So sorry its been so long--I'm usually pretty disciplined about this blog--but the past few weeks I've had other concerns. Fortunately, things have taken a turn for the better.

                            Night Watch


Circling my mother--
          that lesser part of her,
                    the part mottled and bruised
                              and sunk small inside damp pillows,
                    the part ensnared in wires and tubes and clamps--
Are the square faces of monitors.
Their cheery colors flash in the dark.
Their earnest alarms chirp.
They dowse this room in ghoulish half light.
          and puncture their own endless drone
                              with perky hiccups and bleeps.
They transcribe the chaos and complex gore 
                    of cellular battlefields
                              to neat arithmetics.
To blinking lines.

This is the borderland--
The twilight no-man's-land between here and gone.
A place gasping for clarity.

This is that strange place where,
The overwide doorways along the bright corridor,
          like dark, slack mouths,
Exhale the scent of decay and antiseptic--
          that mix whose name is Desperation.
They breathe stories shimmed and gerry-rigged
          and barely held intact with skinny hope.
Hope like a flute's melody line--
          the one taming the whole symphony.
Skinny hope potent like any true thing.

It is a place where spirits roam the halls
          when their flesh is too weak to hold them,
          when the force of will and faith and cleverness
                              is too weak to hold them.
A place where those spirits brush 
          the fingertips of angels as they pass.
Angels invisible
          and those sturdier ones whose rubber soles
                              squeak endlessly on the linoleum floors.

This is a place teeming with souls adrift--
Anxious spirits crowded thick as water,
          rippling like water with each mechanical breath
                    inside my mother's limp lungs.
All that undecided life 
          collecting at the dark window glass--
Weighing the distance of the stars
                    against the battles of blood and bone.

Every day this week--the sound of chainsaws as background noise. . .

A little quilt I did years ago sort of fits this poem

                  The Tree Trimmers

They've left the squirrels exposed on their branch.
They've left the naked nests
          with the red-tail hawk circling.

They've spent the day like a circus troupe--
          dangling from ropes,
                    balancing with poles,
                              joking as they teeter,
Singing in the tangle.

They've wrapped their arms 
                    around the trunks
          and held the trees like lovers.
They've heard the woody hymn trees sing--
                    felt the age old lyrics 
          through the bark--
And sharpened their blades.

They've spent their day's sweat
                              on amputations,
          on the grisly grinding of the limbs.
And wear the mad debris
                    like New Year's confetti.
Their skin is sticky with amber blood.

They go home smelling of bay and laurel,
          eyes clotted with dust,
                    lungs choked with pollen,
Bits of moss and mulch in their hair,
                              skin slivered.

And when they climb into their beds,
Their women lean into them to smell the green wood--
          a smell honest and raw,
                    like the heart thrown open,
And in their arms are lost among the trees.

The First Morning of Autumn

It's still dark.

A deep silence

presses the chill into our blankets.

A silence that absorbs everything--

your breathing,

the furry noises the cats make in their sleep,

the muddle of my sleeplessness.

A thick silence like a damper.

In the night

we've pulled the extra quilt up.

The cats have nested by our feet.

When the heater clicks on,

you blink awake

and leave our bed

in that quick and automatic way.

So quiet.  So careful of disturbing.

Your feet know their way through the dark

to the closet

to the stair.

Far away,

the garbage truck starts down a street

and I am missing you already--

missing your shoulder--

and move to tuck myself

into your warm shadow

on the sheets.

A quiet week so I'm spending a little too much time with my cat friends.

                Cloaked Love

My kittens have no lips for kissing--
The sweetest of their affections
          is the soft touch of their needle teeth
                    on the soft flesh of my arm.
Sometimes their exuberance,
                    their ardor
Leaves a mark,
          a twinge, a wince--
But also the craving
          for even more prickly packaged 
                              kitty love.

Because some animals
          have no words to woo
They bite and box,
They dance and nuzzle,
          they coil,
                    they sting.

Animals furred or feathered
          leathered or shelled--
Animals hidden hided in yoga pants
          or leashed with silk ties
                    Windsor knotted--

In the bounds of flesh,
                    love comes cloaked.
It comes stingy, lavish, lopsided.
It comes pokey, timid, wry and brash.

Still,
The pure light of love wants escape.
The pure white light of it wants out--
The straight and true of it
          beaming through our cracks
                    to open air
But filtered by any fleshy weakness,
          bent by every fleshy need like a prism
To myriad colors
                    we strain to see by.

Ahh--the end of baseball season and our Giants were a bit disappointing.

                                One Heart

A hundred different hearts
          sealed inside this train car of Giants fans.
A hundred different hearts
          sealed inside their bony cages.

The tidy husband and wife
                    so carefully aged
Wearing the most expensive team jackets--
                              matching ones.
Their bag of blankets,
Their healthy boxed lunch
          sandwiched between them--
The orange and black tote
                    both linking and separating.
His heart latched onto the grid of his paper.
Her heart wafting over a text.

