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Let your entire body participate in your spiritual journey.  Inner awareness of God’s presence must culminate in action.  Show your soul in the way you treat your own body and in your body’s actions.

                                                                        Carmen R. Berry

After Annunciation

This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.

                                    Madeleine L’Engle  from A Cry Like a Bell

Resting

Lord,
Teach me to rest in you.
Teach me to see the sky
and to think of nothing else
but the joy of it.
Teach me to look
at field and flower
and be soothed
by colours and seasons.
Teach me to close my eyes
and to rest
in the Love that has supported me
all my days.
Teach me, Lord,
to rest in you.

                                    Frank Topping

Living

Lord, you came to give us life,
and life that was more abundant.
Help me not to run away from life,
But to follow your spirit,
to accept the thorn
as well as the flower
and to be grateful
for the gift of life.

                                    Frank Topping

We are all partakers of the bread of life,
Out of the lap of Mother Earth,
And from the hands of our human benefactors;
Many a life has been given for us,
Many a body has been broken for us.

We are all partakers of the water of life,
Out of the springs and streams of the earth,
And of the blood of life,
In uncounted sacrifices made in our behalf.

In ministrations such as these hath God nourished us;
Freely we have received, freely let us give.

                                    Robert French Leavens

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dophin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of our compassion for our ugly failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother, the Word.

                        Denise Levertov from The Stream and the Sapphire

Loving others does not mean that we should forget ourselves.
                        His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Imagine all the People

Owning love is like trying to take possession of the air.
                       Rodney Smith, from Lessons from the Dying

I’m an Indian

I think about common things like this pot.
The bubbling water comes from the rain cloud.
It represents the sky.
The fire comes from the sun
which warms us all, men, (sic) animals, trees.
The meat stands for the four-legged creatures,
our animal brothers,
who gave of themselves so that we should live.
The steam is living breath.
It was water, now it goes up to the sky,
becomes a cloud again.
These things are sacred.
Looking at that pot full of good soup,
I am thinking how, in this simple manner,
The great Spirit takes care of me.

As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them,
As hawks rest upon air and air sustains them
So would I learn to attain freefall and float into creator spirit’s deep embrace,
Knowing no effort earns that all surrounding grace.

                                                Denise Levertov

Suscipe Me: Accept me, O Lord, just as I am, in my frailty, in my inadequacy, my contradictions, my confusion. Accept me in my complexity. Help me to so live with what I am that what I am may become my way to you.

            Esther deWaal from Living with Contradictions

“Love, and do what you like.”  
           St. Augustine

Instead of telling friends you are leading the spiritual life, which sometimes makes people raise their eyebrows, you can say, “I am learning to love.”  It is the same thing.  Learning to love in the way Saint Augustine is talking about is the most difficult, the most demanding, the most delightful, and the most daring of disciplines.  It does not mean loving only two or three members of your family; that can often amount to building a kind of ego-annex.  It does not mean loving only those who share your views, read the same newspapers, or play the same sports.  Love, as Jesus puts it, means blessing those that curse you, doing good to those that hate you.

Most of us do not begin by blessing those that curse us.  That is graduate school.  We start with first grade—being kind to people in our family when they get resentful.  Eventually comes high school, where we learn to move closer to those who are trying to shut themselves off from us.  College means returning good will for ill will.  Finally we enter graduate school “ Return love for hatred.”  There we learn to give our love to all—to people of different races countries, and religions, different outlooks and strata of society, without any sense of distinction or difference.

Immersion

There is anger abroad in the world, a numb thunder,
because of God’s silence.  But how naïve,
to keep wanting words we could speak ourselves,
English, Urdu, Tagalog, the French of Tours ,

     the French of Haiti …
     Yes, that was one way omnipotence chose
     to address us—Hebrew, Aramaic, or whatever the patriarchs
     chose in their turn to call what they heard.  Moses
     demanded the word, spoken and written.  But perfect freedom
     assured other ways of speech.  God is surely
     patiently trying to immerse us in a different language,
     events of grace, horrifying scrolls of history
     and the unearned retrieval of blessings lost for ever,
     the poor grass returning after drought, timid, persistent. 

God’s abstention is only from human dialects.  The holy voice
utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents. 
Our own words are for us to speak, a way to ask and to answer.

