Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Shandi]

Mike, thank you for this very important correction! Knowing the truth of where the creativity came from led me on a curious journey to Jennifer Welwood's work, which I otherwise wouldn't have had the privilege of seeing. Getting one name wrong is one thing, but getting both wrong are a huge, serious and unintened error probably made in haste.

Hi there -

I am a student of Jennifer Welwood's and this is actually her poem, not "Joyce Wellwood". Can you please change the attribution so it reads "Jennifer Welwood", format the poem correctly to match this formatting and create a link here: https://jenniferwelwood.com/poetry/the-dakini-speaks/

Thank you in advance, much appreciated.

[Shandi]

I encourage Wacco members to take a look at Jennifer's website, especially her writing about her work with a couple who were relating to each other from "conditioned" identities, and the outcome of working with them. I noticed that her upcoming March retreat is already full. This says a lot in a world where many people are hard pressed to fill a workshop, even when offering a sliding scale, or a discount for early registration. She does neither, and the price for the 5 days starts in the range of $900-$1000.

This leads me to believe she may have a valuable mentor or coach. I don't know for sure. But it seems that her work is valued by many. I'm glad that Larry made a mistake in her name, and that Mike corrected it, otherwise I wouldn't have known about her at all. Thanks to both of you!

https://www.jenniferwelwood.com/

[Larry Robinson]

The Waking


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
- Theodore Roethke

[Larry Robinson]

What is the Deep Listening

What is the deep listening?

Sama is a greeting from the secret ones inside the heart - a letter
The branches of your intelligence grow new leaves in the wind of this listening.
The body reaches a peace.

Rooster sound comes reminding you of your love of dawn
The reed flute and the singer's lips
The knack of how spirit breathes into us
becomes as simple and ordinary as eating and drinking.

The dead rise with the pleasure of listenting.
If someone cannot hear a trumpet melody,
sprinkle dirt on his head and delare him dead.

Listen and feel the beauty of your separation
the unsayable absence
There is a moon inside every human being
Learn to be companions with it.
Give more of your life to this listening.

As brightness is to time,
so you are to the one who talks to the deep ear in your chest

I should sell my tongue
and buy a thousand ears when that one steps near and begins to speak

I should sell my tongue and buy a thousand ears
when that one steps near.


- Jelalludin Rumi
(translated by Coleman Barks)

[Larry Robinson]

Watching


Clouds, of course, are the greatest
things in the world: cumulus, cirrus,
nimbus, you name it. How they
arrive out of nowhere it seems, coast


across the sky's scrim, some thin and
wispy as milkweed seed, some
seemingly stuffed with down, great
pillows for God's huge and heavy head.


These are, of course, the benevolent ones.
Even at night we know they are passing
silently above us as if some kindly
neighbor has come out in the cold to pull


the comforter up to our chin. Of course,
there are the grays, carriers of uncertainty:
holding perhaps rain or sleet, snow or hail,
or not a drop of anything at all. We can


never know. Then, of course, the dark and
bleak lugging a foreboding storm, clouds
that send us under cover, into resigned and
listless listening to the chaos on the roof,


the slash across the car's front window,
wipers all but useless against the tipping
of some cosmic water barrel. But then again,
of course, no matter what the cause, what


the effect we just might see in any cloud--
eerie dark, marshmallow white, erasure
gray-an old man's hat, a Conestoga wagon,
face of Aunt Louise, a smiling hippopotamus.
- Jack Ridl

[Dixon]

And for West County residents, the poem won't be complete without this stanza:

Then there are the malevolent ones,
delivering Fukushima's radiant kiss,
and factory-fresh chemical rain or snow,
as spreading chemtrails cross out the sky.

Watching

Clouds, of course, are the greatest
things in the world: cumulus, cirrus,
nimbus, you name it. How they
arrive out of nowhere it seems, coast


across the sky's scrim, some thin and
wispy as milkweed seed, some
seemingly stuffed with down, great
pillows for God's huge and heavy head.


These are, of course, the benevolent ones.
Even at night we know they are passing
silently above us as if some kindly
neighbor has come out in the cold to pull


the comforter up to our chin. Of course,
there are the grays, carriers of uncertainty:
holding perhaps rain or sleet, snow or hail,
or not a drop of anything at all. We can


never know. Then, of course, the dark and
bleak lugging a foreboding storm, clouds
that send us under cover, into resigned and
listless listening to the chaos on the roof,


the slash across the car's front window,
wipers all but useless against the tipping
of some cosmic water barrel. But then again,
of course, no matter what the cause, what


the effect we just might see in any cloud--
eerie dark, marshmallow white, erasure
gray-an old man's hat, a Conestoga wagon,
face of Aunt Louise, a smiling hippopotamus.
- Jack Ridl

[Larry Robinson]

ARTICLES OF FAITH




Faith is a priceless treasure which some would invest in money and power, seeking private gain. Others of us invest in a vision of a world which may yet come to be: a world of justice, peace and beauty. We place our faith in life itself.


We Believe


Life is infinitely creative, resourceful, reliable and ultimately good.


Human beings are an expression of that life force and, as such, are creative, resourceful, reliable and fundamentally good.


All life is inextricably connected - what happens to any of us happens to all of us.


Evil exists as a potential in all human beings and it derives from the illusion that we are separate from each other and from the fountain of life.


Evil cannot be vanquished by force of arms or by fear. It can only be conquered by love.


In the power of love and direct non-violent action to
transform institutions, social systems and the human heart.


The arc of human history moves toward democracy, justice and an appreciation for our wondrous multiplicity of expression.


It is the right of all people to enjoy life, liberty and the security of person; to be treated equally under the law; to enjoy freedom of thought, conscience and religion; to free expression and association; to have free access to clean water and air.


It is possible for all human beings to be free from economic want and poverty and to live with dignity.


Peace among and within nations is only possible when these rights are assured to everyone.


The most fundamental responsibility of government is to ensure the health and well-being of the land and of all its inhabitants.


Individual rights must be balanced with responsibility for the well-being of the community.


The success and survival of our civilization and, possibly, that of the human race are in increasing jeopardy because of our commitment to an unsustainable pattern of resource consumption, particularly our dependence upon fossil fuels.


While our planet’s physical resources are finite, the resources of love and imagination are without end.


It is indeed possible to create a society which lives sustainably and harmoniously within the parameters of our planetary life support systems.


We have a responsibility to live in such a way that we do not diminish the opportunity for future generations to enjoy the same quality of life which we enjoy.


A human birth is a precious gift that is accompanied by a responsibility to act with generosity, sensitivity and compassion for all living beings.


In doing our best to leave a better world for our children.


All people, individually and collectively, are capable of learning from their mistakes.


Life inherently includes suffering, but we have a responsibility as members of the human family to do what we can to ease that suffering and to structure our social institutions in such a way as to minimize unnecessary suffering due to poverty, disease, war, injustice and environmental degradation.


Joy is also an inherent feature of life and it is possible to participate joyfully in the suffering of the world.


Each and every life has inherent value and is worthy of respect.


In poetry, art, music, dancing and the spirit of play.


In the power of truth.


At the heart of all things is an ineffable mystery worthy of awe and wonder.


It is this faith which informs, guides and sustains our work in the world.


- Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

On The Bank


He was sitting by the river, among reeds

that peasants had been scything for their thatch.
And it was quiet there, and in his soul
it was quieter and stiller still.
He kicked off his boots and put
his feet into the water, and the water
began talking to him, not knowing
he didn’t know its language.
He had thought that water is deaf-mute,
that the home of sleepy fish is without words,
that blue dragonflies hover over the water
and catch mosquitoes or horseflies,
that you wash if you want to wash, and drink
if you want to drink, and that’s all there is
to water. But in all truth
the water’s language was a wonder,
a story of some kind about some thing,
some unchanging thing that seemed
like starlight, like the swift flash of mica,
like a divination of disaster.
And in it was something from childhood,
from not being used to counting life in years,
from what is nameless
and comes at night before you dream,
from the terrible, vegetable
sense of self
of your first season.


That’s how the water was that day,
and its speech was without rhyme or reason.


- Arseny Tarkovsky
(translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler)

[Larry Robinson]

The Lesson Of Poverty




Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of poverty,
having nothing and wanting nothing.


