We’re helping my mother-in-law move from her cottage to a personal care room. It’s hard and exhausting work for her, and for all of us, too. There’s a great deal of emotional labor going on amid the packing. And every step forward we make toward getting things packed an ready seems to bring whole new detours and dance steps. Still, she’s ready, and her room is almost ready.
Thursday Thoughts:
“You can learn to be lucky. It’s not a mystical force you’re born with, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.” —Rob Brezsny
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“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story.” —Linda Hogan
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“You choose to be a novelist, but you’re chosen to be a poet. This is a gift and it’s a tremendous responsibility. You have to be willing to give something terribly intimate and secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to believe that what you have to say is important enough.” —May Sarton
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“There is indeed a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills, and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame and reinventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most important challenge of our time.” —Wade Davis, The Wayfinders
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“. . .war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. . . . [E]very war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac. . . .
The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.” —George Orwell
Wise Words for Wednesday:
“The only time incorrectly is not spelled incorrectly is when it is spelled incorrectly.”
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“There is no such thing as one-sided generosity. Like one ecosystem, we are each at different times receiving or purging, growing or pruning. In those moments when you believe you aren’t receiving enough, consider what you most want to receive might be the thing you need to give away.” —Toko-pa Turner
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“Long you sat and wept,
feeling the bars of the cage
that held your spirit fast,
until one bright May morning
when you raised your eyes
toward the sun and saw
how the bars were only shadows,
each one a pathway
showing you the way out.”
—Beth Weaver-Kreider
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“Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.” —Henry David Thoreau
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“Gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of all true art. Yet we so easily take this gift for granted. That is why so many spiritual traditions begin with thanksgiving, to remind us that for all our woes and worries, our existence itself is an unearned benefaction, which we could never of ourselves create.” —Joanna Macy
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“What if the Creator is like the poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s God: “like a webbing made of a hundred roots, that drink in silence”?
What if the Source of All Life inhabits both the dark and the light, heals with strange splendor as much as with sweet insight, is hermaphroditic and omnisexual?
What if the Source loves to give you riddles that push you past the boundaries of your understanding, forcing you to change the ways you think about everything?
What if, as Rusty Morrison speculates in “Poetry Flash,” “the sublime can only be glimpsed by pressing through fear’s boundary, beyond one’s previous conceptions of the beautiful”?
Close your eyes and imagine you can sense the presence of this tender, marvelous, difficult, entertaining intelligence.” —Rob Brezsny
The last poetry prompt of the month is to write a closing time poem.
The door stands ajar.
The curtain rises.
The window is open
and the screen is torn.
The moment has come
to escape the old ways
and enter into the new drama,
to dance down new pathways,
to fly toward a new horizon.
Escape!
Begin the Play!
Soar free!
That’s an exciting prompt for a Beltane Eve. May Day is about running through the door, barefoot and maybe naked, but completely unconcerned, willing to take the necessary risks to accomplish your dreams. What will you risk in the coming season? What “clothing” do you need to cast off in order to abandon yourself to your projects?
A Blessed Beltane season to you! May your dreams feed you.
Gratitude List:
1. Flicker on the ground at LMH this morning when we pulled in. We got to watch it for a full two minutes before it flew away into the morning sunlight.
2. On our walk this evening, swallows swooping low to get a look at us. I think there were both barn and tree swallows.
3. The smell of gill-over-the-grass after someone has walked on it. Smells like spring.
4. The smell of cow patties drying in a field. It transports me back in time, and suddenly I’m five-year-old Bethie walking home from Gwen’s house in the slanting sun of a late Shirati afternoon, the lake breeze playing in my hair.
5. Speaking of poop, I love the open-throated bark of a laugh that Joss gives when he hears a good scatological joke. Total delight, especially when his dad makes the joke.
May we walk in Beauty and Laughter.
Today’s prompt is to write a response to one of the previous poems from the month. I chose my April 27 poem.
There once was a girl
who was so afraid of spiders
that when a web of song,
a web of prayer,
came floating to her
on a breeze, she ran
as fast as she could
in the other direction.
There once was a girl
who was so afraid of darkness
that when a quiet veil
of comforting shadows
fell about her,
she fell down in terror
and hid her head
until the staring sun
came out again.
There once was a girl
who was so afraid of heights
that when her friends
sang bridges that led
to safer meadows,
she could not unfreeze
her footsteps from the Earth
to flee toward the havens.
Whenever she ran from her fears,
they always caught her.
Whenever she froze in terror,
she found herself engulfed.
I would like to say she learned
to reach her hands toward her friends
and find her way home.
Gratitude:
I am grateful today for the concentric and interlocking circles of community in my life, for the people who keep their protective eyes on my children, who teach and mentor them and love them.
May we walk in Beauty!
