Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way

Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way

If you're John Muir you want trees to
live among.  If you're Emily, a garden
will do.
Try to find the right place for yourself.
If you can't find it, at least dream of it.

When one is alone and lonely, the body
gladly lingers in the wind or the rain,
or splashes into the cold river, or
pushes through the ice-crusted snow.

Anything that touches.

God, or the gods, are invisible, quite
understandable.  But holiness is visible,
entirely.

Some words will never leave God's mouth,
no matter how hard you listen.

In all the works of Beethoven, you will
not find a single lie.

All important ideas must include the trees,
the mountains, and the rivers.

To understand many things you must reach out
of your own condition.

For how many years did I wander slowly
through the forest.  What wonder and
glory I would have missed had I ever been
in a hurry!

Beauty can both shout and whisper, and still
it explains nothing.

The point is, you're you, and that's for keeps.

-- Mary Oliver
from the collection "Felicity"

paradise, by Teresa Williams

paradise

is the moment
you realize
you've never been
apart from it

it is the bookstore
on Tuesdays   scent of scones
and word blossoms
it is the dahlia    autumn lantern
the warm mug in your hand
it is all this exchanging
of light   hello and goodbye and
how are you

it is the decision you make
to let it all in

the rainbows    the dead crow
the hurt knee
a black cloud in the face
your incapacities    your strengths
hurricanes and earthquakes
even deep down pain
the kind that wants to hide
behind hate

when
everything belongs
paradise
isn't somewhere else

it is here
it is us

it is loving
Life itself.

-- Teresa Williams

The Quiet Power

The Quiet Power

I walked backwards, against time
and that’s where I caught the moon,
singing at me.

I steeped downwards, into my seat
and that’s where I caught freedom,
waiting for me, like a lilac.

I ended thought, and I ended story.
I stopped designing, and arguing, and
sculpting a happy life.

I didn’t die. I didn’t turn to dust.

Instead I chopped vegetables,
and made a calm lake in me
where the water was clear and sourced and still.

And when the ones I loved came to it,
I had something to give them, and
it offered them a soft road out of pain.

I became beloved.

And I came to know that this was it.
The quiet power.
I could give something mighty, lasting,
that stopped the wheel of chaos,

by tending to the river inside,
keeping the water rich and deep,
keeping a bench for you to visit.

Leaves of Grass

This is what you shall do; Love the earth, and sun, and the animals.... dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far.  It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere-- on water and land.

Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then, I contradict myself.
I am large-- I contain multitudes.

-- Walt Whitman

When we give ourselves to our situation we're letting go of preferences and habits and trusting what's in front of us, with faith that it will provide the wisdom we need.  To truly be responsible is to recognize that reality is smarter than we are.

-- from Taking Our Places, by Norman Fischer p. 28

Cutting Loose

Cutting Loose

by William Stafford

 

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason,
you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing
a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a
reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that
sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past
trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path — but that’s
when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here
on earth, again and again.

"Today" by Mary Oliver

Today I'm flying low and I'm
not saying a word.
I'm letting all of the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I'm taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I'm traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness.  One of the doors
into the temple.

-- Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings