Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

A Beauty Blessing


As stillness in stone to silence is wed
May your heart be somewhere a God might dwell.


As a river flows in ideal sequence
May your soul discover time in presence.


As the moon absolves the dark of resistance
May thought-light console your mind with brightness.


As the breath of light awakens colour
May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.


As spring rain softens the earth with surprise
May your winter places be kissed by light.


As the ocean dreams to the joy of dance
May the grace of change bring you elegance.


As clay anchors a tree in light and wind
May your outer life grow from peace within.


As twilight fills night with bright horizons
May beauty await you at home beyond.


- John O'Donohue

What Would An Indigenous Grandmother Do?

I don’t want to change
my thoughts.
I want to change
the way I think.
I want to think
in images, in stories
spun as threads
arising long and slow
out of culture and
out of the Grandmother Spider
of indigenous mind.


I want to learn

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to live in the old ways,
the ways of spirit.
I want to see
the signs and the
deep, precise wisdom
of the true ones –
ancestors, elders, any and all
trying to inform us that
there is a way -
there is a way
to heal,
there is a way
to see,
there is a way
to change direction,
there is a way
to give the children
what they need
to be safe
to be listening
to be healthy
to be whole.


I, too,
want to be whole
all the way into
death and, yes,
I’ll say it,
beyond death,
beyond it but not beyond
the cycle of being -
the ring, the hoop of
being together.
This is the place where
Love remains, where
Love sustains, where
Love comes
into and through
all things.
Love is spirit
flowing into the life
of the world.
Knowing this
I am left with a question
to pose to myself:
What would an
indigenous grandmother do?


- Maya Spector

The Interview


Who are you when nobody’s looking? When
does your shadow appear? What gives it form?
Will you let us know when you’re triggered?
Will you stay present and engage with us,
if we are? How do you relate to sacrament?

Have you ever made love with the land? Felt
your own body stir with her gentle rhythms,
caressed her eagerly with your hands? Slipped
your nose inside her alert blossoms, sipping
their generous scent?

What are you passionate about? Where does
joy live inside you? Do you laugh with ease?
Can we laugh together? Are you friends with
grief? How well do you know yourself? Are
you willing to do the deep work.?

Who are you in the kitchen? Will we nourish
each other? What can we learn together?
What kind of alchemy can we co-create?
Do you flinch or welcome these probing
questions. Are you quiet on the inside?
Can we be quiet together? Together can
we come home to what’s sacred?


- Constance Miles

Choose Something Like A Star


O star (the fairest one in sight),

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJZU8ixx8is

We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud---
It will not do to say of the night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell us something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

- Robert Frost

A series of 7 Frost poems were set to music by Randall Thompson, as some of you likely know, and are known as "Frostiana". In my high school Concert Choir, we sang this one and "The Road Not Taken". There's another tie-in: a few years ago, two poets from my high school in Missouri and I went together to one of Larry's "Oral Tradition" evenings in Sebastapol. We met in San Rafael and rode together the rest of the way. One friend had also been in Concert Choir, and she and I, on the way, sang the beautiful "The Road Not Taken", of which we both still remembered most of the words our parts in the music. If you want to hear that one, just Search on YouTube. Meanwhile, here's this one. Great poems, both. ♥ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJZU8ixx8is

This Morning


Up early
planned to swim half-a-mile
heard I’d promised my black dog
a good hike
OK

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walked out the door in my t-shirt
heard I need a pocket
my binoculars
OK
back in the house
changed shirts
into my car
drove towards the canyon loop
heard Corte Madera Estuary
OK
turned
parked near Basich
hiked down to the water
turned to the right
counter-clockwise loops
heard clockwise
resisted
then
OK
we all know this listening
as if we know how we should live
crossed the Bon Air Bridge
way low tide

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June
new moon
large ripples
in almost no water
waited
until someone surfaced
couldn’t quite see
turned clockwise
up the shoreline path
through binoculars
saw
this far up
way past null zone
whiskered
mud-covered head
of Harbor Seal


not seen here before

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then
further up the clockwise trail
a smaller head
binoculars
River Otter
and on the shore
yards from protection
Clapper Rail
all three gobbling fish
in the low low water
later
from the opposite shore
River Otter cavorting
in small lagoon
we all know this listening
listening.


- Trout Black

Sunday School Lesson in Oakridge, Tennessee

The teaching was so clear.

The golden fish were perfectly koi.

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Not channel cat in dark flat rivers
or darting trout in clear mountain waters.

No. In this man made pond on Black Oak Ridge
surrounded by blooming dogwood trees,
trees full of the Cardinal’s red flash and song
these miracles displayed their perfect beauty.

Silvery yellow white
Dotted gold orange
Angel wing tails
Rolling fat sleekness
In their water ballet.

Koi being perfectly who they are
in front of God and everyone.

I whisper to the koi,
“Namaste, beauties, namaste!”

