Waking

It’s not that the first ones are especially daring
or brave. It’s the song of the light
that calls them, the notes so sublime
they can neither be resisted or denied.
“Come: Here is wonder. Here is beauty.
Here is the destiny designed for your joy.
Come: drink the dew. Hear the birdsong.
Feel the rain; drink the fresh morning air.
Show the way. Paint the world
with your colors. Open your petals
to the sun. Join the grand chorus
of the exuberant, burgeoning Yes.”
And so they push past the last
layer of darkness and find the light.
And slowly they unfurl themselves,
amazed, and filled with gladness.
And they pick up the song, and
sing to their sleeping fellows,
“Oh, come! Come and see!
Come and dance with us
In the Yes of the sun!”

How it Turned Out

A week passed before I visited the eastern slope
of the southern hill again. The buds of the quince
are giving way to tiny green leaves. The baby ferns
are still asleep beneath the soil. But look!
The daffodils are open! Little patches of them
dance all across the hillside, glistening
with droplets from the morning’s rain. Where,
I suddenly wonder, is that one who came first?
And turning toward the mother spruce, I see her,
ruffled petals spread wide, beaming happiness
for all she’s worth. And what she’s worth,
it’s plain to see, is well beyond any measure.
I kneel and smooth a fingertip across her fragile petals
and we both melt in a connection of sheer joy.

The World’s Not Enough

One of my favorite things about owning shelves and stacks of books is that every now and then I’m inspired to shuffle them around. I find the most marvelous things that way. Take today for instance. I stumbled across Kenneth Patchen’s Hallelujah Anyway: A Book of Picture-Poems. My copy is a paperback, a bit tattered and worn. It’s been traveling with me since I bought it new in 1966, the year it was published. It was the title that got me. Hallelujah Anyway. Even way back then, that somehow said it all.

The drawings in it are childlike and the poems are painted across them freehand. But there’s nothing childlike about Patchen’s poems. If life hadn’t kicked him around some, he couldn’t have written this one – one of my favorites: “The world’s not enough really for the kind of rent we have to pay to live in us.” That’s it, the whole thing scrawled across the page.

It tastes bitter at first bite. But sometimes when its words happen into my mind I hear them as an expression of dark humor. Sometimes you have to laugh or you’ll cry. It can get that painful and absurd here. And laughter, however contemptuous, is still the best medicine. Dark humor’s better than none.

I believe in laughter. It’s like the crack that lets in the light. In fact, when I see one of life’s storms approaching from the horizon, I often send out an immediate petition for “strength and a sense of humor.”

But there’s more to Patchen’s poem than its attitude. It’s a blatant statement of the basic truth that the world is not enough to compensate for the suffering we endure here, living inside these human-suits with all these other humans and the insane situations that they manage to create. We deserve a lot more than the world offers.

Happily, more is here. Not out there in the world. But here, inside us. It’s the part of us that wants that Something-Greater-than-the-World. Something that would let us feel whole, and content, and at peace. Something that would let us love ourselves, warts and all, and give us eyes that would see everyone else as deserving of love as well. And its inside every one of us.

It’s not always an easy part of ourselves to find. We have to learn to listen, to recognize its nudge. Life, with all its complications, gets awfully distracting. But the wanting is always there. And it calls to us and says “keep looking.”

Patchen’s poem tells us not to waste time looking for it in the world. The best we’ll find there, and then only if we’re lucky, are teachers and random clues. But life’s genuine rewards – recognition of beauty, and goodness, and truth – come from the core of life within us. And when we find them, they bring such light that all we can do, despite the world’s pain, is shout out loud, “Hallelujah Anyway.”

Wishing you plenty to shout about.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Terri Sharp from Pixabay

April

I wake to a single whispered word: April.
I breathe, slowly inhaling the morning air.
wanting to savor its every molecule.
I hold it in my mouth for one still moment,
the word pulsing through me: April.
Then I exhale and rise to bright sunlight
and a robin’s egg sky. Golden trees,
lacy now with fat spring buds, sway
on the western hill. I pour coffee.
The neighboring birds arrive, eager
for their breakfast, the little ones chirping
their greetings. Beside the kitchen door
last night’s raindrops sparkle from the leaves
of the baby bleeding hearts, the whole spray
looking like a splendid work of art. I stand
admiring it , wrapped in a cloud of birdsong,
when I hear a whisper, soft as a breeze:
April.

Farewell to March

I got to see another March, the birth
of another springtime, the beginning
of this year’s parade of the flowers
with their songs of promises fulfilled,
prayers answered, praises sung,
despite all that opposed them.
And here stand the wild daffodils,
ruffled sunshine, gently dancing
their thanks and farewells. My heart
chants with them: Thank you, March.
Thank you, March. Thank you, March.
Farewell.

To the Hellebore

Overnight, the temperature dropped
below freezing, and in the morning,
there you were, fallen flat on the ground.
Sometimes the world seems so unfair.
I spread sunflower seeds on the rocks
and the chickadees came, chirping
their songs, as always, no matter what,
and unfailingly making me smile,
even today, when I thought you were lost.
It was well after noon before I braved
the day’s cold a second time, the sun
having issued its irresistible invitation.
And there you were, tall and glad,
basking in the light, as if it were nothing
to rise from your sprawl on the ground,
your life force all but turned to crystal
from the cold. Stunned, I stared, my eyes
moist with gratitude for spring’s undeniable,
ever-returning proofs.

Oh, Baby!

Okay, little lamb. You did it.
Laying there in the new grass,
your baby hooves tucked up,
your ears poked out, your face
wearing that little lamb smile,
you stole my heart. My eyes
send you pets as warm as
this new spring sunshine,
and I sing you welcome,
little one. Oh, baby!
You stole this old girl’s heart.

Such Tenderness, Such Grace

Sometimes, especially when it rains,
I feel so sorry for us all. Not just for me,
but for the neighbors down the road,
and this one’s brother and that one’s wife.
All of us. Everywhere.
I walk outside when the rain stops,
just to breathe the soft air, to clean my heart
and clear my mind.
And there you are, little flower, drops of rain
perched on your petals and leaves,
dancing, regardless.

Now Comes the Rain

It’s not easy being March, straddled
between winter and spring, subject
to moods that fluctuate from dark
to bright, from warm to freezing in less
than a day and not one mood enduring.
Nevertheless, you get to usher in spring
and to return the singing of birds to the land.
So when it rains today, I’ll choose to see
the drops as tears of joy. It is, after all,
the season of birth, when something
that never was before arrives,
and changes everything.