Across the aisle
A big glittery woman
          talks overloud smack
                    into her phone.
She clicks plastic nails
          each embossed with a tiny SF
                    against its leopardskin skin.

And just behind her a man slumps,
Eyes closed, jaw loose
          and resting on Posey's numbers.

And over there is a weekend dad,
          his eyes drink in the boy beside him.
He fingers a spanking new mitt
                    like a regret his heart reworks.
His son presses up against the window
His little heart raw and open
          to the dizzy fizzy bliss
                    whizzing before him
A blur of then to when.

And leaning up against the door
          and Angry Young Man
Admires his dangerous looks in the glass
And drums his hard fingers
          to the woosh and roar
                    of his own fierce pulse.

Across from him
An old woman wide and smiley as a Buddha
Her crumpled hat
         studded with souvenir pins.
Her wide feet sporting
                    bright orange sneakers.
She hums and knits a tiny bootie.

Two hours, 36 minutes, and 20 seconds
          from this exact moment,
Each of these disparate hearts
          will leap in unison.
Each will lock like a laser
          on a tiny white ball.
Each will crescendo with its arc
          then burst with joy
                    like a firework.
Each of those disparate hearts
          will become one single heart.
And they will know Zion.






                  

 

I've been in a bit of a funk lately--could be due to dental drama and noticing new sags and bags triggered by birthday blues. I thought I needed to get out this old talk I gave at a Women's Conference in Danville to shake off the blahs.

         Happiness is sugar.  As an idea, it’s not particularly big and deep and meaningful like joy or love, but it sure helps the medicine go down.  Some think of happiness as a goal or a prize at the end of some mysterious and mythic journey.  Cynical people describe happiness as foolish or blind and skeptics talk of it as rare.  Some talk about a “search” for happiness as though it can only be found with a secret map.  Regard these kinds of people carefully, because they really just like being disappointed and vexed.  Over time they become very tiresome.  Happiness is easy.  It’s neither hidden nor illusive.  Happiness is the straightforward and natural result of a thoughtful, generous and focussed mind.  It is not a goal, but rather a manner of travel.  It is the way this herky jerky journey we’re on can be made fun.  Happiness is life’s leaven.  And it is also a choice.  As social creatures in a hard world, happiness is the gift we give our fellow travelers.  And here is the secret of how to be happy.  Be grateful.

Happiness is all about paying attention and giving deep and mindful thanks.  It is all about seeing, learning from, and appreciating the present.  In our busy, stressed out lives when all our sneaky wants quickly become needs and our days organize themselves into checklists or route themselves into brisk, straight thoroughfares between points A  and B, we forget to take note.  We forget to truly experience the moment we’re in and give it due reverence. 

Years ago I heard Camilla Kimball speak.  She seemed a very humble person, uncomfortable in the limelight, and for her talk, she walked to the podium and recited a sing-song rhyme.  I remember the poem because it seemed so applicable to me.  I’d just finished painting my staircase white and had two small children, both too short for the handrails.  The poem was a mother’s lament over dirty handprints on the walls.  In the last stanza, she spoke as an old woman and sighed that if she could see one of those lost tiny handprints now, she would hang a gold frame around it.

I think if we could see the moment we’re in for what it truly is, and understand the gift it is in an eternal sense--for what it has to offer and teach, for the good we can do--we would hang gold frames around each of our days, no matter how seemingly mundane or insignificant.  But our days can get monotonous and more often than not, our routine tasks are not what we’d choose given the opportunity.  How do we infuse our ordinary days with happiness and delight?

I went walking with my niece and nephew once when they were very young.  At one point, I watched my seven-year-old niece bring a clod of dirt to her nose.  She stood totally still, shut her eyes, inhaled deeply, and a smile flickered across her face at the smell of it.  I wonder if as adults, we bolt the door of our delight. Our carefully applied and sophisticated tastes have raised the bar too high. We will not stoop for any of the thousand little joys that litter our path.  As we get older, we acquire more and more patience for the trivial and have less patience for the essential.

One Christmas when my family was skiing up in Canada, I’d been goaded as usual, onto a run meant for lemmings or teenagers with more testosterone than sense.  I ended up picking my way ever so carefully over a cornice at the very top of Whistler Mountain.   Needless to say, I was chuck full of fear and loathing and my eyes were glued to every bump and drop beneath my skis.  When I finally came to a place where I could at least stand without plummeting down the mountain, I paused to catch my breath and steal myself for the next few yards—and I glanced up.  In every direction as far as I could see were range after range of rosy pick mountaintops with gauzy purple clouds wrapped around their flanks.  They stood out against a sky so brilliant and deep and blue that the very sight of it brought frozen tears to my eyes.  It was completely astounding.   I’d been so focussed on the obstacles at my feet I’d almost missed one of the most fine and fabulous things I’ll ever see.  And so I have a little sign on my worktable that says, “Look Up.”  I leave it there as a reminder when day to day stuff gets frustrating and I get too obsessed with maneuvering around details and icky little problems.  If I’ll just pause and look around me at the big picture, the very idea of being alive on this planet is completely amazing.

