A Cup of Coffee

A friend and I hastened along a 

deserted boardwalk.

Lowering steely clouds above the lake

hurled wind gusts with biting rain at us.

Benumbed, we entered the only

open restaurant for coffee.

They had no take out cups, 

but a Hispanic lady with 

an enchanting smile appeared.

We were escorted to a small table.

From a handsome tray she served us

 large cups of delicious dark brew.

No charge, she said; just hot coffee.

A cherished grace-filled interlude on

a stormy afternoon

Early Winter Haiku

Half smoked cigarette 

blown across the wet pavement

ephemerality

Transitions

Early one winter's evening I sat on a weathered rocking chair,
on the back porch of an old wooden church,
a busy Metro station nearby.
I was slowly sipping a cup of coffee looking up at the cloudy sky.
It was quite cold, but lovely in its' unanticipated silence.

My gaze moved downward and settled on what appeared to be
an old brown barn just over the fence.
In the darkening night, a frisson of recognition jolted me.
My first childhood home had a dark brown barn.

I only lived there my first seven years, but
recurring memories are as vivid as an iMax movie,
quittance for an unreliable memory of the here and now.
Over sixty years have passed since then.

I lived in a bridging time, between the forties and fifties,
a temporal cusp between an epoch of constancy and one
of limitless change.
On a Saturday morning then, Big Bill would stomp
into our kitchen, huge tongs slung over his beefy shoulder, as
he delivered a huge piece of crystalline ice for the ice box.

The kitchen had an old stove and water pump by the sink.
Coal fuel heated the old rambling Victorian house.
There was a huge coal bin in the cellar, so tempting to explore.
A rocking chair was placed near the stove where
mother recited  poems while holding me, small brother and
a puppy on her lap.
We were riveted by light cavalry charges and Hiawatha's song.




One day an electronic marvel appeared,
a big box with a small TV screen transfixed us.
There were just a few programs on at night,
but I watched them all compulsively.

We moved to another house with 'modern conveniences.'
 It didn't have a huge veranda to sit on and chat with neighbors or
perch on the rail to daydream on a sunny summer's afternoon.
There was no barn to swing on a rope nor a nearby
secluded beach to swim and marvel at horseshoe crabs as
gulls swooped and vocalized overhead in the brine scented air.

At school there were atomic bomb drills,
crawling under desks, indoctrination on the evils of communism.
The news and the televised McCarthy hearings were
constant intimations of an ominous age.

Distractions abounded, transistor radios, color TV,
stereo record players, shopping malls.
We gradually adapted to the 'atomic age' with its'
mushrooming cookie cutter housing developments.

That's when it started, I think, a subtle loss of civility.
With the new malls, towns began to wither along
with their communal heritage and shared traditions.
We deplored the loss of local family businesses, but
flocked to the ever larger shopping malls and new 'fast food.'

Before very long our once bustling village was a ghost town,
as were so many others.
We had been springboarded into the future and
this era wore a Janus-like face.

As the years flashed by, there were more
and more epic changes, both global and local.
And now I find myself in an Orwellian realm
dominated by devices of all sorts.
Legions of people and their offspring  are
glued to their smart phones, connected
in a cocoon of isolation.

The 'age of angst' some call it, while others
 continue to clutter their lives with still more
 electronic diversions, anything to numb the void.
I have been drawn in too, but have been
blessed in perceiving the chilling sequelae.

A diminished humanity has lost its' soul to
'Me-ness.'
No longer is there so much as a veneer of civility.
So much busyness is a bandaid on a gaping wound.
Loneliness, despair, the tightening knot in the gut augur
something has gone very wrong.

Each one, I think, still has the capacity to discern the key.
True contentment lies in giving without measure,
in beholding one's own face in that of another.
Surely, not a quick fix, but one's soul, self, psyche,
whatever you choose to call it, is in the balance.

Letting Go

The morning after Thansgiving, I looked across the courtyard and witnessed my neighbor's lovely red maple releasing her crimson leaves like a sea creature releasing untold numbers of eggs.

She seemed to be eagerly letting them go. It made me think of aging and mortality. As our enevitable deaths approach, we should rejoice in what we have accomplished and even more so in what we have tried to accomplish.  And, let go of all the rest, the excess baggage of recrimination and regret.

