The Thing You Most Long For

Another Morning Poem


the thing you most long for
and the thing you most fear
the same, God

she is a bird
winging above the autostrade
a road in Italy that curves
into heaven

the smell of mint
recalls childhood
shadows on a wall
grandmother is visiting
already a ghost

she brings pennies
she lands on your ear like a moth
leaving dust

LET IT BE

I have a badly injured thumb - right hand - and feel limited, anxious. My ego is very uncomfortable with this scenario. However, it is what is. It is what is present.

Whatever presents is The Present...

SO
I listened to my soul and she said...at the bottom of my fears is:
the fear of not being enough.
the fear of not having enough.

YET
In our being, we are enough.
In our being we have enough.

What we don't have doesn't matter.

This insight scares my ego, who likes to have something to do.
("Then what do I do now?" the ego cries.)

And the soul says
Let your self be...
Let life be.

The Truth Is

The truth is I never did know the real reason for this journal. It began in a dream, as all my writing does. (The dreamtime is the time before time. The dreamtime provides maps of the soul's landscape.)

Then I told a little of my story, faltering and hesitant - wishing to hide rather than be exposed. (My totem animal is the rabbit - we love to remain hidden and safe in our warm leafy burrows. But we also love the twilight and magic time when mystical fairies are about.)

And now all I wish is to emerge into clear light saying, to all you other writers in the darkness of the dreamtime: Come out! (The world is waiting for you to live and breathe again. To tell us how your soul was saved and what sustains you.)

The truth is you are a testimony to life, an anthem, a poem, a song.
Without you, your unique fingerprint and voice, we can't go on.

Third Poem of Morning (or Mourning)

the devil is a familiar chap
his voice like silk
Christ's voice is wood
and both can warm you
set afire
(siren song, jazz on the radio)

a small boy walks bundled
in a coat toward the well in morning
a fictional town
spun by Wendell Berry
(part nostalgia, part poetry)
if nostalgia is the devil
is poetry the Christ?

when the small boy is me
or a past self
the news comes on, a woman
poised to jump from a bridge
since one-thirty this morning
(seven hours suspended
between her death, our life)

water shines below
yet comes to her the smell of wood-smoke
both ephermeral, both vital
(which to embrace?)

Fever in Childhood (A Poem)

before the fall
i was someplace else
i remember eating starlight
the communion-wafer moon
burning through the center of me
i was microscopic

what i would not give
to feel grandmother's cool hand
the place is earth
the year is 1963
"you are not old enough to remember"
before she was born,
I am

know this, in fever, the leaves of
morning stirring
birdsong - a quilt of white ferns
a quiet burn
the night gone like invisible silk

her hand is pierced with moon
that's why so cool and white
an owl in the tree now
the day gone, like slow honey

"save your breath," they said
but she is my child again
in another time

Dear Grandmother (A Tribute)

My maternal grandmother - the anniversary of her death - just passed. Now it's Mother's Day and gray, rainy. A bit sad. She died when I was twenty. I had not paid too much attention to her illness, and I did not attend her funeral. It was in another state and I had a newborn. I regret so much...on her "Saint's Day" I wrote:


Dear Grandmother,

You meant so much to everyone. I wish you could have comprehended how much you were loved. I'm sorry I took you for granted and just expected you to always "be there." I'm sorry that I had no language for grief, and could not feel and could not share.

I think this was your day - the day you left. I'm sorry that you made it through the winter only to die in the spring. I'm glad you left when the earth is most beautiful, though.

Thank you for the painting lessons. I will light a candle today in front of the small painting I have of yours. It is of tiny houses - maybe the edge of an Irish village - with a tree and a fence...

The Heavenly Market

I have been in a funk, as explained in my sister blog http://synchronicityinthecity.blogspot.com.

So yesterday I thought I could clean my way out of it, but needed supplies. I felt tired of my same old neighborhood markets, and vaguely remembered there was a tiny charming market, a bit further afield. I wandered a bit haphazardly for several blocks until I recalled the way and came around the corner and through a courtyard. On the sign it said Heavenly Market.

Since I was feeling badly, I put a package of tiny chocolate donuts in my bag first off - those kind with the lovely waxy frosting. Then I found bleach, cleaning rags, trash bags. When I sat it on the counter, the check- out lady said, "Cleaning day, huh?"

"You know how you run out of cleaning supplies all at once and then need donuts?" I replied. She laughed. "You're funny," she said. She told me she didn't take debit cards, only cash. Honestly, I felt like crying. To walk to my bank was several more blocks, and I've been unutterably exhausted lately. She said I could have the stuff and come back and pay the next day. When I thanked her for her kindness, she said, "I'm blessed. I've been here in this store twenty five years."

Who would have thought in this day and age a complete stranger would trust a first time shopper enough to run a tab? I walked home and proceeded to eat the entire package of tiny donuts with a glass of milk and felt immensely cheered. Thank Goodness for the Heavenly Market and the angel named Helen.