A Litany of Next Things

I am forcibly willing myself to sit in this hard wooden library chair.

Right now, as I finger this keyboard, the sky above my roof has been cooled to a deep cerulean and is being occasionally scrubbed to gleaming by wave after wave of cloud stuff. Every tree is heavy with leaves and shadow but, hidden deep within each, is the glory of birdsong, trilling like so much music.

This day is one I will not soon forget. It is just too beautiful to let slip into the ether, as if it was nothing remarkable that the sun broke free of the horizon and unleashed this beauty on all whose eyes fluttered open this morning.

This day is the sort from which dreams are spun.

So to purposely sit here, in this chair, on this day means I am trying, with all of my might, to finger the threads of thought that have been fraying frantically in my head for months. These last weeks and days have often felt unmanageable, heavy with grief and bewilderment and seeming idleness. I have done my best to muddle through, pulling on joy when I couldn't handle the dark anymore and praying that sleep walking was better than standing still.

But the honest truth is that I have often felt as if I was screaming, mouth wide open, throat scraping raw, screaming. Silent and piercing, all at once. The core of me, the one that must write to figure out what she is thinking, has felt imprisoned by grief.

If, a year ago, you had tossed out the question of how I might one day deal with the pain of losing my mother I would have, most assuredly, said: writing.

So, when confronting the reality and heartbreak of my mother's actual death, I've hardly penned a word in response? Well, it has been disconcerting, at best.

And the longer the break, the more days that pass and words fail to appear?
The more I
have felt
as if I
am
disappearing.

I have felt like a glass jar full of silt shaken and left alone, shaken and left alone, shaken and left alone
again
and
again
and
again.

That is why today's clarion beauty has felt like such a gift. The morning's lighter air and gentle rippling set a precedent and the waters upon which chaos floated have started to settle. A separation has begun and I am beginning to distinguish sand and rock and crystal. What used to be only a muddied swirling now contains flecks of gold dust.

This might just be where the words have been hiding.

All of today has been like one slow remembering. I realize that grief has kept me from noticing like I used to notice. When you are trying to simply put one foot in front of the other, you don't often bother to spend time studying vapor trails or listen to the way grass stretches as each drop of dew slowly evaporates. You just seem to focus on the next thing.

But today gifted me with a litany of next things and I have discovered that the gnarl of frayed and woolly thoughts languishing in my head have begun to spin. Along their edges there seems to be a thread forming. The beautiful and terrible things of this world are working together to draw out the fibers in my mess and the twisting and whirling of the last few months don't feel quite so in vain.

I think that, tomorrow, I will follow the beauty.

Again.

Saving Daylight

I caught sight of it as I passed the window yesterday
down the driveway thick with mud and gathered puddles
Three birds in silhouette
the afternoon sun flooding them from behind
taking a bath

My lips curled skyward
and I stood motionless
for five whole minutes
Because
the audacity

The day before that
you pretended to be Huck playing in the bulrushes
and you brought me handfuls of cat tail fluff
my palms opened to the offering
and you glowed

The dark earth, moist with thaw
has begun its heaving heavenward
pushed from below
until, split open like the body
it becomes broken

Then, today
I turned that last corner out of the woods
and came up on the lake
glimmering with a thousand
salvos of light

And I'm clutching all of it
with an unbecoming fierceness
hell bent on gathering glory
as if it wasn't raining
right round

Luster

Blue
Full Sturgeon
Green Corn
Grain
and
Full Red

I, too
drape myself in names

Time may cause the cloth
to hang and shift
but the form that
pushes out from beneath
is still true
even when it is dark
as
pitch

Luster
that is your secret
for you are
diligent and faithful
and
your reward
is radiance
the kind that illuminates
shadowed
shapes

Perhaps
I should take heed
and observe
that the changing of garments
without
a vision

Is not the same
thing
as the slow march
of time
across the sky
as the music
of the spheres
sparkles
glory

++++++++++++++++
Linking with Emily for Imperfect Prose

photo credit: Tim Fields on Flickr

Foretaste

"In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary."  ~Aaron Rose

The daylight has shifted, quietly
and now it gently wanes.
Days are still warm and locusts still drone
but the world is tilting
and we adjust our steps
despite ourselves.