The tree doesn't discriminate among her leaves, the perfect and the flawed are released in equal measure.

Just a Wall.

As I gaze at the grey painted brick wall,
I recall seeng clouds the other night.
They were shaped somewhat like bricks.

The night sky was covered with wooly clouds,
but they had regular gaps. A lone young tree with
long fingered branches stood in front of snowy bricks.

It looked like a child's drawing, simple but elemental.
Young children see into the heart of things.
The word 'seeing' is so inadequate here.
A child doesn't merely look, he intuits eternity in
everything he touches, as old Blake surmised.

Before very long, the veil of instruction descends and
the divine enchantment is no longer palpable.
The humble and great hearted are able to
touch it briefly.
Yet, the long fingered tree and its' cloudy allies dwell there.


Reference:"Auguries of Innocense," William Blake

Watchless Musings

A few days ago, I  lost my wrist watch.

but now I'm reveling in the compensations.

Unburdened by artificial divisions,

time now has an entirely different quality.

It has unpredictable fluidity,

like the great ocean's shifting moods.  

I get enmeshed in the essence of things,

live in the perpetual Now as the mystics say.

Driving to a medical session very early one morning,

there was a lovely deep mist by the  Potomac river.

The atmosphere was completely altered.

Time slowed; the trees were transformed.

Skeletal ones who had already lost their plumage

had an ethereal quality in the mist.

Those with golden and crimson leaves were muted,

enhancing the leafless ones' particular beauty.

 A man in a dark blue coat was walking his small dog in the mist.

The animal's auburn coat glowed like burnished gold.

As I left the river, the huge vermillion disk of the rising sun

arose like a gargantuan daemon passing before my eyes.

Then the hospital campus appeared and

I reluctantly left that unique world,

another planet, another plane of existence.

Thoughts of "Gorillas in the Mist" and

last night's brutal killing of a Patmas monkey in an Idaho zoo intruded.

He was  a beautiful red hued creature weighing only thirty pounds,

with ancient wise eyes in a bearded humanoid face.

He was  bludgeoned to death by a drunken young man,

leaving his small companion in confusion and grief.

These events  from our so called real world passed through my mind and

penetrated my heart like dragon seeds.

At the path along the river, the leafless trees now looked artificial,

like so many huge sticks.

There was one thing I hadn't noticed in the morning mist,

an old white birch tree raised two of her large limbs, as if in prayer.

If you're traveling along a narrow road with an abundance of trees,

notice how they reach across, trying to touch one another.

As I moved on to the Highway, the trees had lost something.

I would describe it as a diminished vital force.

More and more wounds to the integrity of Mother Earth

manifest in the trees there,

reduced to insipid  clones of their former selves.

My mind then drifted back to the murdered monkey and

I suddenly thought of a PETA demonstration in New York City years ago.

We were protesting against people who wore mink coats.

The idea was to inform them of the cruel way minks  were slaughtered,

with recral electrical probes so as to leave no marks on their fur.

Colleagues were armed with Day-Glo spray paint cans

for those who refused to listen.

I was to wear the mink costume as it fitted me best.

Once inside this  ensemble,

I immediately became claustrophobic and

joined the spray can brigade.

To this day, I am deeply ashamed that I saw the cops first and

beat a hasty retreat down a nearby subway.

In recent days, New York City was devoured by a horrific storm.
My old bailiwick, St. Vincent's Hospital, reduced to a clinic now,
is rooted at the edge of Greenwich Village.
Floods swallowed my old neighborhood and 
the rest of lower Manhatten as well as swaths of other boroughs.
 Our so called real world extends forth its'  hovering dark wings
more and more frequently.
Increased water levels bode ill when
future storms strike New York and far beyond.

Cataclysmic storms, monetary crises, despicable politics, 
a new Armageddon looms over the horizon.
Will the center hold this time?  
From a landscape of well over three score years,
I think back on the 1930's with its' similar woes.
Most people respected  and helped each other then.
They shared and hung on to a care worn hope for a better future.
Will the deep eddies of that afflicted time emerge now? 

Note: The last stanza from the previous version has been replaced by two new ending stanzas.  The title has also been modified.

Unquiet Chambers

                                

The great Chinese Imperial Palace with

it's nine thousand rooms seems

to be infused with an idiosyncratic sort

of dynamism.

