Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the , taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

- Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

Summer’s End

At 4:38 a.m. a mockingbird wakes to begin her concert. She prefers the topmost branches of the sycamore tree next door where she’s taken up residence. Throughout the day she entertains with a rapid succession of trills and chirps.

Meanwhile, in the fig tree

a blue jay wipes its beak

against a branch


From April to October the “national pastime” follows the long arc of the growing season. The highs and lows, wins and losses. Now, baseball is reaching its climax with the World Series and it too will soon go dormant.

Game-ending error

shortstop stares into his glove

-- the crowd … stunned silent


This afternoon entire trees are on fire. The liquidambars in the neighborhood proclaim the season with a spectacle of trees aglow in yellow, russet, and crimson.

Falling maple leaf

catches the sun’s failing light

for the last time


It’s time once again for the autumnal ritual of cleaning the gutters—another reminder that the road ahead is shorter than the one I’ve already traveled.

- andrew zarrillo

[Larry Robinson]

A Song on the End of the World

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

Warsaw, 1944

- Czeslaw Milosz
(translated by Anthony Milosz)

[Larry Robinson]

Praying For Rain

The rain is here — political as ever —
Whose lack withers nations,
Whose excess, regimes.

You, rain, will turn into buds near the running streams of spring.
You will turn into cows
And into canyons.

You will turn into immortality —
Bays, clouds, drizzle — circling
Everlastingly.

You will turn into my teeth
Chilled by iced-water
Becoming me.

Your drops are the many prayers not said,
An overlooked hoard
Conquering China
And the steep street downtown.

You are The Queen of Taken-For-Granted,
As sparse as sand and as particular.

The boughs of trees open their arms in gladness.

- Bruce Moody

[Larry Robinson]

We Have Not Come To Take Prisoners

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and
Light!

- Hafiz

[Larry Robinson]

Be Like A Tree

Be like a tree.
Just be.
Storms will come,
The stars and the sun.
The seasons will pass through, while you
host your nest of young birds.

Turn the cold of fall mornings
into gold greetings,
falling jewels.
Feel your sap tending down,
allow it to descend.
It knows
to gather in winter
your roots to rebuild.

Stand barren and bare
through the dark cold of winter
while underground your spark
is kept alive.

Feel the quiet glow
of spring’s first melt
rose cast through the orchard
warmth welcoming tiny buds
from your winter-armored brown.

Nothing to do
through the heat of summer,
but shade your small estate, simply
allow your fruit forth, and share.

Hold your nest.
Hold your ground.
Just be
a tree.

- Scott O'Brien

[Larry Robinson]

Still Point

Leaving home
for work
each day

I hear the trees
say “What’s your hurry?”
Rooted, they
don’t understand

how in my world
we have to rush
to keep in step.

I haven’t even time
to stop and tell them
how on weekends, too,
schedules wait
like nets.

It’s only on a sick day
when I have to venture out
to pick up medicine

that I understand the trees,
there in all their fullness
in a world unpatterned

full of moments,
full of spaces,
every space
a choice.

This day
has not
been turned yet
on the lathe

this day
lies open, light
and shadow. Breath
fills the body easily.
I step

into a world
waiting like
a quiet lover.

- Max Reif

[Larry Robinson]

Psalm for a Lost Summer

By the rivers of Estes Park, there we sat down, yes, we sighed, when we
remembered Italy.
We pressed our pens against paper, and we sat under the pine trees,
listening to the crows.
For there in Colorado we were captive at a high altitude, required
to write without breath; and if we could not write, our consciences
required us to read, and improve our minds.
How shall we write our poems in this strange land?
If I forget you, Venice, let my right hand forget to wind the fettuccini
around the fork.
If I do not remember balmy Sorrento, let me never taste lemons again;
if I prefer not Capri above my chief joy.
Remember, O Muse, the couple who strolled about Assisi; who said,
How lovely this is, but next year let's vacation at home.
O Citizens of Assisi, do not blame us for the earthquake that destroyed
your basilica; how happy we were, looking at your frescos during a
thunderstorm.
Happy we shall be again, when we dash from this rented cabin, and
drive down from these great stone mountains forever, Amen.

- Maura Stanton

[Larry Robinson]

Enriching the Earth

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.

