Cracked And Imperfect

"If it doesn't have to be pretty, or profound or perfect

maybe it can simply be true."

Do you feel the relief I do when I let go of

being pretty or profound?  I'm not going to say

perfect because that, we already are.  

Prestigious and prominent are two

more P words its a relief to release.

"And what is true?"

No need for deep thinking.

Although questions might be in order,

to scrape off the false conditioning

covering our authentic truth.

And then there's the choice

to be kind and considerate

rather than blunt and insulting.

That line where my truth

meets your dignity is significant.

Blunt could be necessary

in certain situations

with yourself and with others

but insulting needs to shift into silence.

And a word about perfect...

and imperfect for that matter...

I resist applying either to myself

and am learning not to apply it to others.

It's one of those judgement words

that implies one person's opinion

is more accurate than another's.

Who gets to decide?

That's not to say perfect isn't appropriate

for certain things like circles and right angles

and other mathematical, load bearing entities...

I'm thinking nuclear reactors, parachutes, bridges, 

airplanes, high rises and such 

where life depends on no cracks.

Meanwhile, let's carry our 

cracked perfection with 

humble gratitude and dignity.

 

Human

I love this and I love the people she's describing.

They exist everywhere. What a treasure.

Even the messy, uncomfortable, inconvenient, confusing

happenings are most often due to us caring about and for each other.

We fall all over ourselves to help out when we can.

We must not let anyone steal our joy.

 

Love Everyone

Man, oh man, does this piece stir up strong friction in me. 

I get the message.  I agree with the message..

.I have for a long time in human time.  

The amount of animosity and dare I say pure naked rage is an experience I am new to… 

Even after 10 years, the levels continue to outperform their previous degrees.… 

I’m not proud of this. Not for one nanosecond. But there it is. So now what? 

I am allergic to language of winning and losing. 

Who gets to call those shots? Apologies for the violent language. 

However much I’d like to be the kind of person 

who takes all the factors into consideration and finds grace, 

understanding, mercy and forgiveness for someone whose behavior I loathe; 

I am still deep in the tunnel of the opposites. 

I’m not opposed to people clinging to their morals. I

’d prefer to call it self-respect, mutual regard and human values.  

It’s not about being better than...it’s about the insistence for decency, 

fairness, honesty and truthful justice for all. The last two words are pivotal.

When one person minus any morals that I can detect other than seeing to his own comfort, 

enrichment in worldly standards and doing so at grave cost to others and our planet? 

I think we have to be honest enough to confess and own something 

that does not fit under the definition of the word “love”. 

Perhaps Ram Dass can go into a little more depth … share the secret ingredients… 

reveal the method as to how an ordinary human being who has lived her life, 

dedicated to striving for equity and true justice for all can accomplish it? 

This entire situation has shaken the foundations of my life. 

It’s hard to even say those words much less feel the shaking in my bones… 

It’s not shaking from fear. It’s shuddering from the display on a public stage for the world to witness… 

for our children to witness...the exact opposite of everything I’ve spent a lifetime upholding. 

My insides reverberate and echo with a giant, heartfelt, grief-stricken NO. 

Now that I have said my deeply felt, unfiltered piece… 

I want to see if I can recalibrate and self regulate so that I am not consumed and 

overtaken by these wretched feelings. I will not relinquish my allegiance 

to decency in response to disgraceful behavior.  I must find ways to maintain 

the values I stake my life on in real, living, breathing, human terms.  

There is goodness...much, much goodness flowing strong and clear beneath the slimy surface.

I’m placing my macro lens focus there. I suggest that keeping myself sane is a realistic goal. 

It’s said that living into joy in the face of cruelty and disdain for decency is an act of rebellion.  I hoist that mantle.  

PS:  This poet had to flee his country in order to be true to himself.  Being from Lebanon, we can

only imagine what suffering he has endured for himself and his family.

I bow to his dedication to kindness and love.

 

How We Disappear

We are not disappearing...

Being quiet is not being absent.

Holding sorrow, grief and dignity

all at the same time matters...

matters a great deal.

We are gathering our power.

We are not disappearing.

 

Do Stones Feel?

Animism explained by Mary Oliver.

It has changed the way I view the world...

even as I often catch myself continuing to see 

plants, especially "weeds" as objects...

same goes for flies, mosquitoes and such.

It's a steep learning curve.

I find myself explaining to weeds why

I have to remove them and apologizing

when smacking a biting insect automatically.

It's also a daunting responsibility.

