Apart

the covers are the same leather, only Em dyed hers with pokenberries from the back yard, and i left mine dusty brown. the pages of her journal are inked over in love notes and sonnets and tearful lonely nights and dress designs & pieces of rose petal fall out everywhere and she clutches it close and it matters. mine smells like the print shop and is smudged and misspelled and i write about calving season and old man Huckers' new house and the first dandelions and last week's outrageous grocery bill. I marvel at Dante and Plath and Rice, and a world where hunger and happiness share the same sidewalk. my journal has words like "prodromic" and "palimpsest" underlined because there are so many more questions than why did you leave me alone?

Blue Springs: after the history tour

Summer was thick upon the Thursby house. Spanish moss dripped motionless from the ponderous live oak by the porch, in whose shade sat a lone man in a rocking chair. His face was as creased as the bark of the tree, and he was quiet.

It was always this way by mid summer in Velusia. The town was enveloped in the July heat like an ant in amber. They say that after God finished laying out the Fifty States, he went back to smooth them over some. Alaska and its kin gave him no end of trouble, and the Carolinas and Virginias had some stubborn creases that wouldn't lay right. He got so all-fired frustrated with Tennessee and parts of Georgia that he went and heated up his iron again--stuck in right up next to the fire and let it set. It got red-hot and he came back. But he couldn't figure where to begin, the whole mess of 'em were so puckered and hillocked. While he was figuring, he done set that iron right flat on Florida and its been hot and steamy ever since.

His heels and the rocker, the infrequent red-throated flair of a basking lizard from the leaves of the camilla bush, the far-off gurgling of the head spring - for Walter, time hung in the air as a dusty haze. In the porch shade he sat and rocked and looked out on the yard, its sandy stretches tremulous with heat and waves of memory.

The freeze of 1895.
the manatee chasing of his childhood.
traveling to Ocala.
the new general store and Uncle Tyler's automobile.

"I've been beginning things all my life."

many much

there were three alligators and only one of me, he said, puzzled. Maybe I don't believe in majority rule

the nature of the beast

he says comic book justice doesn't exist on earth you know & he's right but i bet he wears spandex just in case

Just a 3 mile run...

1 a very small rabbit - ears back & fur the color of the perfectly toasted part of a marshmallow.

2. a pair of woodpeckers together on a fallen sycamore log - red-headed & one lattice-backed.

3. two black calves standing about in a creek, nose to nose with their ridiculously long-legged reflections.

4. a happy-to-be-awake border collie patrolling the Rushing's farm.

5. rolling hills speckled with sheep - brown faced, white, some with brown coats. They drifted over the landscape like earthy clouds.

6. fat groundhog waddles at surprising speed, going to ground into a nasty tangle of dead vines (look closer & they're tinged with green).

7. March elms pretending to be sinister & shadowy, not quite concealing their swelling tips.

8. look up at the implausible wingspan of a vulture - the March elms suddenly are sinister.

9. one mostly-tail squirrel skittering from the dog-side to the sheep-side.

10. black horse on new green grass, at the lower end of the field, right before sunrise, looking like the first thing of a first world.

11. boisterous yawn of a rooster echoes after me - you can't outrun the day's dawning.



40 minutes of wednesday on planet earth (& this is not to mention the thronging spikes of daffodils & imperceptible pollen tang in the air, or the american robins staking claim to every thread and dry grass around)--

it's spring.

styrofoam monday

some days, she said, all the human interaction i get is a smile from the kitchen worker as i throw out my empty cup

love them like a gardener

I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit. ~Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909

That Sort of THing

The space between your look
And the words written in your notebook
(the green spiralbound the color of spring and newlove)
Made my heart pause, and then go bounding away
Over the hills,
Fears breaking like ice melting like birds nesting like fresh butter and windy runs, like your hands.
Large hands, capable of blacking both my eyes and my heart. Be careful where you place those hands, because
I might just leap over and take one with me
down to the daffodils and riverwater,
and
I don’t
think you’re wearing quite
the right
shoes
for that sort of thing.