I watch as the sunlight
crackles through the emerald leaves
and the swaying shaking boughs
are clapping
right out
and I know it
down deep

That this dripping delicious daylight
is but a
foretaste...

You can find the rest of my poem over at SheLoves Magazine today. 

Would love to have you join me there.

New mercies

I walked the dog this morning, something I haven't done much since becoming pregnant. My dear husband has developed a keen ability to sense when I need him to step in, grab the leash, and slip out the door, unheard. And I have been thankful.
But this morning, we were all moving a little slower and it was I that grabbed the leash and slipped out the door.

It is mid-July and every night the sky sinks heavy upon the earth, pressing out her moisture, coating every blade of grass, every secretly spun web, every petal of every bloom with dewy drops. I breathe in air that is thick and palpable and all but dripping.

I am instantly humbled that much of my walking these days feels just like that.

I am full with child now. My belly goes before me and I smile to think of how my body proclaims the truth that a child will, indeed, lead us. All I can do, anymore, is just follow him. This child lives and moves within me and sometimes I feel as if I will burst but, in all of this, together, we have our being.

It is heavy work, this being. The only way not to be completely undone in the process is by simply putting one foot in front of the other. And so we walk.

I turn the corner at the end of my driveway and see that the sun has peeked over the treetops, illuminating them from behind, gilding their edges. It is only because of Love that they are not wholly consumed and I receive it as one small glimpse of a new mercy. I sigh.

As we plod through the thick air there is a piercing, a trill that begins to unravel it all. A cardinal sings heartily unto its mate, beckoning her to follow, to come, to look and see that it is good. And He is right.

And then we see it.

The lake.

And it is as if gold dust, straight from the edge of heaven, has rained down in the night. Floating atop the water is the evidence of glory come down and the rising sun has now cracked open its very center. Diamond light flits and bounces and dances upon the surface and I am almost blinded by its burning.

My baby leaps.

I catch my breath.

And in a moment, this world, this life, this everything... it is thick and palpable and all but dripping and there is no way that I can take it all in before it is running down my fingers, soaking my feet, oozing from my skin, laughing its way down the road.

Everything.
Every.
thing.
feels so full.

I look, again, at the water. At the dancing light and the shimmering beauty. I marvel at its hidden depths, all that is not yet revealed. I imagine what lives beneath the surface, what life has yet to emerge.

And I know it.

This is that grace ocean.

And we are all drowning...



Linking with Emily and Jennifer.

A foretaste

Your words

they speak

of counting hairs

and

grains of sand

And so

 it must be 

that 

You have touched 

each

and

every

golden orb

with

Light

And now

each

swells

with 

a

foretaste

of

Glory

divine

On the darkest night

On

the darkest night

when

greedy arms

encroach

and

spread

wider, thicker, stronger

than

I

there is yet 

a

light

and

it

burns

on

always

Dust of heaven

In the still

of the afternoon

when the sun

yawns

long

If you

tilt

your head

just so

You will find

the dust

of

heaven

right

round

Quiet

Unscripted.  Unedited.  Real.

Writing for five minutes.

A sort of writing flash mob.

I lay down in the field, crunchy with decay and prickly with spent blooms. Such is the bed I choose, sometimes. Down low, nestled among the swaying skeletons of summer, my only view is skyward. The blue expanse is dotted with a billowy white that absorbs my piercing gaze and, if I stay still long enough, I can almost feel the tilt of the globe.  I am captured by the quiet.

I am resting in the eye of the storm and nothing can penetrate this hallowed space. It might be true that a storm rages at the edges and the thunder claps and flashing lights compete to frame this space outright but I choose to remain in this circle of quiet. It is only here that I will be able to hear the murmurs riding atop the gentle breezes. It is here where I can be still and know.

Glisten

"Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips..."

-Anne Glenny Wilson

God of wonder

whose love reaches around

corners

-dark-

to find me

Nestle in me

a

courageous faith

that lets loose

the icy heart

and

glistens

gold

at

sunrise

Roots

Unscripted.  Unedited.  Real.

