by Pierre Morin
TITLE
Tante Toye
Exile
Call and Response
Spruce
Hineni
Fear
Prayer
Dreamscape
The pilgrim’s way
War is hard, peace is much harder
Transitions
What lies behind my face?
Conversations with myself
That’s war?
Le Vieux Chalet
Beresina Lied
Living as Nature
October 7, 2023
Choosing Life
Choisissant la vie
Choosing Death
Opposites
Milky Way
Blessing and invitation
Tree of life
Finisterre
Impressions, Longbeach, WA
Pelican, oh pelican
I am
Weathering
Wintering
Conversations at the threshold of duality
Negative capability
I can’t swim the waters of past memories
Insurmountable
The sunroom is engulfed with
purple wisteria. The faint smell of
roses percolates from the garden.
Tante Toye sits in her rattan chair
sipping her glass of absinthe.
Her pinky fingernail sticks out,
its extra-length a sign
she abstained from manual work.
I wonder how she dresses herself,
does it not get in the way?
Her regular male caller
sits across. He comes for the
mystique of the banned absinthe.
She enjoys his company
and together they reminisce
of times past, of distant adventures,
of changes they don’t fathom.
I sit on the tile floor
engrossed in its pinwheel pattern
and the fading blues and dirt whites
of the ceramic pieces.
I am both timid and
thrilled to be tolerated
in their company.
The stories echo in my mind,
foreign and enticing.
Later, I catch a glimpse
of her silhouette,
a slow rhythm of her stroll
as she meanders through
the vineyards.
The fallen grape leaves
with their polygonal venation pattern
and their yellow, orange and brown
patches blanket her passing.
The question
that doesn’t go away,
the clouding
that envelops that question.
Of a voluntary exile
from deadening familiarity,
from a routine
that stifles imagination,
and from a culture
that feels like prison.
Still, the rupture I feel,
after more than 25 years
in my chosen home,
surprises me.
The ambushing sadness
captures my mood
as if by mistake;
as if my heart and mind
are still unaware
of the fallout
of my past choices.
I censor feelings
I deem unacceptable.
I made the choice,
didn’t I?
A stranger in the hold
of his chosen exodus,
I dread the isolation
but welcome the vulnerability.
I aspire for my memory
to teach me empathy
and my suffering
to teach me love.
What brings me
into the intimate home
where there is no darkness
and separation
but one equal light,
one equal recognition,
one equal revelation,
of the mystery of life?
Welcome stranger.
Spruce
Thingamabob,
whatchamacallit, whatsis…
In French we say machin truc.
So many filler words
that replace terms, names, nouns,
when our minds are tired
from being pressured to achieve,
and refuse to retrieve words,
when we get sick
because of the burden of our everyday chores,
when we feel lost
and don’t remember our true nature,
when our souls are confused and exhausted,
are jealous of trees and other plants,
and want to recoil into mindlessness.
Then the grand, mother spruce
in front of my window.
Her presence calm and steadfast,
sturdy during storms,
her branches a perfect observation post
and a launch pad for the local birds,
her roots burrow downward and across
and foster the nearby saplings.
All kind of unexpected
flirts that trigger deeper reflections
lurk beneath the surface
and outside our usual frames.
Musings of our drifting minds
opening alternate ways of existence.
Is the loss of words
the curse of a horrible disease
or possibly a gift?
When it takes chains
away from us,
when our body’s exhaustion
let us untangle ourselves
from a busy life of demands,
like the spruce tree,
stronger than we ever imagined,
we are.
Hineni
They say fear of illness and death,
the ultimate consequence,
gives us meaning.
I’d rather continue to sleepwalk,
bathing in blissful ignorance.
I am not ready.
Here I am,
even though,
in the darkness of the night,
my soul is exposed.
Yes, I am afraid.
Here I am,
in the demanding and
in the quiet,
with my dreams and realities,
how fragile between moments,
not yet ready.
Look at me,
I have difficulty
tolerating others,
a stranger to my deepest depth
I find it even harder
to tolerate myself,
I can’t be ready.