I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,
clothed in red silk.
I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,
billions of simultaneous motions
moving in me.
A circle of lovely, quiet people
becomes the ring on my finger.


The the wind and the thunder of rain on the way.
I have such a teacher.


- Jelalludin Rumi
(Version by Coleman Barks)

[Larry Robinson]

The Word


We ride up softly to the hidden

oval in the woods, a plateau rimmed
with wavy stands of gray birch and white pine,
my horse thinking his thoughts, happy
in the October dapple, and I thinking
mine-and-his, which is my prerogative,


both of us just in time to see a big doe
loft up over the four-foot fence, her white scut
catching the sun and then releasing it,
soundlessly clapping our reveries shut.
The pine grove shudders as she passes.
The red squirrels thrill, announcing her departure.


Come back! I want to call to her,
we mean you no harm. Come back and show us
who stand pinned in stopped time to the track
how you can go from a standing start
up and over. We on our side, pulses racing,
are synchronized with you racing heart.


I want to tell her, Watch me
mornings when I fill the cylinders
with sunflower seeds, see how the chickadees
and lesser redbreasted nuthatches crowd
onto my arm, permitting me briefly
to stand in for a tree,


and how the vixen in the bottom meadow
I ride across allows me under cover
of horse scent to observe the education
of her kits, how they dive for the burrow
on command, how they re-emerge at another
word she uses, a word I am searching for.


- Maxine Kumin
(1925-2014)

[Larry Robinson]

After the Lecture

for Martin Luther King Jr.


A woman said I was not polite
to the opposition,
that I was harsh
and did not encourage
discourse.

Perhaps if I were Christ,
I could say, "Forgive them
for they know not what they do."
Or the queen, and apologize
for stubbing my executioner's toes.

But only if I knew
the executioners
were mine only.

What courtesy have I the right to give
to them who break the bones,
the souls of my brothers,
my sisters;
deny bread, books
to the hungry,
the children;
medicine, healing
to the sick;
roofs to the homeless;

who spoil the oceans,
lay waste the forests
and the deserts,
violate the land?

Affability on the lips
of outrage
is a sin and blasphemy
I'll not be guilty of.

- Rafael Jesús González


Después del Discurso

a Martin Luther King Jr.

Una mujer me dijo que no fui cortés
con la oposición,
que fui duro
y que no animé
discusión.

Tal vez si fuera Cristo,
pudiera decir - Perdónalos
que no saben lo que hacen. -
O la reina, y disculparme
por haber pisarle el pie a mi verdugo.

Pero solamente si supiera
que los verdugos
fueran solamente míos.

¿Qué cortesía tengo el derecho a darles
a los que quiebran los huesos
y las almas de mis hermanos,
mis hermanas;
les niegan el pan, los libros
a los hambrientos,
a los niños;
la medicina, el sanar
a los enfermos;
techos a los desamparados;

que estropean los mares,
que destruyen los bosques
y los desiertos,
violan la tierra?

Afabilidad en los labios
de la furia justa
es pecado y blasfemia
de la cual no seré culpable.

- Rafael Jesús González

[Larry Robinson]

In California: Morning, Evening, Late January
Pale, then enkindled,
light
advancing,
emblazoning
summits of palm and pine,

the dew
lingering,
scripture of
scintillas.

Soon the roar
of mowers
cropping the already short
grass of lawns,

men with long-nozzled
cylinders of pesticide
poking at weeds,

at moss in cracks of cement,

and louder roar
of helicopters off to spray
vineyards where braceros try
to hold their breath,

and in the distance, bulldozers, excavators,
babel of destructive construction.

Banded by deep
oakshadow, airy
shadow of eucalyptus,

miner’s lettuce,

tender, untasted,
and other grass, unmown,
luxuriant,
no green more brilliant.

Fragile paradise.

. . . .

At day’s end the whole sky,
vast, unstinting, flooded with transparent
mauve,
tint of wisteria,
cloudless
over the malls, the industrial parks,
the homes with the lights going on,
the homeless arranging their bundles.

. . . .

Who can utter
the poignance of all that is constantly
threatened, invaded, expended

and constantly
nevertheless
persists in beauty,

tranquil as this young moon
just risen and slowly
drinking light
from the vanished sun.