            Denise Levertov

When I first saw the mystery of the Word
made flesh I never thought that in his side
I’d see the callous wound of Roman sword
piercing my heart on the hill where he died.

How can the Word be silenced? Where has it gone?
Where are the angel voices that sang at his birth?
My frail heart falters. I need the light of the Son.
What is this darkness over the face of the earth?

Dear God, he has come, the Word has come again.
There is no terror left in silence, in clouds, in gloom.
He has conquered the hate; he has overcome the pain.
Where, days ago, was death lies only an empty tomb.

The secret should have come to me with his birth,
when glory shone through darkness, peace through strife.
For every birth follows a kind of death,
and only after pain comes life.

Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown
across the garden, free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,
The first blue violets kneeling.
Whatever came from being is caught up in being, drunkenly
forgetting the way back.

The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as a great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

Loving someone does not mean automatically acquiescing to their every whim. Sometimes love shows itself in saying no to an attitude or desire that is harmful. But your opposing must be done tenderly, without anger or condescension. This is a difficult art.

Go slowly. Remember that it is better not to react in the heat of the moment. Whenever time allows, don’t respond immediately. Speak and act when you can do so with patience and kindness. Remember, too, that the very best way to change someone is to embody that change with your own example.

Great lovers of God, like Saint Teresa of Avila or Mahatma Gandhi, see the Lord in the heart of every person around them. This is the vision that enables them to treat others with love and respect even in the heat of opposition. It may take time, but no one is immune to this kind of love.

                        Eknath Easwaren

Like Roots

Our hands imbibe like roots,
so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.

            And I fold them in prayer, and they
            draw from the heavens
            light.

Francis of Assisi

Where there is so little love that the “carriage of the Lord,” our essential unity, is torn asunder, we must love more. The less love there is around us, the more we need to make up the lack.
            A man once came to Rabbi Israel , the Ba’al Shem Tov, and said, “My son is estranged from God; what shall I do?” The rabbi replied simply, “Love him more.
            “Love him more. Make his happiness more important than your own. This was my grandmother’s approach to every problem, and I know of no more effective or artistic or satisfying way to realize the unity of life in the world today. It is an approach to life in which everything blossoms, everything comes to fruition. Where there is love, everything follows. To love is to know, is to act; all other paths to the Lord are united in the way of love.

            Eknath Easwaran

Long ago
the ancients say
this land was free
and we shared it all
with the mountains and the sea
the birds and the trees
we lived in peace
long ago
before those others came
and built fences
by cutting the trees
dug mines
by cutting the earth
removed her blood
the oil that lies within
formed long ago
like us
who lived in peace

the birds sang less
without the trees
the land became dry
without the birds
to plant the flowers
and we too became quiet
watching our mountains die
listening for the birds
that no longer flew—
but still we lived in peace

what sustained us
through all those years?
The nights of silence
and the songs of the frogs

for we know
as the ancients said
this land will again be free
and we will again share it all
with the mountains and the sea
the birds and the trees
for we still live in peace
and we wish you the same
for we are all one.

            Haarriet Kofalk, inspired by the Bribri, indigenous Costa Ricans

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

            Fyodor Dostoevsky

Let us be united,
Let us speak in harmony,
Let our minds apprehend alike.
Common be our prayer,
Common be the end of our assembly;
Common be our resolution,
Common be our deliberations.
Alike be our feelings;
Unified be our hearts;
Common be our intentions;
Perfect be our unity.

            From the Rig Veda

Love can only be found where we are. Love is “nearer than near.”
         “Are you looking for the Holy One?
         I am in the next seat.
         My shoulder is against yours.”

Listen to the air.
You can hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it.
Woniya waken, the holy air, which renews all by its breath.
Woniya waken, spirit, life, breath, renewal., it means all that.

We sit together, don’t touch, but something is there, we feel it between us, as a presence.
A good way to start thinking about nature, talk about it.
Rather talk to it, talk to the rivers, to the lakes, to the winds, as to our relatives.

John Lame Deer

God of grace,
   as you did with all the Saints,
      strengthen us to answer with brave hearts
         your call to help shape a world
            not of death and oppression
               but of life and hope.