As I age,
more aware of
my body and my mind,
two separated operating systems
with poor communication.
Despite desperation and obedience
I fail to make sense.
I try to be ready.
All my cells
are replaced many times over,
each cell a living agent
that retains my body’s patterns.
What will persist after I die?
Are we ready?
One in a number that has 229 zeroes,
is our chance of existence,
is what permits life.
How will our souls survive
when the universe ends?
We will never be ready.
Natriuretic polypeptide b,
the recently discovered
protein of itch,
travels distinct pathways
up and down our spines.
Is it behind our curiosity,
creativity, and longing?
Hinenu,
here we are.
How do I talk about my fear of getting older,
of slipping, breaking a bone,
losing memory,
getting cancer,
Death.
Unpreventable,
with no alternative,
but to face the unfathomable.
Eternal unconsciousness,
as unbearable as
eternal consciousness.
Stuck in between,
life, an impenetrable mystery.
What Goddess smashed her anvil with a big bang?
What are the physics of a pre bang multiverse?
Spirits or atheism?
Unanswerable questions.
Then,
the beauty of the rising moon,
the sound of Miles Davis,
the painter’s brush stroke,
the poetry line
that wakes me
in the heart of the night,
reminding me
that I am inalienably
connected to
a lineage of creation,
with no end nor beginnings,
but one equanimity.
Prayer
A scrubby flower on the windowsill,
a beached agate, a rare treasure find,
a poem, this poem, these words
that I unearth with difficulty,
that I silently speak
to an imaginary and distant listener.
The words are of closely kept and repressed feelings
that I store in the trash folder of my brain.
There, in the far corners of my mind
the thoughts, images, and reactions
linger,
and contaminate my soul.
The unimaginable sorrow in the world
is an affront and sin to our common humanity
and any conceivable Goddess.
No revelations are sufficient
and make it easier to survive.
In the dark looking out the window
I embrace the shadowy mist
that shelters Yachats Ridge.
As I listen
to the echo of the nearby ocean
I am both tormented and calm
and as the waves’ sound
reverberate in me
I see a Zen sand painting
that the tides erase
allowing me to rest.
Appearing out of nothing
then disappearing into emptiness
a dream whispers
and rattles my daytime self.
I’d rather remain asleep.
The visual images
are like TikTok reels
of parallel lives.
Hidden
in the far corners of my mind
an imagination fires
a constellation of brain synapses,
a furtive shine of faraway stars,
a snapshot
from an unknown kaleidoscope
showing me repeated reflections
of uncertain memories.
The light passing through
illuminates fragments
of regrets and unlived lives.
One shard falls out.
A beachcombed bluish pebble of glass
both translucent and opaque
its edges blunted,
its face eroded by the ocean,
unconsciously healing,
a mysterious and elusive
crumb of my life’s journey.
The bathroom cupboard knob,
its reflection a flirt
from the early morning sun.
The light lends the brushed nickel
a faultless, almost violent lucidity.
Its fading shadow is more in sync
with the remnants of my dreams
and my sluggish am mind.
Later, a friend’s question about my faith
unravels a deep conversation
of life, science, nature,
about my skepticism
of dogma and certitude.
The knob’s clarity shocks
my reserved and searching character.
As recognition and awareness
play together in me, they stimulate
so much wonder about
the layers of reality.
Where does the
morning encounter
in the bathroom cease,
where does my
understanding of
me begin?
Our souls are pilgrims
constantly searching for
and surrounded by
the miracles of existence.
“God comes to see us
without bell,” says Emmerson.
When my frustrations
about the lack of answers,
when my doubts
about a larger meaning,
drag me down into depression,
when my heart anguishes
about the feared emptiness of death,
when lost I yearn to be found,
I ultimately let myself drown
into the maelstrom
of my torments and confusion.
I am reminded
that the pilgrim’s journey
is not straight
but a circling undercurrent
pulling us deeper into
our pure nature,
a shadow of the morning sun.
War is hard, peace is much harder
Why is it
That war, conflict, drama
Draws our attention,
Not peace, stillness, quietude?