Writing for five minutes.

A sort of writing flash mob.

I remember when I first saw this tree. It's massive trunk in stark contrast to its feathery leaves. How I was humbled just standing next to it, painfully and gracefully aware of my smallness. And how amazingly beautiful it was. 

It was October and its usual verdant leaves were caught in transition between emerald and amber. To stand at its trunk and gaze up into its flowing, wide-spread branches was to be at once, humbled and sheltered.

But what grabbed me the most about this magnificent tree was its roots. They were dark and gnarled and expansive and they wove themselves in and out of each other, in route to the water just near.

And the whole monstrous behemoth of a tree leaned.........

It gracefully and beautifully leaned into its life source.

It was as if it inherently knew it could sway and bend, reach and extend, grow and rest

because of its roots, flug deep and far and wide.

I want to be that tree, planted by the stream, who bears fruit at the right time and whose leaves do not dry up.

And so, if I am ever cut down, I will be like the stump of Jesse and branches will sprout from my mouth and I will live.

Write enough...

It's true.

As the writing has become habit, so too, have my eyes opened... 

wider 

deeper 

longer.

I walk in the woods and the trees part above me, 

dappling the ground with gold and amber.

The crisping air carries the shouts of children further 

and 

makes the call of the goose lonelier.

I touch the earth and I know its pulsing, 

I feel its journey 

through 

each 

and 

every

sun-drenched day.

To write is to become soused in the glory of the daily 

and 

sometimes 

you can scarcely catch your breath.

It is exhilarating. 

It is terrifying.

It is rich.

World without end.

Amen.

I have joined the likes of many other bloggers who have one goal in mind:

to sweeten the world with poetry words.

Once a month, for six months, you can expect to find new

photo poetry quotes in this space, courtesy of 

http://wordcandy.me/

I will also be sharing poetry quotes with others via email, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

Wide open

O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!

     Thy winds, thy wide great skies!

     Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!  

Long have I known a glory in it all,

     But never knew I this:

     Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.

My soul is all but out of me, --let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

I have felt this, keenly. 

I just spoke of it here and it seems to be fringing the edges of my heart these days...this swelling and bursting. Longing and aching.

And, yes, it begins with the splitting wide of my heart to make room for all of the glory ringed round. It stops me short when I chase the boys under the canopy of heaven and the sun leaks through the limbs and showers yellow all about us. The boys, they flit and fly. They try to catch even a single leaf to put in their pocket where it will burn amber. And I watch and I know. Later this week, we will find their ashes when we go to wash and crumbled gold dust will sift to the floor. The grit beneath my feet will chafe and I will look up and know. We tried to hold it close enough. 

Yes, I know this feeling. This burning. This desire. This looking all around and seeing beauty, heavy and dripping.

But soon, these trees will stop clapping and only their bony limbs will remain. Stripped of their raiment, they will stand naked and cold against the leaden skies. And what then? Will I be like a stilted lover whose heart has cooled with the dawn, chasing the shadows of night so as not to be discovered cleaving to a naked frame?

Oh, how fickle my heart is. 

Passion is not just throbbing emotion. It is a spreading out. An undergoing. An allowing of things to pass. A suffering, even.

It is me, hands outstretched, receiving. Always.

Yes, I want all of this beauty, all of this joy, all of this goodness. I want to press it to my lips. I want to  tattoo memories in the hidden places, so I will always remember.

But I need to pray to be pulled apart so that my soul is all but out of me. And, in the opening that is created, I need God to fall in.

Because, Lord, I have to hold thee close enough.

There is a winter coming.

Linking with Emily and Duane

Bethesda

I felt the constriction when dawn broke that day in the Springs. The tightening of forehead and eye bone that pulls one's vision inward and away from the light, it found me. And like a vise, it held me in its grip. For days.
It mattered not that the sun pulsed warm or that the rocks glowed red. It ignored the lilting timbre of boys and quiet rush of beast caught unawares.
It cared not that it was an uninvited guest or that it walked roughshod over my days.
Like a proverbial thorn in my side, it haunted my every waking hour.
The only escape seemed to be down the mountain.

But I was not going that way.

