Merry Winter Solstice & remembering the poet Mark Strand ~

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light.

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine

and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath

Mark Strand

1934 - 2014

A favorite poem for Micah on his 13th year in this world! And in memory of Marvin Klotz, professor extraordinaire ~

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

Joy Harjo

With gratitude...

When Giving Is All We Have

One river gives
                                                       Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,

But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

Alberto Álvaro Ríos

Galway Kinnell, ahh... you will be dearly missed ~

Prayer

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

Astonishment 

Oarlocks knock in the dusk, a rowboat rises

and settles, surges and slides.

Under a great eucalyptus,

a boy and a girl feel around with their feet

for those small flattish stones so perfect

for scudding across the water.

                               *

A dog barks from deep in the silence.

A woodpecker, double-knocking,

keeps time.  I have slept in so many arms.

Consolation? Probably. But too much

consolation may leave one inconsolable.

                               *

The water before us has hardly moved

except in the shallowest breathing places.

For us back then, to live seemed almost to die.

One day a darkness fell between her and me.

When we woke, a hawthorn sprig

stood in the water glass at our bedside.

                                *

There is silence in the beginning.

The life within us grows quiet.

There is little fear. No matter

how all this comes out, from now on

it cannot not exist ever again.

We liked talking our nights away

in words close to the natural language,

which most other animals can still speak.

                                 *

The present pushes back the life of regret.

It draws forward the life of desire.  Soon memory

will have started sticking itself all over us.

We were fashioned from clay in a hurry,

poor throwing may mean it didn't matter

to the makers if their pots cracked.

                                  *

On the mountain tonight the full moon

faces the full sun. Now could be the moment

when we fall apart or we become whole.

Our time seems to be up – I think I even hear it stopping.

Then why have we kept up the singing for so long?

Because that's the sort of determined creature we are.

Before us, our first task is to astonish,

and then, harder by far, to be astonished.

Galway Kinnell
1927-2014