This morning at church this poem was read. Chris Woodhull was preaching and he said Thirst and Mary Oliver and I leaned waaaaaayyy forward ready to listen. And in listening, to walk into this poem and right into the woods and be among the trees and this poetic voice that I recognize and is so comforting and always clear and familiar to me.
Saint Mary Oliver, patron saint of poetry and simplicity.
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 ~
(Thirst)
Mary Oliver and I just had church together in the woods. I got home and my roommate is baking cheesecake in the kitchen. And she has flour on her face and and she's on her tip-toes pressing the crust into the pan with her hands. "Sweetened Condensed Milk does the body good ... There's just not that many things I like more than graham cracker crust". She loves Mary Oliver about as much as she loves baking which is about as much as I love Mary Oliver. That is a hell of a lot of love for one kitchen. I find the poem in the book on the table in the living room beside the window, where all my poetry lives and stand there and leaned against the door frame of the kitchen and read it to her. And the music that is playing a slow bluegrass "Come thou Fount". I read the poem slowly, like trees growing slowly, it's raining outside, slowly, and we're standing in the kitchen reading poetry. It's so damn good. and so simple. And I couldn't tell the difference between being in the kitchen with the crust and the flour or being in a church or being among the trees. I got done and held the book over my face and screamed. Her poems are just that good to me. As good as graham cracker crust. "I would almost say that they save me. and daily."
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Come Visit. I live in a house near the corner I have named Gratitude.
Mary Oliver said she wakes every morning to the dawn and give thanks for another day, eats breakfast, takes a walk with her dog Percy, and works for 3-4 hours, at which point she is tired.
This life seems about perfect to me.
Such Gifts
The Place I Want to Get Back To
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground , like that
,so quiet, as if asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.
(from Thirst)
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around youkept shouting
their bad advice--though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones. But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--determined to save
the only life you could save.
This life seems about perfect to me.
Such Gifts
The Place I Want to Get Back To
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground , like that
,so quiet, as if asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.
(from Thirst)
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around youkept shouting
their bad advice--though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones. But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--determined to save
the only life you could save.
Monday, September 6, 2010
"And it's all still going on"
Words are as strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm. Dorothy Day
Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily. Dorothy Day
I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor. Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was a Marxist and an anarchist and a wild bohemian. She lived with men in common law arrangements. She was jailed for controversial demonstrations on behalf of workers, women's suffrage, and the rights of the imprisoned. She preached a pacifism that knew no limit, and she wrote at least one book which in her later years she regretted so much that she declared she would do anything if she could have every copy of it destroyed. She loved Opera. She loved to knit. She is a candidate for Sainthood. She became a devoted Catholic and began the Catholic Worker Movement that included poorhouses and newspaper in Chicago. Someone wrote that "She was a fool for Christ's sake: her boss was the individual on the street who was forgotten by society, the one we see each day, the one on the park bench who smells of alcohol and urine. " Her books called On Pilgrimage and Loaves and Fishes, and The Long Loneliness. I have only read The Long Loneliness, and I loved it.
This the postscript The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day.
“We were just sitting there talking when Peter Maurin came in.
We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form, saying, “We need bread.” We could not say, “Go, be thou filled.” If there were six small loaves and a few fishes, we had to divide them. There was always bread.
We were just sitting there talking and people moved in on us. Let those who can take it, take it. Some moved out and that made room for more. And somehow the walls expanded.
We were just sitting there talking and someone said, “Let’s all go live on a farm.” It was as casual as all that, I often think. It just came about. It just happened.
I found myself, a barren woman, the joyful mother of children. It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.
The most significant thing about The Catholic Worker is poverty, some say.
The most significant thing is community, others say. We are not alone any more.
But the final word is love. At times it has been, in the words of Father Zossima, a harsh and dreadful thing, and our very faith in love has been tried through fire.
We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.
We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.
It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”
We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form, saying, “We need bread.” We could not say, “Go, be thou filled.” If there were six small loaves and a few fishes, we had to divide them. There was always bread.
We were just sitting there talking and people moved in on us. Let those who can take it, take it. Some moved out and that made room for more. And somehow the walls expanded.
We were just sitting there talking and someone said, “Let’s all go live on a farm.” It was as casual as all that, I often think. It just came about. It just happened.
