Meditation poem for the first day of March:
Lady of Spring
O Lady
of the
Spring green,
of the first flower,
and the new leaf,
and the fruiting bud,
you whom the
dogwood halos
and the
hidden wren
hymns,
remind us
of
the new life
of grace
that rests
within us
seed like,
awaiting
the gentle
rain
of
mercy.
A meditation poem for
the second Sunday of Lent
Transfiguration Happens
For Sister Moon as she rises full tonight...
Moon Memories:
Once,
the Moon followed
me home,
I know,
because I watched her
out the back window of the car.
Occasionally slipping
behind trees or buildings
like a secret agent,
she kept up with us
effortlessly,
as I strained against
the straps of my seat
to meet her gaze.
I felt her interest
and her smile,
happy to have made
a new friend.
Once,
not afraid of the night,
but of the day
that would follow,
I was invited
by my Mother
to gaze on the Moon
outside our house,
and greet her as
Our Lady’s lamp
protecting all,
guiding all home,
wisdom
passed down
from her Father,
whom I had never met,
but always felt
I knew.
He loved the Moon too,
she said.
There is hereditary
of the heart,
as well as of the blood,
it seems.
To this day
I miss her calls
that would begin always
with
Have you seen the Moon
tonight?
For I cannot look up
at the Moon
without looking
within
too.
Once,
I spent the night
in a wood made pure
silver
by her presence,
and felt the life in every thing
stir and sing
and dance
in a wild celebration
that is hidden from
the day.
I sat stone still
and watched
Foxes play
about me
and a Badger
pass by like an ancient sage
busy on his own quest,
and I believed
in magic again
by her light.
Once,
I remember her
daytime ghost
appearing during the
long drawn out days
of dry schooling,
and seeing her
still serenity
so far above
the awfulness
of that age
made me breathe out
a breath
I did not even know
I had been holding
on to for years.
She felt like a friend
checking in.
We greeted each other
then,
as we do to this day,
each noticing the other
in the blessed acceptance
of being.
Once,
Sick and fevered I rose
gasping in the middle
of a winter’s night
and pulled back the curtain
to find her shining
over snow so newly fallen
that not a flake
had been disturbed,
but glowed in her gaze
cascading in curves
over a street I knew
but saw again
for the first time,
now softened
by snowlight’s reflection
of her blessed touch.
I looked and looked
at this gracious gift
of enchantment’s echo
until I felt I was being
looked at in turn
and blessed too.
In the morning,
I woke,
well.
Once,
I walked the pier
between my parents
on the night before
I left to follow
the path.
We watched her rise
together,
in silence
and listened to a mandolin
playing in the distance.
We did not have to speak,
the Moon sang for us,
soul songs only we could hear.
Always remember this night,
they said later.
As if I could
do anything
else?
Once,
Feeling bereft and lost
I caught sight of her
rising over a strange city
(Though I remember her,
and the feelings,
but not the city it was.)
and I did not feel lost
anymore
How could you be lost
when you are always
under her graced gaze?.
How could you be alone
when everyone you know
and love is beneath her blessing
too?
I asked myself.
Once,
I saw her,
loom so large
as to almost
be alarming,
bedecked in harvest
gold and heavy seeming,
she lit the land beneath
so beautifully
that the cattle on the hills
cried out to her,
and the birds began their chorus
for a dawn
that was yet hours away.
I danced in her light
that night,
beneath the trees,
a slow sandaled
shuffle of monkish sort,
and bowed deeply
as she passed.
How could you not?
When all around
and within
was
psalming
celebration
of her compline
completeness.
Once,
I watched her rise
sickle sharp
over Assisi.
As though making manifest
the unseen divine smile
hanging in the air
over this holy place
where joy was married
to peace in the song
of brother-sisterhood.
I smiled back and felt
the saint smile too
behind it all
and wondered what
his long silent nights
of prayer
must have been like,
measured only by her dance
across the sky
slowly revealing her face
to him,
as grace comes gently
to fill us
only as we empty,
and so seem
to disappear
into divine darkness
just like
her.
An older one for a Lenten Friday
Cobweb
I was
about
to clean
the cobweb
from
the crucifix
that hangs
in the
convent sacristy,
when I
became
aware
of the
tiny scrap
of
spidered soul
crouching
behind
the corpus;
and
I thought;
how right,
how beautiful
and right
it is,
that the
small ones,
the tiny ones,
the ones
we label
as ugly,
or scary,
or simply
too
different
to feel
their
kinship,
would
make their
home
with
Love
in the
moment
of its
greatest
rejection,
in the
moment
of its
greatest
triumph.
