Sunday hike

First Things

 

Extend a rope
climb the obstacle

First thought to start a hundred

Ant rests on a pebble

A runner sits on a boulder

Sheep grazing

Fisherman and trout meditate the river
waiting for enlightenment

A grain of sand
in the mind of the universe

My soul inside the spirit of God
who feels my presence

Green, blue
a pool in the middle of a forest

I edge myself to solitude
emptying myself bare

Yucca adventures in a desert
a thought to start a sentence

Cairn point a way

An ant moves
The runner resumes running

I ease my way to clarity
inch by inch by inch.

 



Listening

An apple falls
farmer hears a cry

woman, mother hurries
child plays in the swing

shadow goes up high, higher

swan rises from the pond,
soars

a doctor listens, knows
throb of a worried heart

 

 

Devastation

 

Wind
like hundreds galloping horses
tear through the woods

breaking trees, felling power lines
like Archimedes’s eureka moment of sudden insight
sparks sprout

trees light up
hiding the stars
blaze dances, laughs, gathering energy

hellish felicity descends
fire pours it’s peaking power
valley asleep or dazed

immobile, innocent, whole neighborhood
stands on the way
leave, hurry, unprepared

Helpless

Swift in devastation
ashes, interrupted silence

morning comes

fields of desolation

grief, too heavy
even for God
to carry.

note: Multiple fires started in Napa and Sonoma shortly after midnight on Sunday. More than 1500 dwellings, 72000 acres burned down. 15 deaths,
and climbing. The fires still zero contained.

Mrs. Abstract and I and our families are safe. Several of our friends lost their homes.

what was it

They walk the ruins

haunted by all the brokenness

for what was once there

Holy surrender

 

“…I want to give myself to You without solicitude, without fear or desire, not seeking words or silence, work or rest, light or darkness, company or solitude. For I know I will possess all things if I am empty of all things, and only You can at once empty me of all things and fill me with Yourself, the Life of all that lives and the Being in Whom everything exists.

And this will be my solitude, to be separated from myself so far as to be able to love You alone, and love You so much that I no longer realize I am loving anything…”
-Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence, The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume Two 1941-1952

note:this is part of the prayer of Thomas Merton to the Holy Spirit before his solemn, perpetual vows as a priest and Cistercian monk.

note: I’m alone in the mountains. Mrs. Abstract drove to St. George,UT, with our friend, Gloria, who will run 10K in the Senior Games on Monday.

 

Art as therapy

“One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is teach us how to suffer more successfully.

,,,We need help in finding honour in some of our worst experiences, and art is there to lend them a social expression.”

-Alain de Botton & John Armstrong, Art as Therapy

To calm the soul

With a glimpse and a walk, a pond and the sea calm my soul.

note: Finished reading the Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss. Trying to finish Braving It by James Campbell, a father and daughter story.

LOVE AND ITS MANY GUISES

Love reckons by itself—alone—
“As large as I”—relate the Sun
To One who never felt it blaze—
Itself is all the like it has—

by Emily Dickinson

 

LOVE AND ITS MANY GUISES

What does reckon mean? Reckon is to calculate,to accept something as certain, place reliance.

What does love mean? Love is many things. The sun says immense.

Love reckons by itself. It seems ackward to say love can calculate itself. Can it mean love can measure itself? And the Sun answers, as large as I. The sun is exhaustible, almost eternal though we know it’s finite. That’s what love is,ED says.

Love is hard to describe accurately. But those who had been in love and experienced it, felt what it is. Even them are lost for words to describe. The first line is almost asking the question: Have you ever been in love? Itself is the like it has. It seems to say: there is nothing like it.It has to be experienced. Does it mean that ED is describing what she had experienced? Or ED is saying: I’m in love.To be in love is to be ablazed, on fire, like the sun. Love is undescribable and consuming.

Why alone? Because love is sufficient by itself and doesn’t need any descriptions. It will only be all the like.

What about those who had never been in love, the One who never felt it blaze.?They can only observe those who are in love but it is only a reflection of what is experienced. One can only say love is like…?

An article in the Guardian,UK of What Is Love:Love

says what love is:

A theoritical physicist says “love is basically chemistry” citing released of different brain chemicals.

A psychotherapist says “love has many guises” and she cited the different types of love.

A philosopher says “love is a passionate commitment.”

A writer says what love does: “Love drives all great stories.”

Sr. Catherine, a Benedictine nun says what love does: “Love is free yet binds us.” She says we encouter “love: in the life of another – in acts of kindness, generosity and self-sacrifice.Love is life’s greatest blessing.”

ED seems to say love is all these things and more.

Or is this love one of the POSSIBILITIES from the House of Possibility? To write poetry or prose or simply write is like being in love. One becomes attentive, starts to listen, becomes caring. One who is in love notices what’s happening around, words become a song, stories heard become treasures. A writer cherishes small moments. To be in love is to be patient, sensitive, passionate.A writer when ablazed with her works, works alone, alone with her muse.

“Love has many guises”.

 

Decisions, decisions

We have daily choices
Though one may prefer to walk a narrow lane
In perfect balance playing an accordion
Color and line are inseparable
Like peanut butter and jam
And most things in life.

Does survival means choosing one over another
Mortals drink from a glass or a cup
But sometimes we become too choosy
Even when selecting between a peach and pear
As if only one leads to imagination
You walk alone thinking of beauty
Among the terror, the forbidden, the sacred

Should we not be in tune within ourselves
To understand the nature’s resonance
The inner calling? Some gather mushrooms
In the forest, others watch the circling birds
To connect with the sacred.