- Wendell Berry

[Larry Robinson]

5200*

Slapping their way through nature’s bath water,
sea lion and great white in their rear view,
salt water still purging as they advance,
in a mystical mitochondrial alignment,
they come. Frothing in the shallows
facing off with water’s potent wisdom,
vaulting themselves into jagged, uncertain
winter creeks, in upcountry backyards
to set a constellation of eyeballs
into the gravel bed, that finally
dams them in too, and becomes
an altar of reddened flesh,
while the garnet bark of western dogwood
stands witness to the ritual.

They come, undone, and in their slipstream,
the eagle, long since missing from these parts.
The sight of him snags our breath,
those wide wings, the bullet body,
the single focus – the waiting banquet.
The seduction of his winning pose
distracts us from the mass grave,
drenched in new world crimson.
The last golden leaves of willow create
a shroud of calico light, flickering.
They come, undaunted, into our midst,
showing us what is savory and wild
in us, around us, about us – chinook,
swimming up from the beginning of time.

- Penelope La Montagne


*The headlines of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 14, 2002, touting the return of 5200 chinook salmon that passed under the Wohler Bridge in the Russian River, on the way to their breeding grounds upstream. Chinook were thought not to be native to this area because of their prolonged absence, until DNA testing showed that this is indeed home territory for them.

[Larry Robinson]

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

- Jane Kenyon

[Larry Robinson]

How Could She Not

in memory of Jane Kenyon, 1947-1995

The air glitters. Overfull clouds
slide across the sky. A short shower,
its parallel diagonals visible
against the firs, douses and then
refreshes the crocuses. We knew
it might happen one day this week.
Out the open door, east of us, stand
the mountains of New Hampshire.
There, too, the sun is bright,
and heaped cumuli make their shadowy
ways along the horizon. When we learn
that she dies this morning, we wish
we could think: how could could it not
have been today? In another room,
Kiri Te Kanawa is singing
Mozart's Laudate Dominum
from far in the past, her voice
barely there over the swishing of scythes,
and rattlings of horse-pulled
mowing machine dragging
their cutter bar's little reciprocating
triangles through the timothy.

This morning did she wake
in the dark, almost used up
by her year of pain? By first light
did she glimpse the world
as she had loved it, and see
that if she died now, she would
be leaving him in a day like paradise?
Near sunrise did her hold loosen a little?

Having these last days spoken
her whole heart to him, who spoke
his whole heart to her, might she not
have felt that in the silence to come
he would not feel any word
was missing? When her room filled
with daylight, how could she not
have slipped under a spell, with him
next to her, his arms around her, as they
had been, it may then have seemed,
all her life? How could she not
presse her cheek to his cheek,
which presses itself to hers
from now on? How could she not
rise and go, with sunlight at the window,
and the drone, fading, deepening, hard to say,
of a single-engine plane in the distance,
coming for her, that no one else hears?

- Galway Kinnell

[Larry Robinson]

Mute Millennial


We gape at
the Wall
the mall
tall towers
twin flowers
deserted lots
hot spots
fantasy lovers

Alone, eyes inward
her writhing
belly ripples.
Waves of groans
circle her globe -
feet braced
teeth on edge
gasping furnace red
beads of sweat pouring
contraction after contraction
grip her throat

We goggle at
the war
the pall
heroes
faces
stained spots
neighbors
hoped-for saviors

Alone, eyes inward
her writhing
belly ripples.

- Raphael Block

[Larry Robinson]

Somewhere, there is a healing…

At water’s edge
a green glass bottle
smashed on a rock
a small act of war
against all things living.
She collects the shards,
thinking of raccoon –
the tracks nearby –
those soft pads
carrying them down
to wash their food in the dark,
children pushing off
on doughy feet
as they run to the river.
This little mound of rage
puts them all in peril.
She makes a bowl of her hand
and fills it with the glass,
each little bayonet
dormant and dangerous.
She senses the hand that did this,
striking out from a do-not-enter heart,
a shadowy, slivered thing, she imagines.
In her mind’s eye,
she pieces the vessel together,
making a jigsaw heart,
one not so very different
from her own. A drop of blood
forms between her fingers
and disappears
into the thirsty sand.
She cradles her cargo
and back at the house,
over the trash,
she arches her bloodstained palm
and lets a handful of hate
fall away.

- Penelope La Montagne

[Larry Robinson]

Love After Love

The day will come when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say,

sit here, eat.



