TEN THOUSAND FLOWERS
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
~ Wu-men (1183-1260)
Category Archives: poetry
I ask this much.
When I think of the possibility that I might go on living on the earth another two or three decades without my husband, it seems preposterous, like a steep mountain I’ve been asked to climb after my feet have been amputated. How could Anyone ask me to do such a thing?
The truth is, He isn’t asking me to climb a mountain, and I am not so crippled. I have enough strength to do what the next hour and day demand, and that isn’t actually very much. A mountain may in fact be there in front of me, and the road does lead upward, but what peak I will eventually reach is certainly unknown and unimportant.
As long as I keep to my usual fashion of delighting in every flower and singing bird along the path, and while I enjoy the company of the Sweetest Companion on my walk, the time will continue to fly by and life will be good. Yes, I feel weak, and I am going at a snail’s pace. Sometimes I just sit down on a rock and bawl for a while, but I do get up and put one foot after the other again.
And every day, I feel a great Love surrounding me, like the pleasant air that holds me and gives me oxygen even while I am having those pity parties. Or like the sun whose heat is keeping me alive and giving me energy. This poem was the catalyst that brought all of these truths together for me.
PRAYER at SUNRISE
O mighty, powerful, dark-dispelling sun,
Now thou art risen, and thy day begun.
How shrink the shrouding mists before thy face,
As up thou spring’st to thy diurnal race!
How darkness chases darkness to the west,
As shades of light on light rise radiant from thy crest!
For thee, great source of strength, emblem of might,
In hours of darkest gloom there is no night.
Thou shinest on though clouds hide thee from sight,
And through each break thou sendest down thy light.
O greater Maker of this Thy great sun,
Give me the strength this one day’s race to run,
Fill me with light, fill me with sun-like strength,
Fill me with joy to rob the day its length.
Light from within, light that will outward shine,
Strength to make strong some weaker heart than mine,
Joy to make glad each soul that feels its touch;
Great Father of the sun, I ask this much.
–James Weldon Johnson 1871-1938
(Both photos are from Yosemite – upper one is Tenaya Lake.)
From a Window
From a Window
Incurable and unbelieving
in any truth but the truth of grieving,
I saw a tree inside a tree
rise kaleidoscopically
as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.
I pressed my face as close
to the pane as I could get
to watch that fitful, fluent spirit
that seemed a single being undefined
or countless beings of one mind
haul its strange cohesion
beyond the limits of my vision
over the house heavenwards.
Of course I knew those leaves were birds.
Of course that old tree stood
exactly as it had and would
(but why should it seem fuller now?)
and though a man’s mind might endow
even a tree with some excess
of life to which a man seems witness,
that life is not the life of men.
And that is where the joy came in.
–Christian Wiman
Our patron star kisses us.
This new poem came to me by way of the website Poets.org, and their daily e-mail “Poem-
a-Day.” But for it I might have forgotten that tomorrow is the summer solstice – obviously I haven’t been following my plan of keeping up with the moon and stars, etc.
I love the poet’s evocation of a warm summer’s day, and the sort of experience she describes, of spending the whole day outdoors, lolling by a pond and not even going home until night — even though it hasn’t often been my own.
When I was young we lived where we could not start this relaxed lingering until the evening turned the heat from scorching to comfortable. Now where I live with coastal and river influence, it’s rare to have a day in summer without chilly fog on one or both ends.
But today the sun shined as soon as it was up. No fog! And when I went outdoors in the morning I didn’t need a sweater. I was caressed by the earth’s atmosphere.
Soldier came over for a few hours to help me clean up and move things around the yard, to prepare for the huge demolition project that is happening soon. Yes, the concrete pool will be broken up and the hole filled with good ol’ dirt. The large utility yard will also have its crumbling cement layer scraped off so that I can make it more useful and beautiful.
So…we had to move all the things one keeps in such a yard, or near the pool, to other places; Soldier sawed old stakes into kindling, and we piled it elsewhere. We moved potted plants, bricks, cinderblocks, and steppingstones; a bench swing, landscape rocks I’ve brought down from the Sierras over the decades, clay pots, tarps, buckets…and dumped out a barrel of water that had been saved since Y2K.
Next week a boy I k
now will help me move all my firewood, and then I’ll be ready to set a date for the heavy work to begin. I’m starting to use the pool water on my plants; the patio is getting crowded, and not with humans.
It was a very satisfying way to spend a few hours on this almost-solstice day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll loll about a little as well, and soak up the sweetness of light.
SOLSTICE
How again today our patron star
whose ancient vista is the long view
turns its wide brightness now and here:
Below, we loll outdoors, sing & make fire.
We build no henge
but after our swim, linger
by the pond. Dapples flicker
pine trunks by the water.
Buzz & hum & wing & song combine.
Light builds a monument to its passing.
Frogs content themselves in bullish chirps,
hoopskirt blossoms
on thimbleberries fall, peeper toads
hop, lazy—
Apex. The throaty world sings ripen.
Our grove slips past the sun’s long kiss.
We dress.
We head home in other starlight.
Our earthly time is sweetening from this.
–Tess Taylor
Gladsome Lights 