Many permutations lurk in hidden rooms,

Each sibling has a different set of parents and

conflicted perceptions, illness, resentments.

Some rooms communicate.  Others do not.

An ill, permanently scarred child and

parental concord shrivels up like a day lily.

Some chambers change in dimension as

time passes.

Diminished hopes breed contempt and jealousy,

one parent's bitter pill, one sibling's ill will.

Time does not heal all wounds.

Rather, the sinister chamber elongates

over the years.

A Mother's illness and long decline provoke

latent animus in one sibling,

while the other two care for her and wait.

Wait for what?  Validation, explanation, connection.

A facade of affability adorns the eroded chamber.

Collapse is inevitable.

Severance emerges from the dust.

Note:  I have made major revisions to this poem, the last in May.  It was previously titled Severance.

Insight from a Stoic Friend

Just a few days ago the tree overhanging our mailboxes lost a large limb in a freak storm.  Rather than just haul the limb away, the local bureaucrats had the tree cut down, for me a vile desecration.  She was at her spot when I moved here twenty years ago and for all the countless trips I made to our mailbox, I always felt her presence and looked at her with gratitude.  Now there's  a large denuded area, a rent in space, that is palpable.  After my anger and sorrow dissipated somewhat, I began to realize that she had provided a priceless insight for me.  As my illness continues to progress and more and more losses accumulate, I've been obsessed with the notion of how soon I would like it all  to end.  I think of it daily now.  But, my stoic friend carried her wounds proudly and adapted to whatever came her way.   Then, one day a wanton insensate act destroyed her.  I couldn't bear to watch them hack her to pieces.  But, I couldn't turn off the sounds of the instruments of her destruction.  Suddenly,  the great verse of the Bhagavad Gita filled my consciousness as never before.  Lord Krishna said you are not your body.  It is a temporary cloak.   You were never born and  you will  never die.  And, this  is  so for  all sensate creatures.  My friend dropped her cloak and transformed to another state of being as I will also in the Lord's good time, not mine.

Endnote:  This is a prose poem.   I haven't posted a poem in many months due to extensive physical therapy over the past three months due to worsening Parkinson's disease.  And, I was gripped by writer's block as a result.  I think the Muse has returned at last.

The Bright Field by R.S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
 
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
 
NOTE: I just discovered a wonderful Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas. He died in 2000 at 87 years of age. He was a clergyman and a self taught poet. He was very active in preserving Wales from over-development. Later in life he wrote poems such as this one, jewels of incandescent insight.

Bathed in Wonder

As I traversed the nave to approach the sanctuary,
a sudden frisson grasped me.
A huge Celtic Cross,  suspended high above the chancel,
seemed to float above the altar  like a great soaring bird
in that sublime lofty space.
It's dark arms were long and slender with a small circle
in the center, uniting all four arms.
The circle, added to an ancient pagan symbol,
denotes the eternal love of God.

Towering stained glass windows set in huge
lancets were like giant Sequoias 
guarding  both sides of the sanctuary.
Multihued light suffused its vibrant colors all round
on that sunny afternoon as the concert began.

Bach's music resounded throughout that exalted expanse.
Every pore ofmy being was infused with a sort of lightness,
almost like floating upward to another plane.
The plaintive melodies of the Ascension Oratorio exuded such 
an aura of hope in the face of loss that
I intuited the heart of faith,
unconditional trust in the Now.

Note: I wrote this poem after attending the final concert of the Washington Bach Consort's 2012 season. It took place at the National Presbyterian Church, a marvel of extraordinary design elements that create a sacred space unlike any other I have see.

In Loving and Grateful Remembrance

Today is my Mother's Birthday. She departed this earth twenty six years ago. My epitaph for her is from the great poet, Pablo Neruda: "It was beautiful to live when you lived." This morning I came across this quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." What a deceptively simple phrase, so pregnant with meaning.   And, what a superb metaphor for why we suffer.  The answer is not to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," although I love Dylan Thomas' poem. One's dark night of the soul is like a refining fire if we can find the faith and fortitude to come through it.  We find ourselves "enlarged by love."   I found this to be so when I came through the other end of mine.   On this, the anniversary of my Mother's birth, beside her quiet joy I remember her pain and many sorrows.  I remember how she bore them with grace and unshakeable faith.   She is one now with those incandescent stars. Namaste.