God of power, strengthen us to help shape a country
   where our children will be free of the burdens
      of racism and sexism, fear and exploitation,
         violence and indifference, greed and pollution;
            where all people work with dignity,
               are rewarded fairly, and respected fully;
                  where labor, rest play and worship
                     are in blessed and graceful balance.

Part One of a Prayer by Ted Loder

God of glory, strengthen us to help shape a society
   where the value of families is reflected
      in decent homes, good schools,
         safe neighborhoods, mutually earned trust,
            glad gatherings, respected differences;
               where older persons are not forgotten,
                  trivialized, marginalized, or brutalized,
                     but honored for their experience,
                        cherished for their gifts,
                           sought for their wisdom.

God of mercy, strengthen us to help shape a nation
   where diversity is a source of enrichment,
      compassion is common, life’s poetry realized,
         suffering lightened through sharing,
            justice attended, joy pervasive, hope lived,
               the hum of the universe heard,
                  and together with you and with each other
                     we build what is beautiful, true,
                        and worthy of your generosity to us, an echo of your kingdom.

With the passion of the prophets,
   and in the insistent spirit of Jesus,
      we say, Amen and Amen.

Ted Loder

Eternal Spirit

Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever, Amen.

           Alternative Lord’s Prayer, New Zealand Book of Common Prayer

The most valuable learning is not about memorizing facts and figures. It is not about higher grade point averages and accumulating degrees. It is about life itself, and its impact is on the heart.

            Rodney Smith, Lessons from the Dying

Lousy at Math

Once a group of thieves stole a rare diamond larger than two goose eggs.

Its value could have easily bought three thousand horses and three thousand acres in the most fertile land in Shiraz .

The thieves got drunk that night to celebrate their great haul, but during the course of the evening the effects of the liquor, and their mistrust of each other grew to such an extent

they decided to divide the stone into pieces.
Of course then the Priceless became lost.

Most everyone is lousy at math and does that to God---dissects the Indivisible One,

by thinking, by saying, “This is my Beloved, he looks like this and acts like that, how could that moron over there really be God?”

            Hafiz

One Moment of Praise

O God of every now, and then,
       we pause for one moment to praise you
              for all the moments of our lives.

We praise you for the glorious moments:
        bread, the intimacy of lovers, lilacs, morning coffee,
               a rooted word, a rapturous song, a circle of stories,
                      the scrunch of oldsters at play, children at prayer.

We praise you for the shared moments:
        honest exchange, deepening trust, earned friendship,
               smudgy work, a ballet of ideas, a lullaby of quietness,                                    
                     trouble met, the release of tears, the easing of fears,
                             the renewing of wonder, the embracing of mystery.

We praise you for the surprising moments:
     in the wink of a stranger, the flutter of hope in the stillness,
          the enchantment of a rainbow and claim of a promise kept,
               the goodness beneath the flurry of things,
                    beauty out of the muck,
                         the clarified direction in a prayer,
                              a light in the soul’s night.

We praise you for the holy moments:
     all the bearers of love, of truth, of mercy,
          of meaning, of demand, of amazement,
               all that nudges us to readiness for the risks of faith,
                    the mysterious all that attaches us to your grace,
                         from which nothing can separate us.

O God, we praise you for every moment,
     for you, source of each moment,
          and present in all moments, always, in all ways.
               Amen.

Ted Loder,  My Heart in My Mouth

In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of no mater what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him, too, once more, and in each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life: toward the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of terrorism, and of God.

            James Agee Let us Now Praise Famous Men

We give-away our thanks to the earth which gives us our home.
We give-away our thanks to the rivers and lakes which give-away their water.
We give-away our thanks to the trees which give-away fruit and nuts.
We give-away our thanks to the wind which brings rain to water the plants.
We give-away our thanks to the sun who gives-away warmth and light.
All beings on earth; the trees, the animals, the wind and the rivers give-away to one
another so all is in balance.
We give-away our promise to begin to learn how to stay in balance with all the earth.