Movement and action
Eclipse silence and equanimity,
Suffering gets more clicks
Than wellbeing.
We ponder how to fight better,
Win and outshine.
We neglect incapacities
Over merit and achievement.
But failing
And giving up power
Is much harder,
Agreements are fragile,
Collaboration is difficult,
Walking in someone else’s shoes is impossible.
We know how it feels to be
Hurt, blamed, shamed.
Why is it that we are blind
To us wounding and insulting others?
Alienated from our own selves,
We battle strangers.
Self-loathing, we criticize
Our companions.
But what was good, strong,
And important in the morning
Will be small, irrelevant, and useless
Before the sun sets over the horizon.
What we know will be forgotten.
Who gives themselves up
Will endure says the Tao.
Let’s shut our mouths and close our eyes
And imagine processing hostilities,
Getting into the fire of conflict,
Redeemed for peace.
Where do I come from?
Where do I go from here?
From these hassling questions
I unearth a sense of exile.
Then, buried deep in the well
of thee unsettling probes
I catch sight of an old lost coin
that sparks a sense of aloneness,
both threatening and comforting.
Veiled by a damp and weighty silence
together nourishing and disturbing
a faint glitter from the coin
reflects some distant light.
In it a hint of a precious path
I might at last discover?
And I hear the muffled echo
of the coin’s past tumble.
The blurry sound ignites
ripples of half-forgotten memories,
of past aspirations to belong that
I had attached to the coin,
of hoped for intentions to becoming someone
I projected into the future.
As if an act of mercy,
the mystery is returning now
in my incertitudes,
in my lonesome reveries,
as a call from the world
that invites me to
join the unknown passage
into promising beginnings.
What lies behind my face?
How do I live my life?
It used to be programmed by work,
By merit and achievement.
The days were clear.
Now in the twilight
My diminishing eyesight
Blurs my view
Out of life’s window.
As I transition
Into the encore space
From daylight to dusk
I don’t see my face,
My eyes, my head.
My attention turns to
Giving myself up
To becoming a mystic
Closing my eyes
And shutting my mouth
Attuning my breath
To the universe’s humming,
Opening my vision
To what I failed to see clearly.
Eyes closed
I look at my face
From behind my eyelids
And turn my gaze
To the indescript
Cloud of sensations
To feelings and moods
To what appears
And is most precious.
I silence the inner self-doubt
The noise that hinders me
To retire from
The outer conversation
To return to the new morning
And into receiving mysteries.
I learn to accept stillness
Letting space open
To the inner landscape
Of a selfless knowing
Of a glimpse of freedom
That evades the confusion
So that I can let myself
Be found by the world.
Unfinished conversations
Keep me awake at night
They need a witness
An ear to listen
A heart to behold.
The failings of my body
Reminding me
Of my vulnerability
Of what has no use.
A hammertoe
That I want corrected,
A fungal nail infection
Resisting treatment,
A stiff and painful knee
Reminding me of the injured leg.
Failings and hidden blessings
Incapacitations
That rekindle my attention
To a call for inwardness,
To a deeper conversation,
To the dread of
A life wasted,
Of unspoken gratitude,
Of the missed opportunity,
To be generous.
And of love not shared
And the mystery of being
Invoked by the incessant rumbling
Of the nearby ocean.
Conversations
On the frontier
Of what I want in life
And what life wants from me.
That’s war?
An eye for an eye,
has become three for one?
Jus ad bellum,
Jus in bello.
A right to
and in war.
What is the value
of a dead civilian
compared to a dead soldier?
What is just?
What is proportional?
What is indiscriminate killing?
Who decides?
Who judges?
How do a raped woman,
a parent burying a child,
a forcefully displaced,
a starving person,
a hated nation,
a forgotten people,
the dead in their graves
respond?
Is warning me
that you are going to drop bombs,
telling me that my ancestors
have done harm to you,
that we are colonizers,
that we broke the ceasefire,
that I am a human shield,
collateral damage,
justification for your acts,
help me feel better
and heal?
Is my revenge
or your reprisal just?
Do I have a choice?
Do you?
Is Nature agreeing?
C’est la guerre?