My Three Lanterns (in loving memory of my Mother's Birthday, 4/28/12)

There is a lovely poignant poem quoted in the novel, A Lantern in Her Hand:

Pain has been, and grief enough, and bitterness and crying,

Sharp ways and stony ways I think it was she trod;

But all there is to see now is a white bird flying,

Whose bloodstained wings go circling high - circling up to God

by Margaret Widdener

Beth Streeter Aldrich wrote the novel, A Lantern in Her Hand, in 1928.  It is a classic story of a pioneer woman.  She modeled the protagonist, Abbie Deal, on her own mother, who in 1854 had traveled by covered wagon to the Midwest.  In A Lantern in Her Hand, Abbie accompanies her family to the soon-to-be-state of Nebraska. There, in 1865, she marries and settles into her own sod house. The novel describes Abbie’s years of child-raising, of making a frontier home able to withstand every adversity. Aldrich was a disciplined writer who knew many true stories of pioneer days in Nebraska.   She captures the strength in everyday things, the surprise of familiar faces, and the aura of the unspoiled landscape during the different seasons of the year.  Refusing to be broken by hard experience, Abbie set a joyful example for her family.

My mother and grandmother both loved this book.  I remember Granny telling us riveting stories of how her parents struggled to survive during similar pioneering days in Canada.  The story I remember most vividly was about a time in the depths of winter when the young mother and her small child were alone in their rude forest cabin while her husband took their only gun to hunt for the wolves who were getting bolder and bolder in their attacks.  A pack besieged the cabin one night.  She had brought their cow and calf inside and carried child and calf up to the loft.  The wolves broke down the door and killed the defenseless cow, but the mother, her little one, and the calf were spared.  Mother gave me the book to read when I was eleven or so.  I found the story exciting but, at that green age, I fear that many of the nuances of the mother's myriad struggles eluded me.  I was deeply touched by the poem however, because at some level it struck a resonant chord in my heart.  I remember copying it out and keeping it carefully in a small jewelry box for years.  That's gone now like so many other small treasures, but I have never forgotten that verse after some fifty-five years.

April 28 marks the twenty-sixth year of my Mother's passing.  I've written previously on this blog about her greatness of heart.  Her mother was her teacher as she was mine.  What I remember most about Granny was her kind blue eyes that saw everything, her soft voice, and her stautuesque height.  She had the knack of making her grandchildren feel that each was the most important child in the whole world.  My grandmother passed on not long after I finished the Lantern book.

Mother nursed Granny in our home for the last two years of her life, struggling with the aftermath of a devastating stroke.   She was paralyzed and could not speak, but her cognition wasn't affected and her smile, that always lighted up a room, was still there.  I remember telling her all about my ups and downs at school and life in general; I never doubted she understood every word.  She and Mother were always particularly close so the loss of language was never a barrier.   It was uncanny how my mother developed a similar disease, suffering a series of debilitating strokes that resulted in her becoming an invalid for two years before her passing.  My brother, Jim, never left her side during this time and I along with my father was always nearby.  Unfortunately, some whom she had treated with kindness, distanced themselves, particularly toward the end.  I know how much this wounded her, more than the intensified painful physical decline.  All she ever said to me was "I guess I must have done something very wrong, but I don't know what it was.  Can you tell me?"  Of course I couldn't.  The reason didn't reside within her, rather in the distorted lenses of those others.  It was a difficult thing for me to fathom and it was many years before I was able to let it go, certainly not as readily as she had.  Looking for the fault in herself first was another huge lesson that I find sustains me now as my own health continues to deteriorate and some folks I've known for years have drifted away. 

I never had the privilege of knowing my great grandmother, of course, but she was a tower of inner strength and wisdom which she instilled in Granny who relayed it to my Mother.  Along with the good times, they all led challenging lives strewn with disappointments, pain, and heartaches.  Granny and my Mother both suffered through long debilitating illnesses.  There were never complaints, rather acceptance, adaptability, and an unwavering concern for others.  What they transmitted to me took quite a while to take root, but now that it has I am reminded of that poem by Margaret Widdener and this verse from an old hymn by Fanny Crosby:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet

And a light unto my path.

You're the light unto my path.

