Saturday morning
warm mug
in hand
eyes find
wrist pulsing
a small
repeated
beating
revealing
reminding
there is so much at work
far more than what is seen
remember
this life
made manifest
through invisible
steadfast
forces
consistently
endeavoring
existence
offering
hints
at its source
The moon rounds to fullness, which is why, perhaps, I’m roused at 3am.
I am fine to find myself wrapped in the warmth of jersey sheets, my husband sleeping next to me, my own eyes open in the dark.
It’s time to read Mary Oliver. This is the whisper heard upon my waking.
So by 3:11, I’m barefoot with a cardigan in the kitchen. Making coffee and lighting patchouli incense in the stove top flame.
A line of fragrant smoke streams, coffee cup steams, and laptop computer keys are traced by fingers following a thread.
I find Wild Geese. High and soaring.
Feel the soft animal of my body, so close and tender.
Such relief to find myself just nestled. Letting in the sweet space.
Loving what I love.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Yesterday may have had that 2:47am magic of quiet stillness, but this morning I’ve slept in, and now this mother has fifteen minutes of writing time before bus-stop-drop-off prep ensues.
It’s still dark, the coffee is warm, and the sound of swishing cars move at a working pace, already, down the road.
Our house still soaks in sleep. I sit at my desk by computer screen light, surrounded: the school’s Jog-a-thon donation envelope, tickets (to be sold) for the pancake breakfast, National Geographic’s family subscription offer, and a book by the Dalai Lama on the power of patience.
This morning I don’t have photographs to post. No poems.
I am not unhappy. Not uninspired. Just not rubbing elbows with the Muse this morning. Chores sidle up instead.
Today will be an art in getting Jeb to the bus stop with ease. A dance of remembering that I’m an Earthling Cling-on, lucky to be breathing, while I auto-sum spreadsheets, empty the compost, drive my little car.
I guess everyday is a humble offering in expression, here. In life. Today just feels more mundane.
I’m diving in, though, on the hunch that perhaps it’s all that much more profound.
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