Le Vieux Chalet
Là-haut sur la montagne, l’était un vieux chalet.
Murs blancs, toit de bardeaux,
Devant la porte un vieux bouleau.
Là-haut sur la montagne, l’était un vieux chalet.
Là-haut sur la montagne, croula le vieux chalet.
La neige et les rochers
S’étaient unis pour l’arracher
Là-haut sur la montagne, croula le vieux chalet.
Là-haut sur la montagne, quand Jean vint au chalet,
Pleura de tout son cœur
Sur les débris de son bonheur.
Là-haut sur la montagne, quand Jean vint au chalet.
Là-haut sur la montagne, l’est un nouveau chalet,
Car Jean d’un cœur vaillant
L’a rebâti plus beau qu’avant.
Là-haut sur la montagne, l’est un nouveau chalet.
I am shy to open up doors
of deep conversations
and buried memories,
and to return to a place
both inviting and vulnerable.
As a young intrepid skier
I was impassioned
by the freedom I had
to roam
the mountain’s wintery secrets.
Except, the ski lift’s powers
dared my budding courage,
as my weight was not a match
to the lift’s pull.
Afraid it’s T-bar would
haul me up in thin air
and throw me out of
my chosen tracks
I sang a familiar folksong,
a lament in minor key
of the vieux chalet
my father had taught me.
It told the story of
an ancient decrepit cabin
high up in the
snowcapped mountains.
Engulfed in a violent storm
with wind and snow gushing
through its broken windows
it anticipates its certain demise.
It knows
that the overnight built up
of snow drifts
will trigger an avalanche.
While crushing down
the rugged mountain
into the valley below,
rather than succumbing
to sorrow,
it dreams of
getting rebuilt in spring,
more beautiful than before.
The snowstorm is,
not unlike the storm of thoughts
that overpower my sleep,
and force me to write these lines.
And when,
in the crude daylight,
my critic
tears down my stanzas,
I yearn for the cabin’s
trust in a more beautiful
creative morning.
Meanwhile,
as the cold mountains
evoke the verses I used
to sing and ski,
I recall the strenuous and slow climbs,
and the pristine fresh snow slopes
that were like paper
on which I left behind the lines
my body wrote as I
flew down the back of the mountain.
Afterwards,
the rocky fields welcomed me
at the end of my ecstasy,
reminding me of the labor of love,
that is needed,
for any creative fulfillment,
and to capture a true poem.
The French resistance adopted
the folksong of the vieux chalet
to infuse hope in times
of sheer devastation.
It helped them remember, that
after trauma and horrors,
the sun rises again
to shine light on a new day.
With Hamas,
the wars in Gaza, Israel,
Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia
and so many other places
the belief in humans
is for me on fragile footing.
But then, I think of the faith
of the vieux chalet,
of life’s hardships and rock-filled moments,
of the sweat that is needed
to climb up
to the mountain’s peak,
and of the pure ecstasy
plowing down untouched slopes
of fresh powder snow.
At my father’s memorial.
I played the cabin’s lament
on my saxophone,
as a eulogy
to his and my poetic love
of the mountains.
And, in reverence of
their orchestration of the drama,
and of how they are witnesses
to it’s daily enactment.
The mountains are our dreams.
Beresina Lied
In November of 1812 a Swiss regiment of mercenaries protected Napoleon’s armies retreat from the Russian invasion. As they were crossing the Berezina river in Ukraine the Swiss mercenaries were left behind to fight the pursuing Russian army. Of 1,300 Swiss soldiers 300 survived. The Beresina Lied is said to commemorate this sacrifice.
The Beguines were feminist Christian lay religious orders that were active in Western Europe during Medieval times. Their members lived in semi-monastic communities but did not take formal religious vows and didn’t follow any Franciscan Third Order rules. The origin of the movement’s name continues to be uncertain, as are the dates for the beginning of the movement itself.
Early feminist Christian mystics
and their kin male mercenaries
are my Swiss ancestors.
Social and economic pressures
forced the men into foreign service
to fight, kill and be killed
as soldiers of fortunes
for their overlords.