When we take note and begin to understand our experiences profoundly, we are compelled to gratitude.  And this is the secret to happiness and joy.  When we are profoundly grateful, we are joyful and our joy becomes worship.

Then if gratitude generates true happiness, what kind of gratitude is most acceptable to God?  

I suppose all gratitude begins with recognition, the listing of blessings.  A magical thing happens when we begin this simple process.  It’s like focussing hard on the one bright star in the night sky.  Soon all those faint stars surrounding it slowly appear and so it is with blessings.  Simply beginning to notice our most apparent blessings reveals more subtle blessings and soon we realize our lives are richer than we ever suspected.  But this is only the first level of gratitude.

The application of gratitude is a second level.  Gratitude can be a kind of Lamaze breathing, something we can focus on rather than the monotonous or grim aspects of our daily lives.  At this level, our attitude changes and we begin to be happy people.  We don’t just count our blessings and go beyond simply noticing them.  We focus on them and think about them and this changes our perception of life.  Seeing our lives in a new way, we respond to situations more positively and people around us respond to us differently as well.  Our outlook changes the very nature of our life.

The third level is worship.  When my children were young, I made them lots of toys with the secret hope that they’d be loved to tatters.  I didn’t want them to be collected and saved.  I wanted them loved to bits and pieces because I knew that something’s real value is measured in love and use.  And so I suspect that the kind of gratitude most acceptable to God is also one of love and use.  The truest and highest form of gratitude, the kind that creates joy and constitutes worship, is a genuine understanding of our lives in an eternal sense with an eternal perspective.  A relish of our day to day experiences—for their sensual delight and also for the growth they offer.  It is a devout love and respect and delight for the very gift of life itself.  Over time, this kind of gratitude gradually removes the thick cataract of mortality.  Bit by bit, we see past the sludge and artificial clutter of life to its divine underpinnings.  When we are truly grateful, our eyes are opened and we see the hand of God everywhere we turn.

Elizabeth Barret Browning wrote, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.”  When we recognize the hand of God in everything we see and experience, we stand all amazed.  We rejoice.  We praise God and that’s what worship is.

So if our gratitude and our happiness and our delight are worship, then surely unhappiness is a kind of blindness—perhaps a myopic self indulgence, a crutch, a habit, a tether to past grief, a vanity, or even a refuge when we’ve lost our nerve.  Whatever unhappiness is—it is at the very least ingratitude.  We walk each day neck deep in blessings—blessings as big and complex and tangled as the love of a spouse or a dear friend or a child, or those as small and rare and wondrous and fragile as the smell at the base of a baby’s neck.

We can give our unhappiness clinical names, call it a disease, call it a kind of handicap we were born with.  We can chart its sources—chemical, hormonal, our natural dispositions.  But no matter what its source, we cannot give our unhappiness validity.  Because at the very heart of unhappiness is an ingratitude that surely must be galling to the God who made this earth and sacrificed his beloved son just for our chance to be here and feel all this stuff.

There is much to grieve in this life if we choose to spend it grieving.  There is much heartbreak, hopelessness, betrayal, bitterness and pain.  But our wiser selves, our pre-mortal spirit selves, chose this particular life for us because they saw the inherent beauty and growth and usefulness in it.  Our wiser spirit selves knew that “Man is that he might have joy.”  And that joy is a positive little word that includes and encompasses the vast and intricate beauty in all those negatives.  Our eternal selves knew that pain is a necessary element of joy—that we can only have joy about those things that have cost us tears.

In a documentary about AIDS in Africa, I watched an interview of a tiny orphan living with the disease.  The interviewer was banking on a cheap tug at our heartstrings and asked the little girl how she felt about her situation, but she surprised him.  She thought a moment, smiled this big toothy smile, and said that she was really happy.  She held up five crayons and said, “Look.  I have yellow, blue, red, green and orange.”   Gratitude.

I was out enjoying my garden and remembered this poem about Bill and Ann Powell.

                       Old Bill's Garden


They are digging up Old Bill's garden--
          tossing the stakes naked of pea vines,
                   tramping the furrows bereft of their berries.
They are paving over the pebbly path
          that measured the shortening of his steps.
They are trenching through the derelict rows
          laying pipe where Ann's peonies once struggled,
                   where her roses fed the deer.

The spoil rises.
It piles against the sill
          where his gloves rested.
It grows in a tangle of brush and root,
          the hacked remains of the old apple and plum.
It grows with planks of fence.
It grows with shards of the siding
Bill hammered in place one hot summer
          and painted Ann's favorite color.
It rises like a pyre.

A big mouthed backhoe clears the spot
Where the two green lawn chairs
          sat side by side
                    for all those years.
Two chairs,
Even when Ann was gone
          and only Bill was left 
                    to watch the traffic and the sunflowers.
And then just two empty chairs--
          watching the road like a poem.

See all the grey earth scraped clean of them,
Blank and bare
          and waiting for the next story.