I found myself, a barren woman, the joyful mother of children. It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.
The most significant thing about The Catholic Worker is poverty, some say.
The most significant thing is community, others say. We are not alone any more.
But the final word is love. At times it has been, in the words of Father Zossima, a harsh and dreadful thing, and our very faith in love has been tried through fire.
We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.
We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.
It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”
Friday, September 3, 2010
joy
Got this today from a friend today who is working on a farm as a Jesuit Volunteer in Georgia. beauty beauty beauty.
sweat rolls down into your eyes everyday
and everyday is the same
except when tilling up earth and pain with Eh Kaw
except when flinging red radish seeds all over your common toil
except when the skies are so blue you wanna cry and you go out with your handkerchief to find warm fat purple grapes and let them pop and slide out on your tongue.
except when your eyes open at dawn to walk across to the fig tree and suck down its sweetest flesh and when roosters announce day is coming and chickens wait for you to let them out of their sleepy roosts
except when you find God walking in the garden.
everyday's the same except when Po Reh learns to spell his name
learns to hold a pen and spell his very own name at 75 years old.
and when Dah Reh laughs when you, his teacher, try to move hay with your city hands
sometimes all your muscle fibers are on fire at the very same moment
and your eyes are still stingin with that sweat
and sometimes you wonder why Po Reh has to be here at 75 learnin to spell his name
and you wonder why the world is in the shape it is
but then..
almost always in the very middle of that space where tired bones and tired souls meet
you know everyday will never be the same after this
and no day is the same
and the resurrected Christ has come to visit you here,
has come in so close you tremble
-written by my sweet soulfriend
sweat rolls down into your eyes everyday
and everyday is the same
except when tilling up earth and pain with Eh Kaw
except when flinging red radish seeds all over your common toil
except when the skies are so blue you wanna cry and you go out with your handkerchief to find warm fat purple grapes and let them pop and slide out on your tongue.
except when your eyes open at dawn to walk across to the fig tree and suck down its sweetest flesh and when roosters announce day is coming and chickens wait for you to let them out of their sleepy roosts
except when you find God walking in the garden.
everyday's the same except when Po Reh learns to spell his name
learns to hold a pen and spell his very own name at 75 years old.
and when Dah Reh laughs when you, his teacher, try to move hay with your city hands
sometimes all your muscle fibers are on fire at the very same moment
and your eyes are still stingin with that sweat
and sometimes you wonder why Po Reh has to be here at 75 learnin to spell his name
and you wonder why the world is in the shape it is
but then..
almost always in the very middle of that space where tired bones and tired souls meet
you know everyday will never be the same after this
and no day is the same
and the resurrected Christ has come to visit you here,
has come in so close you tremble
-written by my sweet soulfriend
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
and give thanks. like this: thank you.
We can see Spirit made visible when people are kind to one another,
especially when it’s a really busy person,
like you,
taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person.
like you.
In fact, that’s often when we see Spirit most brightly.
It’s magic to see Spirit, largely because it’s so rare. Mostly you see the masks and the holograms that the culture present as real. You see how you’re doing in the world’s eyes, or your family’s or-worst of all- yours, or in the eyes of people who are doing better than you-much better than you-or worse.
But you are not your bank account or your ambition.
You’re not the cold clay lump you leave behind when you die.
You’re not your collection of walking personally disorders.
You are Sprit, you are love, and even though it is hard to believe sometime,
you are free.
You’re here to love, and be loved
freely.
If you find out next week that you are terminally ill- and we’re all terminally ill on this bus- what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them
So bless you. You’ve done an amazing thing. And you are loved. You are capable of lives of great joy and meaning.
It’s what you are made of
…And it’s what you’re here for
…Take care of yourselves. Take care of one another.
And give thanks like this.
Thank you.
(By Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith)
especially when it’s a really busy person,
like you,
taking care of a needy, annoying, neurotic person.
like you.
In fact, that’s often when we see Spirit most brightly.
It’s magic to see Spirit, largely because it’s so rare. Mostly you see the masks and the holograms that the culture present as real. You see how you’re doing in the world’s eyes, or your family’s or-worst of all- yours, or in the eyes of people who are doing better than you-much better than you-or worse.
But you are not your bank account or your ambition.