Invincible pikemen and halberdiers
they were called Reisläufer
or someone who goes to war.
Bound to serve by their local governments,
they were sold to the highest bidder
as contingents of well-trained aggressive fighters,
sometimes pitting brothers,
and fathers and sons,
against each other.
As rear guards,
with their prowess and sacrifice,
they secure their masters’ militaries
safe retreats over treacherous rivers.
In their sorrow, as they tend
to the dead and wounded,
a song comes out
that will bring solace to the posterities
for many centuries.
Meanwhile,
their wives, sisters and daughters
– the history books
call them Beguines –
left behind to fend for themselves,
separated from their pundits and patriarchs,
chose to live in solidarity and faith
communally with each other.
They are spiritual anarchists
that don’t follow any approved rules
but devote their lives
to one another and
their deprived countryfolks.
Considered malformed men or manqués
by the Church Fathers,
women broke free,
followed their spiritual wonders,
and came together as self-giving
companions and mystics,
to counsel, regal, educate, feed, heal,
garden, sing, worship,
and offer safe havens
for their kinfolks in need.
Powerful distinct archetypes,
conveyed to us their offsprings,
by genes, cultural
and historical memes,
they continue to live in us
through some subliminal force,
helping us meander
the river of life.
Then going ashore,
we fight and serve
and sing the inherited folksongs
of grief, sorrow and courage.
And as we let ourselves
be carried by the currents
and float gently,
like Rilke’s swan,
fully immersed in the element,
at once free from gravity
and one with its source,
we wander through the nights’ torments.
And as the darkness fades before us
we fathom creation and destruction
as two necessary powers.
We embody a morality that welcomes
not just goodness and life,
but the mystery and magic of Nature’s dreaming,
becoming someone, with a countenance,
flowing through everything.
Determined by our biology
we alienate ourselves
from Nature.
In our delusion of free will
we ignore
that culture and evolution
regulate our genes,
hormones and emotions,
thoughts and decisions.
We forget
that all our
more than human kins
are aflame
with agency and mindedness,
with vibrant brilliance,
unfathomable and holy,
humbling us to understand
that we are
from them and of them,
not exceptional
nor the center of life;
that Nature has
the greatest imagination of all
for it imagined us all.
Moral clarity,
or moral imagination
of dual truths side by side?
Universal reality,
or multiple realities
co-existing in parallel pluriverses[1]?
Yes, to fighting back and defending.
No, to killing and suffering.
Yes to Palestine and Israel.
No right and wrong,
but right and right.
Unconscionable atrocities happened
that engendered horrific retaliation.
Cause on cause.
Both sides have agency,
both feel they have no choice,
see themselves as victims,
and allow their extremists
to choose mutual destruction
over the hardship of cohabitation.
Yes, to all of us being accountable
for how we contribute
to conflict and war.
And yes, to all of us using
our leadership and creative minds,
for developing more collaboration,
and creating a more humane and sustainable world.
[1] Thank you to Max Schupbach for introducing me to the concept and community of pluriverses. See also: Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, et al. Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary. Tulika Books, 2019.
Mortal enemies
in the embrace of death.
Their fate
like the pull of gravity,
like the moon
birthing the swell,
heaving the waves
that end up thundering
onto the lava rocks.
Isaac and Ishmael,
the sons of Abraham,
are fighting for the exclusive
love of God.
Their descendant’s histories,
entwined like a double helix
of horror, trauma, and war
are pitting
settlers against terrorists,
survivors against freedom fighters,
soldiering fathers and mothers
against children and grandparents,
believers against each other.
Hopeless yet determined
to avenge
ancestral suffering
their bodies’ and cultures’ chemistry,
their pasts imprinting their genes,
their hormones and nerve cells
imprisoning their actions,
questioning free will,
precluding victims from being perpetrators?
What will remain
when the tides retreat?
Leaving the rubbles and bodies,
abandoned and mute,
to be the only witness.
A distant memory
of the sound of waves,
of the echo of bullets and bombs.
The dead calling out loud
for all of us to honor
the break of dawn.