Who can utter
the praise of such generosity
or the shame?
- Denise Levertov

[Larry Robinson]

First Steps In Hawkshead Church


My son strode out into the world today,
twenty one steps on the grave of Ann Braithwaite,
her horizontal slab of repose grey beneath
the lifting red socks, her exit from the world
his entrance to the world of walking.


She must have lain beneath and smiled past
the small arms outstretched to the church tower of Hawkshead,
she must have borne him up, her help from the end of life
his beginning, her hands invisible, reaching to his.


He walked through each line explaining her life,
sixty two years by the small lake of Esthwaite,
lichen, green grass, grey walls and the falling
water of ice cold streams, his small place of play
her mingling with the elements she lived with.


A meeting of two waters,
hers a deep pool, solitary in stillness,
his swift, bubbling from rock to rock,
pouring into her silence, a kingfisher
flare in her darkness, promise of light,


Ineffable, unknowable, the touch of his feet
a promise of a world to come, solid on a life well lived.
His look of surprise when the church bell rang, her knowing.
The sound of time, his now, hers then. New rituals
are always played on the graves of those long dead.


- David Whyte

[Larry Robinson]

You and I have

so much love
That it burns
like a fire
In which we bake
A lump of clay
Molded into
A figure of you
And a figure of me.

Then we take
Both of them
And break them
Into pieces.

And mix the pieces
with water.

And mold again
A figure of you
And a figure of me.

I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.
In life we share
a single quilt
In death
a single bed.

Chinese Love Poem
Translated By Kenneth Rexroth

[Larry Robinson]

Touch The Air

Now touch the air softly,

Step gently, one, two…
I'll love you till roses
Are robin's-egg blue;
I'll love you till gravel
Is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange,
And lavender's red.

Now touch the air softly,
Swing gently the broom.
I'll love you till windows
Are all of a room;
And the table is laid,
And the table is bare,
And the ceiling reposes
On bottomless air.

I'll love you till Heaven
Rips the stars from his coat,
And the moon rows away in
A glass-bottomed boat;
And Orion steps down
Like a diver below,
And Earth is ablaze,
And Ocean aglow.

So touch the air softly,
and swing the broom high.
We will dust the gray mountains,
And sweep the blue sky;
And I'll love you as long
As the furrow the plow,
As However is Ever,
And Ever is Now.

- William Jay Smith

[Larry Robinson]

A Rainy Morning


A young woman in a wheelchair,
wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain,
is pushing herself through the morning.
You have seen how pianists
sometimes bend forward to strike the keys,
then lift their hands, draw back to rest,
then lean again to strike just as the chord fades.
Such is the way this woman
strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers,
letting them float, then bends again to strike
just as the chair slows, as if into a silence.
So expertly she plays the chords
of this difficult music she has mastered,
her wet face beautiful in its concentration,
while the wind turns the pages of rain.


- Ted Kooser

[Larry Robinson]

As I crossed the bridge, a hairy hand came out.
"Stop, pay troll."
I gave him 5 euros. He put it not in his purse but in a jar.
"It's for the poor. They are very hungry," he said.
"This week Africa. Maybe next week your country."
He scratched. "When you get to the other side of the bridge, you get it back."
I looked, saw no one giving back. He saw me looking.

"Not THIS bridge," he said.

- Birrell Walsh

[Larry Robinson]

Gratitude to Old Teachers


When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,

We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?


Water that once could take no human weight-
We were students then-holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.


- Robert Bly

[Larry Robinson]

Greed


My ocean town struggles
to pick up leaves,
offer summer school,
and keep our library open.
Every day now
more men stand
at the railroad station,
waiting to be chosen for work.
Because it’s thought
the Hispanics will work for less
they get picked first,
while the whites and blacks
avoid the terror
in one another’s eyes.
Our handyman, Santos,
who expects only
what his hands earn,
is proud of   his half acre in Guatemala,
where he plans to retire.
His desire to proceed with dignity
is admirable, but he knows
that now no one retires,
everyone works harder.
My father imagined a life
more satisfying than the one
he managed to lead.
He didn’t see himself as uneducated,
thwarted, or bitter,
but soon-to-be rich.
Being rich was his right, he believed.
Happiness, I used to think,
was a necessary illusion.
Now I think it’s just
precious moments of relief,
like dreams of Guatemala.
Sometimes, at night,
in winter, surrounded by
the significant silence
of empty mansions,
which once were cottages,
where people lived their lives,
and now are owned by banks
and the absent rich,
I like to stand at my window,
looking for a tv’s futile flickering,
always surprised to see
instead
the quaint, porous face
of my reflection,
immersed
in its one abundance.


