by James Crews
how when I stand before the mirror
combing my hair, I see my mother’s eyes,
and happiness wells up like a wave
without warning.
My mother looks forward
to a lunch of bread and cheese,
a glass of apple juice.
She speaks of the weather,
today being only itself.
Her time is reeling in, a line cast
from shore. But how she loves
the sea, the horizon, the flaming sun!
My mother, who knows the brutal world,
who survived while others did not,
says, Me? I had it easy.
Abigail Carroll
In Gratitude
For h, tiny fire
in the hollow of the throat,
opener of every hey,
hi, how are you?,
hello; chums with c,
with t, shy lover of s;
there and not
there—never seen,
hardly heard, yet
real as air
fluttering the oak,
holding up the hawk;
the sound
of a yawn, of sleep, of heat,
a match, its quivering
orange flame
turning wood into light,
light into breath;
the sound
of stars if stars
could be heard, perhaps
the sound
of space; life speaking life:
warm air endowed
to hard clay—
a heart, hurt,
a desire to be healed—
the work
of bees stuck in the nubs
of hollyhocks
and columbine, time
to the extent that time
is light, is bright
as the match,
the flame of the sun,
real as the muffled hush
of sleep,
the fluttering oak,
a moth, the silent oh
in the throat
when a hand is laid
upon the shoulder;
hunger—
the body’s empty cry
for filling, for loving,
for knowing
the intimacy of breath,
of half-breathed words
fragile as the stars:
hollow, hush,
holy.
Michelle Wiegers
Held Open
After the band concert, we filed out
of the high school auditorium
where the door seemingly stood open
all by itself. As I stepped into the hallway,
there stood one student’s grandmother,
smiling as she held the door
for the crowd, her eyes searching
for the grandson she wanted to hug.
The embrace of this night of music
still wrapped its warm arms around me,
as if I’d just been held for over an hour
by the deep tones of the bari sax,
the stunning runs of the flutes, which caught
my breath, my son’s steady rhythms
still pulsing in my chest,
as I stepped out into the night air.
David Graham
Listening for Your Name
As a father steals into his child’s half-lit bedroom
slowly, quietly, standing long and long
counting the breaths before finally slipping
back out, taking care not to wake her,
and as that night-lit child is fully awake the whole
time, with closed eyes, measured breathing,
savoring a delicious blessing she couldn’t
name but will remember her whole life,
how often we feel we’re being watched over,
or that we’re secretly looking in on the ones
we love, even when they are far away,
or even as they are lost in the sleep
no one wakes from—what we know
and what we feel can fully coincide, like love
and worry, like taking care in full silence
and secrecy, like darkness and light together.
Heather Swan
Another Day Filled with Sleeves of Light,
and I carry ripened plums,
waiting to find the one
who is interested in tasting.
How can we ever be known?
Today the lily sends up
a fifth white-tipped tendril, the promise
of another flower opening,
and I think, this must mean this plant
is happy, here, in this house, by this window.
Is this the right deduction?
The taller plant leans and leans toward the light.
I turn it away, and soon its big hands are reaching again
toward what nourishes it,
but which it can never touch.
Couldn’t the yellowing leaves of the maple
and their falling also be a sign of joy?
Another kind of leaning into.
A letting go of one thing
to fall into another.
A kind of trust I cannot imagine.
Annie Lighthart
A Cure Against Poisonous Thought
Believe the world goes on
and this bee bending
in honeysuckle just one
of a mighty nation, golden
beads thrumming
a long invisible thread.
In the green drift of an afternoon,
the body is not root but wick:
the press of light surrounds it.
Mary McCue
Forgiveness
How does it creep into arteries,
level blood pressure
and wipe clean
the slate of anger
held close to the chest?
Look long into the mirror,
be tender with the face you see,
then to the blistered past,
the entire landscape,
the smallest detail
as in a Brueghel painting,
then revise and revise
until the story changes shape
and you, no longer the jailor,
have learned to love
what is left.