Ship's Log

5:00 Wake up & remember how to climb out of bed.

8:00 Drive through Adrinxley, Foglesworth, Horington - stop in Brunswick for coffee.

11:21 Fight jealousy as you read his name in the Wall Street Journal

4:30 Walk away from the computer and rest the optic nerves.

5:30 Drive through Brunswick, Horington, Floglesworth - stop in Adrinxley for groceries.

6:oo Cross the threshold into your arms. Undone by gratitude for life. We make dinner. Gratitude. My life.

Golden Rule

Build the porch wide,
ignore ethnic abstractions-
that is what it means to be a good neighbor.

Talk in the streets,
wave the news of tomorrow
in yesterday's face. Be adamant & friendly.

Add to whatever
list of virtues they discover,
that time-worn blueblood, love.

Yet in the hubub of obeisance,
welcome that outsider:
forbearance.

Disregard this guest; it may chance no
falling sword will break your feast.
But, neighbor, answer me
this: can love draw a circle that leaves him out?

(Judith did and look what happened to Holofernes)

Buckle up, the NIGHT IS COMING!!!

It finally came - i ordered it on a whim & now I hold the slim maroon volume in my hand. "The Tiger Garden: a book of writer's dreams"

on one of the pre-pages is this quote from Anna Kavan's Sleep Has His House:

“Are you afraid of tigers? Do you hear them padding all around you on their fierce fine velvet feet?
The speed of the growth of tigers in the nightland is a thing which ought to be investigated by the competent authority. You start off with one, about the size of a mouse, and before you know where you are he’s twice the size of the Sumatra tiger which defeats all comers in that hemisphere. And then, before you can say Knife (not a very tactful thing to say in the circumstances anyhow), all his boy and girl friends are gathered round, your respectable quiet decorous docile night turns itself into a regular tiger-garden. Wherever you look, the whole night is full of tigers leaping and loping and grooming their whiskers and having a wonderful time at your expense. There isn’t a thing you can do about it apparently.”

perhaps there is no monopoly on fantastic dreams.

i want to hear their stories.

the journey begins at moonrise.

A Cord of 3

my sister, younger:
how can i describe you? you are like:
a five year old's first rainbow-sprinkle ice cream - a matchless marvel;
a morning glory stumbled over while fetching the early morning news;
a May afternoon that tastes of June and sounds like the splash of bare feet in Six Mile Creek.
a penny, heads-up;
a rainy day pancake;
a new pair of white shoes;
a porch swing in summer;
applecake with raisins
and a whole album of Grandma's wedding pictures.


my mother, wiser:
with your hands you weild both sword
& spatula;
you know what feeds the soul
& artfully prepare what delights the tongue.
your love is flavorful & spontaneous,
like goat cheese and mango chutney;
you are delicate and perfect,
like the halo of rice crackers encircling the plate.
may your day be filled with Glory,
fresh baked Bread of Life;
and also with glory,
fresh pineapple &
the smile of a friend.

my true-love, hiding:
the water of life flows through you,
out your eyes (color of the spring-new earth);
from your hands, free and open
like the fragrance of hyacinth--vital effusion.
rising & outflowing from between the petals of your lips;
your voice has the power of awakening
all the tender, increscent joys
that thirst within me.
Be strong as the sun rises,
and stronger yet when it sets.

A mid-March Prayer

It's 5 am & mud-puddles pockmark my path.
I walk
to work & ignore the squelch.
Time makes sunwarmed grass green and all glistens as I amble into class,
my mind chained
to the lonely crocuses outside.

Midterm madness, he borrows my pencil
while I stare at the ceiling, deafened by the spring music suppressed within, and
annoyed by the insistent rows of interoggatives.

Solomon dreamed and asked for wisdom - he petitioned with the
Phoenician word (the Phoenicians: a sea-faring people who sailed boldly with tarry hands)
and recieved the right kind, immediate--the king's cup was emptied of mere knowledge
and instead outflowed rich, directional, To-steer-a-boat wisdom.