- Philip Schultz

[Larry Robinson]

Last Call


1


Tonight
moonglow
from within
softly


like a candled egg


and softly
stars diminish
until incandescence washes


the dark sky


until midnight's
lightslick
its ebb and flow


liquid


the candent universe
rolls
softly


2


Midnight
remonstrance:


there are those
I wish honestly
only to remember


being gone
and only memory


and
there are those
I wish to never remember


desiring
only their presence


lasting as long
as my life
until forever


as
I cannot imagine


living in a world
containing
only their memory


3


And you my friend
whom the gods call
into that other alone


wherever you wake
be it desert or forest
mountain or seaside


find tinder
dry moss and kindling
flint


strike a small fire which
being eternity
will flicker beyond forever


sing
your bright poem
fork your lightning dance


I will find you
sooner than later wherever
you wait in the darkness


We will sing together
delirious and off key
We will tell great lies
to shame the heavens
We will cook with wine
I promise you this


- David Lee

[Larry Robinson]

What's Left?


Something like a half-person
left my young husband's body,
and something like the other half
left my ovary. Later,
the new being, complete, slowly
left my body. And a portion of breath
left the air of the delivery room,
entering the little mouth,
and the milk left the breast, and went
into the fat cuffs of the wrists.
Years later, during his cremation,
the liquids left my father's corpse,
and the smoke left the flue. And even
later, my mother's ashes left
my hand, and fell as seethe into the salt
chop. My then husband made
a self, a life, I made beside him
a self, a life, gestation. We grew
strong, in direction. We clarified
in vision, we deepened in our silence and our speaking.
We did not hold still, we moved, we are moving
still-- we made, with each other, a moving
like a kind of music: duet; then solo,
solo. We fulfilled something in each other--
I believed in him, he believed in me, then we
grew, and grew, I grieved him, he grieved me,
I completed with him, he completed with me, we
made whole cloth together, we succeeded,
we perfected what lay between him and me,
I did not deceive him, he did not deceive me,
I did not leave him, he did not leave me,
I freed him, he freed me.


- Sharon Olds

[Larry Robinson]

Remembering the Big Bang


Before everything flew apart, separated,
It all happened at once. Spring ice storms
And summer thunderheads. Dead of winter
Gray ground and mockingbirds high


In the redwoods telling everyone their song
Was wonderful, worth stealing. Time was
Compact, pressed tight so that birth and death
Overlapped and, at any moment, love happened over and over.


Inside there was no outside. The day
Your mother threw your brother down
The backstairs isn't separate
From the afternoon, there on a Welsh back road


You, your sister and mother
Laughed beyond reason, parked
beside an ivy-covered wall, turning
Blood red in the Fall.


Together then, those days in a sterile courtroom,
Bored under bright lights, the ice-fringed stream
The hoary mastodon crossed, pursued by ourselves,
Our ancestors, summer Sonoran nights, cicadas buzzing


Making sleep a dream.
Before the Big Bang, everything was
Holy and secular,
A story and a history


No different from one telling or another,
Spoken or sung.
No one,
No other.


- Rebecca del Rio

[Larry Robinson]

Hope Chest

She never used them, the silver coffee spoons.
They huddled in their cardboard cradles,
cushioned in cotton browned with disuse
and saved for a special occasion.
We found them in her hope chest, after she died,
along with the heavy linen tablecloth,
never unfolded from its sharp creases,
and the peach satin nightgown, slippery as love,
the price tag still dangling from its sleeve.

- Jane L. Mickelson

[Dixon]

Much kudos to Jane L. Mickelson for a very very touching poem.

Hope Chest

She never used them, the silver coffee spoons.
They huddled in their cardboard cradles,
cushioned in cotton browned with disuse
and saved for a special occasion.
We found them in her hope chest, after she died,
along with the heavy linen tablecloth,
never unfolded from its sharp creases,
and the peach satin nightgown, slippery as love,
the price tag still dangling from its sleeve.