The irony was not lost on me: that in the ascending, I was suffering from a hypoxia, of sorts. I was closer to fine if I stopped moving. But you see, I had come to climb mountains and I didn't have time for these shenanigans.

It hurt the most that day when I wasn't listening. All of us wear layers of love and, sometimes, their very fabric chafes. I was wearing too many clothes that day, old ones that no longer fit, and they were piled beneath that sweater that I bought that made me think of you. I suppose I thought that all those layers would round out my rough edges but really, they only hid my bones. You longed to be close to my frame but I was too bundled to be found. One can suffocate from the weight of ill fitting garments.

The way out of the hurt was to walk in the thin air. To be alive in it, despite its desire to snuff out my flickering. Together, we peeled off the layers that were no longer my style and I breathed deep, in spite of myself. We looked up at those peaks, temporarily obscured by clouds of unknowing, and locked hands. Sometimes we need to be guided up mountains, to step in the footprints of those who know where they want to go. So were you to me.

And then, the miracle happened. Despite your leading, I still found my head spinning light and untethered, like a top flung to the edge of the table. But the light of the golden aspens fell across our path, exposing stones and limbs and other snares. And we just kept climbing. We were headed to that lake, nestled among the crags, named for maidens unseen, and it pulled at us. It was there, on the side of that pool, that the grip on my head and heart flew away.

It was water that would save me from the chains that had been clanking around my head. As we sat in silence around the lake, I watched the water ripple and calm, bubble and rest and I knew that this moment would be my undoing. The clouds, heavy and gray, let go of their essence and dripped life all over me. And, seated upon an ancient rock, placed their ages ago by water in a different form, I knew I had found my own Bethesda. And so I picked up my mat and walked.

Ten days later...what I've learned

I'm back from vacation and it's weird and wonderful all at the same time. I am both comforted and confused by the smell and feel of home after having been gone for days on end. There is even a little grief that comes upon the returning...the end of time set apart and away, contrasted with the realization that life continued on, even in your absence. The sun rose and set, rain fell, people went to work, time marched on...almost as if you being there mattered not. Humbling, it is.

And then there is the processing of it all. Perhaps I should just be like other people and let the last ten days be what they were: vacation. But I'm not other people and I write to figure out what I'm thinking and so I need to revisit it all. Again.

Ten days ago I was full to bursting with palpable excitement and energy. I had hopes and expectations of a trip that I portended as significant. Three generations were going to pack themselves up and journey together. This was going to be an adventure, dammit!

And, while there is most definitely a place for hope and anticipation, there is a more pressing need to simply be present and that, my friends was the first thing I learned while away.

Early on, I realized that if I didn't stop thinking about where we were headed and focus on where we actually were, I was going to miss the whole thing. 

And the whole thing was as big and wide as the Kansas sky. 

I found it in the early morning dark and the sharp smell of strong coffee 

in the small towns like Knob Noster and Emma 

in the bouncing of my dad's head to the driving rhythm of a Mumford & Sons song as the landscape blurred behind him

in the graceful majesty of miles upon miles of wind turbines, jutting upwards and spinning all pinwheel-like

And when the van decided to simply. stop. going

and we were, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere

when my usual response would most likely have been wailing and gnashing of teeth

my son, August, chose to respond with song. I turned from the symbol of ruin, the broken down van on the side of the road, and found my little boy and his ukelele and the dark ribbon of road, buoying me up with improvised melodies and suddenly we were gypsies and this was just the beginning of one grand adventure

And then someone told me to turn around and look and there was the sun, so heavy with orange and red that she couldn't hold her head up any longer and my cheeks glowed and we were all bathed in glory, swelling and sinking right there in the western sky.

That's how it all started, that very first day.

And it could have soured quickly and spoiled the whole brew but there were prayers being whispered and traveling mercies wrapped us right round and we had to smile at the angels disguised as tow truck drivers and state patrolmen.

++++++

I learned, on our second day, that even though I want to see and taste and feel the expanse of it all, my ability to truly capture every moment is determined by how I choose to frame them.  I take pictures because the lens closes in on those crazy rugged mountains with their spiky backbones and fuzzy pines and it disciplines me to do the same.  