That's all I ask for too,
no arrogant desire for glory or ease--i ask no more than a God's gifting.
(i catch an inward glimpse the lilies of the field; my shout disrupts the class)

Perhaps I seek more than ship-handling flair;
I sue for the splendor of spring days
and wet skies and
uncaged joy. I entreat you, O Lord,
for year-old calf joy;
let me kick and cavort on one of your thousand hills!

Thrice times

The New Yorker reviewed a production of 'The Scottish play' - apparently Patrick Stewart is haunted by three nuns in starched white hats - the pyschoapparitions of the Weird Sisters. Most of the drama happens in hospital, with the sink faucets pouring blood and the electric lights glaring off tile floors. 

ugh. 

But perhaps i am still too young to appreciate "re-interpretation"--maybe I ought to see MacBeth in all its Highland terror before I start critiquing it in its modern style. Still, I cannot imagine an audience watching the Thane of Cawdor trembling before the butcher & still receiving the full impact Shakespeare intended. 

But I guess Patrick Stewart can pull off anything. Maybe I'll fly to the Big Apple and judge for myself?

One last expression

Tonight there were seven swatches of color hiding in the East out of the way of gaudy Sunset - the first was a hopeful newborn blue that would grow up into midnight black but didn't know it yet,
the next one was an imperceptible violet like spring asleep which bled into rose, very tender. After that it was almost too much, the fourth a retiring orange like God's glory veiled, the fifth the yellow of babylonian gold, and then the sixth a benediction from the ceiling of a holy chapel - a hopeful faint palor of spring, like the dream-of-a-robin's-egg-blue. And then the final, the perfect seventh, was not a color but the absence of it - the journey at its beginning, as if this swathe of light has not glimpsed its fate, the dying sun, the diminishing strength of today.

I stood and watched and breathed, and then walked on. By the time I had my key in the door, darkness had fallen.

But I will remember that one last expression of faithfulness from the Creator God.

Laundromat

the last thing he heard her say was Don't put my laundry in the dryer & now he spends most of his time here watching everything spin

A Grief of Tomorrows

I bet Methuselah never got tired of spotting the delicate blue of a robin's egg in the matted grass among the roots of a gnarled tree--even if the tree was younger than him and less gnarled.

& i bet he never got to take that trip to Thrace or watch it snow into the Ilyrian ocean and i bet you right before his last birthday he was still planning on refinishing that chest of drawers for his wife.

man, life is so short

forget it

the door swung shut behind him & we laughed & pushed it open again, pretending it didn't hurt that he hadn't noticed we were ladies too

A little brother

it was only a nickel in the cardboard lid of a shoebox but he gave it to me & his eyes shined brighter than silver & I knew I loved him with the fierceness of ten thousand suns.

Fire

James untangled the leash and took Lilly on a brisk jog around the perimeter of the park. Twilight was a couple minutes off, and the wind was taking unholy delight in ruffling the geese on the pond. The noise, the setting sun, the little dog trotting by his heels all made James grateful to be alive.

Intensely grateful.

In fact, his heart hurt, he was so thankful to be alive, this moment, this day. He reached the gate of the park and stopped, leaning against one of the guarding pillars. He wrapped the leash tightly around his hand and felt the burn on his palm. An owl called from silent wings; the geese shuffled and honked; Lilly yipped and turned - the cacophony of earth sounds was too much, he was overcome, drowning.

Breathe.

It was March 2, 1964. He, James Arnold Vanders, was thirty-six years old. He was employed at the Griffon&Hearst Financial Advising Center, and he had a three bedroom house half a mile from the park, address 66 North Brockton Drive, Boston, Massachusetts. He had one window box with geraniums and he wondered if they needed to be watered.

That thought calmed him. Breathe in, breathe out, blink and notice how the darkness spreads. A slow smile followed a long exhale. James straightened up, rather embarrassed, and ambled home in the glow of a hundred street lamps. Life is a common gift, all is right with the world, and Lilly is eager for her dinner.

