Awakening
Whose is the voice that speaks my name, Aloud or silently, the same,
In gentle speech or radiant song, Unspoken care, forgiving wrong?
Whose is the loving, laughing voice That makes my waiting heart rejoice,
That wakes my hope and lights the sky With stars, to which my sole reply
Is humble gratitude, delight That such a voice breaks through the night
To search me out, my heart in two, And make it whole?
Your voice. Yes, you.
We all find our places of escape where we can. Having grown up in the Evergreen State and not far from both the vast forests of Mt. Rainier and the green refuge of the Olympic Peninsula’s rain forest, I have always found trees and wooded places a comfort and a place of safety and reassurance. No matter how deep the sorrow and pain, I have found strength returning to me and a gentling of the spirit poured on my woundedness in those times spent in the protective forest greenery. When I can spend time among the trees and relish their distinctive and individual beauties, I find myself rescued and my hope renewed.
To the Woodland
Cedar, bless me with your resinous breath,
And oak, stretch down those knotted arms to me
And close me in, so others cannot see
My sorrow as I stand so near to death—
I come here to the woodland for relief
Among the leafy shadows of the glade,
Hoping to leave my sadness where I’ve laid
It here, a monument in shade to grief—
Sweet birches, bend your green to veil my tears
And weep with all the willows, as I do;
Great trees, for graces have I come to you
Each time that I grew mournful through the years—
I come here to the woodland for relief
And leave a monument, in shade, to grief.
This mottled darkness will give way to sun
Anon, as time flows on, and so shall I;
The dead still sleep, no matter how I cry,
And I must live, or my own death’s begun—
And I’ve much yet to live, and purpose find
In bringing others light who, too, repine
That have no pine-groves filled with peace like mine
As balm and rescue for a troubled mind—
Who know not aspens’ kindly whispered care—
Should all seek peace and comfort in the wood,
These mercies surely better us, their good
And healing gifts send us renewed from there—
So we’ll go to the woodland for relief
And leave in shade, as we emerge, our grief.
Battlements Better Breached
In the windows, down the rooftops, through the stonework of her walls,
All the shadows gone at midday, softly as an echo falls,
Whispered secrets came to haunt her, spoken like a jailer’s dream
Though the sun would flame and flourish and the loneliness extreme
Drove her near the brink of madness, still she boarded up her heart;
All the same, away with sadness! Every ending is the start
Of a different adventure—little did our lady know
That her fortress wouldn’t save her, with its brave protective show,
But when breached and doors thrown open, halls filled up with ringing song,
She’d be rescued by companions she’d been fearful of so long.
Hospitality and kindness, love and great companion friends
Altogether bring salvation: joy is where this story ends.
What possible purpose can Daylight Savings Time serve in this day and age except perhaps the most mercenary sort? I really dislike the artificial shifting of the daily schedule (time itself being quite independent of our constructs meant to explain and regulate it), with one small but significant exception. That little thing?
Knowledge of the power of the tiniest speck of light against the dark.
When the days become naturally short, night long, because of the turning of the earth on its axis and the change of the seasons, the sense of being trapped in almost-perpetual darkness inevitably begins to creep upon me; add to that the government-mandated spin of the clock to steal yet another hour of sunlight, and I begin to wither and feel a little like sorrow and solemnity, gravity and groaning will also steal my sense of belonging to the day at all. This spell of coldness and heartless eternal night could certainly drive a person mad.
And yet, the smallest spark renews my will and hope. One little star piercing the indigo sky becomes a beacon bright and powerful enough to pull me from the dark and back to day. That winter’s also the season when so many cultures, faiths and kinds of people find new reason to light more than a candle, more than a fire, and call upon the grandest graces of their inner best is no mistake or accident. The contrast with that terrible beauty that is felt and seen in lightless space is something far beyond the sun of day–against the coal mine dark, a pinpoint is all it takes to seem a seam has opened into warmth and goodness once again. And in my little heart, I do believe that any one of us determined enough can learn to be that tiny, so-essential fleck of light.
Coal & Diamonds
Strangely enough, the bond of sleep, that weight of Lethe sitting on my soul,
Reminds me constantly to keep from letting diamond days turn back to coal,
For stillness rejuvenates bone and blood and sinew strong enough to bring me on,
And sleep is a portal through which a flood of musings sweep me forward to the dawn,
So rest is essential, and there I lie, seeming immobile while I dance at speed,
Or mounting on magical wings to the sky, to soar as sweetly high as I should need
To see in sleep, in my mind’s eye, new ways to spring from dark to day’s desire,
To find in the darkness of night what I love most amid the constellations’ fire
And planets and comets’ tails’ dross and stone what I can reinvent as suns for day,
My own coal-diamonds, blood and bone and sinew turned to chasing night away.