A different imagination
that believes in
our common humanity
and our creative powers
to rebuild community
and new life.
Choisissant la vie
Ennemis mortels
Dans l’étreinte de la mort
Leur destin
Comme la force de la gravité
Comme la lune
Créant la houle
Soulevant les vagues
Qui finissent écrasées
Sur les roches de lave.
Isaac et Ismaël
Les fils d’Abraham
Se battent pour l’exclusif
Amour de Dieu.
Les histoires de leurs descendants
Entrelacées comme une double hélice
D’horreur, de traumatisme et de guerre
Sont en train de remonter
Les colons contre les terroristes
Les survivants contre les combattants de la liberté
Les pères et les mères soldats
Contre les enfants et les grands parents
Les croyants les uns contre les autres.
Désespérés et déterminés
De venger
La souffrance ancestrale
La chimie de leur corps
Leurs hormones et leurs cellules nerveuses
Emprisonnant leurs actes
Déjouant la morale et le libre arbitre
Ne les laissant échapper
A l’angoisse du meurtre
Prédestinés à prendre l’autre
Pour la cause
De leur propre comportement.
Que restera-t-il
Quand les marées se retireront ?
Laissant les décombres et les corps
Abandonnés et muets
Pour seuls témoins.
Un lointain souvenir
Du bruit des vagues
De l’écho des balles et des bombes.
L’esprit des morts
Clament à voix haute
Nous demandant d’honorer
Le début de l’aube
Une imagination différente
Qui croit en
Notre humanité commune
Et nos pouvoirs créatifs
De reconstruire la communauté
Et une nouvelle vie.
Choosing Death
An ancestral curse,
a personal choice,
a liberation from pain,
into the freedom to fly
weightless
and free of any physicality.
A reminder
for the ones left behind,
when the loss is overwhelming,
when anger and grief is
all consuming,
that we are all larger
than life and death.
Reminding us,
how in the end,
those who have left us,
and when we leave,
with all our sorrows
and exultations,
together we might no longer be needed;
that the freedom to let go
and die
helps us join the wind,
unneedful of us,
unconstrained and free,
helps us join our ancestral spirits
in the sacred forests,
sharing the knowledge
of healing and
unnameable love.
No longer prisoners,
of favoring
kindness over anger,
love over hatred,
health over sickness,
life over death.
Free to walk away
and discover the
next phase of
our journey.
The river is both turbulent
And has a gentle laminar flow.
The distant blue moon pulls
The still waters of the ocean
Creating surges and waves.
We actively move with purpose
And are being moved
By unknown internal forces.
We can be resilient and unwavering
Through the most difficult travails and changes.
We are capable of big achievements
And simultaneously feel as impostors.
At times we remain respectful
While strongly disagreeing.
Uncertainty and familiarity hold each other.
Diversity enriches communities.
We know who we are
And are complete strangers to ourselves.
We feel alienated from the more than human world
And develop kinship with the wind and clouds.
In the silent depth of solitude
We discover an expansive home.
In the well of our imagination
a conversation captures
The different feelings
And ignites magic and mystery.
Photo by Thomas Ciszewski on Unsplash
As I fall asleep
I dread the looming nothingness.
I feel my heart doing it’s gratuitous work
And am reminded of my temporality.
Later the moonless night sky
Calls me awake;
Or is it my aging spastic bladder?
The moon made space
For the conjunction of stars to shine.
Under the protective roof
Of the milky way
The constellation Sagittarius
My phone app tells me
Is in southernly plain sight.
But then it vanishes and hides
Among its horoscope palls
As it grants them
Their respectful place
And myriad stories.
In a breakthrough
From the everyday world
The sacred is manifesting itself
In what our foregoers
Projected onto the night sky.
The stories of centaurs and satyrs
Heroes and teachers
Goddesses and seekers.
Learned healers
Who understand the agony of man
Half human, half beast
Immortal and in pain
They bridge heaven and earth;
Are they archers or seers?
An incredulous and troubled sleeper
Awoken by bodily and spiritual needs
I am invited to participate in
Corporeal and transcendent realities.
Thank you, Spirit, of creation.
