On My Dad's Birthday/Father's Day June 12th 2020 and on

I wish you a Happy Birthday.  You have seen so much in your life! And your steady presence encourages me in these unsteady times.

Things I love about you:

First, I am grateful for the relationship between us, which has expanded my joy and my appreciation of you as my father.

Second, many of your lessons, which are in fact sinking in!  Such as:
   
     Handle paperwork only once.
     Think first:  Do you want it? Do you need it?  Can you afford it?  Can you possibly do without it?
     (needs three affirmatives which can be over-ruled by a final affirmative.)
     Weigh risks against payoff
     "Now cut this side just like I cut the first and don't cut off your finger."
     "Ask me anything; I've made every mistake possible."
     "Every person has their own demons."
      Who's your boss?  What's your job?  And how are you doing in your job?
   
Third, your love of nature, especially birds and lush landscapes.

Fourth, your congeniality

Fifth, your really corny sense of humor

Sixth, watching you develop as a writer

Seventh, your desire to create objects of beauty (and function) that bring joy to humans

Eighth, your success (and perseverance) with gardens

Ninth, your basic belief in the ability of people to improve and succeed

Tenth, your willingness to help

Eleventh, your PATIENCE as a teacher

Twelfth, your belief in peace

Love, Sidney

Time Flow. May 2008

Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. 
It all flows from one thing to another. 
A month ago, the path was large and the plants were small. 
Now the plants are large and the path is small.
The bridge is disappearing under clumps of grass and leafy arches, 
All the bones of the woods are being fleshed out in green... 
And now the nettles are sprouting their little necklace flowers 
And the comfry plants are gangly 
And their buds are uncurling from their little clumpy clusters, 
Showing red violet against the velvet. 
Yesterday the warm warm weather started a chain reaction up in the mountains, 
And today the ditches are running with opaque blue-gray snowmelt, 
And the cows are heading for the corner of the field 
Where they can bed down in the shade.

Silver Tues July 23 2019

Silver 2019.07.23

It is a warm day today.
The clouds cover us and their humid breath Gives silver to the air just above us. The wind has been combing the trees For silver, The birches and poplars magnificent in billows, Petticoats of leaves revealing silver slips Along with the brambles and artemisias and all their relatives Wild on the Land. It is a living silver; the lively finery of the elements.

I drive down the road drunk in Spirit Breathing in the silvery breath, seeing what I hadn’t recognized before There! A line of Poplars, in finest silver! And again, I am encouraged to see there is beauty all around us Breathing;
Breathing in the silvery Breath..

Inextricable Awe. March 1st 2020

Clean white houses with light flooding in, how I wish I had your spare, simple, brilliant space.

Rarified air of the Virgin Mary permeates this house-- My friend and her recently deceased house mate were sister nuns for a time -- a long time ago -- and, becoming so disenchanted with the institutional church, discharged their veils and turned to teaching.

I gave some comfort massage through Hospice to one, and we had a quick rapport, as I identified with the disenchantment, and she put her trust in me.  I didn't get to see her through the full allotment of visits, but on impulse the second (and last time)  her I took a bouquet of Cedar, Sage and Lavender.  She wasn't lucid, or was sleeping deeply.  I left it on her chest.

Now I'm in their house, which is a clear shrine to the Virgin.  I see photos.  D____ driving, with a straw cowboy hat on.  D____ grinning down her nose at the camera with a gravid mischief.  And there is artwork.  Paintings, and some, with her signature.

Her room is beautiful and undisturbed, like a chapel of rest.  Her workbench in the garage has a banjo on it.  Overhead, a warning sign -- My Shop My Rules.  I quicken to that!  Here is a woman fully engaged with life and owner of her self.

These two women love bells and chimes, which are everywhere responding to wind and time.  Also, they love order and space.  I remember that one takes vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty; Shed of all but the most meaningful icons, there is room for clarity, for expansion.

D____ died last year some time.  I remember her clearly, which is not true of all my Hospice contacts. She had a spirit with weight behind it. It impressed me with a communion.  Now I see she was also an artist with a deep soul, and a craftsman who knew her bench.