Burnout. Tension. Stress. Exhaustion. Doesn’t matter what I call it, the unfriendly truth of that state of being is the same. Distraction. Aching and malaise. Irritability, withdrawal, collapse. The dramatic drops in life participation and wholeness all come together in equally unpleasant responses.
What are the causes, catalysts and triggers? As many and varied as the moments of any lifetime, of a million lifetimes, can allow. How is it that I–or anyone else on this madly spinning globe–can survive such stuff assailing us, let alone prevail against it and win?
Why, in a number of ways, we all do it pretty much all of the time. That’s how our species can even continue to exist; if we didn’t have a whole arsenal of defenses and strategies for the cosmic battle, it would’ve taken little more than a moment’s stray breeze to blow us all to oblivion. But vulnerable and weak as we are, we do have our ways, and we survive.
Faith. Whether it’s the belief in something as grand and benevolent as a Supreme Being that will rescue me or in something as small and ephemeral as the offer of a stranger’s hand to grasp mine and pull me up, faith can overcome many an obstacle.
Hope, too. If not utterly confident of it, as long as I can summon a sense that there’s some probability or even possibility of better things ahead, I have a chance of mustering just enough strength, patience and will to wait for the good to come to me. I may not be able to reach for it myself any longer, but I can hang on, however thinly, to a promise of change and renewal. For the return of the light.
And love. When all other resources are at their lowest ebb, even faith and hope having withdrawn in the impenetrable distance, love can carry me through. I have a greater store than most, being surrounded as I am by not only the encouraging affection and support of spouse, family and friends but also the remarkably kind uplift I’ve received at the hands and words of a wide array of acquaintances and strangers buoying me in my life over every would-be catastrophic wave. Beyond even this, there is another love that serves me well, when I can remember it: the love inside me that, however pale and faint it’s grown in my weakened state, recognizes a need to care for and comfort others in their time of need. The moment I can step outside of my own need, my hunger, despair, anger, longing or sorrow, just enough to recollect the existence of anyone else, I tend to draw back, however slowly, from the brink myself.
I can look around again with eyes less inward-focused and with a heart more willing to keep living, hard as it may seem at the time, and crawl back toward more gracious and sanguine days. My fellow survivors show me how to do it all the time. In this, I am once again truly at peace.
The interviewer from Wagging Wonders paused. Biscuit cocked her head thoughtfully, now reminiscing about her youth. In the old days, before the invention of the Frisbee®, dogs had to be so much more clever and agile to chase and catch those passing spaceships. Pups these days! They have no idea how easy they have it. Why, if it hadn’t been for Biscuit and Sprocket, all of Montana would’ve been overrun by those little orange beings that dodged their yipping and nipping, landing covertly in Seattle instead, in ’62.
I almost crashed the car. While I make no claims of being an outstandingly skillful driver, I do credit myself with being a pretty sensible, legal and even careful one. But I’m not infallible, either. I’m just very glad I happen to be lucky, too.
So my close call was just that, a close call. It would have been my own fault as well, because although I did wait and look all directions and not see any cars coming my way since the one that was was behind something bigger the whole time I scanned that direction, it jolly well was there and it was moving rather quickly. Possibly even faster than was strictly appropriate in that stretch, but I was still the driver that started to turn left at the light directly in front of that oncoming car. Our respective guardian angels were evidently working overtime, because both the other driver and I were able to brake and steer out of the situation fairly swiftly.
A split second’s difference, and our cars could have been demolished, our selves injured or even killed. That accident being technically my fault would have been utterly irrelevant outside of legal terms and in practical terms: both of our lives stood a hair’s-breadth from being forever altered, not to mention the effects on all of the life-dominoes that would inevitably be downed or redirected by that incident. All because of a single mote’s difference.
And we two, and all of those around us at the intersection, in the following second or two regrouped and continued just as though nothing had happened at all, if perhaps with a dash of adrenaline pumping.
Isn’t that the way that we live every day, every moment, though? Whether through wickedness or stupidity we go astray, or merely by happenstance or sheer momentary bad luck, we are at risk every instant we’re alive. As a person who copes with exaggerated anxiety (thankfully, mine is treatable), I could easily find excuse in that for any amount of paranoia and become anything from a perpetual pessimist to an emotionally crippled hermit. But besides being impractical, that’s a hideously unappealing plan for existence.
My solution is to keep working on my vigilance as far as paying attention to the details in day-to-day life, hoping that others are doing the same and we’re all generally watching out for each other, too, and assuming that my good luck, guardian angels and/or serendipitous circumstances will always tip in my favor. Beyond that, knowing that I can’t control any such things, I know it’s best to just turn off the switch, to let go. I even like to think I can be on the lookout for more excuses to be delighted with life and let the accidents be ones of tripping over unexpected joys. There’s far too much fine and happy stuff in the mix that should not be missed or wasted.
Life, that’s Good.
Art-Colored Glasses 