            Dolores La Chapelle

LAUGHTER

     How long has it been since you have had a good belly-laugh? Good laughter seems to be a treasure that is in short supply of late.
     Most of us are distrustful and embarrassed by our laughter. As children we were constantly told to suppress it. Often it seems almost lost to us. We are afraid to laugh alone, and we are embarrassed to laugh with others. What a state!
     Laughter is one of the gifts of being human. We can’t force it, but we can sure stop suppressing it in ourselves and in our children.
     Laughter is like the human body wagging its tail.

Anne Wilson Schaef

LAUGHTER CAME FROM EVERY BRICK            

            Just these two words He spoke
                        changed my life,
                            “ Enjoy Me. ”

What a burden I thought I was to carry –
                   a crucifix, as did He.

            Love once said to me “I know a song,
                   would you like to hear it?”

And laughter came from every brick in the street
           and from every pore
                  in the sky.

           After a night of prayer, He
                 changed my life when
                        He sang

                   “Enjoy Me.”

God did not wait till the world was ready,
till…nations were at peace.
God came when he Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

God did not wait for the perfect time.
God came when the need was deep and great.
God dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

God did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy God came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame God came,
and God’s Light would not go out.

God came to a world which did not mesh
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

            Madeleine L’Engle

The Eyes of the Deep

The power of the human mind, alone, does not lead to full consciousness. For the mind without the heart leads to a failure of our depth perception, a failure to see below the surface where the roots of our problems lie.                                                Rob Lehman

She did not cry, “I cannot, I am not worthy,”
nor, “I have not the strength.”
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
                        raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
                        consent illumined her.The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
                        and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
                        courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.

            Denise Levertov

Our choice is to be in love or to be in fear. But to choose to be in love means to have a mountain inside of you, means to have the heart of the world inside of you, means you will feel another’s suffering inside your own body and you will weep. You will have no protection from the world’s pain because it will be your own.

            China Galland, Longing for Darkness

“Listening to Winter”

“I am listening” may be added between each stanza.

The trees have shed their colorful autumn robes.
Winter is raging through the dark, empty branches and I am listening.
I am listening to the roar and to the quiet of winter.
I am listening to a beauty that sometimes remains unseen.

I am listening to the seed hidden in the earth.
I am listening to the dark swallowing up the light.
I am listening to faith rising out of doubt.
I am listening to the need to believe without seeing.

I am listening to the season of contemplation,
   to the urgency of our world’s need for reflection.
I am listening to all that waits within the earth, to bulbs and seeds,
   to deep roots dreaming.
I am listening to the sacred, winter rest.

I am listening to long nights, comforting darkness, fruitful darkness, beautiful darkness.
I am listening to the darkness of the winter season.
I am listening to the sparks of hope within the darkness.

I am listening to storms raging out my window; to storms raging in my heart.
I am listening to all that makes me pull my cloak a little tighter.
I am listening to trust buried deep in the ground of my being.

I am listening to the kind permission of the season to rest more often,
   to reflect more deeply, to pray without words.
I am listening to the sacrament of non-doing.

            Macrina Wiederkehr

Listen—

There is no difference between
healing your body and healing the Earth
or helping another to heal.
It is all the same Body.

There is no difference between
healing Earth’s body and healing your own
or helping another to heal. 
We are all the One Body.

Begin anywhere.
Begin with one tree,
or a bird.
Begin with your own heart
or skin, clean out your liver,
clear your mind.
Begin with the growth of a child,
your family’s food.
Then continue to include one small part at a time.
You will be healing the Whole.

            Alla Bozarth

Listening

How often do I nod,
as if I were listening,
to words I cannot hear,
because I’m thinking about something else,
because I’m planning what I intend to say. 
Yet there are those who are good listeners:
a good conversationalist listens,
a good counselor or advisor listens,
good doctor listens, a good judge,
a good friend.
And you, my Lord,
you listen even to my thoughts.
Teach me to listen,
that I may hear you when you speak
in the wind, in music,
and in love.

Frank Topping

Beginners

Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla

“From too much love of living,
            Hope and desire set free,
            Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea—“

But we have only begun
            To love the earth.

We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
            --so much is in bud.

            How can desire fail?
            --we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
            only begun to envision

            how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
            not as oppressors.

            Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
            into the sea of nonbeing?

            Surely it cannot
                        drag, in the silt,
                         all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet—
       there is too much broken
            that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.

 We have only begun to know
    the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must
      complete its gesture,  

so much is in bud.

