I Open My Blinds to Your Light

Jan Richardson asks, "What does it mean
for my own life to become
a path, a way of welcome
for the Holy One?"

It means
I pry open my rusty jaw
to sing again ~
the tip of my tongue
flipped on my teeth
to form the Ls
of light, laughter and love ~
in song
in prayer
and preparation.

It means truth
stretches effortlessly before me
and peace enters
like a warm shower
on tired shoulders,
a loving hand
at the nape of the neck,
or a kiss on the forehead.

It means the everyday
becomes more
more verdant in summer,
crimson in autumn,
or crystalline in winter.

I smell spring,
lilacs mostly,
and I can breathe again
on the threshold of home.

Sacred YES

Today was annunciation Sunday. I finished the final of three concerts with Aurora, which was an opportunity for me to say YES to life again. I also had this poem read in church:

Lead me in the way that time has proven true

You made me
now let me
love me for that.
Let me shake my wet wings dry
and fly each dawning day
across all the oceans
You intended me.
Let me muddy my feet
along every mountain trail
You intended me.
Let me utter the words,
sing the songs,
dance the dances,
and love the ones
You intended me.
Behold me in daylight
as well as dark moonless nights.
Unveil each hidden corner
and covered capacity to remind me
there is no escape
from all
You intended me
to be.
Let me be that
and I will be true.

Adventure

I didn't think Grace would come again in my life, but I'm beginning to at least feel the memory:

You enter my life

like a northwest snowfall,

fickle and inconsistent, one

moment an incessant

rain of winter turns

thick and whitens

rooftops then thins

again into rain, more walls

of rain, a vexatious mix

of opposites You are

here now You are gone.

Oh come oh come

oh Glorious, oh Wisdom

oh Love

oh One, stay,

please stay and lift me

from my darkness

ordain my shadows to flight

I beg, in the cleft

of my being, waiting

for awe, for You

magnificent You

stay, stick to the still

green grass dotted

with golden birch leaves,

stay and light

on my tongue

like the first snowflake,

then melt into nothing

into me so I can believe

You are gone forever

and I can believe

You will come again.

Lunar Eclipse part 2

I rush past the wreath on the front door into the dark house, my breath creating ghostly wisps on the settled air. I’ve got to hurry and unpack my briefcase and put away the groceries so that I can enjoy the full moon. Around my little yellow house I flounce, preparing for a moment of communion and sacred calm with nature. Isn’t that just like Advent, all the industriousness, anticipation, and hectic preparation for the BIG EVENT. A white gold streak of light presses through my closed blinds: remember me? Remember awe? Reverence? Centeredness? Transcendence? Mystery? Poetry?

Yes, yes, I do remember, but first I have to check my email and Facebook – it’s been an hour since I last logged in. Oh, and I need to wrap those presents so I can mail them off to Pennsylvania. I am looking forward to a moment with the moon…maybe the five minutes before “Grimm” starts, that new show filmed in Portland. I’m really hooked on that show…I get hooked on a lot of things, actually, and I do remember being hooked once on the moon.

I walk wistfully away from the moon shadows that vein across my hardwood floor and wonder what happened to the woman who would drop everything to stand in awe of the miracle of the full moon, its light and shadow, mystery and metaphor.

Later, after Grimm, I set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning to see the lunar eclipse. I’m determined to re-find that woman who marvels in nature, deeming it more important than anything else in her world, nature and poetry her first priorities.

I wake to the shrill of the alarm, feeling a foggy virtuousness about being up so early on a Saturday. I throw on a jacket over my robe and think about stepping outside barefoot—I’ve done that before, into snow, just so I’d know the full chill of Earth’s winter—but not this morning. While pulling on a hat, I’m already charting the words for the poem I’m going to write about the lunar eclipse—before I even step outside…something very backwards about that. It’s been so hard for me to be present these days. I’m constantly future tripping or back flipping into the past, constantly documenting experiences I haven’t fully experienced, like an American journalist reporting on the tsunami in Japan, I’m detached.

Outside in the still morning I look for the moon. Street lights to the east shine like Bethlehem stars in an urban tale of miracles. The neighbor’s Christmas lights cast a golden glow on the tawny grass of their front lawn, but where’s the moon? I walk out into the middle of the empty street – a comfort in being alone while surrounded by sleeping bodies—a privacy encircled by humanity. Through a misty veil I see the moon, ¾ eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow and a towering cedar. The light is sallow and unimpressive—the eclipse obscuring the light of the moon’s glory. I think of Jan Richardson’s poem:

Prayer

God of the two lights,
I love the sun,
its revealing brilliance,
its lingering warmth;
but in the dark of night,
let me learn
the wisdom of the moon,
how it waxes and wanes
but does not die,
how it gives itself
to shadow,
knowing it will emerge whole
once more.