May you continue to inspire us and bless
The Tree, the Rock, the River, the Salmon, the Eagle
And the Fisher.
Thank you, green grass, we trample.
May your delicate blades
That indulge our weight and unconscious
Remind us of our own vulnerabilities.
Thank you, wise foremothers, of
The Earth and the Universe.
Your Blessings and Invitations
Live through us.
May we be transformed and honor you,
May our minds and hearts spread
The realization of You.
Thank you, distant Asteroid.
Your kinship expands time and space.
May we live an eternal being
With vast generosity
Towards all creation.
A tree, a hazel, a salmon, a wanderer,
A troubled recipe for wisdom and creativity.
Silence, practice, and patience
Needed to receive the learning.
A gift shared only with the youthful spark
Of a curious heart and mind.
The branches reach the sky and the underground
Its roots entwined with the rhizome
The soundless songs of long dead forebears
Staying alive in the embodied memory
Of ongoing muted conversations
Speaking loudly in dreams forgotten.
Tired from your trespasses
No longer a tourist but a pilgrim
Finally coming home
From your winter of exile to rest.
Your decaying flesh
The source of newly forming lives.
The clouds are feeding the river
That oriented your journey.
You are now giving back.
Engrossed in the mystery of being
We remember that we co-exist.
A path ending, another
new endless beginning.
Stories told and untold,
living on as memes
in songs and sequences of DNA.
Fresh steps in the sand,
of a life of kinships,
of grief, regrets,
and unfulfilled hopes,
that will be erased
by the new moon’s tides.
The soft touch of lighthouse beams,
the escorting chirps of tiny sandpipers,
a silent call of imagined poppies,
point us to a death to be reckoned,
and a rebirth to unfold,
unknowing,
unachieved,
once,
infinite
Washed onto the beach, a dead seal,
it’s demise someone else’s feast.
Bald, fierce, patient,
as the buzzards are celebrating,
the eagle is silently watching
over its gratuitous prey.
A path opening one way or another.
Eyes the first target
and an initial treat,
blinding the seal in death,
no more responsive nor sensing,
but opened to dreaming,
and reluctantly accepting
the predators help with the transition.
Cheeping sand pipers
going about their business
despite the foul stenches.
Witnesses to the ocean’s endurance
as the seal cycles back
into the womb of nature,
impermanence becoming eternal.
Children and parents
playing in the swells and sand,
innocent and oblivious
to change and disappearance,
their kites reaching
towards a fading sun.
The tides are receding,
And the wet sand,
Recently touched by the water,
Eases my wandering,
Breaking down barriers
And turning a beach walk into a prayer
With the more-than-human world.
The drab background noise of my life disappears
And a new expansive connection emerges.
I notice a cross memorializing something unnamed.
Preying birds are
Perched on wooden posts
And observing from afar
A jogger running with big strides
At the edge of the water with purpose.
Oh pelican, you are majestic, confident and proud.
You hide your neck to mimic the seagull
And let go of communal protection.
As you honor your individuality
While your kins are flying away scared of the intrusion
You stay calm when facing newness
And gather the support of the ocean.
The others circle above, until one,
Takes the lead to show a new destination.
Quickly they disperse on the horizon
To slowly return, one on one,
Seeking your company, assurances, and safety.
The ocean is almost a lake
That masks the rip currents
Which call us out into our depth of inner silence.
Your spirit and presence
That calms your companions’ fears
I imagine to be knowing and attuned
With the fuller community of life.
I am the eagle
perched high on a tree
regal
superior
detached
with piercing eyes
and sharp claws.
I am the fish
naked
exposed
unmasked
in terror.
I am the wind
lifting us
towards the sun
seeking awareness
justice.
I am the river
flowing
caring
crying.
I am the waves
churning
splashing.
I am the rainbow in the spray.
I am the ocean
dark and deep.
I am the moon
pulling the sea.
I am.
We are
Creation.
Weathering
(Arline T. Geronimus in her book Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society (Little Brown, NY, 2023) describes how we cause people to get sick and die prematurely.)