            Denise Levertov

Lunch Blessing

Blessed be the taste of food.
Blessed be the staff of life.
Blessed be the abundance of the market.
Blessed be the freedom to shop.
Bless those who gather.
Bless the breaking of the bread.
Blessed Be! Blessed Be! Blessed Be!
Christ at every table,
Christ beside me,
Christ behind me,
Christ around me,
In the breaking of the bread.

William John Fitzgerald

A Love Meditation

May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May he/she be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May they be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.

May I be safe and free from injury.
May he/she be safe and free from injury.
May they be safe and free from injury.

May I be free from anger, afflictions, fears, and anxiety.
May he/she be free from anger, afflictions, fears, and anxiety.
May they be free from anger, afflictions, fears, and anxiety.

Quoted by Thich Nhat Hanh I “Teachings on Love”

Listen

It is not my business
to seek enlightenment
or holiness;
mine only to listen
to the wind
caressing all creation,
to be awed
at the tumbling of the waters
soaking all dried things;
mine only
to delight
in the song of the bird
and be attentive
to the rhythmic beating
of the earth
beneath my feet;
mine only
to receive with love
all that rises to meet me
at the dawn
of each new day.

            Edwina Gately

Lady Song, Three Kingdoms period, Scholar 364

FOUNTAIN OF LIFE, we praise you for Lady Song and her intellectual gifts.  She lived at a time when scholars’ families were expected to memorize entire volumes to preserve them in case the writings were burned or banned during political turmoil.  For memorizing the classic The Rituals of Zhou on the Zhou government’s reconstruction system, she was called Perpetuator of Civilization.  At the age of eighty Lady Song was given the job of teaching the Zhou rituals and their interpretations to 120 students.  She was admired for her inner integrity, loyalty, love of her country, and altruism.  Like Lady Song, help us honor our heritages despite the unrest of modern life.  Amen.

When I behold the problems of our world, O Lord, I pray not to be tempted to quick answers. When every tongue declares a different Truth, when every people praises its own Righteousness, let me pause before I speak or praise or hope. Let me look inward seeking to discover eternal truths implanted there by Thee, truths greater than those heard in the outer multitude of voices and of words. And let me remember always that to be loud is not to be right, to be strange is not to be forbidden, to be new is not to be frightful, to be [different] is not to be ugly. Thus let me find truths true to Thee, that I may live with them, and Thee, and myself, in peace.

FROM BELOW         

I move among the ankles
of forest Elders, tread
their moist rugs of moss,
duff of their soft brown carpets.
Far above, their arms are held
open wide to each other, or waving—

what they know, what
perplexities and wisdoms they exchange,
unknown to me as were the thoughts
of grownups when in infancy
I wandered into a roofed clearing amidst
human feet and legs and the massive
carved legs of the table, 

the minds of people, the minds of trees
equally remote, my attention then
filled with sensations, my attention now
caught by leaf and bark at eye level
and by thoughts of my own, but sometimes
drawn to upgazing—up and up: to wonder
about what rises
so far above me into the light.

            Denise Levertov

FOR THE ASKING

            ‘You would not seek Me if you did not already possess Me.’
                                                     --Pascal

Augustine said his soul was a house so cramped
God could barely squeeze in.
Known down the mean partitions, he prayed, so You may enter!
Raise the oppressive ceilings!

                        Augustine’s soul
didn’t become a mansion large enough to
welcome, along with God, the women he’d loved,
except for his mother (though one, perhaps,
his son’s mother, did remain to inhabit
a small dark room). God, therefore,
would never have felt
fully at home as his guest.

                        Nevertheless,
its clear desire
fulfilled itself in the asking, revealing prayer’s
dynamic action, that scoops out channels
like water on stone, or builds like layers
of grainy sediment steadily
forming sandstone. The walls, with each thought,
each feeling, each word he set down,
expanded, unnoticed; the roof
rose, and a skylight opened.

            Denise Levertov

CELEBRATION

Brilliant, this day—a young virtuoso of a day.
Morning shadows cut by sharpest scissors,
deft hands. And every prodigy of green—
whether it’s ferns or lichen or needles
or impatient points of bud on spindly bushes—
greener than ever before.