- Doug von Koss

The River of Bees


In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house
Into whose courtyard a blindman followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older


Soon it will be fifteen years


He was old he will have fallen into his eyes


I took my eyes
A long way to the calendars
Room after room asking how shall I live


One of the ends is made of streets
One man processions carry through it
Empty bottles their
Image of hope
It was offered to me by name


Once once and once
In the same city I was born
Asking what shall I say


He will have fallen into his mouth
Men think they are better than grass


I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay


He was old he is not real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water


We are the echo of the future


On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live


- W. S. Merwin

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,’how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


- Mary Oliver

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
is how Mary Oliver ends the following poem. How would you answer this "Summer Day" question?

"Who made the grasshopper?" (saltamonte) she asks? How would you answer that question? So many questions, with so many different answers.

A grasshopper recently jumped on me as I was picking boysenberries, a fun summer activity here. I just sat down and looked at her. She stayed a while, moving her "jaws back and forth." Then she did float away, away, away.

It is a good time "to kneel down in the grass" and accept how "blessed" we are.
Saltamonte Shepherd

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,’how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


- Mary Oliver

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Our Hearts Are Broken, Our Spirits Are Strong, Our Faith Is Triumphant


“Knee-bone, knee-bone, knee-bone….”


In the completely black darkness of the night and early morning,

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in the deep recesses of moss-laden oak trees,
ponds and lagoons where our ancestors toiled for generations,
we drop down - our knees to the cold floor -
and we seek understanding,
we seek solace,
we seek a way out of this “no-way”.
Our sobbing voices utter unspoken prayers
as we gather in supplication
to the spirits that have brought us this far by faith.

Our hearts are broken, but we know comfort is there.

Our spirits are strong because we know guidance is there.

Our faith is triumphant because we know our beloved community is here.

“Knee-bone, knee-bone, knee-bone, Oh my Lord.”
- J. Herman Blake
Johns Island, South Carolina
June 18^th, 2015

Summer

time - the bones of my life...
bone soup fulla marrow

how did a computer screen become my window?
devices

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devices

i need flowers to cleanse my retina
flowers and hummingbirds,
hummingbirds and kestrels

i need hills to climb
views to share

i need slumber parties and brunches
a dose of laughter with my gratitude practice
like hemp oil on chicory
it just tastes good

- Claudia L’Amoreaux

I Dream A World


I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!


- Langston Hughes

My mentor Glen Freeman (author of Kryptadia) was a friend of Langston Hughes and I honor them both with the poem you provided and John Cope's recent photo of Mt. Hood.

A HAIKU FOR CHARLESTON


Gun shots fill the place,
A hallowed sanctuary,
Nine souls rise to grace.


- Waights Taylor

June 26, 2015

Rainbow flag goes up
Confederate flag comes down
Still much work to do


- Katherine Hastings

The Supremes


the joy, the sorrow


the sun
rainbow flags
ecstasy


arrows in the heart
all those years
of silence


now
why am I not shouting
why at last the tears



- Fran Claggett

Father Earth


There is a two-million year old man
No one knows.
They cut into his rivers
Peeled wide pieces of hide
From his legs
Left scorch marks
On his buttocks.
He did not cry out.
No matter what they did, he held firm.
Now he raises his stabbed hands
and whispers that we can heal him yet.
We begin the bandages,
The rolls of gauze,
The unguents, the gut,
The needle, the grafts.
We slowly, carefully turn his body
Face up,
And under him,
His lifelong lover, the old woman,
Is perfect and unmarked
He has laid upon
His two-million year old woman
All this time, protecting her
With his old back, his old scarred back.
And the soil beneath her
Is black with her tears.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

OmiGaia!
How did she do it?
Upending mythological-scale
notions of Home
planet, Gender
relations, Parent
identities, and Religious
icons, invoking new
commitments to Responsible human
lifeways and tender Compassion,
Grounding us in tactile daily tasks,
discharging species-level Grief, and
celebrating Fertility!
in only 26 unhurried, earth-shattering lines.
I'm splayed.

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Father Earth...

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I like the "Father Earth" title, and what follows. That title evokes the Sky Mother. Some cultures tends to use the metaphor of the Earth Mother, whereas other cultures speak of the Sky Mother.

A trouble I have with Christianity and some religions is that they are not sufficiently grounded, in my opinion. The deity is seen as too male and far away distant on Mt. Olympus or Mt. Zion. I named my farm after the wounded healer Kokopelli, the hump-backed flute player who walked the Earth connecting people with both his upbeat and his melancholic sounds. The tendency to genderize the Earth and ones deities has its limitations, so I appreciate
Clarissa for reversing the imagery with this poem and ending it with those pregnant "tears."