I am reassured that behind the less than brilliant light of the moon this morning, amidst the Earth’s shadow, behind towering cedar and a morning mist, wholeness remains. The moon is always whole, despite its curving, curling, waxing, waning or non existent views.

I am reminded that I, too, am always whole, despite the many eclipses and half-lit dim views I present to the world, despite the gibbous glimpses of brilliance I put out there, the waxing and waning of energy, motivation, desire, passion, and focus. Behind it all, I am still whole.

At 5:30 a.m. my phone chimes a text from a friend trying to detox on her own: “just know i may need the troops (meaning me coming to get her) im embarrassed im gross this apt is gross its all just gross and its so hard to ask for help” I can only pray that she finds her way clear to receive the help that has already been offered. I remember being that eclipsed by alcohol, seeing nothing else but my misery and desperation, giving myself up to shadow. It wasn’t that long ago for me. But this morning, although I may not be fully back into my wholeness and still can’t quite be still in the present, I did just step out into the frosty December morning to look for the moon. I stood in silent darkness, trusting that beneath it all, behind it all, with or without my light shinning, I am whole and I will emerge once more.

Lunar Eclipse part 1

If I were to stand on the moon tonight

what light would I see from Earth?

Would it be strings of colored Christmas lights?

Or streams of headlights racing to the mall for

some last-minute, hectic consumerism.

Would it be the golden glow of childlike wonder?

Or sparks of anger from the drunken lady across the street,

who resents the doctor who cut off her cancerous breast.

Would it be the Festival of Lights at the Grotto,

or the Star of David at the synagogue,

a menorah, Kwanzaa lights, Advent candles,

a solstice fire burning,

or would it be the blue light of a television

that keeps the widow company

during her first Christmas without

the love of her life?

Would it be the green light of forgiveness?

Or the blazing red, white, and blue artillery

across an ocean of loathing.

Could the light from Earth

simply be three candles lit:

one for gratitude

one for longing

and one for clarity

in this mystery?

Lunar Eclipse part 1

If I were to stand on the moon tonight

what light would I see from Earth?

Would it be strings of colored Christmas lights?

Or streams of headlights racing to the mall for

some last-minute, hectic consumerism.

Would it be the golden glow of childlike wonder?

Or sparks of anger from the drunken lady across the street,

who resents the doctor who cut off her cancerous breast.

Would it be the Festival of Lights at the Grotto,

or the Star of David at the synagogue,

a menorah, Kwanzaa lights, Advent candles,

a solstice fire burning,

or would it be the blue light of a television

that keeps the widow company

during her first Christmas without

the love of her life?

Would it be the green light of forgiveness?

Or the blazing red, white, and blue artillery

across an ocean of loathing.

Could the light from Earth

simply be three candles lit:

one for gratitude

one for longing

and one for clarity

in this mystery?

Advent Waiting

An on-your-tiptoes anticipation --

does it come from within

like a giggle brewing

until suddenly you realize

your endorphins hit a high

and you smile, spontaneously,

at nothing?

Or is the thrill, the unexpected happiness,

something you put on with intent

like a polar fleece wrap?

You heave yourself off the couch,

away from the television

(It's a Wonderful Life)

to say, "I'm cold. I want to be warm.

It's nearly Christmas and I want

wonder and awe and newborn

light amid the gray and early night."

So it didn't snow like Storm Watch 20…

predicted, so we're still

at war. But, peace is still

a possibility. Is this when

you put on your cheery red vest

with purpose and resolve, saying,

"I am ready. What's next?"

It's Advent again

I was telling my Advent reading partner that every year at this time I feel re-integrated with myself, more whole, even though I am standing on the edge of darkness. So much has happened since I last posted here. I have been releasing myself from the chains of addiction, both alcohol and relationships and just this weekend I re-entered my poet self, the artist in me, the singer, the seeker, the healer, the leader. I stood in front of 100 women at the Aurora Chorus retreat and shared my poetry, sang to them, thanked them, and I was not afraid to be myself among all those powerful women. I felt the belonging again that I have so struggled over my years to feel. I believe it is this sacred time of quickening that leads me here every year. Although I have probably posted my Advent poems before, maybe it is time to send them out again. Here is one from four Thanksgivings ago when my traditional plans for hiking were abated, so I took a retreat up to the coast, the site where Lewis & Clark thought they had reached the ocean, but weren't quite there. For all the years I thought I was there, but not quite, for all sorrow and disappointment that I now understand is merely a dissatisfaction with the way things are, a sign of the need for change:

Sunday Morning at Cape Disappointment

inspired by Wallace Stevens and Kilian McDonnell’s Sunday Morning

Toward the edge of the west

at the confluence of the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean,

away from complacent prayers,

I am weary of forgiveness.