You will love again the stranger who was yourself.



Give wine, give bread.

Give back your heart to itself,

to the stranger who has loved you all your life,

whom you ignored for another,

who knows you by heart.



Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.



Sit. Feast on your life.


- Derek Walcott

[Larry Robinson]

Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that labor
at night stopped? And the water
wheel of thought,
is it dry, the cups empty,
wheeling, carrying only shadows?

No my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its clear eyes open,
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.

- Antonio Machado

[Larry Robinson]

The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

- Wendell Berry

[Larry Robinson]

What To Remember When Waking

In that first
hardly noticed
moment
to which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be,
what urgency
calls you to your
one love? What shape
waits in the seed
of you to grow
and spread
its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?
In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?

- David Whyte

CLEAR MIND WILD HEART: Finding Courage and Clarity through Poetry

WHEN Friday, Nov 20, 6pm – Saturday, Nov 21, 2009, 5pm
WHERE IONS
101 San Antonio Road
Petaluma, CA 94952
PRESENTER(S) David Whyte
SUMMARY This workshop should be a time to engage with the frontier on which we find ourselves at this particular point in our lives, to understand again the very personal nature of our conversation with the future and to strike out boldly for that horizon.

We are also hosting an evening of open mic poetry and conversation that is open to the public, beginning on Saturday, November 21.
DESCRIPTION Click here to find out more about IONS Transformative Learning Workshops.

Throughout the ages, the language of poetry has held a special power to lend us courage, to give us the vision of those who endured and to hazard ourselves boldly in the world we must inhabit. The insights and imagery of poetry can take us beyond any small perimeter we have made for ourselves and call us to look life straight in the eyes. Once we establish ourselves at this conversational frontier, we find ourselves living amidst revelation, the recipients of visible and invisible help we could not previously recognize. Poetry tells us we can not only be found by a greater world, but also enlarge ourselves to become a participating element in that new future.

The task of the poet is to articulate the “it” in our lives, or our society’s lives - whatever “it” happens to be at any given time - and to try and overhear ourselves say something from which we cannot retreat.

Great poetry tells us that the stakes in life are very high and that failure is possible, yet it does not treat living as a burden. Suffering has its place in any human life, and in many ways is inescapable, yet it is also the hallmark of our incarnation, and one of the tasks of poetry is to show us how to walk into the middle of it and make a home, thus emboldening and deepening our generosity to others.
SCHEDULE Friday
6:00 PM Dinner
7:30—9:30 PM Evening Program
Saturday
8:00—9:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 AM—12:15 PM Morning Session
12:30—1:30 PM Lunch
2:00—5:00 PM Afternoon Program
5:00 Departure
Arrival and Departure: Check-in and access to accommodations begins on Friday at 4:00 pm. You are welcome to arrive earlier in the afternoon to enjoy the campus vistas, wildlife, meandering trails, and oak groves before check-in. Guests are requested to be checked out of their rooms on Saturday by 11 am.
PRESENTER(S) BIOS David Whyte is a poet, author and lecturer, who grew up among the hills and valleys of Yorkshire, England. A captivating speaker with a compelling blend of profound poetry and insightful commentary, he is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development. He holds a degree in Marine Zoology, and is an Associate Fellow of the Said Business School at the University of Oxford.

David Whyte is the author of six volumes of poetry and three books of prose. He lives with his family in the Pacific Northwestern United States.
TYPE OF EVENT Weekend Workshop
EVENT CATEGORY IONS Transformative Learning Workshops
IONS CONNECTION Sponsored by IONS
FEES The weekend workshop fee, including meals, is $275 up to one month prior to the workshop date, and $325 thereafter. Overnight lodging for two nights is $70 per night for a shared double room or $95 per night for a single room. Ten continuing education credits are available for most workshops; the CE credit processing fee is $25.
CE CREDITS Ten continuing education credits available.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (101 San Antonio Road, Petaluma, CA 94952-9524), sponsor of this program, certifies that this continuing education workshop meets the criteria for Continuing Education Credit for:

Marriage Family Therapists and Licensed Clinical Social Workers — The California Board of Behavioral Sciences, provider #PCE 3885, (expires December 31, 2010)
National Certified Counselors — The National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) provider #5492 (expires April 30, 2011).
Nurses — The California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN), provider #10318 (expires May 31, 2010).
Social Workers — State of Illinois, Registered Social Worker Continuing Education Sponsor, License No. 159.000435 (expires November 30, 2009)