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

Father Earth

There is a two-million year old man
No one knows.
They cut into his rivers
Peeled wide pieces of hide
From his legs
Left scorch marks
On his buttocks.
He did not cry out.
No matter what they did, he held firm.
Now he raises his stabbed hands
and whispers that we can heal him yet.
We begin the bandages,
The rolls of gauze,
The unguents, the gut,
The needle, the grafts.
We slowly, carefully turn his body
Face up,
And under him,
His lifelong lover, the old woman,
Is perfect and unmarked
He has laid upon
His two-million year old woman
All this time, protecting her
With his old back, his old scarred back.
And the soil beneath her
Is black with her tears.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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Nirvana


At the retreat, Lee wasn't allowed
to speak or read for ten days, just
meditate. It was bliss at first
letting go of the chattering world.
The silence was like living inside
a rose. She felt strong and clean.
Up before dawn to contemplate, and
then the simple meal with others
she didn't know, but, now, with all this
love flowing through her she knew
she must love them too. They were all
part of the same Divine Being,
In a pond of red lotuses,
in a pond of blue lotuses,
in a pond of white lotuses,
is the utter purity of mindfulness
that is indifference, rightly
penetrated by wisdom. As the days
wore on she missed chocolate,
she missed coffee and cigarettes.
She missed the office and its
endless phone calls, she missed
her secretary and her delicious
gossip. Martinis! And her husband
who was chopping his way through
the rain forest in search of
a tiny, yellow frog. Meditation
was great, but ten days of it
would be enough to make one combust.
At lunch she looked around the room:
without speech, without emotion,
her fellow campers were like ghosts,
or maybe more like mental patients
dulled by too much medication and
electro-shock, sad and empty husks
of their former selves. The Teacher
sat by himself eating his bowl of rice.
Lee stood up and began to walk
down the long path to the parking lot.
She wasn't angy. She was excited
and started skipping and singing
at the sight of her getaway car.


- James Tate

Meanwhile, Music


Tree to tree the birds fly to perch and sing
amid the sway and swing of spring's busy wind,
while wars go on, while the sea rises and the ice melts.


In the midst of life narrowing to the onyx box,
the house of Anubis side by side with the house of music,
sun blesses the breakfast table.


All is perishing, and yet they sing, they sing.


- Elizabeth Carothers Herron

The Place Where We Are Right


From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.


The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.


But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow
and a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.


- Yehuda Amichai
(translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell)

Under the Same Sun


Apart, we say, as a way
to soothe our separate souls,
"We're under the same moon."
Why not the same sun? The sun
whose light, too bright
cannot, will not shelter


or so we suppose. We chose
together, in so many languages,
the moon—softer, sweeter, it
smoothes the shadows. Still the sun
shines in broken Palestine and
Berlin at the same hour.


We shade our eyes, the luxury
of blinders, the refusal
to know what was caused,
In our name, what we allow.
We wait for the moon,
her soft absolution. Under


the same sun, we suffer
our simple losses, our separate
stupors. Our contours,
contrasts drawn sharp, certain,
so straight, we cannot
see how my soul touches,


reaches inside your body.
A soul, silver-sweet
as the moon, a body
radiant as the sun,
the one whose life
we live within and under.


The life we must bear
to know or burn together
in elected ignorance.


- Rebecca del Rio

Poem #108
Downwind, pine and cedar recklessly enter the clouds.
Everywhere stir the multitude and alarm the crowd.
I can't do the tricks of "person" and "environment."
One cup of murky dregs gets me drunk.
- Ikkyu
(translated by Sarah Messer and Kidder Smith)

O, America!

O, America, the blood you are bleeding is oil.

Where is the old red gone
that once infused your flag?
Where is the courage for honesty –
that blue handed out once like a dancer
so generously?

Where is white? Where is the place where color
meant nothing?

O, America, aren’t you ashamed
to place a gun where courage should be?

Aren’t you lost in the insubstantial lies of futures
eaten like vegetables from a dump!

And underneath your skin, are you not still –
like the dove and the wolf
and the spider and the oat –
only human too! And fairly! Fairly!

Spend some heart this way.
Bend with the wind that holds the flag together in the air
for all to see,
not just some.

On this field of promise
make again the palm held out
upon which each of us arrived.

Grant us communion, flag.
Give us a whole.
Give us ourselves together once again
in quality.


Our stars.

- Bruce Moody

What an appropriate poem for today. So much is in decline in this country. Today is a good day to honor the old-fashioned American values and lament that they are not being adequately followed. "Bleeding" oil is indeed accurate. And too many guns. May this poem help wake us up to our calling to "think globally and work locally."

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

O, America!

O, America, the blood you are bleeding is oil...

---

The Dugout

They like it here shaded from the sun, drinking Gatorade in the dugout among the solitude of brothers. After one strikes out or misses a ball, angry fathers climb the gated fence that separates spectators from players and curse. All night only the male crickets chirp, nocturnal and cold-blooded. They take on the temperature of their surroundings. They run the top of one wing along the teeth at the bottom of the other. Their wings up and open like acoustical sails, the sound relentless and unending.

- Jill Bialosky

chilling! powerful image, I love the image of the safety of the dugout.

The lines about angry dads also call to mind the Texas mom who tried to arrange the murder of her daughter's cheerleader rival, or whatever it was. I guess a lot of people still need to read Gibran's "Your children are not your children..." God help us all, ♥
​
I feel this is a mighty poem, with a mighty symbol/contrast which has been under everyone on Earth's eyes/nose, etc, since time immemorial, yet until today, I'VE NEVER EVER SEEN THIS THOUGHT EXPRESSED BY ANYONE! So obvious (and powerful), now that we see it.

When was this ever in America? "Where is white? Where is the place where color meant nothing?

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

O, America!

O, America, the blood you are bleeding is oil...

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