That night on Brockton Drive a fire broke out. Two whole apartment complexes burned to the ground. No one was killed, but the residents lost everything. One woman grabbed her favorite coffee mug and her husbands fishing gaiters. A young man escaped with his art portfolio and leopard print long-johns. A couple got out with their newborn and $15 worth of diapers and baby food.

James Vanders came down the street with blankets and a first aid kit, and opened his home to anyone who needed shelter. He was horrified at the women's tears and men's silent stares - the look of people cast loose, unmoored from possession & sense of ownership. He cooked for them, he washed towels and gave away shirts and slacks and long-unused baby clothes. Lilly licked their hands (and occasionally their faces) and gradually the flame-reflections faded from their eyes. After two weeks, the last of them had gone and the rubble was completely cleared. A few more months and another complex would be erected--life would go on, the same as before.

But not for James. Twilight saw him anxious. Lilly whined at the door, but he never took down the red leash.

He was pondering. He looked around his house, at the outline of geraniums through the window, his grandmother's spinning wheel in the corner, his dead wife's doily display of their wedding pictures, at the boxes of records from Griffon&Hearst, at the little details that made 66 Brockton part of himself.

And he was afraid.

If it burned and was destroyed, part of him would be destroyed. He felt like the prince lost in the labyrinth-the princess at the entrance had kissed him and given him a magic ball of thread and he had taken it with singing. Only now when his life was tangled in its skein did he realize that she could doom him in a fickle instant and cut him loose forever, leave him broken and vulnerable.

He was angry. From birth he had been given things to care for and protect and take care of-there had been no choice involved. Without his consent parts of his affection had been trapped into things, his happiness trapped like a dandelion captured in a glass globe. Lilly whined again, and for an instant James was tempted to shake off these thoughts and run to the park. Yet he would not be truly alive this time, because parts of him would here in this dark apartment, that throbbed with his life and memories. He became angry. He wanted back his freedom, he wanted back his soul, he wanted to take the power from the princess, shatter the paperweight, and see the sunset as a whole man.

Lilly barked as he walked over to his pipe rack and took down a package of matches. The files from Griffon&Hearst made a formidable pile and the spinning wheel was in the close corner. He put on his hat and coat, snapped the leash on his dog (because a dog is different, a dog is a friend, you choose your dog) and walked out in the light of a hundred street lamps. Soon their light was overcome by the glow of 66 Brockton Drive, as it snapped and crackled and burned.

But it didn't matter to James Arnold Vanders. He would never have the flame-reflection in his eyes, because he had cut the thread and braved the labyrinth. From this time forth the fire in his eyes would come from his own soul, the whole man.

He was truly alive.

Middle Earth

She spent most of her evenings listening to him recount adventures & when i asked her why she said I've been stuck here so long the orcs are becoming attractive

my own baking

the raisins looked up reproachfully & he said What, i never claimed my oatmeal cookies would look like Buckingham Palace

Descartes sees the door close: A dream

Scene: Descarte, a balding man with a creased forehead, sits in a striped lawn chair with a drink of soda-water on a table by his elbow. Around him withered grasses blow. He's in the middle of a huge field hemmed in by mountains.

He is thinking.

Descartes: The mind of man is the only constant; the only known x in a world of thousands of variables. Without his mind, a man is shut out in impenetrable darkness. His mind is the doorway to existence.

Descartes adjusts his lap rug and pensively takes a sip. He grimaces. Behind him a figure appears, walking purposefully down a narrow, dusty cow-trail. As he gets closer, he is seen to be a youngish man, perhaps in his early thirties. His long brown hair curls at the ends, much like his very French mustache. It is Pascal.

Pascal, switching the grass with his walking stick with each word: Pointless, uncertain, arduous-Oh, bon jour, Monsieur Descartes.

Descartes: Ah, yes, Pascal. I suppose the proper response is "good day" but I make it my practice not to put confidence such phrases. I would not want to deceive you--there is some doubt as to whether your day may be good or...otherwise.

Pascal, cheerfully: You might be onto something there. Noah says we're due for a rainstorm. He thinks its going to be a deluge for the ages.