You’re not the cold clay lump you leave behind when you die.
You’re not your collection of walking personally disorders.
You are Sprit, you are love, and even though it is hard to believe sometime,
you are free.
You’re here to love, and be loved
freely.
If you find out next week that you are terminally ill- and we’re all terminally ill on this bus- what will matter are memories of beauty, that people loved you, and that you loved them
So bless you. You’ve done an amazing thing. And you are loved. You are capable of lives of great joy and meaning.
It’s what you are made of
…And it’s what you’re here for
…Take care of yourselves. Take care of one another.
And give thanks like this.
Thank you.
(By Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
"everybody's changing. come change with me."
Until about 2 weeks ago, from August ‘09 to August ‘10, I have lived in an apartment over Cafe 4 in Market Square. 4 girls, 2 bedrooms, 1 Parking garage, 1 roof, 1 outrageously big TV that only was only worth anything at night and not worth much then. The year before that I worked as a barista at Cafe 4 just downstairs. I would stand at the window behind the coffee bar and would watch the wind blow the leaves trees in the Square outside and think of the line in Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird” that says “trade winds soft in the sighing trees/fat worms waiting on the dawn bright lawn/and she claims the sky her own”. Maya Angelou knows what's up. so just like little Zaccheaus, the wee little man (a wee little man was he), I climbed up in those sighing trees and lived right above that same window with a birds eyeview of the square. 12 Months with 4 Market Square 4 stories up was our little birds’ nest. The Square is people watching paradise. Our window had a nice deep window seal that I would climb on and sit or stand and watch people and thought about how if I was one of Maya’s poetry birds that’s all I would do, just sit up in those trees and look down at all the groundlings living their very busy and important lives and watch them all swipe their keys on the side of the building and run up 4 flights of stairs with groceries and walk to Soccer Taco and Marble Slab (which was literally in what would be our front yard which was excellent/terrible, and I loved/hated it.) The little bird would watch us get bright orange parking ticket after bright orange parking ticket and having dance parties in the windows of the living room and in the bedroom and think about how much these people danced. Well a year of all that football season in the fall and the skating rink in the winter and sundown in the spring all came and went and now it’s August and it’s time to move. Just like that. I took all pictures off the wall and sat in Rick’s office and unceremoniously turn in my keys. The last night I sat on the roof with Nick and Jess and quite ceremoniously drank wine straight out of the bottle and went down all the flights of stairs through the restaurant for the last time and moved somewhere else. (just now, when I typed the word moved, I accidentally typed the word ‘love’. Coincidence? I don’t believe in ‘em. But i also accidentally typed ‘word’ as wordk but lets forget that and just stick with sweet poetic irony). That was my exit which is not nearly as memorable and wonderful as this one: Enter Holden Caufield, L(ove) of my L(ife)
”When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down that goddamn corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddamn voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I'll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck.” (Holden knows what’s up).
Rewind back to real life. This is the thing: I love to move. Really, if you asked me me to move somewhere with you any, really, anytime, I would definitely think about it. Moving reminds me that God is a God of motion. In Donald Miller’s beautiful and wonderful love letter of an author’s note to Through Painted Deserts (which I refer back to in real life and in Internet life a lot) he talks about moving from Texas to Portland and writes, “Did You really do all of this to dazzle us? Do You really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid Your glory would be our distraction. And God forbid we would ignore Your glory.” Don Miller knows what’s up. Almost a century before Don Miller was writing, Ezra Pound’s was writing the jist of his message in poetry which all thundered “Make It New”. I think we all want newness. I’m all for making it new; new beginnings in any shape form or fashion. I’m wild about them. New Years, New Years Resolutions. Mondays, mornings, Monday mornings. New mercies every morning. Yes please. So moving feels like another new beginning, even if I’m just moving a mile away. Which I am, but that is neither here nor there because who really knows? That one mile could be a whole new world.