Can’t I just buy my mercy with a sand dollar

or shimmering coins of the sea?

One ship on the horizon; one woman on shore

dreaming among a graveyard of driftwood,

bleached white piles of bone.

I can’t keep saying I’m sorry.

I don’t want to keep listening to apologies for humanity,

not among the superficial noises in church,

the chaste chantings of songs mesmerized too long ago.

I can’t keep saying I’m sorry for who I am.

That is not my way. My way is among slapping waves

where everything else can wait except the morning poem,

the morning praise.

I wander along a cloistered walk of ancient knowing

to the sheltered circle of cedar.

I manage my tribute so much better here, at the Cape,

away from that cheery fluorescents of denial,

toward a Chinook blessing:

We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring heights, its vitality and abundance of life, and together we ask that it

Teach us, and show us the Way…

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields and we ask that they

Teach us, and show us the Way…

We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly to the sky with the earth in their roots and the heavens in their branches, the fir and the pine and the cedar, and we ask them to

Teach us, and show us the Way…

through a chilly November light, after a night of sorrow,

teach us that we are not so different here. Show me the way

to the raw wonder of my being. Why can’t we just admit

that sea-life stinks when washed to the shore, as do we.

And so did the sweaty prophet, born in a fetid stable, so real.

We all reek of fallibility. Why can’t we just admit it.

Why can’t we just sink our differences, eat our bread,

drink our wine on the shores of unknowing, smile sheepishly

and go back to work on Monday,

plowing through our week with all our disheveled divinity

displayed for everyone to see.

More Summer observations

His skin, an historic shade of gray, hangs in folds over his neck and in wrinkled pendulums above his elbows. In one hand he holds a walking stick, the other a closed umbrella he uses like a cane. He can’t afford a walker, but that doesn’t stop him from inching his way down SE Salmon on a sunny Saturday. Pausing to catch his breath, he peers into the blue spruce to look for the Junco he’s certain he heard calling. He hikes his pants back up over his rib cage, the make-shift crutches dangling from his arthritic wrists. Nothing stops him from finding a shade of joy on this July day.

Break open my heart.

Her hair is an historic shade of salt and pepper gray – still perfectly coifed and ample. She pushes a walker with an attached oxygen tank. Bent like an oak branch, brittle and dignified, she inches her way up SE Salmon. Nothing stops her from greeting her boyfriend on this bright July morning.

Break open my heart.

Jupiter in March

There, that red spot, that’s where I am and who –
that one immense high pressure band
swirling above the calm blue curly-cue
sea. I’d rather be the sea, salty and

expansive, but I keep spinning around
myself, a counter rotating vortex
at odds with my core and all that surrounds
me. I am Jupiter’s great red spot, vexed,

irritated, a cosmic blemish, hives
a bruise, a zit, a corpuscle, blood
red molten mass of sunset and sunrise,
both in a hurry like a racing flood

of ruddy mud, undefined, I am that,
but I’d rather be the milky blue calm
of the Earth’s surf, surrendering to flat
shores, a slight white rush of foam, then a balm.

Ebb and flow, wax and wane, in and out,
I’d rather be that consistency,
moon tide, breath upon breath, yes, I’d rather be
one breath of the sea.

Sonnet

Some of you were asking for the most recent poems submitted. This is a classic sonnet.

Calla Lily

Dear calla lily, how he does ascend
into your lingering, gilded beauty,
you and you alone are his fleur-de-lis.
Unassuming grace, never to offend,
you bring an aged and wounded life to mend.
Without, you see, he can no longer be
so has sworn forever your devotee.
Wishing this blissful union to suspend,
your ardent worshipper plucks a full stem
to quill his still and clutching cobalt heart
and claim you, Calla Lily, all his own.
But, man’s transfusion is lily’s requiem.
Colorless and wilting, you soon depart,
fertile gifts aimlessly drifting, un-sown.

I don't write much in January

only this silly little poem:

The baby robin
begins her job in
hunting worms outside my window.
Cheer up! Cheer up!
Oh, fill your cup
she chirped, insisting I do so.

I have nine months of practicing new life and I no longer cling to anything that drags me away from the present.