Descartes glancing at the cloudless, glaring sky, mutters: One cannot conceive of anything so implausible but that one philosopher has said it to another.

Pascal: What's that? Couldn't quite hear you?

Descartes, rather loudly and feigning a genial air: Rain? You don't say! Are you sure you're not a butterfly dreaming you're a...hmmm...make that a desert dreaming its an ocean?

Pascal, looking concerned: Rene, my dear fellow, I believe you've alone with your mind too long. He spots the now half-empty glass of soda-water: What? Surely that stuff is not conducive to contemplation.
He pauses, and then walks in front of Descartes. A tone of earnestness creeps into his voice: Come along with me. On the urgings of Noah I've invested in a boat. Nothing compared to his, a trifling little dingy really, but Jaqueline's stocked it up with all sorts of provender.

Descartes ignores the invitation, thunderstruck to hear about the boat: You've gone and built a boat? Whyever for?

Pascal, twirling one side of his very french mustache: Well, there's a fifty-fifty chance old Noah is right, and this rain shower turns out to be...dangerous. I'm just trying to keep me assets afloat, and cover my a--

Descartes hastily interupts: How remarkably wise of you, and thank you for your offer, but I think I prefer to sit here and indulge in my own little fancies.

Pascal: Well, it's your life. But I'd wager this storm is going to get worse before it gets better. If you change your mind, my little Santa Maria is moored..uh, parked...up around that left-hand corner. You can't miss it.
He walks on, swinging his cane. Descartes watches him go.

Descartes: That young man will never get anywhere if he doesn't learn to use his mind.

An hour goes by, then two. The sky darkens and it begins to sprinkle. Descartes moves his blanket from his lap to his head and huddles as the lightning and thunder become more frequent. He is thinking hard, on the edge of a breakthrough.

Descartes: Cogito ergo.... Cogito ergo.... SUM! Cogito ergo sum!!! He leaps up, overturning the table and chair. He begins an Irish jig, and then regains his composure. He notices that the ground is covered in water - and it's rising fast.
Good heavens! This really is too bad. I shall be damp. But wait until the others hear this argument! Man's mind may be a the doorway, but I have discovered why the door exists!
He stands still, enraptured with the beautiful mental image of an open door, whispering delightedly: Cogito ergo sum, cogito ergo sum, cogito erg..
the rain continues.

Meanwhile, Pascal is aboard his boat watching through the doorway as the water rises higher and higher. The wind is growing stronger, whipping the water into choppy little waves. His vessel begins to rock, and he loses his balance and falls against the starboard wall. Water begins sloshing through the open door.
Pascal: Ow, that was my foot.
He notices the boat is spinning from the force of the torrential rain crashing down the adjacent mountain side.
In fear he cries out: Que Dieu ne m'bandonne jamais!
Seconds later, a divine hand reaches out and shuts the door of the little boat, right before it is torn from its mooring and carried off the mountain by a sudden debris-laden wave.

For Annie Dillard: A born poem

young pup rolling on the floor,
delighting in my hand's touch on his fur -
experiencing Now, the moment's bliss, while
I, caught in past and future, wonder what we humans miss?

We live wounded, recalling past arrows & desires,
in autumn we remember leaves tinged with brighter fires.
Shallow and self-concious, our life below the stars
obsesses with the past, like a prisoner at his bars.

When we brawl, we know we're brawling,
and we spectate our own deeds,
we view our wild rantings and devoutly spoken creeds-
our every past and present action with self-awareness bleeds.
We're awed not by the drop of rain, but the ocean which it feeds.

Strip us of distractions and the vexing 'why' and 'how',
purge away the 'then' and 'soon' and let us worship Now.

So we are alive?
without time and sense
of darkness changing into light,
knowledge of dark heads turning white
without conscious love of memories
or past mild Springs?

Could we be human, without these things?

the puppy growls, i draw my hand away.
the sun sinks down. there goes another day.

who invented fair

Being alive, he said, means choosing strawberry icecream over carrot&spinach composte & she laughed and said yes, but her eyes were painful because look who he's dancing with

Twenty-six exactly

Smarter this time, he crossed after checking that my suburban had actually stopped at the red light. Every morning on my way out to the clinic, I see this kid walking on the gravel shoulder in the blue black pre-dawn.