Heather Lanier
Two Weeks After a Silent Retreat
How quickly I lose my love
of all things. I nearly flick an ant
off the cliff of an armchair.
But remember, Self,
the week you spent
enveloped in psalms
intoned by monks?
By Wednesday you beheld
a three-balled body
creeping around
the onionskin of your book,
its six teensy toothpick legs
bent into all manner of
delicate angles.
Your chest became
a doorway
to a spacious unmarked
heaven. You loved the ant.
The kingdom,
said Christ,
is at hand, meaning
not ticking above
in a time bomb of gold-
paved streets
but tapping its antennae
along the heart line
of your imperfect palm.
Reflective Pause
The Kingdom at Hand
Stepping outside of life, even for a short while, can help us return with a new perspective on what seemed unworkable before. Though such a wide-open embrace of life never lasts forever, it can be enough to know that it waits within us, accessible when we need it the most. Heather Lanier illustrates this in her poem, as she remembers her own time of reflection while on retreat, when her “chest became a doorway to a spacious unmarked heaven.” Such moments often appear after periods of stillness, whether on an actual retreat, at chur
ch, or while spending the day outdoors, away from our screens.
Yet our lives do not unfold as a single, unbroken stretch of gratefulness and hope. We are humans living in an imperfectly human world, after all, and so we easily lose our reverence and “love of all things” in the midst of busyness, worry, and strife. We fall out of the practice of patience. But as Lanier points out, we can remind ourselves that the gate to the kingdom at hand remains open anytime we choose to pass through, and the reward for close attention to our lives, even if it is simply to save the life of an ant, is the heaven of a fuller presence in the here and now.
Invitation for Writing and Reflection
Think back to a time when you brought yourself back to the moment at hand and found the world vivid and lovable again. You might begin with Lanier’s first line, “How quickly I lose my love,” and see where that leads you.
Jane Hirshfield
Today, When I Could Do Nothing
Today, when I could do nothing,
I saved an ant.
It must have come in with the morning paper,
still being delivered
to those who shelter in place.
A morning paper is still an essential service.
I am not an essential service.
I have coffee and books,
time,
a garden,
silence enough to fill cisterns.
It must have first walked
the morning paper, as if loosened ink
taking the shape of an ant.
Then across the laptop computer—warm—
then onto the back of a cushion.
Small black ant, alone,
crossing a navy cushion,
moving steadily because that is what it could do.
Set outside in the sun,
it could not have found again its nest.
What then did I save?
It did not move as if it was frightened,
even while walking my hand,
which moved it through swiftness and air.
Ant, alone, without companions,
whose ant-heart I could not fathom—
how is your life, I wanted to ask.
I lifted it, took it outside.
This first day when I could do nothing,
contribute nothing
beyond staying distant from my own kind,
I did this.
Laura Ann Reed
Red Thyme
In the red thyme
that crawls
languidly
between stepping stones
time stops
as bees
thrust their passion
deep into the promise
of tiny crimson-purple
blooms.
Where blossom
ends
and bee
begins
are the first words
of a lullaby
the world sings
while it rocks you
as you fall
awake
in the later years
of a life
spent mostly
sound
asleep.
Laura Foley
The Once Invisible Garden
How did I come to be
this particular version of me,
and not some other, this morning
of purple delphiniums blooming,
like royalty—destined
to meet these three dogs
asleep at my feet, and not others—
this soft summer morning,
sitting on her screened porch
become ours, our wind chime,
singing of wind and time,
yellow-white digitalis
feeding bees and filling me—
and more abundance to come:
basil, tomatoes, zucchini.
What luck or fate, instinct,
or grace brought me here?—
in shade, beneath hidden stars,
a soft, summer morning,
seeing with my whole being,
love made visible.
James Crews
Down to Earth
The heart of a farmer
is made of muscle
and clay that aches
for return to earth.