I marveled at how thousands of pounds of rock could balance on its head with grace and gravitas and how maybe the impossible wasn't what I thought it was. That maybe, just maybe, I could dare to stand so boldly with dreams blazing and head tilted up and that what might appear as lunacy to some might be catalyst to another.

I stood small and, seemingly, insignificant before a cascade of rock and ripples and found myself with an incredible urge to scream my presence to all of creation.  As if, in failing to do so, I would be swallowed up by the hugeness and forgotten. But then I watched as the clouds played hide and seek with the sun and their shadows covered and uncovered the landscape beneath and I saw that there is a time for everything and everyone and all of it is unceasingly beautiful.

++++++

On the days that followed, we hiked among rock and ledge and we held our hands up to receive showers of gilded joy. The aspens shook with glory straight up and their quaking sang with a whispering beauty. As the skies turned to slate and dripped tears and the pines took on a darkness that hushed the hills, the aspens began to glow. The leaves were lit with a fire within and we drank up their light, eyes wide open and brimming. It's true...there's gold in them hills.

And we beheld the miracle that is a mountain pine. Roots held fast to rock, exposed to every extreme of weather, it takes the shape of its life experience. Unshielded, it becomes like clay in the hands of the potter wind and it twists and turns and wreathes upon itself. It would seem that such treatment would leave it maimed and disabled but it rallies, in spite of itself. The result is a gorgeous tableau of lines and curves that speak of both struggle and triumph and the beauty that comes from a life fully submitted and fully grounded.

I suppose the trip was truly epic--there were heroines and deeds of great strength and the muses spoke continually to my poet heart. But I think what I took most from this journey was the richness that comes from time well spent. Time with the people you love so much it aches. Time spent keeping your eyes wide open. Time allowed to unfold with wonder and curiosity. Time on top of time.

Go West Older Lady!

Go West Young Older Man Lady!

One more day.

That is all that remains before my family embarks on an epic trip to Colorado. 

Today will be full of hustling and bustling, list making and organizing, packing and planning. We will drop our dog off at the kennel that makes her smell stinky and clinical but where she is well-loved.  We will load up the family truckster with all the necessary accoutrements, fill fuel tanks and tires, clean windshields and seat cushions.

And tomorrow, when the sun peeks over the edge of the world, we will be driving away from it, headed West.

You see, we are making this trip with my parents.  

They were supposed to go to Italy, those two.  That was their dream and something that they carefully researched for quite some time. It was going to be beautiful. They were going to cruise the Mediterranean, eat themselves plump and take in the beauty of that boot shaped land. 

But, in the interim, my dad's hip and back and feet decided to betray him and my mom's leukemia got a little riotous and so Italy was put on the back burner.  First, indefinitely. Then, permanently.  

And there was a sadness.

So, for a time, they attended to their health and garnered up their strength. And then, being the amazing people that they are, my parents pitched an alternative.  Why don't we take a trip together instead?

And the dream for this trip was born.

Tomorrow, when we back out of the driveway and turn that loaded van towards the West, there will be a lot riding on those wheels.

There will be two boys who will take their schooling on the road.  The rugged landscape, the strange geological formations, the ancient homes built into the side of cliffs, the hundreds of thousands of acres of unspoiled land filled with elk and bear and mountain goats...all of it will become their classroom.  

There will be me and my husband.  And we will find ourselves in the unique position of traveling as parents and as the parented, navigating decisions with another set of opinions and perspectives, summoning patience for the young and the old, and loving each other through it all.

And there will be my parents, whose generosity of head and heart knows no bounds.  This time around, they will be passengers rather than navigators.  Their job will be to look wide-eyed at the beauty, to soak up the laughter of their grandchildren and to marvel at a length of days that is beyond a gift and is, quite remarkably, a miracle.

++++++

For the next ten days I am going offline.  This space will be quiet as I travel with my family and focus on being fully with them and in the moment.  It will feel very strange to not immediately share my experiences with you as I have become quite accustomed to chronicling my days and my heart in this space.  But I believe that this time away will grow something new in me.  I need to unplug and slow down and be present.  It will be good for me to have conversations with the people who are most important to me and wait for their comments, rather than virtual ones.  And it will be soul stretching to be still and quiet and listen for the sounds of the spheres.  Thank you for your patience and understanding.  