I like him. He reminds me of myself back in my independent student days, (I imagine I'd have rocker hair like that if I didn't wear it short).
Usually I just see the blur of his red coat, but today he was ahead of me.
I overslept, which isn't allowed in my line of work. Trying to make up time, I was rushing and a bit frantic, wondering if the Glock ponies had already been fed, or if that really old chocolate lab was still unconscious. The roads are deserted and here I am stuck at the only red light in town - practically the only light in town.

That's when I noticed the jut of his profile in front of me. He was still in the road, one foot over the white line, oblivious to anything other than up. It looked like mid-step he'd been arrested by some marvel in the sky, and he'd turned to stone, frozen to the muddy earth. I craned my neck under the windshield in time to glimpse a V of geese heading off towards Berryville.
Yeah, it's winter, geese do fly.

Brett Rosser called in about injections for his llama herd; the chocolate lab was conscious and proudly making messes everywhere, and I had to let my assistant know in no uncertain terms that even if her boyfriend in the marines was leaving in a month, she needed to stop texting him every three minutes. Crystal, this is exactly what you get when you oversleep and skip breakfast, I told myself. By eleven, my internal stress-sensor was indicating a coffee break was the only sane option.

He pulls a couple of shots, tamping the esspresso with with short hands attached to tatooed forearms.
"You walk to work every morning?" I ask.
"Yeah. I don't live too far, and I'm a morning person."
"Well, be careful. I think I saw you out today - you stopped in the middle of the road like you forgot that semis exist."
"I did?"
He hands me my latte, and takes my wadded cash.
"You stood and stared at the sky. It was a good thing I was stuck at a red light. I'm not a particularly morning person."
"It was the geese - they," His voice strained a moment, "flew. In formation. They flew together."

Was this kid a tech-addict, had he lived in a basement all his life?
"I know, it looks like a V. Haven't you seen that before?"
"Nah, I have."
"So what was different?"

I have my change, crisp new bills, and there are a few people waiting behind me, but I want to know.
"Well," and his eyes widen, "there were twenty-six exactly."

American

Adam and Eve didn't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in Eden.

Christians don't have one with God. Neither do non-christians.

At the Intersection: Monday morning

This smokey winter morning
Do not despise that green jewel, shining among the trees
because it is a traffic light.



(i don't remember where i read that, and google has failed me, so i suppose I will just enjoy it.
i just wish the man who wrote it down could know how unutterably right he is, this smokey winter morning)

Desire...

So i am a child, a fool, a hawk-on-the-March-wind. Humor me. Are liberty and desire so common that you'll deny me this first mad rush?


i want to write you a poem
that will do you in,
shake you up,
like that
martini you wouldn't drink.

i want to sing you a song
that will crawl into
your heart,
like a soldier crawls out of the wind
to die,
never leave again.

i want to give you a kiss,
a kiss that obliterates
all the judas-stains you think you wear;
i want to leave a star-scar
on your right-hand precipice of cheek-bone.

but most of all,
i want to give you water
and watch you drink it,
drain it like a prisoner without reprieve,
knowing it's the last wet miracle
before the sun rises for the last time.

A poem, a song, a kiss, and a whole new life-i want to grab your hands and hold your heart,
but i can't.
not with words.
but i still want to write you a poem......

Moonrise After Compline

On late nights, I sit and listen to the wind blow the geese around on the pond outside. I tell myself that one day I will have a reason to write poetry like this. Isn't it amazing how lack of sleep makes us so gullible?



Suddenly I felt annointed;
walked and talked knowing your eyes
strayed to the same thin moon, your hands
broke the same bread.
Just a profile & glimpse of white teeth-
Monday's quota of sacred manna
gathered.

Later, showered and hungry,
(no pillar of fire or cloud interrupting)
I notice night and the small moon bound in his arms;
I cannot ignore their proximity to each other
(she has always been fascinated by dark lovers, silly young thing).
but, politely, I turn from the window...
and start this poem to you.