D____ and L____ had two little dogs.  One has recently died; and now it is just one woman and one little dog.  They've each lost their companions.  Here is a profound sadness.

Selah..

Linda is off with Leslie to San Francisco, and coming home tomorrow late.  Leslie is a pure beam of light shining through crystal eyes and red hair.  No better traveling pilgrim than Leslie!  Fragile but almost indomitable, she sparkles like a brook.  One bathes in the humor and fine grit of another deep soul.

We are admonished in scripture to take suffering with a measure of good will, for chance and time happen to all.  And most of what we bear is common to all people.  Yes, unless you die very young, you will taste bereavement.  The sun of that former life sets, and we enter a season of darkness.

The common advice these days is "don't do anything for a year," to forestall rash behavior.  Well, it seems to take a year to ford the river of details following the death of a family member anyway.  Somewhere during that year, however, the little pleasures begin to re-assert themselves.  Patterns of light and shadow on the rug.  The holy chiming of the quarters and the sonorous tolling of the hours.  The birds busy in the bushes.  Horse running in the field.

The magnificent sweep of sky.  The great theater of the clouds, all the veils, streaks, piles of cumulonimbus like majestic water schooners; shades of blue and shale against softest, clearest white.  Rainbows.  Shafts of sunlight streaming through to the land like the very angels from the forehead of God.  How shall we encompass this?  God is still talking to us, and we can't help gasping.

Do You Recognize Me? Dec 11 2019

Swords, when we were young.
Every unconscious stab
Every conscious thrust
They've all left their scars.

In that you had expectations, and I was a tablet of soft clay
I received all your inscriptions
I carried the weight of your accounting
As my own flesh.

You had your script
But I was something else
All your own painful life and troubled sleep
Threw you a soul to confound!

The harder I tried to be recognized
The more you looked away
Until you didn't recognize me at all.

All these pins and thorns, like swords.
They make it so hard to move.

"Release it!  Let it go!"
Bad advice.
Those rapiers must be withdrawn.
Some I can reach, many I cannot.
It hurts to move.

Eventually I face my crucifixion.
You don't release that.
You must be taken down, dead.

And forgiveness.
If I follow the pattern,
Before I die, I forgive
Because even if they think they do,
They don't know what they're doing.

Forgiveness is possible
In the great shadow of the cross, only.
It is no light or casual effort to forgive.
And then, passion of the cross.  I thirst.
Dying, thousands of times.

Each death, though, withdraws a pin.
Death, though we fear it so, is mercy
And the end of the sin.

After, washing in consecrated water
A holy drop on each pinhole in the flesh.
Are you dead?  In faith, yes, you know it.
Next, salve of wine and oil,
Herbs, and spice and linen wrapping.
Rest.

Power.

Finally, when you rise
You take the cup of water turned to wine, become blood
And eat the broken bread become body
And you, you recognize yourself

In the one who went before.

Trailing Aug 26 2019

I have walked with You in the wilds
I have tracked You
And You have tracked me.

I have resorted to old, old maps and letters
You have needed no such thing,
For You are aware of me at all times,
And I talk to You knowing this
Even though I resort to translators myself.
You make Yourself known
In code
In Sky and Sun
In verse I've stumbled over
In certainty welling up within me

In a long, long history of fidelity
We walk the fields of the world
Hand in hand.

I am Your feral cat
Your wide ranging setter
Your untethered pony
I am Your bare-headed girl
Who cannot stay inside the lines
And prefers the company of Trees
To the rich sanctuaries
Of whatever religions have become.

You are my Tree.  

I am safe within Thee

Feral Child October 2016

I am a feral child
Who grew up secretly in the wild
Wandering the woods and rails
And shunning the wide highways
That surrounded my ground.

Broken, broken from the past
Unattached to the past
Unrelated to the ancestors
Except by barest twisted threads

All our potent symbols and songs
Locked up in copy right prongs
Forbidden in public and fined as well
Frowned upon by Powers

So I am free in silence
I may walk among trees' guidance
And give tongue to song
Among the Alders and Poplars
To what can you assign me?

Yet, They come, They rise and flow
The songs, the tunes, they show
The ancient ones
The ancient ways
Are marked with rays
And subtle glow.