Reflection for February 25, 2009

ASH WEDNESDAY

I rise early

sit long over coffee and poems

savor every sip

every morsel and metaphor

while it lasts

for I know it will not.

I value each day now

each hour

each book or poem

each encounter

each moment with this love

with this

and this.

A stack of prunings

grows in the back yard

awaits a summer to dry

an autumn to cure

before it becomes

the blaze that warms

next year's winter dawn

and burns itself to ash.

           _Donna Hardy 2009

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were

behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.

For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter

that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

           _Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, II, 13.

Reflection for February 18, 2009

"Surely you, too, have fallen under the spell...Suddenly there it is in silhouette-

a single, noble winter tree, black against the pale sky.  You stop because you must.

You fix it on your eyes so that it cannot get away. What is so compelling here? 

What catches you and holds you in this common sight?  

There is a magnificent, creative loneliness in it -the way it stands isolated in the wide reaches of the fields, darkly melancholy. 

There is struggle in the twisted, writhing branches, as if growth and survival have not been easily come by. 

There is strength in the way it has been exposed mercilessly to the storms, with no barn or house to break the blast.  Yet it has endured, taking on dignity with the visitations of frost, snow, and ice.  

There is acceptance in its open display of imperfection...

Most of all, perhaps, there is honesty in the starkness of the winter tree. 

Stripped of all pretense and embellishment, nothing is there but the tree's truth.

Before the eyes of all it lives the way it is - nothing more. 

In its utter, exposed openness it is a kind of prayer."                  

Mary Jean Irion,  Yes, World 

A tree is a lens, a viewfinder, a window. I wait below for a message of what is yet to come.

Rochelle Mass, "Waiting for a Message" 

Reflection for February 11, 2009

The place I want to get back to

(by Mary Oliver in Thirst, 2006)

is where

   in the pinewoods

      in the moments between the darkness

and first light

   two deer

      came walking

         down the hill

            and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,

   this one is okay

      let's see who she is

         and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,

   so quiet, as if

      asleep, or in a dream,

         but anyway, harmless;

and so they came

   on their slender legs

      and gazed upon me

         not unlike the way

I got out to the dunes and look

   and look and look

      into the faces of the flowers;

         and then one of them leaned forward

and muzzled my hand and what can my life

   bring to me that could exceed

      that brief moment?

         For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods.

   not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

      Such gifts, bestowed, can't be repeated

If you want to talk about this

   come to visit. I live in the house

      near the corner, which I have named

         Gratitude. 

Reflection for February 4, 2009

How wonderful, O Lord, are the works of Your hands!

The heavens declare Your glory,

The arch of the sky displays Your handiwork

In Your love You have given us the power

To behold the beauty of Your world

Robed in all it's splendor:

The sun and the stars, the valleys and the hills,

The rivers and the lakes all disclose Your presence.

The roaring breakers of the sea tell of Your awesome might;

The beasts of the field and the birds of the air 

Bespeak your wondrous will.

In Your goodness You have made us able to hear

The music of the world. The voices of loved ones 

Reveal to us that You are in our midst.

A divine voice sings through all creation.

Jewish Prayer