If all time is eternally present,
All time is unredeemable...” T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”
The dust stirred of its own
On a windless day—Maybe the sunlight,
Or the memory of dew
Drying in warmth from the sun
Lifted the dust.
We cleared the orchard of children
Counted four—
What of the fifth?
Was there a fifth?
We forgot the one fond of small spaces
She made so little soundFor one who liked to sing—
You had to know where to listen,
In the silence of song
Under tunnels of leaves,
Burning green in the early hours,
Darker by moonlight.
At the sound of footsteps
Only the leaves breathed.
Her eyes became blackberries—
You wouldn’t know
They kept watch.
After the playing in leaves
Was done,We accustomed ourselves to what remained,
Compensating by reflex.
How can you miss what never was there?
What might have been
And what has been
Are all the same, we’re told—
Eternally Now, in serenity of things present,
Surrender the lost time
Surrender the lost...
Surrender.
As if calling it such
Fills the body of word—No hollow words—
Repeating them often
At least makes a sound
Somewhat of words—
Surrendering dust made a blanket
Of time,
But under it slumbered
The one we forgot,Except in matters of song
That stayed in small places
However we tried.
She must have thought we tucked her in
Forgetting the lullaby
Forgetting the prayer—
She loved thick blankets
And stars she could see Through the window.
She said she could hear
The music of stars,
That everyone could
If they learned to be still.
How could we know she was sleeping,
When she stayed so still?
She must have been dreaming of song,
Stirring the dust on a windless day,With sunlight lifting the leaves—
Not hearing footsteps approach
From the Second World
That doesn’t know of
Dust and leaves,
And what can sleep under them
In tunnels made gold—
How could we know she was sleeping,
When she stayed so still?
She said everyone could,
Regardless of Worlds, apparently,Or she wouldn’t have listened to you
Come out of there now,
You’re somewhere—
Startled, she burst from the leaves
Like a pheasant, scaring the horse,
Settled at flight distance
Watchful, awake—
A small feather came away in your hand,
But from the other world
You couldn’t have seen.
She stayed for the song.
If time is unredeemable,
Yet all eternally present,
What is Surrender
But a false word that means
Something like sleep
Or forgetting?
Redeeming time is the Now
That cancels the lost—
The finding and making
Here, if we learn to be still
Is the music of stars.
We fight so little,
And not long enough,Too easy acceptance
Too much moving past,
We call it a Life,
Repeat the word often,
At least making sounds
Of something like words—
Humankind can bear Reality,
As we bear the pain of birth,A fact to be accomplished
In defiance of Time
That tells us to leave
The dust unstirred.
December, 2011
White Water
From a height delineating colors
Where the Green and Colorado Rivers merge in confluence,
One dark, one green, until crashing into cataracts
Beats them both to white.
White making easy to assume the simplicity of streams
Traveling seaward, especially from a surface not to be fought,
Only ridden, holding to prayers of safety hurtling inexorably
Down, unthinkable effort to reverse
Even the sending of a song back through time
To the source of the darker stream,
Wishing it bright.
Best to plunge, against all instinct, holding breath
As if the mountains depend upon one child
Never breathing through the tunnel,
Below the buffeting of rocks,
To the lowest flows that against all sense
Contravene the roar and fight.
Swim the unconformity until awkward as a child
You take again first steps, faltering speech,
Holding to prayers of safety
While rivers carve their canyons,
Fixity of stone smoothed under sprays of white.
May, 2012
Moth Hour
Acquiesce to green wings of luna moths
Silent on the window screen.
Something in the green of their wings,
Decorated Argus eyes
And no mouths to speak
Asking questions I cannot answer,
Not at this hour, where it’s gone:
The done and left undone,
Commissions and omissions
Our moments of silence kneeling
Not as sins but dim regrets
I have no answer for the moth,
But the kitchen at least is clean,
Plastic over the cake and coffee set to brew.
Small acts of hope as the blanket descends,
The unearthly song of summer cicadas
Too early this year,
Blamed, of course, on a winter
Unseasonably warm.
July, 2012
Fronting
Roadways pull these restless years,
Late summer burning early gold
On the evening leaves,
Open door weather at last
Setting the boxed air free.
September is the time for travels,
After the bending and unbending
Of hot August, the humid dreams
Spent in stealth of night,
Dried by sunrise, nothing left to cool the day.
You front the day—
How many fronted now?
Tolerate discomfort, discontent, until
You cease to mark the lack
Of meals filling hunger sharply felt,
Neither the meal nor the hunger
For so long now of any note—
The dulling of the Life—
Until the surprise of a scent
Of supper in someone else’s home
Reminds you it’s dark,
You walk the neighborhood alone.
These are stars beginning to burn,
This brightness is the moon,
With crossing clouds
That smell of the sea.
9/19/2012
Casting
The drift of coffee before remembering
You traveled last night
And this is a hotel
Not your room at all
A thought of the scent at sunrise
Could be enough
To cast a form for the day:
Warmth in hand,
A cup already full.
