Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints,

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done,
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall. 

~ Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet and Nobel Laureate, died 30 August 2013

Still Life

Now's a good time, before the night comes on,
To praise the loyalty of the vase of flowers
Gracing the parlor table, and the bowl of oranges,
And the book with freckled pages resting on the tablecloth.
To remark how these items aren't conspiring
To pack their bags and move to a place
Where stillness appears to more advantage.
No plan for a heaven above, beyond, or within,
Whose ever-blooming bushes are rustling
In a sea breeze at this very moment.
These things are focusing all their attention
On holding fast as time washes around them.
The flowers in the vase won't come again.
The page of the book beside it, the edge turned down,
Will never be read again for the first time.
The light from the window's angled.
The sun's moving on. That's why the people
Who live in the house are missing.
They're all outside enjoying the light that's left them.
Lucky for them to find when they return
These silent things just as they were.
Night's coming on and they haven't been frightened off.
They haven't once dreamed of going anywhere.

~ Carl Dennis, "Still Life" from Ranking the Wishes. 

3 June 2013

"Understand that you are part of a great spiritual brotherhood; there is something cheering and soothing in the thought which will make you calm and satisfied."

~ Marcus Aurelius

I Will Try

I will try. 
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it. 
I did not come into this world
to be comforted. 
I come, like red bird, to sing. 
But I'm not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles, 
but a woman whose love has vanished 
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on. 
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and--
but wait. Be still. Listen! 
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing? 

~ Mary Oliver, "I Will Try" from 'Red Bird'

"Response and Reconciliation"

Life never answers.
It has no ears and doesn't hear us;
it doesn't speak, it has no tongue.
it neither goes nor stays.
we are the ones who speak,
the ones who go,
while we hear from echo to echo, year to year,
our words rolling through a tunnel with no end.
That which we call life
hears itself within us, speaks with our tongues,
and through us, knows itself. 
~ Octavio Paz, from "Response and Reconciliation"

This is Water

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” 
~ David Foster Wallace, This Is Water

Breathe Me In

"Our beautiful planet is wrapped in the protective shield of the atmosphere and beneath this wrap is all the air that ever was. No cosmic cleaning company comes along to replace it every so often. The same ancient air is recycled so that each time we take a breath, we breathe stardust left over from the big bang, air that has circulated through a brontosaurus, air that was breathed by Plato, Mozart and Bach. Every time we fill our lungs, we take in what was a newborn's first breath, and a person's last...the sense of community comes with breathing, the letting go of it all, the truth that we are, indeed, one being in unity with all other beings through time and the entire life of this planet."

~ Annmarie S. Kidder, in her essay, "Solitude"