A lonely crab claw
Bleached by the ocean and the sun
A relic from a life spent
Navigating the ocean’s currents.
Timely or untimely
The crab’s death
And the remnant claw
A witness to life’s weathering.
The unease of death reflecting
The unease we feel about
How we cause so many people
To live in unjust poverty and hard times.
Our missing compassion and action
Creating an inner absence
A small death
Gnawing at an already impoverished soul.
Some winters happen in summertime.
At the height of our achievements
Our ability deserts us.
In our prime
We sin against incapacity,
Forgetting that the hero of merit
Obscures us from the Other.
Thrown into the cave of absence
We encounter death.
Startled by winter’s storms
We shiver in fear of the unknown.
Lost in the fallow and cold desert
We yearn for an endless high season.
Awakened in the elsewhere
We discover the missing silence.
It lets us rise into imagination
And welcome our lost mystical creativity.
High up in the rugged mountains
Darkened by a moonless summer night
Shimmers a threatened Edelweiss.
We started as visitors and city dwellers
Transfigured by winter
To return as pilgrims and foragers.
Conversations at the threshold of duality
“Ok, not so bad” I answer
When asked: “How are you?”
In other situations, I might have said:
“Comme ci comme ça,”
“Asi asi,” “so so, la la,”
“Meh,” “still vertical,”
Revealing the missed conversation,
My failure to look honestly,
Instead, going along,
A tourist to my own life.
Other conversations we ignore
Preferring to stand by
More relevant than the personal ones
Between the privileged and the poor,
The healthy and the sick,
The young and the old,
The powerful and the marginalized,
The colonizers and the exploited
Afraid of the consequences.
As we center on what has use,
Agency, purpose, power, merit
We shun the opposites, the otherness,
The bad, weak, and different
Inside ourselves,
In our families and communities,
Globally and in our relationship with
The more-than-human world.
Nature, and the world
Getting worse and the poor poorer.
Negative capability
(John Keats wrote in a letter to his brother on Sunday December 21, 1817 describing the achievement he thought Shakespeare possessed: “I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”)
Partially retired and straining to rest
Wrestling with letting go
Of a life of practicalities.
Something is missing.
Its absence an invitation
To a foreign land
Both scary and pleading.
Feeling exiled from my old life
The new one yet to be discovered
I stumble.
Each mounting negative capability,
Is it the announcement of loss
The beginning of a slow death?
I yearn for transcendence
And don’t know where to find it.
I imagine that the world
Offers comfort and magic
But don’t know how to receive it
Until I see the silvery light
Glinting over the ocean.
I can’t swim the waters of past memories
“I can’t swim the waters of past memories”.
An odd sentence
Popping up in deep sleep.
A ghostly voice
With a dreamlike message
Asking to be deciphered.
By Author 鈴木華邨 1860-1919 – Hearn, Lafcadio; Suzuki Kason (illustr.) (1898) The Boy who Drew Cats
Small and frail
Not suited for hard work
The boy destined
To become a priest
Pulled by irresistible forces
Ends up drawing cats
Everywhere
Which in his sleep
Save him from the
Giant goblin-rat.
Folk tales and ruminations
Witnesses of creative spaces
Powers to be wrestled
Rescuing us
From darker places.
7, 8, 9, 10…
I wake up startled and disoriented
Stiff from the hospital recliner.
11, 12, 13, 14…
Dying and otherwise non-responsive
Echoing in the darkness of the night
My father’s disembodied voice continues.
Me a silent grieving witness
As he climbs the mountain of death.
Today I hike Horizon Hill
Rucking with 20 extra pounds
Pacing steps 5, 6, 7
Remembering his last heroic act
And other of his imprints.
Climbing alpine mountains
Never satisfied until reaching their peaks.
Routinely exercising in the living room
Indirectly mentoring me
About health and fitness
About the importance of keeping
Your muscles strong,
Your heart going,
Your balance steady.
Now older than he was in my memories
My sets of lunges, squats, and stretches
A result of his example.
And, bearing in mind
That at the end
The numbers themselves
Are the sole remaining
Insurmountable hold
Onto a life well spent.