            And the way the conifers
hold new cones to the light for blessing,
a festive rite, and sing the oceanic chant the wind
transcribes for them!
A day that shines in the cold
like a first-prize brass band swimming along the street
of a coal-dusty village, wholly at odds
with the claims of reasonable gloom.

            Denise Levertov

A Hundred A Day

“A million species of plants and animals will be extinct by the turn of the century, an average of a hundred a day.”

            Dr. Mustafa Tolba, Director-General of the U.N. Environment Program

Dear 19^th century!  Give me refuge
in your unconscious sanctuary for a while,
let me lose myself behind sententious bombazine,
rest in the threadbare brown merino of dowerless girls.
Yes, you had your own horrors, your dirt, disease,
profound injustices; yet the illusion of endless time
to reform, if not themselves, then the world,
gave solace even to gloomy minds. Nature, for you,
was to be marvelled at, praised and conquered,
a handsome heiress; any debate concerned
the origin and subsequent behaviour of species,
not their demise. Virtue, in your heyday
(blessed century), fictive but so real!) was confident
of its own powers. Laxly guarded, your Hesperides
was an ordinary orchard, its fruit
apples of simple hope and happiness.
And though the ignorant armies, then as always,
clashed by night, there was
a beckoning future to look to, that bright
Victorian cloud in the eastern sky. The dodo
was pathetic, grotesque in its singular extinction,
its own stupidity surely to blame. It stood alone
on some low hillock of the mind
and was not seen as shocking, nor as omen.

            Denise Levertov

THE METIER OF BLOSSOMING

Fully occupied with growing—that’s
the amaryllis. Growing especially
at night: it would take
only a bit more patience than I’ve got
to sit keeping watch with it till daylight;
the naked eye could register every hour’s
increase in height. Like a child against a barn door,
proudly topping each year’s achievement,
steadily up
goes each green stem, smooth, matte,
traces of reddish purple at the base, and almost
imperceptible vertical ridges
running the length of them:
Two robust stems from each bulb,
sometimes with sturdy leaves for company,
elegant sweeps of blade with rounded points.
Aloft, the gravid buds, shiny with fullness.

One morning—and so soon!—the first flower
has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised
in a single, brief
moment of hesitation.
Next day, another,
shy at first like a foal,
even a third, a fourth,
carried triumphantly at the summit
of those strong columns, and each
a Juno, calm in brilliance, a maiden giantess in modest splendor.
If humans could be that intensely whole,
undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus!  If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!

Denise Levertov

THE POODLE PALACE

I never pass the Poodle Palace
with its barber pole in the shape
of a striped beribboned bone and the sign:
Specializing in Large and Matted Dogs,
without remembering the bitter wonder
of the taxi-driver from somewhere in India
who asked me,
“What is that, Poodle Palace?
What does it mean?”—and when I told him,
laughed, and for blocks,
laughed intermittently, a laughter
dry as fissured earth,
angry and sharp as the ineradicable
knowledge of chronic famine,
of human lives given to destitution
from birth to death.  A laugh
in which the stench of ordure
simmered, round which a fog of flies
hovered, a laugh laughed to himself,
whether in despair or hatred, and not
as a form of address: he was indifferent
to whether I heard it or not.

            Denise Levertov

SWIFT MONTH 

The spirit of each day passes, head down
under the wind, arms folded.
Ambiguous brothers of those envisioned
‘daughters of Time,’ proffering neither
gifts nor scorn, their hands
grip elbows, hidden in wide sleeves
of shadow-colored caftans.  Day after day
and none lagging, the pace of their stride
not hurried, yet swift, too swift.

            Denise Levertov

A NEW FLOWER

Most of the sunflower’s bright petals
had fallen, so I stripped the few
poised to go, and found myself
with a new flower: the center,
that round cushion of dark-roast
coffee brown, tipped with uncountable
minute florets of gold, more noticeable
now that the clear, shiny yellow was gone,
and round it a ring of green, the petals
from behind the petals, there all the time,
each having the form of sacred flame
or bo-tree leaf, a playful, jubilant form
(taken for granted in Paisley patterns)
and the light coming through them, so that
where, in double or triple rank, like a bevy
of Renaissance angels, they overlapped,
there was shadow, a darker shade
of the same spring green—a new flower
on this fall day, revealed within
the autumn of its own brief bloom.