Yet why should I?
those darkened stars are your necklace now,
a host of rich adornments
(do they burn, like my tears?
are they jewels in your vault of memory?).
Poetry is too fragile a medium to wrest you from yourself-
As if unspoken words ever won a human heart!
oh! But sometimes the fantastic occurs on this earth, perhaps....

Ah! You moon, take your black desperado away from my window!
You are deluding me --fifty sheets of paper will not conjure me up my desire.
I must wait until tomorrow, must wait until sunrise.
Thank God manna falls fresh every morning!

You know that feeling

It's when the tears spill over her mascara and she asks "Why now? Why does it happen now" and you dredge up some fortune-cookie comfort phrase that is about as useful as your awkward shoulder pat or offer of a kleenex.



thats when you realize that wisdom is a garment that must be fitted to the wearer daily. there ain't no relying on what you learned at your grandpa's funeral or on the dock in the middle of the lake at summer camp. Rather, you may draw upon the experiences of those times, but you must filter it throught the man you are today, at this moment. That takes discipline, though, and mental exertion. Often it means reinterpreting the past, realigning your ideas in agreement with your maturity. It can be rough. It means looking around you and learning from the present, so that your words are real and styled for this year. If you have ever had someone tell you "Man, I've been there, I know what it's like" only to liken your pain to a scenario from Mrs. Harl's second grade math class, you know what I'm talking about.

It's like a reheated, refrozen, rehashed HungryMan meal - you wouldn't serve it to the rotweiler next door, and you shouldn't offer it to your friend, (even if she's a blonde going through her eighth emotional Three Mile Island in as many days).

Every February the snowdrops out by the mailbox start poking green waxy points through the old mulch. By March they've come up all the way, and graceful white bells offer their beauty to the elements and drip in the miserable weather. Those flowers always look the same. The bulbs they retreat into after spring really comes are the same ones Grandma & I planted when I was six. But the flowers are new every year.

You are the same person, your experiences all happen to you. But the way you understand them is different every day, just as you are different every day. Don't stop questioning, don't coast along pretending you don't change. You do change. Everybody knows that feeling.

Vanity

landmarks,
old-forts,
great trees who tower dark against the sky.

Swift rivers,
weary horses,
years spent learning an ancient skill.

Stony roads,
bright moonlight,
wild dances beside red fire.

Sword-making,
hard fighting,
a missing comrade and the wind,
the never-ceasing wind.

Come up for some air

Last night I think I dreamed in Greek mythology- my sister would say that's what comes of reading too much poetry in the night watches. If she's right, then I think I will switch to meditative yoga. That dream was agony.

but so is Yeat's poem:

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

How do you go on with your evening with an image like that loose in your mind? Count sheep, bah, I bet you anything that has never worked.

No, you lay awake and puzzle and you pray. Last sunday the pastor said we have been "overwhelmed by God's love, and our efforts to refuse it are futile." Suddenly, that scares me. Am I as vulnerable to this God of love as Leda was to her god of lust? Is there something undignified and unworthy about a lover who asks neither consent nor approval, and just gives or takes at will?

Yes. there is. But the God of the Bible is not like that thrusting, overmastering nightmare god. He has given us choice, for all that we prate of his predestined guiding and counsel. Part of the logic is that if GOd is as glorious as Isaiah paints him, as inscrutable and powerful as Exodus and Acts declare, then how can we NOT worship and surrender to him? The idea that we could refuse to breath is more logical. But all I need is to review the past 2 hours of my life and I see that I have been given choice, and I have squandered my measure of praise on things that are not worthy. And he lets me.
It is a paradox, a mystery.

A deep, profound mystery which I cannot leave alone for long, and I must learn to share, and which I must learn to listen for. Because there are a thousand Leda's out there, bewildered and confused and crying:

tell me a story that means something.
paint me a picture that i will want to dream about.
give me a drink that won't leave me drunk
and despairing
lead me to a god who won't rape me
and when you talk
please
remember to come up for some air