The idea of the day
Before the day itself--
The idea of the life
Before the life itself,
At least as a place to start.
Perhaps the casting of a thought
At dawn, when the fishing is good,
Would draw to the surface something
Muscular, bright, and alive.
Something proud of its fight.
Then, if the hook slips,
And the ripples cease,
And the water smooths,
At least the rest of the day you'll know
Something is there,
And it is muscular, bright, and alive.
It is there--
You'll cast for it again,
and again.
August, 2004
Santa Fe
The holy space is gentle,
July, 2012
Episcopal Church of the Ascension
Hickory, NC
You traveled last night
And this is a hotel
Not your room at all
A thought of the scent at sunrise
Could be enough
To cast a form for the day:
Warmth in hand,
A cup already full.
The idea of the day
Before the day itself--
The idea of the life
Before the life itself,
At least as a place to start.
Perhaps the casting of a thought
At dawn, when the fishing is good,
Would draw to the surface something
Muscular, bright, and alive.
Something proud of its fight.
Then, if the hook slips,
And the ripples cease,
And the water smooths,
At least the rest of the day you'll know
Something is there,
And it is muscular, bright, and alive.
It is there--
You'll cast for it again,
and again.
August, 2004
Santa Fe
canto della marea
Brightening skies pull the sleep
Still rocking on the outbound tide
Yearning for the far beyond
All dreams, the land Original
And wild,
Where what we know began
And where knowledge will end
The still sleep rocking
On the outbound waves
Forgetful, washing clean
Accumulated thoughts dissolving
Reasons we might have had
To wake.
Blueness stirring the sleep
As the shifting sea reclaims the sand,
Foam reaching fingers to gather shells
Of night
Assuring a clean day
Ready for the rhythm and footprints
Of feet running the beach.
The water restores us to land,
Outward journeys fade,
Forgetting how we arrived
Or when, exactly,
Except that travels cease,
And where we empty our bags,
We call it “home”
To anchor against the outbound tide
That at sunset stirs again,
Tugs against the day
We hold against the sleep
Where again we’ll forget
Why it is we wake.
March 21, 2012
Falmouth
Creed
“Come away by yourselves . . . rest awhile.” Mark 6:31The holy space is gentle,
Soft sounds and welcome peace.
The pages of the books are worn to silk
Opening of themselves.
The rector speaks few words:
Asks when we last had rest,
Inquires of the volume of our lives,
If its level has dimmed our song?
She sits, waits, allows space between words
We didn’t expect, thinking now is the Creed—
We believe in one God, the Father the Almighty,
But silence instead, reaching.
We wonder if something’s wrong,
If we’ve misread the worship folder,
Until we realize this isn’t printed in the text—
An extended rest
For the worn souls
In a silence mounting and holding
Against anticipated rhythms
Of the ancient Creed.
Bone flute
Breath through old bone
Feathers a bird long dead,
Restores flesh and claw to a cave bear,
Hollow pipes reverberating
Flight and sounds of wings,
Violence of teeth and fur
Left to cast their dreams
In the dark, fragments
Stripped of referents
We speculate,
Not recreate.
Not wholly dead,
No need for faith to prove
What fell on human ear,
Element of ritual, dance, or death—
The simplicity of caves
Saying bones aren’t done
Speaking yet
Where sound, and hope of song,
Go on.
Breathe upon these slain
So many like me
Littered over valleys—
Tribes, nations, daughters
Dry bones, disassembled
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you,
And ye shall live.
Waiting to hear what my bones
Will say
Since I wasn’t sure,
Through life—
But no need for faith to prove
Such elements of ritual, dance, or death—
Restore me to the simplicity of caves,
And I will know my bones
Aren’t done speaking yet,
Where sound, and hope of song,
Go on.
November, 2011
For Jelle Atema, with thanks
Leavings
Her flute trailed a stream of song
We looked for long beyond
The expectation of a final note
That didn't come--
She walked stately off the stage
Before the song was done,
Her rippling gown
A floating image,
Then gone.
Silence lifts from sound,
Infinitely thinned
Beyond our reach to perceive
Silver notes now hard to catch
As fireflies,
With ways of saying what they mean,
As if the air, at night, is precisely what it seems,
Wetting our feet with dew--
How many stories can there be?
Too many, or too few?
The impossibility of articulating
The same phrase twice,
Precisely duplicating
Every entrance, exit,
Accidental imperfection
Argues for infinity.
Give every note its worth,
Our teachers say.
We wish on falling stars.
If I've learned it correctly,
It always comes back,
A sense of standing
Close to castles in the dark,
Where moonlight settles on stones
Watered by wind in dreams;
A sense of standing
Close to water in the dark,
The air precisely what it seems--
Our echo of story and song.
August, 2011
for Susan Fries,
who taught me first
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