            Denise Levertov

Scraps of Moon

Scraps of moon
bobbing discarded on broken water

but sky-moon
complete, transcending

all violation.

Denise Levertov

Fugitives

The Red Cross vans, laden with tanks
of drinking water, can go no further:
the road has become a river.
The dry, dusty, potholed road
that was waiting the rainy season is
flowing with men and women
(especially women) and children.
Silent in stumbling haste,
almost all of them. Only the wailing
of young babies, hungry and terrified,
wafts over the lava-flow
that brims and hurries, dividing briefly
to pass the impediment that each van
is to them, impervious to their purpose
(the first one caught in the flood,
the remaining small convoy already attempting
to back, inch by inch, to where, miles behind them,
they might turn).
                        From a plane,
the road—the river would look
like one of those horrible nature films
about insects moving as one in some
instinctive ritual; horrible because
though one by one each creature might have
some appealing feature, en masse they are
inexorable, a repulsive teeming collective…
But these are people, and the Red Cross driver,
one of the last to remain in what seems
an unhelpable land of terror, knows it,
sees it, feels it. He has not the distant
impersonal gaze of a pilot high overhead watching
an insect swarm. He deeply perceives
war has deprived these humans, his fellows,
of choice of action. Diminished them. And they advance,
dazed, haggard, unstoppable, driven
less by what shreds of hope may cling to their bodies
than by a despair that might well have left them
paralyzed in the dust, inert before imminent slaughter,
but which some reflex, some ancient trigger in brain-tissue,
propels into grim motion thousand upon thousand,
westward to zones Relief has already fled from.

            Denise Levertov

Once Only

All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we’d do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every initiation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
     did happen in our lives, our stories
     are not drab with its absence: but don’t
expect now to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

            Denise Levertov

What We Can Bear

Earth’s electrolytes
dazzle in silence:
the quiet minutes
past dawn, the still
mirror of twilight water
when shorebirds cease
to graze and simply look,
when joggers stop
beating the motherbreast
and listen for an instant
to her heart, when the pansy
pants for light,
and the violet thirsts
for violent downpour
of waterfall
but knows enough
to hold her breath instead.

TRANSLUCENCE

Once I understood (till I forget, at least)
the immediacy of new life, Vita Nuova,
redemption not stuck in linear delays.
I perceived also (for now) the source
of unconscious light in faces
I believe are holy, not quite transparent,
more like the half-opaque whiteness
of Japanese screens or lampshades,
grass or petals imbedded in that paper-thin
substance which is not paper as this is paper,
and which permits the passage of what is luminous
though forms remain unseen behind its protection.
I perceived that in such faces, through
the translucence we see, the light we intuit
is of the already resurrected, each
a Lazarus, but a Lazarus (man or woman)
without the memory of tomb or of any
swaddling bands except perhaps
the comforting ones of their first
infant hours, the warm receiving-blanket…
They know of themselves nothing different
from anyone else.  This great unknowing
is part of their holiness.  They are always trying
to share out joy as if it were cake or water,
something ordinary, not rare at all.

            Denise Levertov

IMMERSION

There is anger abroad in the world, a numb thunder,
because of God’s silence. But how naïve,
to keep wanting words we could speak ourselves,
English, Urdu, Tagalog, the French of Tours,
the French of Haiti…

                        Yes, that was one way omnipotence chose
to address us—Hebrew, Aramaic, or whatever the patriarchs
chose in their turn to call what they heard. Moses
demanded the word, spoken and written. But perfect freedom
assured other ways of speech. God is surely
patiently trying to immerse us in a different language,
events of grace, horrifying scrolls of history
and the unearned retrieval of blessings lost for ever,
the poor grass returning after drought, timid, persistent.
God’s abstention is only from human dialects. The holy voice
utters its woe and glory in myriad musics, in signs and portents.
Our own words are for us to speak, a way to ask and to answer.

            Denise Levertov

THINKING ABOUT PAUL CELAN

Saint Celan,
stretched on the cross
of survival,

pray for us. You
at last could endure
no more. But we

live and live,
blithe in a world
where children kill children.