It's made me realize how much I've objectified

the world around me.

Let's hope there is generous forgiveness

toward us unaware humans 

for our obtuse behavior.

 

But I'm Not There

We are always here...never there.

May your here be rich, sweet and fertile.

 

 

I Am Made

Leave it to Virginia Woolf.

She states something simple and profound.

My wish and my desire is to be

made and remade into 

the human I am...

a simple, complex, multi layered

mix of ordinary and outrageous,

ho hum and hallelujah;

rookie stumbles and humble wisdom.

May the process continue.

 

What Stillness

"No human voices break the stillness. . .where

I come to forget the foolishness of homo sapiens."

How I treasure temporary forgetting of 

"the foolishness of homo sapiens."

Calling it foolishness is a kindness.

"What sunlight does to water, stillness does to us."

It doesn't require a hilltop pond...

it does ask for a quieting of our mind...

no small undertaking, yet possible...

more so with practice.

When you find yourself there, 

it may feel unsettling...

don't panic...settle anyway.

Consider it a chance to encounter

the panorama of amazing

living inside you 

just below the surface.

Tender or terrible...it's yours and it matters.

 

Morning Sky Symphony

 

Don't Hesitate

"Still life has some possibility let.  

Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, 

that sometimes something happens better than 

all the riches or power in the world."

I suggest we keep our eyes and our hearts

wide open for where this is happening.

A pet's exuberant greeting,..

a riotous display of flowers blooming

in an unexpected spot where nature planted them...

warm strong arms saving you from a fall...

time with a loved one you don't get to see often.

When you remember to look, crumbs become a cake.

"whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb."

Let Them

"No matter what they do or say, 

don't you dare doubt your worth

or the beauty of your truth."

This is something I'd sincerely love to be able to accomplish.

I'm affected when I encounter someone who acts as if

I'm either not there or an annoyance in their world.

I wish with all my heart I could brush it off

and carry on in my happy way.

I wish it didn't cause a disturbance  in my molecules. 

I cringe when I find it coming up hours or days later.

If I could wave a magic wand, I would do so 

to immediately dispel the unpleasant scent 

that follows me from such encounters 

and wants to cling to my skin.

It also inspires me to remember that

my actions affect the world around me

in the same way...leaving a similar scent.

This reminds me of this quote that returns again and again...

"stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong, 

because you'll always find it once you've made that your mission — 

same goes for scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough." 

Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness

However, this feels different.  This is when you're expectation is to be treated 

at least politely and get a decidedly different response.

All my life, I've been taught and believed that kindness overcomes cruelty.

That we are meant to care about and for each other as best we can.

It's my choice and I choose to continue to bring whatever shred of kindness I can

into this world no matter how treacherous and brutal the terrain.

 

There is not

Poetry is a language of the senses...

this inspires me to pay more attention

to what humble verses are being

chanting down in the fibers of my feelings

through the tributaries of my eyes,

my nose, my ears, my mouth and my skin.

I did a search to investiage

 the field of the senses and found there are up to 53

identified....depending on who's counting. 

News to me!

Here are some of the additions:

My simple assumption about poetry being the language of the senses

has opened up a much wider world than I imagined.

I love when this happens.

Isn't that what poetry is all about?

 

How Is It?

"This is better than we thought! 

The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said,

 grander, more subtle, more elegant"

Sagan hits the bullseye with a resounding thwack for me.

"A religion...that stressed the magnificence of the Universe

as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth

reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped

 by the conventional faiths."

When I encountered this quote, 

I thought, wow! 

This says it exactly!  

How did I miss it?

Then it occurred to me.  

I was deeply enmeshed in 

one of those faiths when this was written.

I'd like to believe some of the faiths today

recognize and appreciate and give credence to Sagan's thoughts.

The Clearing

A river of words to describe the actual river...

isn't it a marvel?  

"Soon even that will sink and the water will be clear again.

I, too, have felt the gift of slowing, how it invites a sedimentation

of all I try to carry--the silt of my stories, the muck of the world."

With the quantity of muck in this world, 

I feel how vital the gift of slowing 

is for shifting the molecules of frenzy 

into a quiet trust and vigorous hope.

". . .the more calm I am, 

the more clear I can become."

This is the way we remain 

fiercely sane, unwaveringly civil 

and decent.

 

Keep Some Room In Your Heart

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable."

While I know full well what Mary O means,

we are living in a world where a lot of unimaginable

things are happening which I refuse to keep room for in my heart.

Perhaps I should say, I see them but do not entertain them.