- Jane L. Mickelson

[Larry Robinson]

Ars Poetica


A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.


- Archibald MacLeish

[Larry Robinson]

One Good Pork Chop


At dinner (her very good pork chops)

she says something just the tiniest bit critical of me.
The tiniest bit, too tiny to mention, except
just after I got home she said something else
the tiniest bit critical. This is my wife,
and very rarely is she critical of me,
nor am I of her. We have a non-critical relationship.
We tend to just let things slide,
which often makes me anxious, trained as I was
in a previous marriage to believe that growth
and insight come out of very intense criticism, leading to fighting.
And by fighting I mean everything
from whole days of the "silent treatment" (my specialty),
to entire weekends of operatic screaming (hers).
Our hope was that interpersonal growth and clarity
would emerge from these encounters,
but in truth our fighting just made us tired.
When not fighting we would sit tiredly
in the living room, thinking up complicated strategies
for the next fight.
One time we fought almost nonstop
for an entire week, beginning with a little dig
I made at her expense at a dinner party
on a Friday evening, and evolving,
gathering Jihad-like intensity, followed by
a kind of Wagnerian complexity,
progressing to a period of vengeful, Nordic saga brutality
that had us sobbing, moaning, wailing (at one point
I was on my hands and knees in the hallway,
banging my head on the floor), pausing only to sleep
and go to work, displaying an amazing stamina
born of endless hours of fighting,
insulting each other's spiritual beliefs, sex organs,
parents, grandparents, even pets,
until we were drenched in metaphoric blood, luminous
and holy with hatred, various personal knickknacks smashed,
and the usual plates and dishes
shattered on the floor,
all of which passes before me in a flash
as I chew on a piece of very good pork chop
with this almost entirely non-critical wife,
and I raise the spear
of the tiny, perfectly lethal
critical remark I had been sharpening in my smoky prehistoric cave,
toss it on the fire, and say,
Wow. This is one good pork chop. Which it is.


- George Bilgere

[Larry Robinson]

The Smallest Vessel


What is the smallest vessel that can hold a human being?


Certainly it is more than the skin and bones that contain

the pulsing of the individual life within;
one human cannot forever stand alone and separate.
Even the wise woman who lives in the forest
apart from others
serves as the wise woman for those others.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least one other human being.


But two humans cannot forever stand alone and separate.
They need young ones
to raise and teach,
to help with the daily chores,
and, finally, to take charge
and carry on
as the elders grow old, their bodies dying,
releasing their starlight
and becoming stardust once again.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least the family.


But the family cannot forever stand alone and separate.
It needs others to help in the gathering of food,
the building of shelter,
and in caring for those who are sick or hurt,
just as it helps others in their own time of need.
The family needs others to bind together with
in times of catastrophe,
of want, and of war,
as well as to rejoice with
in times of plenty, and of peace.
It needs others to share in the knowledge of Earth’s gifts
and to learn the ways of the wise old ones.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least the clan.


But the clan cannot long survive alone.
It needs oxygen to breathe, food to eat,
and waters to quench its thirst.
It needs medicines to heal those who are sick.
It needs insects to pollinate and clean
the forests, savannas, deserts, and prairies.
It needs jaguars, hawks, turtles, sparrows,
trees, flowers, vines,
and all manner of animals and plants
both seen and unseen
to teach the wordless songs of the Infinite.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least the whole of the Web of Life.


But the Web of Life cannot long survive alone.
It needs a Mother,
willing to share her flesh:
air,
water,
the makings of soil,
and the mixing together of life-giving elements,
so that the Web of Life might form itself
out of her own body.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least Earth herself.


But Earth cannot long survive alone.
She needs a star to draw light from
to warm her creations,
to cause the the winds to blow,
the clouds to form, and the rains to fall.
She needs a Moon
to steady her
as she dances spinning through the seasons
and to cause her oceans to pulse
with life-giving tides.
She needs planets, comets, asteroids,
to pull and push, and sometimes collide with her
and stir the cauldron of creativity.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least the Sun and his children.


