Solstice

Winter Solstice

On this, the longest night, 

I nearly utter, "Not yet, too soon, not now.” 

I'm not ready for the apocalypse of light, 

that asteroid of fire and life, 

to hurtle into my fine-grained silence 

to crystallize these course-grained words too soon.  

I haven't used up my dark days 

as well as I know I could.  

I haven't gone deep enough 

into wells of memory 

shadows, stones and core.  

I made friends with darkness, 

once I finally acceded 

to its purpose in my life,

once I learned to sink in - 

whether as a yield to accommodating sand 

or hard winter ground - I now allow gravity,

my weighty grave, the absence of light,

and I give in, give up to the depth, 

my spine relieved in darkness, 

packed in layers upon layers 

of self, sedimentary and cold.  

Once I discovered the value of humus, 

steamy black compost, 

how it feeds and readies me, 

I became fond of the smell of darkness

like the horse barns of my youth

piss and sweat 

leather and harvested grain. 

I no longer need to quilt darkness 

with the eternal promise

and anticipation of light. 

I like darkness as it is - 

coal, carboniferous rock, 

the furnaced compression 

of all that once lived.

“Love takes wing where calculation ends.” Belden Lane

Ruach

Is not love merely

the product of a calculating mind?

like the etching of hummingbird wings

on air – imagined and un-sensed –

or yesterday’s raindrops

beholden to memory,

but sure to come again –

transient yet consistent, persistent

rain – love, that four letter word

poets are warned against uttering,

where does it go

when the flame is blown out?

What is love without

our hands to strike

the match that lights the flame?

What is love without

our breath to stoke or extinguish?

Unemployment of Advent

This is the time of year for preparing the way, emptying ourselves, whittling the dead branches until the new emerges. This year I am unemployed and ostensibly free to "do advent right," but I'm struggling (because I'm struggling, trying too hard). 

"The teacher of emptiness teaches best by the negation of his own self-consciousness." ~ Beldane Lane

"As the ego sleeps, the heart remains vigilant. Indeed, the more self-outpouring we are, abandoning the ego and all its frenzied needs, the more truly we become ourselves, taken to the heart of our deepest being in God." -Saint Bonaventure

BonAVENTure...appropriate name for now, don't you think? 

These words came to me quickly:

Forget the self

that wanders through

a cold, empty house--

one clock ticking

one tap dripping

echoed footsteps

aimless in pursuit 

of purpose --

a need to be needed.

The phone rings, I answer, so easily distracted these days. Then I return to my journal determined to write a second stanza about letting go of the ego, sitting on hardwood floors and letting the heart hold vigilance -- one steady beat, one hot breath on the cold air until the new self, the true self knocks on the red door -- but the stanza with its frenzied forced extended metaphor and cliche advice came from the self the first stanza said to forget. Oi!

This emptiness in my work life is a challenge indeed. Each day it becomes more and more difficult to settle into the writing time I've so missed in the last eight years. I scramble at bit jobs, giving them way too much time and attention. I set self-help goals of exercise and healthy eating, financial conservancy and pseudo-intellectual Internet surfing.  My soul suffers. Anxiety and depression begin their annual leak in, like that dripping faucet. I grasp at old advent poems and thoughts, recycling insights.

All that should matter now is that the sugar water for the hummingbirds doesn't freeze and that the suet feeder is full and ready for the next mob of baby starlings and that the pen scratches the page at least once a day.