A great thing about new beginnings is going through the old beginnings bygone and stroll down memory lane and look through old books and shoe boxes and notes. I found a single monopoly dollar I used to use a bookmark and a small brown square piece of paper left over from some art project that had a small sticker taped to it that said, “a child is a curly headed dimpled lunatic”. Naturally, this reminded me of my sister circa 1991, so I taped a picture of her to it. Going through old stuff and even pulling out the furniture that I had in my college apartment nostalgia reared it’s sad little head and made me really miss my life two years ago in my sweet apartment with the people in my life then. Holden, ole buddy ole pal, welcome back: “Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” Salinger know’s what was up. So I put Anne Lamott and Mary Oliver together in a old borders boxes and packed up all my junk. In 100 degree heat, my dad packed the bed of his truck like a freaking Beverly Hillbilly
<-----------------THIS IS NO JOKE and moved everything out from Market Square and spread it back out in my little room in a little house a little ways back from the big Tennessee River right in the middle of Big Orange Country. It’s an old house with wood floors painted black and lots of windows all along the walls. From those different windows in the house we can see Ayres hall, Worlds Fair Park, Neyland Stadium and the BBT building downtown. A bird’s eye view. This new nest really is a little house. Little in a charming way but also little in a little way. 4 girls. 3 Bedrooms. Exactly 1 Bathroom. 0 washer,0 dryer. Here’s the kicker: On job application one time under long-term goals I once wrote ‘simplicity’. I want to have less, I want to want less, I want to need less.I think that’s why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions: because Jesus knows what’s up. less less less. So God must have read that job application (or maybe he reads my Facebook statuses, I can’t really keep up with Him) and I thought about me that when he gave me a new little house in a tiny new room with no closet. Here’s a little about how it went: God: So your nonsense facebookery about simplifying your life and the fact that you even have the word Simplify hanging on your wall and because I see that is your real desire and I think that’s swell, I will help. You just won yourself a one-way ticket to cute little downtown house and a cute little room. It won’t have a closet, but that will be fine. Because you’re simplifying. Facebook says so.
Jen: What. .... Where will I put all my STUFF? everything in here is so close! (soclose)! (aggravation. stress. bad mood for days).
God: Right ..... So about how you want to care less about material things.... This should be NBD (no big deal. in my world, God uses abbrevs.)
Jen: (Not really listening, figuring out a place to put my shoes) ...um okay because this feels like a BD.
This went on for a while. You get the pic(ture). And in the wonderful way that God reminds us of things apparently this time in the form of little baby birds. Before we had moved in, a little family of birds had apparently moved in and made a nest in the chimney and that nest had fallen through into the fireplace. The day we moved in there were tiny baby birds and broken shells all bottom of the hearth. I bent down to look at them and remembered where it says in Matthew about birds: (the passage in The Message translation appropriately entitled “Forget About Yourself" ) when jesus said that He knows when each one falls and Jesus really does know what's up. In a twist of wonderful irony, the next day at work I was telling a customer about the nest and the birdies and he said, "eh they were probably just sparrows. Who cares about sparrows?” I just smiled at God’s creative little reminders and my little room still crammed with stuff and my shoes were all over my floor, and I knew knew that God really did care about those sparrows and the lilies in the field. Mary Oliver and I have been thinking about those birds and living like those lilies. Speaking of lilies, out my window is a single window box for flowers that I will soon plant and water and look out on them and whisper, “Try and touch the sky”. I once heard that’s good for flowers.
So I know that all this is true, that changing and newness is good because it’s in books and in God and it’s why moving is good and hopeful. So when I ask you come over to my house one day, talk about how small is charming and how closets really are overrated and it is fine that my furniture doesn’t match and maybe say that my flowers are nice and one day they might touch the sky.
”When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down that goddamn corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddamn voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I'll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck.” (Holden knows what’s up).
Rewind back to real life. This is the thing: I love to move. Really, if you asked me me to move somewhere with you any, really, anytime, I would definitely think about it. Moving reminds me that God is a God of motion. In Donald Miller’s beautiful and wonderful love letter of an author’s note to Through Painted Deserts (which I refer back to in real life and in Internet life a lot) he talks about moving from Texas to Portland and writes, “Did You really do all of this to dazzle us? Do You really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid Your glory would be our distraction. And God forbid we would ignore Your glory.” Don Miller knows what’s up. Almost a century before Don Miller was writing, Ezra Pound’s was writing the jist of his message in poetry which all thundered “Make It New”. I think we all want newness. I’m all for making it new; new beginnings in any shape form or fashion. I’m wild about them. New Years, New Years Resolutions. Mondays, mornings, Monday mornings. New mercies every morning. Yes please. So moving feels like another new beginning, even if I’m just moving a mile away. Which I am, but that is neither here nor there because who really knows? That one mile could be a whole new world.