And when the sky
releases a steady rain,
massaging each row
of sprouted beans,
my husband leans out
of the car window
and opens his hand
to hold that water
for a single instant,
his heart now beating
in sync with rain
seeping through layers
to kiss the roots
of every plant alive
on this living, breathing
planet on whose back
we were granted
permission to live
for a limited time.
Freya Manfred
Old Friends
Old friends are a steady spring rain,
or late summer sunshine edging into fall,
or frosted leaves along a snowy path—
a voice for all seasons saying, I know you.
The older I grow, the more I fear I’ll lose my old friends,
as if too many years have scrolled by
since the day we sprang forth, seeking each other.
Old friend, I knew you before we met.
I saw you at the window of my soul—
I heard you in the steady millstone of my heart
grinding grain for our daily bread.
You are sedimentary, rock-solid cousin earth,
where I stand firmly, astonished by your grace and truth.
And gratitude comes to me and says:
“Tell me anything and I will listen.
Ask me anything, and I will answer you.”
Brad Peacock
Let It Rain
I’m not sure why I did my best to outrun you.
Perhaps I had forgotten how your touch
makes me feel alive, like the gentle hands
of my husband reaching out to console me.
I smile, feeling the first drops from the sky
igniting my senses, calling forth the little boy inside
who wants more, to feel it pour. This is not
a shower that will extinguish the light
I’ve found within. It is a rain that will soak me through,
down to bone, baptizing me again and again,
as I walk these gravel roads that have helped me heal.
Droplets now fall from the brim of my hat,
streaming down my cheeks like the time I cried out,
begging for the shame to subside, wondering
if I had the strength to live this life anymore.
Molly Fisk
Against Panic
You recall those times, I know you do, when the sun
lifted its weight over a small rise to warm your face,
when a parched day finally broke open, real rain
sluicing down the sidewalk, rattling city maples
and you so sure the end was here, life a house of cards
tipped over, falling, hope’s last breath extinguished
in a bitter wind. Oh, friend, search your memory again—
beauty and relief are still there, only sleeping.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Over the Weather
We forget about the spaciousness
above the clouds
but it’s up there. The sun’s up there too.
When words we hear don’t fit the day,
when we worry
what we did or didn’t do,
what if we close our eyes,
say any word we love
that makes us feel calm,
slip it into the atmosphere
and rise?
Creamy miles of quiet.
Giant swoop of blue.
Paula Gordon Lepp
Notions
Look at the silver lining, they say.
But what if, instead,
I pluck it off
and use that tensile strand to bind
myself to those things I do not
want to lose sight of.
Families knit together by evening walks,
board games, laughter.
The filament fixing us to friends
no matter the distance apart.
A braid of gratitude for small kindnesses.
The thin gauge wire of loss.
Let me twist that lining
around my finger,
it’s silvery glint a reminder
of just how quickly life can change.
I will remember to love more.
I will remember to give more.
I will remember to be still.
I will knot the string tightly.
So it won’t slip away.
So I won’t forget.
Ellen Bass
Any Common Desolation
can be enough to make you look up
at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few
that survived the rains and frost, shot
with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep
orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird
would rip it like silk. You may have to break
your heart, but it isn’t nothing
to know even one moment alive. The sound
of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant
animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger.
The ruby neon of the liquor store sign.
Warm socks. You remember your mother,
her precision a ceremony, as she gathered
the white cotton, slipped it over your toes,
drew up the heel, turned the cuff. A breath
can uncoil as you walk across your own muddy yard,
the big dipper pouring night down over you, and everything
you dread, all you can’t bear, dissolves
and, like a needle slipped into your vein—
that sudden rush of the world.
Reflective Pause
Returning to the World
When the world seems incomprehensible and its ills too many, I often retreat to the natural world, looking up “at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree” to calm my mind and try to make sense of our sometimes violent, divided culture. “Any common desolation,” as Ellen Bass says, can send us into a frenzy, can glue us to our screens; but it is more healing if we get outside of our minds and commune with “that sudden rush” of the actual world again.