The Garden is Burning

 The Garden is Burning

For a long time now

a fire has been burning in my mind

a flood has rolled across my heart

an earthquake rumbles in my soul.

I am afraid it is breaking, 

this world of ours,

how could it not?

It bears so much weight

the weight of sadness,

the weight of fear,

the weight of pain.

Last week in Greece

a two thousand year old 

Olive Tree,

an elder, ancient and wise in ways we cannot even begin to know,

burned, 

as people fled the lands 

that fed them and us for ages untold.

The trees don’t get to leave.

Here in Ireland we smile 

and take pictures of a Walrus, 

a prince of the cold kingdom, 

now an exile, lost, wandering, alone,

iceless, friendless, bewildered by boats.

In Siberia, the tundra burns and mammoth bones have their slumbering rest disturbed

long thought safe and sleeping by the peoples who live and love upon the frosted lands.

In Afghanistan, a wordless groan erupts,

the pain of a tortured soul, 

the ache of a land so long in agony 

its voice is near a death rattle 

despair of a people fearing a veil being drawn over their faces, a stifling of song, an ending of hope, a blanket of hate, and loss, and loss, and loss, and betrayal.

In Haiti, earthquakes again.

In Lebanon, explosions again.

In America, fires again.

In Turkey, floods again.

My litany is nowhere near complete…

Lord have mercy.

The world is breaking.

How could it not?

What was meant as garden 

needs its gardeners,

needs us to be Adams, gardeners, again;

needs us to be Eves, mothers of life, again;

that was the original blessing after all;

to grow, to steward, to bring forth life, 

to bless, to give thanks, to guard and keep

all that lives, all that breathes, all that is.

So what must I do?

What can you do?

Be a gardener.

Now, 

right where you are.

Dig.

Dig deep within,

Dig over the hard soil of the heart 

that cannot bear to hear anymore 

and let it breathe again original blessing.

Plant seeds of kindness.

Plant seeds of compassion.

Plant seeds of love.

Water it with your tears for all beings who suffer.

Grow a harvest of tenderness for those who suffer

Grow flowers of welcome for the lost and the lonely

Grow the fruit of peace in yourself and offer it to all beings to eat.

Act with reverence for all that is, 

for all that is, is holy.

Allow that little plot of life 

and earth around you to heal.

It will spread. 

Remember we are all sons of Adam

Remember we are all daughters of Eve

Hear again the song of sister Mother Earth

Sing again the hymn of creation

Be again, blessing

Be again, the gardener,

Be at last the steward.

Be.

Storm Fallen Cedar

Storm Fallen Cedar

It was the storm

that took her

at the last;

while we nestled

deeper in our beds,

unsleeping,

but grateful all the same

for the simple joy

of shelter.

In the smallest hours

Heaven opened

overhead

and poured upon us

an onslaught of

wild wind,

with rain so cold

it was almost snow

in its sharpness.

Just before the dawn

it peaked in power,

finally enough,

as it

whipped

like a scourge

against her long aged, grey,

elephantine skin

and, though her sisters

held their vigil nearby,

she gently gave way,

and fell,

prostrate upon the earth

from which she came,

embraced by the sacred soil

of our little

graveyard.

Was she tired

of her long watch upon the hill?

Holding her gaze

over the forest, the family

and now the friars,

for three hundred

of our human years

(Whatever kind of reckoning

Trees make of time

I do not know,

and they do not tell

in our tongue at least.)

So much had passed

beneath her branches

famines, feasts, families

and finally, friars, all played

their part

measuring her time,

each in their own way.

That morning,

emerging into light,

we heard the news

in shock;

the ripple of her passing

echoing

in awe and prayer both,

a sadness felt in brother, bird, and beast

for those still enough to hear.

Today,

I made my pilgrimage

to pay my respects

as she lies in state,

our sacred sister,

eldress of this land.

Finding her broken body

dissolving already,

her ancient green soul

flown.

Her long hidden heartwood

now exposed,

still raw and soft yet,

open to the breeze,

that touched her broken branches

with the sacred sprinkling

of the rain.

So often before

I had blessed her,

and given her my brother’s bow

in passing by,

and so been blessed in turn

by her simple stately

being.

My hands, resting upon her trunk,

felt the difference

today.

No pulse,

no inner warmth,

no great deep

breathing in her

root,

trunk,

branch,

bark.

It brought sadness too,

but also the joy of knowing

that in every death

something withdraws,

is freed,

leaves.

For all that live

sing their own soul song

arising from Divine love,

and in someway,

at the end will

return their essence

as gift borrowed for a while,

until the new creation

allows resurrection seed

to finally fully bloom

in all beings.

I was not the first

to grieve her though,

For all around the tracks

and trails of those she sheltered showed;

the fleet of foot, feathered, furred

they too had felt her passing,

and it seemed had held their funeral rites

ever before us.

And then,

I looked up from my troubled thoughts

and found my gaze held

by a Stag who watched,

wary and wonderful and wild,

from the forest’s edge.

Both of us, in our own way,

guardians of this land.

Both of us mourning

the passing of our eldress,

each in our own way.

Both of us simply there

in the brotherhood of all being.

And I think, in that moment

we were blessed,

and blessed each other too,

in our common grief and trust

that all that live upon this earth will die,

and all that dies will live again in Love.

Then, bowing gently, we withdrew

to forest and to friary each,

aware of other 

and of something

beyond other, 

I, for my part, call grace,

(Whatever kind of reckoning

Deer make of grace

I do not know,

and they do not tell

in our tongue at least.),

grace that had led us both

to be there

at that time, together,

in mourning,

for our storm fallen sister,

the great and ancient being

we simply call

Tree.