Finch pair on the porch,
Mourning doves, calling, calling,
Crocus's first bloom.

Getting There

You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You’re there. You’ve arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.

What did you want
To be? You’ll remember soon. You feel like tinder
Under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change. The sky is pulsing
Against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you’ve made a lasting impression
On the self you were
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.

What have you learned so far? You’ll find out later,
Telling it haltingly
Like a dream, that lost traveler’s dream
Under the last hill
Where through the night you’ll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.

You’ve earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you’re standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings.

David Wagoner

The birds' wings glinting
in late January light
like shards of mirrors.

And more

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

~ Mary Oliver, Starlings in Winter from Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays. (Beacon Press September 30, 2003)

in memoriam

When Death Comes

--by Mary Oliver (Oct 03, 2006)

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

--Mary Oliver

New Year's Eve

You must give birth to your images.
They are the future waiting to be born.
Fear not the strangeness you feel.
The future must enter you long before it happens.
Just wait for the birth,
for the hour
of the new clarity.
– Rainier Maria Rilke

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.
— Thich Nhat Hanh

Deck the walls and all

Solstice Wisdom

Ice mountain melted ages ago 
and made this ridge.
this place of changes

Now we are rooted in it,
we of the old ones,
we of the new ones from afar,
oatgrass meadow, douglas fir thicket,
we are rooted in the ridge of changes
in the time of changes.

The winds carry strange smells,
this is a day of change.

Great ones above and below, bless us!

O shining One above, feed us with your light!
O soft ones, sky darkeners, wash us with your raindrops!
O powers above, bless us with your gifts,
for we reach to you,
branching wood and sap.

O Earthmother from who we grow,
sandy gravel into whom our roots branch wood
and sap deep down,
bless us in our night-sleep, in our death and decay,.

Bless us, dark earth as we give back
that which we have received
as we make a forest of blessing a ridge of blessing
for the future to grow upon.
– Chinook Psalter

revisiting

A Blessing

By James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.   

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me   

And nuzzled my left hand.   

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. Copyright 1990 by James Wright. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

"When you explore thresholds, it’s about resting into mystery. Learn to live in the liminal space where the old is released but the new hasn’t come into being."

 -- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within

Happy Thanksgiving

So very much to be thankful for!
Here is what is on the walls today.

Wallace Stevens

There is the beauty of the moment
     and of the moment gone.
I do not know which to prefer,
     The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendos,
     The blackbird whistling,
Or just after.

Basho

 Traveler ---
let be my name--
In this late autumn shower.

Lao Tzu

Life is -
natural and spontaneous change.
Resist and sorrow arises.
Allow the flow
to find the way.

Issa

A farmer pulling radishes
pointed the way
with a radish.

Hot Summer