Today’s prompt is to write a poem titled __________ Wave.
Ride the Wave
If you watch closely
as it approaches
you can begin to feel
the energy enter your body
before the water
even takes shape.
Enter the sound and the color
before the matter engages you.
And suddenly you are part of it,
caught in the song of it,
bound in the curve and the crash
and the pull of the wave.
Gratitude List:
1. Speedwell and dandelion and grape hyacinth and violet and deadnettle. The little quiet beauties that catch your eye when you’re least expecting it. “Wake up now,” they say.
2. Spring in the air
3. People who put their souls and hearts into what they do. Art that is more than technical perfection, but is a reflection of humanity.
4. Getting some of the work done. Not nearly enough. But some. The load begins to lift.
5. Blooming. Flowers, children, teenagers, relationships, work, ideas.
May we walk in Beauty!
clover
Today’s prompt is to write a story poem.
There once was a girl
who could sing such a web
of fractured light
that the ones who came
to devour her children
fell to the ground
blinded.
There once was a girl
who could sing such a veil
of soft gentle darkness
that the ones who came
to harm her beloveds
lost their way
and forgot their names.
There once was a girl
who could sing such a bridge
of delicate stories
that all those she loved
could cross to safety
and live free of fear.
Gratitude List:
1. “You will be found.” My favorite line from the school’s current show.
2. Deadnettle and dandelions: purple and yellow
3. Making connections, webs, bridges
4. Poem in Your Pocket Day in Wrightsville. Always a delight.
5. Weekend
May we walk in Beauty!
If I’m not mistaken, a yellow-bellied sapsucker has been visiting my willow.
Today’s prompt is to write a relationship poem.
Even the stinkbug
that you lift so gingerly
from the wall
and scoop out the window
into the night breeze
Even the small mouse
skittering over the counter
Even the forsythia
flashing golden
in the afternoon sun
Even the curve
of the cobalt bowl
which nestles
into your palms
Even the Mayapples
in the woodsedge
Even the geese on the pond
Even the fish
Even the spider
whose art is everywhere
Even the mantis
who looks you in the eye,
who are so much larger
but so much less fierce
Even the hawk
circling over the field
Even the wind in the branches
Even the groundhog
eating your spinach
All is at one with you
All is family
If you cannot say to the rabbit,
I am your sister. I am your brother.
If you cannot say to the sun,
I recognize you as one of my family,
If you cannot say to the oxygen
as it races into your lungs,
We are children together
in this great race of living,
Then you will always be
separate, isolated, alone.
Gratitude List:
1. The fire and energy of the young actors, singers, dancers of my school. They had a fantastic show tonight. All the pieces were good, but the one that will stick with me is the song, “You Will Be Found.”
2. A shining blue bluebird
3. An indigo sky, just before total dark
4. Green. Have I mentioned the green? I was beginning to feel like my soul could not breathe, but everything is finally going green, and I can breathe again.
5. The deep purple violets all over my yard.
May we walk in Beauty!
Today’s prompt is to choose a little-known English word and use it for a title. I chose two.
The Argle-Bargle of the Blatherskite
(meaningless babble of a chatterer)
I mean it when I say
that I mean what I say,
and I say what I mean,
which is to say
that I mean something.
You know you want to
want what you want
when you want it
and you know
you want it now.
Now you know it.
We’ve come this far
by coming to terms
because the terms
are endearing my dear
It’s not over ’til it’s begun
or so they say.
Red Rover, come over.
It’s over. It’s done.
Gratitude List:
1. Greeeeeeen!
2. The Deer of Skunk Hollow
3. Anticipating Oriole
4. This boy who is looking over my shoulder and conferring with me about my grammar
5. The way new poems rise
May we walk in Beauty!
Today’s prompt is to write a roundelay or and anti-form poem. I sort of pooped out on the rhyming bits and struggled to make it mean what I want to, but it was an interesting exercise. I need to practice more forms. The Wildest One is one of my names for the great mystery some people call God.
O Seeker, you must simply start,
and follow the road toward the sun.
No sign, no map, no guide, no chart
will tell you when your road’s begun.
You must enter the forest of your heart
to find your way to the Wildest One.
No sign or map, no guide or chart
will tell you when you have begun.
The search is inward, no science or art
can tell you when the journey’s done.
You just enter the forest of your heart
and find your way to the Wildest One.
The inner search is both science and art.
No one will tell you when the journey’s done.
In solitude, you’ll wander apart
from the villages where tales are spun.
You must enter the forest of the heart
if you seek to find the Wildest One.
In solitude, you’ll wander apart
from the shining village, where tales are spun,
but you’ll return to take up your part
when the journey’s over, the race is run.
You’ll walk through the forest of the heart,
seeking always the Wildest One.
Mockingbird Chronicles 