There is a $25 processing fee to receive Continuing Education Credit.
MORE INFORMATION www.noetic.org…
PLEASE REGISTER Registration is required for this event. Please use the registration link to register.
REGISTRATION www.regonline.com…
PHONE 707-775-3500
EMAIL [email protected]
CONTENT AREAS Art Culture & Consciousness, Wisdom Teachings

[Larry Robinson]

Worldling

In a world of souls I set out to find them.
They who first must find each other,
be each other’s fate.
There, on the open road,
I gazed into each traveler’s face.

"Is it you?" I would ask.

"Are you the ones?"

"No, no," they said, or said nothing at all.


How many cottages did I pass,
each with a mother, a father,
a firstborn, newly-swaddled, crying:
or sitting in its little chair,
dipping a far wooden spoon
into a steaming bowl,
its mother singing it a foolish song,
One, one, a lily’s my care…
Through seasons I searched,
through years I can’t remember,
reading the lichens and stones
as if one were marked
with my name, my face, my form.
By night and day I searched,
never sleeping, not wanting to fail,

not wanting to be simply a star.



Finally in a town like any other town,
in a house foursquare and shining,
its door wide open to the moon,
did I find them.
There, at the top of the winding stairs,
asleep in the big bed,
the sheets thrown off, curled
like question marks into each other’s arms.

Past memory, I beheld them,
naked, their bodies without flaw.

"It is I," I whispered,

"I, the nameless one."
And my parents, spent by the dream
of creation, slept on.

- Elizabeth Spires

[Larry Robinson]

Who Built The Seven Gates of Thebes?

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it kings who hauled the craggy loads of stone?
An Babylon, so many times destroyed,
Who raised that city up each time?
In which of Lima’s houses, glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
On the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished
Where did the masons go?
Philip of Spain wept when his fleet went down.
Was there no one else who wept?
Frederick the great won the Seven Years War.
Who won it with him?
A victory on every page.
Who cooked the victory feast?
A great man every ten years.
Who paid the cost?

- Berthold Brecht

[Larry Robinson]

The Source of Joy

No one knows what makes the soul
wake up so happy!

Maybe a dawn breeze has blown the veil
from the face of God.

A thousand new moons appear.
Roses open laughing.

Hearts become perfect rubies
like those from Badakshan.

The body turns entirely spirit.
Leaves become branches in the wind!

Why is it now so easy to surrender,
even for those already surrendered?

There's no answer to any of this.
No one knows the source of joy.

A poet breathes into a reed flute,
and the tip of every hair makes music.

Shams sails down clods of dirt from the roof,
and we take jobs as doorkeepers for him.

- Rumi
(Version by Coleman Barks)

[Larry Robinson]

Stranded Somewhere

If you are the body, that one is the soul
of the universe. If you're the soul, that

one is the soul within all souls. Wherever
you go, whatever you are, listen for the

voice that asks, "Who will be sacrificed
tonight? "Jump up and volunteer! Accept

this cup that is offered every second.
Love has written the thousand subtleties

of this call on my face. Read. If you're
bored and contemptuous, love is a walk in

a meadow. If you're stranded somewhere
and exhausted, love is an Arabian horse.

The ocean feeds itself to its fish. If
you're ocean fish, why bother with bread

the ground grows? These jars of grief and
trouble we call bodies, throw stones and

break them! My cage is this longing for
Shams. Be my worst enemy: shatter it!

- Jelalludin Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 926
(Version by Coleman Barks)

[Larry Robinson]

The Swan


Across the wide waters
something comes
floating--a slim
and delicate

ship, filled
with white flowers--
and it moves
on its miraculous muscles

as though time didn’t exist,
as though bringing such gifts
to the dry shore
was a happiness

almost beyond bearing.
And now it turns its dark eyes,
it rearranges
the clouds of its wings,

it trails
and elaborate webbed foot,
the color of charcoal.
Soon it will be here.

Oh, what shall I do
when that poppy-colored beak
rests in my hand?
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:

I miss my husband’s company--
he is so often
in paradise.
Of course! the path to heaven

doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
It’s in the imagination
with which you perceive
this world,

and the gestures
with which you honor it.
Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those
white wings
touch the shore?


-Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

Personal Helicon

for Michael Longley

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

- Seamus Heaney

[Larry Robinson]

Hudson's Geese

'. . . I have, from time to time, related some incident of my

boyhood, and these are contained in various chapters in The

Naturalist in La Plata, Birds and Man, Adventures Among

Birds____'

W.H. Hudson, in Far Away and Long Ago.



Hudson tells us of them,

the two migrating geese,

she hurt in the wing

indomitably walking the length of a continent,

and he wheeling above,

calling his distress.

They could not have lived.

Already I see her wing

scraped past the bone

as she drags it through rubble.

A fox, maybe, took her

in his snap jaws. And what

would he do, the point

of his circling gone?

The wilderness of his cry

falling through an air

turned instantly to winter

would warn the guns of him.

If a fowler dropped him,

let it have been quick,

pellets hitting brain

and heart so his weight

came down senseless,

and nothing but his body

to enter the dog's mouth.

- Leslie Norris

[Larry Robinson]

Grace

Thanks & blessings be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessings to them
who share it
(& also the absent & the dead).
Thanks & Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine & robs
the taste from the salt.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & work of justice, of peace.

- Rafael Jesus Gonzalez

[Larry Robinson]

A THANKSGIVING PRAYER FROM THE IROQUOIS NATION


We have gathered and come from many different places. We have arrived safely at this place to share with each other our gifts from the Creator. So we bring our minds together as one in Thanksgiving and Greetings to one another.

We now turn our thoughts to Earth Mother. She continues to care for us and has not forgotten her instructions from the beginning of time. Now we bring our minds together in Thanksgiving for the Earth.

Now as one mind we turn our thoughts to the Waters of the Earth for they too have not forgotten their instructions from the Creator of Life. The Waters continue to flow beneath the ground, in little streams and in rivers, in lakes and in wetlands, and in the great seas. They quench our thirst and help keep us clean so we can fulfill our duty to Creation. We now bring our minds together in Thanksgiving to all the Waters of the Earth.

We now address all the Beings both seen and unseen that dwell in the Water for they too have not forgotten their original instructions from the Creator of Life to provide for us in many ways. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to all the Nations who dwell in the Waters.

Now we direct our thoughts to the many kinds of plants that live upon the Earth- for they too have not forgotten their original instructions. Many members of this Nation sustain those who walk upon this Earth, and many others who continue to fulfill their duties to take away the sickness of the human family and elevate human consciousness. With one mind we send our thoughts and Thanksgiving to the Plant Nations.

With one mind we now think of our relations in the many Insect Nations. Like the other members of the natural world, they too have not forgotten their original instructions to fulfill their obligation to Continued Creation. With one mind we send our thoughts and Thanksgiving to all the members of the Insect Nations.

We now gather our minds together and send Greetings and Thanksgiving to all the Animal Life in the world, for they continue to instruct and teach us even today. It is said that the Creator knew that Humans would take too much for granted if they were given all the wisdom, so instead the Creator gave a little piece of wisdom of how to live on the Earth to the different animals. We are happy that many still walk with us on our continuing journey. With one mind we send Thanksgiving to all the Animal Life in the world.

With one mind we now think of the Trees. According to their original instructions the Trees still give us shelter, warmth, food, and make the environment a suitable place to dwell. The trees remind us of the beauty and power in the natural world. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving to all the members of the Tree Nation.

We now bring our minds together and send our Greetings of Thanksgiving to the Birds. At the beginning of time the Birds were given a special duty to perform. The Creator gave the Birds instructions to each find a special place to live in the world and they should learn the song of that place. During the day, our minds are lifted by the songs of the Bird Nations. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving to the Birds of the world.

We are thankful to the Four Winds who continue to blow and cleanse the air according to their original instructions. As we listen to the Winds it is as if we are hearing the Creator's breath, clearing our minds as it blows through the trees. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving to the Four Winds.

We now turn our attention to the Thunderbeings. For they too have not forgotten their original instructions and welcome the Spring with their loud voice. Along with the lightning, they carry the waters of the spring on their backs. It is also said that the Thunderbeings were given the job to hold down the beings beneath the Earth which would prevent life from continuing. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to the Thunderbeings.