A great thing about new beginnings is going through the old beginnings bygone and stroll down memory lane and look through old books and shoe boxes and notes. I found a single monopoly dollar I used to use a bookmark and a small brown square piece of paper left over from some art project that had a small sticker taped to it that said, “a child is a curly headed dimpled lunatic”. Naturally, this reminded me of my sister circa 1991, so I taped a picture of her to it. Going through old stuff and even pulling out the furniture that I had in my college apartment nostalgia reared it’s sad little head and made me really miss my life two years ago in my sweet apartment with the people in my life then. Holden, ole buddy ole pal, welcome back: “Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” Salinger know’s what was up. So I put Anne Lamott and Mary Oliver together in a old borders boxes and packed up all my junk. In 100 degree heat, my dad packed the bed of his truck like a freaking Beverly Hillbilly
<-----------------THIS IS NO JOKE and moved everything out from Market Square and spread it back out in my little room in a little house a little ways back from the big Tennessee River right in the middle of Big Orange Country. It’s an old house with wood floors painted black and lots of windows all along the walls. From those different windows in the house we can see Ayres hall, Worlds Fair Park, Neyland Stadium and the BBT building downtown. A bird’s eye view. This new nest really is a little house. Little in a charming way but also little in a little way. 4 girls. 3 Bedrooms. Exactly 1 Bathroom. 0 washer,0 dryer. Here’s the kicker: On job application one time under long-term goals I once wrote ‘simplicity’. I want to have less, I want to want less, I want to need less.I think that’s why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions: because Jesus knows what’s up. less less less. So God must have read that job application (or maybe he reads my Facebook statuses, I can’t really keep up with Him) and I thought about me that when he gave me a new little house in a tiny new room with no closet. Here’s a little about how it went: God: So your nonsense facebookery about simplifying your life and the fact that you even have the word Simplify hanging on your wall and because I see that is your real desire and I think that’s swell, I will help. You just won yourself a one-way ticket to cute little downtown house and a cute little room. It won’t have a closet, but that will be fine. Because you’re simplifying. Facebook says so.
Jen: What. .... Where will I put all my STUFF? everything in here is so close! (soclose)! (aggravation. stress. bad mood for days).
God: Right ..... So about how you want to care less about material things.... This should be NBD (no big deal. in my world, God uses abbrevs.)
Jen: (Not really listening, figuring out a place to put my shoes) ...um okay because this feels like a BD.
This went on for a while. You get the pic(ture). And in the wonderful way that God reminds us of things apparently this time in the form of little baby birds. Before we had moved in, a little family of birds had apparently moved in and made a nest in the chimney and that nest had fallen through into the fireplace. The day we moved in there were tiny baby birds and broken shells all bottom of the hearth. I bent down to look at them and remembered where it says in Matthew about birds: (the passage in The Message translation appropriately entitled “Forget About Yourself" ) when jesus said that He knows when each one falls and Jesus really does know what's up. In a twist of wonderful irony, the next day at work I was telling a customer about the nest and the birdies and he said, "eh they were probably just sparrows. Who cares about sparrows?” I just smiled at God’s creative little reminders and my little room still crammed with stuff and my shoes were all over my floor, and I knew knew that God really did care about those sparrows and the lilies in the field. Mary Oliver and I have been thinking about those birds and living like those lilies. Speaking of lilies, out my window is a single window box for flowers that I will soon plant and water and look out on them and whisper, “Try and touch the sky”. I once heard that’s good for flowers.
So I know that all this is true, that changing and newness is good because it’s in books and in God and it’s why moving is good and hopeful. So when I ask you come over to my house one day, talk about how small is charming and how closets really are overrated and it is fine that my furniture doesn’t match and maybe say that my flowers are nice and one day they might touch the sky.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
August and Everything After
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.
-August. Mary Oliver.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Wild Geese. Mary Oliver.
Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about
spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.
Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky—as though
all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.
-Landscape. Mary Oliver
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.
-August. Mary Oliver.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Wild Geese. Mary Oliver.
Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about
spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.
Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky—as though
all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.
-Landscape. Mary Oliver
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