But the Sun and his children
cannot have come into being alone.
They need a galaxy of stars,
forming, living, dying, exploding,
creating the elements for life.
They need a billion seeds,
a billion possibilities,
and the death of the Grandmother Star
to bring forth that one precise possibility
that allowed our Sun to be born
and his children to emerge.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least the galaxy.


But the galaxy cannot have come into being alone.
It needs forces, particles, and fire,
spinning forth
from the first callings of the Infinite,
forming into billions of colossal galactic clouds
spiraling out into the primordial cosmos.
The smallest vessel that can hold a human being must include
at least the Universe.


But the Universe cannot have come into being alone.
It needs an Unfathomable Mystery,


a time of no time,


a place of no place,


a Beginning of All Beginnings,


so that the Infinite can then call forth the Universe,
and the Universe can then explode into being.


Therefore . . .


The smallest vessel that can hold a human being,
that can hold you yourself—hold all beings—must include
the whole of the Infinite . . .


at the very least.

- David Christopher
(Excerpted from The Holy Universe: www.theholyuniverse.com)

[Larry Robinson]

Under The Vulture-Tree


We have all seen them circling pastures,

have looked up from the mouth of a barn, a pine clearing,
the fences of our own backyards, and have stood
amazed by the one slow wing beat, the endless dihedral drift.
But I had never seen so many so close, hundreds,
every limb of the dead oak feathered black,

and I cut the engine, let the river grab the jon boat
and pull it toward the tree.
The black leaves shined, the pink fruit blossomed
red, ugly as a human heart.
Then, as I passed under their dream, I saw for the first time
its soft countenance, the raw fleshy jowls
wrinkled and generous, like the faces of the very old
who have grown to empathize with everything.

And I drifted away from them, slow, on the pull of the river,
reluctant, looking back at their roost,
calling them what I'd never called them, what they are,
those dwarfed transfiguring angels,
who flock to the side of the poisoned fox, the mud turtle
crushed on the shoulder of the road,
who pray over the leaf-graves of the anonymous lost,
with mercy enough to consume us all and give us wings.


- David Bottoms

[Larry Robinson]

Visitors from Abroad


1


Sometime after I had entered
that time of   life
people prefer to allude to in others
but not in themselves, in the middle of the night
the phone rang. It rang and rang
as though the world needed me,
though really it was the reverse.


I lay in bed, trying to analyze
the ring. It had
my mother’s persistence and my father’s
pained embarrassment.


When I picked it up, the line was dead.
Or was the phone working and the caller dead?
Or was it not the phone, but the door perhaps?


2


My mother and father stood in the cold
on the front steps. My mother stared at me,
a daughter, a fellow female.
You never think of us, she said.


We read your books when they reach heaven.
Hardly a mention of us anymore, hardly a mention of  your sister.
And they pointed to my dead sister, a complete stranger,
tightly wrapped in my mother’s arms.


But for us, she said, you wouldn’t exist.
And your sister — you have your sister’s soul.
After which they vanished, like Mormon missionaries.


3


The street was white again,
all the bushes covered with heavy snow
and the trees glittering, encased with ice.


I lay in the dark, waiting for the night to end.
It seemed the longest night I had ever known,
longer than the night I was born.


I write about you all the time, I said aloud.
Every time I say “I,” it refers to you.


4


Outside the street was silent.
The receiver lay on its side among the tangled sheets,
its peevish throbbing had ceased some hours before.


I left it as it was;
its long cord drifting under the furniture.


I watched the snow falling,
not so much obscuring things
as making them seem larger than they were.


Who would call in the middle of the night?
Trouble calls, despair calls.
Joy is sleeping like a baby.


- Louise Glück

[Larry Robinson]

Fishing in the Dark

If all we know is laid to rest tonight

and time is left to argue with the dead
two promises the morn will offer bright
so, ease to sleep and rest your weary head.

May as the rumpled clouds do steal across
the moon and stars and eye’s incessant stare
a vision come as soft as feet on moss
though you may not know whence it comes, or where.

Hold fast the empty line, but leave it slack
so little silver trout will pass it by
and larger creatures, deep and bold and black
will come to take the lure, and you thereby.

Ah, dreaming then, although no less awake
the past and future forms invite your take.


- Karl Frederick