We shake off
the weight of
our own exemption,

we flourish, we exceed
our allotted days.

Saint Celan,
pray for us
that we receive
at least a bruise,
blue, blue, unfading,
we who accept survival.

Denise Levertov

AWARE

When I opened the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.

            My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversation had ended
just before you arrived.
            I liked
the glimpse I had, though,
of their obscure
gestures.  I liked the sound
of such private voices.  Next time
I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open
the door by fractions, eavesdrop
peacefully.

            Denise Levertov

MOMENTS OF JOY

A scholar takes a room on the next street,
the better to concentrate on his unending work, his word,
his world. His grown children
feel bereft. He comes and goes while they sleep.
But at times it happens a son or daughter
wakes in the dark and finds him sitting
at the foot of the bed
in the old rocker; sleepless
in his old coat, gazing
into invisible distance, but clearly there to protect
as he had always done.
            The child springs up and flings
arms about him, presses a cheek to this temple, taking him by surprise,
and exclaims, ‘Abba!’—the old intimate name
from the days of infancy.
And the old scholar, the father,
is deeply glad to be found.
That’s how it is, Lord, sometimes:
You seek, and I find.

            Denise Levertov

Look and See

This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew
to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back
of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.
The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was
laughing.

This afternoon a gull sailing over
our house was casually scratching
its stomach of white feather with one
pink foot as it flew.

Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look, and see.

Mary Oliver

The Lily

Night after night
darkness
enters the face
of the lily

which, lightly,
closes its five walls
around itself,
and its purse

of honey,
and its fragrance,
and is content
to stand there

in the garden,
not quite sleeping,
and, maybe,
saying in lily language

some small words
we can’t hear
even when there is no wind
anywhere,

its lips
are so secret,
its tongue
is so hidden—

or, maybe,
it says nothing at all
but just stands there
with the patience

of vegetables
and saints
until the whole world has turned around
and the silver moon

becomes the golden sun—
as the lily absolutely knew it would,
which is itself, isn’t it,
the perfect prayer?

Mary Oliver

Logos

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.

            Mary Oliver

The Lustration

I am bathing my face
In the mild rays of the sun,
As Mary bathed Christ
In the rich milk of Egypt.

Sweetness be in my mouth,
Wisdom be in my speech.
The love the fair Mary gave her Son
Be in the heart of all flesh for me.

The love of Christ in my breast,
The form of Christ protecting me,
There is not in sea nor on land
That can overcome the King of the Lord’s Day.

The hand of Bride about my neck,
The hand of Mary about my breast,
The hand of Michael laving me,
The hand of Christ saving me.

            From the Carmina Gadelica

Love One Another

What does it mean to be a Christian congregation when in the midst of many beneficial and nice activities that may take place in it, the one thing needful is not completely clear or obvious—that the members of the congregation are simply to love one another?  What kind of picture does a church offer itself and the world when not even this foremost duty is taken seriously?  If anything human in the early church was able to convince the pagans it was simply this—they could see, really see with their very eyes, that the two neighbors, the master and his slaves, the brothers on bad terms with each other all at once were no longer against each other, but with each other and for each other.  When they became Christians, they simply experienced radical outward changes.  Do we think perhaps that because we are already Christians, nothing needs to change anymore?  Or hadn’t we better say:  If we would really become Christians, immediately much would change in our lives too?  Do not these words bring judgment even to a Christian community even if everything is happening in a congregation, even if they all came to church, even if they did many good things and yet “if it has not love, it is nothing.”

Life and Love

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Denise Levertov from “Prayers for Healing”

Empower me to be a bold participant,
rather than a timid saint in waiting,
in the difficult ordinariness of now;
to exercise the authority of honesty,
rather than defer to power,
or deceive to get it;
to influence someone for justice,
rather than impress anyone for gain;
and, by grace, to find treasures
of joy, or friendship, of peace
hidden in the fields of the daily
you give me to plow.

            Ted Loder in “Prayers for Healing”

There is ecstasy in paying attention.  You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness, a sign that God is implicit in all of creation.

For many writers and artists, the themes that predominate in their work also dominate their memories.  To some degree, this is true for all of us.  The past shapes our visions, which in turn define what we’ll see and what we’ll seek.