How hope runs deep

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon weeding.

I haven't weeded since June.

It just seemed silly to me to pull up things that were already dead. And so, I just left them there. For months.  Scattered around like errant bowls of dry corn flakes, they blended in just fine with the nearly dead perennials.  Everything sat around all summer, wasted and spent.  And brown.

And then the rains came.  First, the angry storm that blew in atop winds from the South.  It burst through our creaky and split threshold like a loud uncle that walks too heavy and has leaves stuck in his hair but everyone forgives him because hides doves in his pockets.  And I rejoiced with sweet hallelujahs on my lips, for truly this was a miracle, this rain.  But secretly, I was still thirsty.

A week later and another rain.  Fast and furious and gushing buckets, this rain baptized the world anew.  Finding every crack and crevice that harbored dry dusty dirt, it flushed it out.  Every stone was turned.  Every limb was tested.

Then Saturday dawned, crisp and supple, and I sighed in spite of myself.  I began to remember that there is a time for everything and there is always this turning, above and below, and it has a cadence and a wisdom that exists apart from me.

I witnessed the miracle of how spirit breath and holy water can bring the dead to life.  All around, green buds burst out of the nothingness and sang.  And for the first time in months, I needed to weed.

It took all afternoon.

I pulled and tossed and wiped my brow and felt the sweet autumn sun on my shoulders.  And I began to see.  When there has been a time of barrenness, a time of burning fire and then dead air, a time of nothingness, the roots of established plants want to let go.  They want to hand themselves over to the siren song of death, give up their ghost and just.let.go.  But they are image bearers and as a result their very marrow hums with creation's song and they unconsciously continue to reach for life.  Deep below the surface, in the dark where no one sees, there is a groping.  Up above, where their fruit should be, they parade as dead.  But underneath, where the shadows reign, they are still hoping.

And then that blissful rain falls and quenches the profoundest thirst and now the surface begins to communicate with the deep and there is an understanding.  My flowers, the ones that seemed dead before, they've come back to life, above and below.  Those roots remember their full purpose now and they pulse.

Now there are weeds and I must pull them.  Out.

My hands plunge and scoop and toss and dirt flies and I know.  That we all come from this dirt.  That we are human because god took this humus and pasted it together and breathed life into death.  And although the weeds have found new life, so too, has the beauty.  It was joined with hope all along.

{Imperfect Prose} The shimmering

It has been a very dry season and I was beginning to stumble around, drunk on dust and the droning of locusts. Living in the middle of a drought causes your very edges to shrink in upon themselves and you become smaller, in spite of yourself. There is a brittleness to your frame that cowers in the presence of deep shadows.  Everything becomes too heavy.

And then one day, someone else's storm birthed my salvation.  The irony was not lost on this soul who craves justice and mercy.  From death comes life.  Always.

The leaden sky swelled with promise and then began to leak through all the holes I had poked in its crackling and leathered veneer...holes made by my pointed prayers and broken hallelujahs.  

And as the rain fell, I saw that it fell on the dying and the living with equal measure because surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

The rain fell, hour upon hour upon hour and we all bowed low from the weight of glory falling all around us.

These bodies had curled in upon themselves, parched and done with the business of living and, in a singular moment, it was as if that was the miracle...that in the giving of our very lives we had become the perfect vessel for receiving this living water.  Cupped corpses had become holy altars.

And in the quiet of the woods, stretched between limbs that reached for one another, were invisible strands.  Spun in the hushed nights and hidden in the folds of darkness.   The silent work that goes unheralded.  

It was the rain that revealed their magic.  

As the heavy sky dripped sloppy on the world, one by one, the fat drops were strung on strings. 

And suddenly the world was wrapped in gowns of gossamer and there was a shimmering.  

{On, In, and Around Mondays}

kaleidoscope eyes

are what I want for seeing

all of this each day


 


linking up with L.L. Barkat for On, In, and Around Mondays

{Word Candy Wednesday}