(Things you "refuse" tend to grow larger)

In light of this, I want to say, 

"keep some room in your heart

for the unimaginable."

 of the kind that uplifts and inspires

our world toward goodness,

toward decency and fairness,

toward truth and honest justice...

toward total equality and equity for all...

feel free to add your own kind of unimaginable.

 

In The Name of Daybreak

 

I am swearing an oath to uphold 

these words from this moment on.

May they live strong and long in me. 

To be:

"a guardian of nature,

a healer of misery,

a messenget of wonder,

an architect of peace."

I Have Found Such Joy

"I wish I might tell every woman who goes seeking far

for some elusive, feverish delight, that very close to home

the great joys are: the elemental things. . ."

"The Message" seems tack sharp clear this week, doesn't it?

We already have what we need...it might be buried deep,

but it's there...quietly waiting for us to notice.

It's not necessarily loud and bodacious...

more often steady, patient, and reliable...

the foundation holding up the entire enterprise.

 

The Message

"It would be like looking for your own eyes."

I find this idea that what you seek is already within you

is lush, and rich with enchantment.

The paradox is a relief and a riddle...

it places our very own particular genius in sharp relief

against the backdrop of "not enough" that stalks us.

It lightens the load of constantly striving to live up

to something which already exists.  

I'm thinking ruby slippers.

 

Of Course I Have Lines On My Face

"of course i have lines on my face,

life keeps folding me open 

like a map of all the women I've been."

Wrinkles as a sign of joy...as a sign of becoming.

That's a new "wrinkle" isn't it?

I'll take it.

 

And Still

The river with its rich, fertile being and meanings

"keeps coming, touching me, passing by"

as I gather a lifetime of verses and prose.

It's uncanny how many times and in how many places

the river shows up with an encouraging air.

It's given me chills over and over to

see how it has wended its way...

quietly, softly, 

all along my journey.

"it's pale, infallible voice singing."

 

How Did You Do It?

"I’ve been wondering about all the ways we survive, 

all the things people do to adjust 

and skirt and catch a breath, 

the way everyone is managing both to rest and become."

Staying sane and civil is an accomplishment! 

Holding fast to the values we cherish. 

We resist and dissent, let our desires be known,

stand up for what we believe in and encourage each other.

"I would like to know—how do you stay awake given all this? 

What keeps you moving from one moment to the next? 

What has sustained your love  for the world?"

These are excellent questions we can mull over

and answer for ourselves and each other.

I'd be interested in hearing if you care to share.

 

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

While this seems a wee bit bleak this morning,

"a life should leave deep tracks"

and the way she names them touched me.

"The passage of life should show; it should abrade.

And when life stops, a certain space--however small--

should be left scarred by the grand and damaging parade."

With all respect and perhaps some rose colored glasses,

I wish it didn't have to be so hard. 

My wish is that the scars and damage are places

of revelation and recognition 

of the splendor and dazzling woven in...

that's easy to wish from here,

My heart breaks for 

all the horrors some human lives

are subjected to.

It Could Be

The current state of this country and its impact on our world is

testing all I believe in regarding softness, and mercy,

 especially mercy. 

I can feel the anger swell when I think about 

mercy shown in the past and where we are today.

I’m leaning into justice. 

Merciful and appropriate justice.  

I would add just a few more things that matter:

clean water, healthy soil and unpolluted air.

Plus truth, justice and fairness.

 

Pledge Of Kindness

I will remember this poem from now on when

reciting the pledge of allegiance...

I will think of kindness when I gaze on our flag...

the one I now fly at half staff...

Yes, yes, yes to "the possibilities for which it stands"

because they are numerous and exciting to envision.

And yes, yes, yes to "one planet under the stars".  

It is our precious home and we must make certain

to care for and nourish, heal and  renew the generous bounty

we're given by her presence.

And another triple yes to "interdependent on

liberty and justice for all".

With emphasis on "for all".

 

Still, What I Want

"Casting aside the weight of facts"

 is not something I recommend 

as we're currently experiencing 

the reality and the consequences

of actually doing so.

Mary Oliver's speaking metaphorically

 and in that context, 

I understand and resonate 

with floating a little above this difficult world.  

Interesting how the intention behind 

the "casting aside of facts" alters the meaning 

and the outcome dramatically.  

The riper I become, the clearer it gets that

pretty much everything is neither all good nor all bad.

For a poet and a president to use similar words and actions

to describe stunningly opposite perspectives,

provides a precise example of the paradox.