Our minds are as one as we send our thoughts to our oldest brother the Sun. Each day the Sun continues his instructions from the Creator of Life, bringing the light of day, the energy source of all life on Earth. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving to our oldest brother the Sun.

We now gather our minds together and give thanks to our oldest Grandmother the Moon. She holds hands with all the women of the world and binds all of the female cycles and rhythms of the Waters so we may continue to carry out our obligation to Creation. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to Grandmother Moon.

With one mind we send our thoughts to the Star Nation who continue to light our way during times of darkness to guide us home, and hold the secrets of many forgotten stories. Even though many of the stories are no longer in our minds, it is said it is enough to be thankful to the Stars and perhaps one day we would learn these stories again.
With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to the Star Nation.

With our minds as one we think of the Four Spirit Beings who live in the Four Directions. At the beginning of time when the Creator first made the Human Family, it was seen that they very quickly got themselves into trouble. The Creator knew that they needed extra help and so created the Four Spirit Beings to remove the obstacles from our paths and guide us with our feelings. And now we gather our minds together as one and send our special Thanksgiving to the Four Spirit Beings.

Now we have arrived in a very special place where dwells the Great Spirit, the Creator of the Universe. As one mind we turn our thoughts to the Creator, for without the Creator we would not be able to walk on the Earth fulfilling our original instructions.

Everything we need is provided for us and all we have to remember is to give thanks. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to the Creator.

We have now become like one being. We send our Prayers and special Thanksgiving Greetings to all the unborn children of the future generations. We send our thoughts to the Elders and the Children for they give us guidance and purpose to live in a good way. We are thankful to all the Enlightened Teachers who have come to help us throughout the ages. We send our thoughts to the many different beings we may have missed during our Thanksgiving. With one mind we send Thanksgiving and Greetings to all of the Nations of the World.
Now Our Minds Are One.

[Larry Robinson]

Just Now

In the morning as the storm begins to blow away
the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me
that there has been something simpler than I could ever believe
simpler than I could have begun to find words for
not patient not even waiting no more hidden
than the air itself that became part of me for a while
with every breath and remained with me unnoticed
something that was here unnamed unknown in the days
and the nights not separate from them
not separate from them as they came and were gone
it must have been here neither early nor late then
by what name can I address it now holding out my thanks

- W. S. Merwin

[Larry Robinson]

Untitled

After seventeen years of circling,
waiting for the other shoe to drop,
we decided to give up and marry–
and on a cold, sunny Sunday
in an empty rural courthouse, we did.
The guests were all throwing up from flu,
so we ate the nuptial rhubarb pie alone,
wondering if this was the other shoe.
Now three years after, still under icy sun,
we’re keeping our ears alert
for any sudden thumps in undusted corners.
So far, so good. We have now
both loved and endured each other
a long time. Let’s raise a glass to ourselves:
while the world was careening madly forward,
we parked our souls in the shade of the chaos,
and here we are, still alive, and pie
or no pie, still capable of joy.

- Bill Holm

[Larry Robinson]

Song of the Universal

1
Come said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the universal.
In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.
By every life a share or more or less,
None born but it is born, conceal`d or unconceal`d the seed is waiting.
2
Lo! keen-eyed towering science,
As from tall peaks the modern overlooking,
Successive absolute fiats issuing.
Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science,
For it has history gather`d like husks around the globe,
For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.
In spiral routes by long detours,
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)
For it the partial to the permanent flowing,
For it the real to the ideal tends.
For it the mystic evolution,
Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified.
Forth from their masks, no matter what,
From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears,
Health to emerge and joy, joy universal.
Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,
Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states,
Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,
Only the good is universal.
3
Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow,
An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
High in the purer, happier air.
From imperfection`s murkiest cloud,
Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
One flash of heaven`s glory.
To fashion`s, custom`s discord,
To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,
Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,
From some far shore the final chorus sounding.
O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,
That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,
Along the mighty labyrinth.
4
And thou America,
For the scheme`s culmination, its thought and its reality,
For these (not for thyself) thou hast arrived.
Thou too surroundest all,
Embracing carrying welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new,
To the ideal tendest.
The measure`d faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,
Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,
Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,
All eligible to all.
All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all,
Nature`s amelioration blessing all,
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
Give me O God to sing that thought,
Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,
In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,
Health, peace, salvation universal.
Is it a dream?
Nay but the lack of it the dream,
And failing it life`s lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.

- Walt Whitman