LOW WINTER SUN

It’s been awhile. Like the big wave on the sun-drenched beach that drives the swimmer to the depths, the choice becomes going with the flow, or frantically grasping for the steady state of the surface. I’m going with the flow, tending family, working, and reading great books these past few months.

Two books lay on my table currently: Rilke’s THE BOOK OF HOURS: LETTERS TO GOD, edited from the German by Joanna Macy, a longtime heroine of mine. It feeds my Zen poet’s mind. The second, GILEAD, by a female author, is written in first person male point of view, a dying minister communicating about his life to his seven year old son. The son is too young to comprehend the developmental issues of aging, but the reader is not.

Writing, my passion, arises in my journal, in a couple of poems I’ll post, and strangely, on Facebook! Fathomless, innumerable, subtle and gross, words are my bloodstream. In the spring I began a novel set in a Montana mountain town. I set it aside for summer, line edited it last month, and see the character, a waitress in a café, needs “fleshing out,” as the editors say. I want you, the reader, to see, smell, and touch Elly’s very being, perceive her motives, her weaknesses and her keen intelligence. My winter opens up in January for longer periods of solitude in my study to add in the muscle and tendons.

Today the low sun creeps across my desk, and I’m planning a hike with my partner and our goofy dog. Sunshine trumps the computer. Thanks for tuning in. Here’s a couple of poems.

GRAY BOOTS
Oh co-ed, striding across the campus
With purpose and integrity:
I’ve worn gray boots like yours,
suede boots that empowered me.
No really! They had a heavy heel with
High lace-up tops; they fit like a glove,

Just like my new-found authority
Enveloped the woman full of fears.
Tying bravado into two stout bows
I marched the streets, my voice raging,
Finally letting all the anger out.

Even now, I’d buy another pair!
Looking down I’d recall the tear gas,
The slogans, the feel of 10,000
People chanting, “No! Oh, the belonging,
the righteousness!

I’d remember fifty years of resistance
to slaughter, to poverty, and greed;
while saying yes to community
where vision, transparency and trust
pave the path for souls to stroll
and share their delicate stories.

March on, young woman, to your next class
wearing your resolute purpose.
Speak your mind and your heart,
While running roughshod over complexities.
The world beckons you to take a stand.
I’ll walk behind you all the way.


GETTIN’ NEAR THE END

Even now, emaciated and moving with such difficulty
You grasp the pencil, and erase yesterday’s
Additions and subtractions from your will.
Is it necessary, we wonder, at this late date,
To adjust the amounts and recipients?
Is this the very last attachment, or will
Your grasping mind find another project
That must be done before you die?
Stopping, you drift into the nether world
Where problem-solving’s ceased. Eyes
Close as if in death, body’s shutting down,
Without food (several weeks) or water (several days).
If your last effort in the name of generosity
Falls from the chair, and you slip through
The bars of the prison window
To fly free this sunny morning,
May that slender cord, that gossamer thread
Dissolve, releasing you to the field of
Infinite beneficence and eternal gratitude.