So
I withdrew
in
reverence,
remembering
in my
bones
the
web of wonder
in which
we are
all,
in
gossamered
grace
together,
soul spun
from
Spirit.
Reminded of this today...
Calligraphy
A new pen today.
A stranger in my hand.
Capable of so much
but halting as yet in its
generosity of ink.
There is a courtship of courtesy
needed in every encounter
with the new,
whether pen or person.
I, with my attention,
now create a partnership
of presence,
that wakes the essence
of the tool and allows
it become, more.
I must slow down
and learn its ways;
how the nib wishes to touch
the infinity of paper,
how its character
comes through
its balance and heft
in my moving hand.
There is a dance
to be done here;
I flowing with it,
it flowing with me.
Each in turn leading
the other.
So far though only
stumbles today.
They set me thinking
of favoured pens
and pools of ink past:
the reed I cut, split and carved,
chiseling staccato letters
in broad script.
The quill from a swan's wing
that taught gentleness of form,
curved to fit just so
into the waiting hand.
The chinese brush
sweeping over the ink stone,
its line responsive
even to the merest breath.
They all bestowed
their blessing of form,
carving emptiness
by their alphabets;
gothic, uncial,
copperplate, or free
and flourished,
allowing thoughts
to become
presence,
to become sound
and story,
maps of meaning
drawn in ink.
So too are we,
perhaps, pens
in the eternal hand,
when, unresisting,
we allow the Word
manifest mystery,
becoming visible in
our scribed story,
writing wonder
upon the world,
as from our scribbles,
and crooked lines,
our split nibs,
and spattered ink,
there across the page's
progress flashes
now;
at last
illumination!
Entering the Desert:
Go within,
to the deepest
place of
your heart,
and find there
the lenten desert places;
the spaces
of
non-beginning,
perished
growth,
old wounds,
and
even
sins...
Once there,
in the
searing honesty
of
soul's sight,
feeling
its unforgiving heat,
drought driven
and
bowed by
the
burden of
being,
simply cry,
"Mercy!"
and feel
at once,
Love's
flooding
response,
as desert
becomes
oasis
and blooms again
at the
instant,
not of speech,
but of
intent's
first aspiration,
for Divinity
awaits,
always,
invitation,
while yearning
through
the long ages
of our losing,
to breathe life
again
into
Adamic
dust
and grant
an
Eternal Spring.
(Pic uncredited found online)
Ordinary Miracles.
Today I am so tired
I have no space in me for big.
So I must return
to the small ordinary miracles;
to the way the cup
and the bowl
laid upon this table,
once earth themselves, now,
after fire's touch
are something else
entirely,
and give themselves
freely,
and with the
simple symmetry
of their curved line
to the holding
of emptiness
or fullness.
Or I will drink tea,
and follow it's warmth
and healing touch
within and without,
and mingle my breath
with its vapour and
touch the journey
of its essence
from far away lands
to here, to now, to me.
Or spend time
simply remembering
that between the covers
of the books
upon my shelves
are held minds, lives, worlds,
stories, wisdom
that will all last longer
than this little body of mine.
Or marvel
at the striped stones
upon the shore
that tell deep time,
layer by layer
and recall wild days
of disaster and dancing
in their still sea vigil
slowly loosing
their grains and building
beaches for children's hands
to make sand castles with
until the next tide
sets them swimming again.
Or just knowing
that already I have seen
a seed become a tree
become a log
become a fire
become dust
and become soil
for seed's planting.
Or watch the sky
and know that the blue
is still behind the clouds
and the stars still shine
even in the day.
Or simply sit
with the slow rhythm
of breath
knowing its biology
as blessing,
its divine anchoring
as presence and prayer.
Today, I am so tired
I have no space in me
for big questions,
queries, feelings,
problems, pains,
plans,
whether mine
or others,
so I will just sit
with the small ordinary
miracles of being;
breathing, watching,
touching, tasting
the now,
and in the now
knowing
the love
from which all that is,
is.
I will dwell there,
today,
in the wonder
of it all,
in the wildness of
the small
ordinary miracles
of being.
(An older one today but its how I’m feeling and a good reminder to me to seek and find the extraordinary in the ordinary. May it be such an invitation to you too in these quarantined quiet days)
