news, the destruction, loss, suffering, etc., AND the vast beauty of our world and our own selves, then we become whole. And in that place we stand in our full creative power to shine our light, to shift the energetic field, to change the stories that will shape the future. 

--Chris Jordan

The Cure for It All

Go gently today, don’t hurry

or think about the next thing. Walk

with the quiet trees, can you believe

how brave they are—how kind? Model your life

after theirs. Blow kisses

at yourself in the mirror

especially when

you think you’ve messed up. Forgive

yourself for not meeting your unreasonable

expectations. You are human, not

God—don’t be so arrogant.

Praise fresh air

clean water, good dogs. Spin

something from joy. Open

a window, even if

it’s cold outside. Sit. Close

your eyes. Breathe. Allow

the river

of it all to pulse

through eyelashes

fingertips, bare toes. Breathe in

breathe out. Breathe until

you feel

your bigness, until the sun

rises in your veins. Breathe

until you stop needing

anything

to be different.

--Julia Fehrenbacher

To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they're too exhausted to be any longer. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out, to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.

~ Heidi Priebe