Job's Question

And Job asked, why must I suffer so long and alone?
With my own failing health, I fear forbearance will not hold
Walk with Job upon this glass splintered world

God's voice replied from a roaring whirlwind
Where were you when I brought forth myriad worlds?
And Job asked, why must I suffer so long and alone?

Job's  abiding faith sustained him o'er perilous declines
God rewarded him; blessing is forged in trials of the world
Walk with Job upon this glass splintered world

I have fought, not embraced my trials in kind 
Like a silted rill, they dwell in an ever constricting world 
And Job asked, why must I suffer so long and alone?

Subliminal attachment to illness is the vise that blinds
I have failed to see transcendent lessons in the pain of the world
Walk with Job upon this glass splintered world

Learn that you are not your body in this earthly clime
Know that you are eternal, traversing many lives, many worlds
And Job asked, why must I suffer so long and alone?
Walk with Job upon this glass splintered world

The Gift That Keeps on Giving, in loving memory of my Mother

At a recent Hare Krishna gathering, I heard an incandescent phrase, so eloquent in its simplicity.  "Every act is either an act of love or an act of pain."  Unfortunately, I don't know the source.   When I heard it, my breath caught for a moment, a grand epiphany.  My mind kept affirming yes, yes, yes!   I remember, of course, the great Christian teaching, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  But, that first phrase provides for me the foundation for the second.  I've been reading Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" off and on for years and this phrase prompted me to go back to them.

What I found was truly compelling.  For instance, "We are the other of the other" and:
"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.” 

I used to consider myself one of the good folks, making charitable donations to worthy causes, trying not to pass a homeless person without giving some money, helping friends and neighbors when asked.  These kinds of things are very good as far as they go, but I finally realized that I was unconsciously making value judgments about myself and these others.  I would often say "There but for the grace of God go I."  But, I came to see that this was a 'cop out' in a way. For, I didn't offer money to every homeless person I encountered. Some appeared drunk or too well dressed to be 'worthy,' a huge value judgment there.

Now, I have been blessed with a new way of looking at myself and others. It's so simple, yet so profound. There is no such thing as 'other.' I've paid lip service to this concept for a long time, but it's transforming truth has finally penetrated the many walls built up over my lifetime - walls of resentment, anger, regret, despair, unfairness, envy, self-righteousness. The list goes on and on. These are 'the acts of pain' that were inflicted. Of course, there were 'acts of love,' but like many people, I didn't focus on those nearly as much. So, when I look at others from the perspective of only two types of possible acts, I see myself. As Marcus, the Stoic, so succinctly put it "we are the other of the other."

With this new way of seeing came a number of transformations in my life, both large and small. My brother, Jim, and I have a much younger friend, Paul. Jim knew him first through AA. They both have been in sobriety for several years now. I met Paul for the first time about two years ago when he did some much needed repair work on our house. He impressed me immediately. I was drawn by his thoughtfulness and quiet grace. I knew he had been a supportive presence for Jim. We became fast friends. When he asked me for a loan to expand his business, I didn't hesitate. He paid back seventy five percent of it in a little over a year. Then, some major setbacks overwhelmed Paul. The AA men he tried to help by giving them jobs did substandard work, some relapsed and others stole clients from him. An unusually rainy winter brought work for most small home improvement contractors to a standstill. This went on for weeks. Paul had to stop taking a salary and could no longer afford rent for a single room. I could see that he wasn't eating enough. I asked Jim what he thought about inviting Paul to live with us rent-free. He agreed and Paul moved in.

It's been a blessing on both sides. With our various infirmities, Jim and I barely make up a functional person these days. Paul is always watching out for us, making repairs around the house, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, etc. We have become a real family, eating meals together and sharing our ups and downs. I'm convinced that this is sacred abundance at work. The more you give, the more you receive. It is literally the gift that keeps on giving.

Living through this experience has made me aware that once you commit to abundance, you find that it is all around you. Despite the loan losses and costs associated with adding a new family member, I find that there's always enough money. Not a windfall, but there is no insufficiency.

Abundance attracts abundance. Back in May, I had to have the remainder of my upper teeth extracted and was fitted for a full denture, not an inexpensive undertaking. It worked well until March and then suddenly lost suction; it kept falling down. My dentist was very puzzled and decided it needed to be relined. I knew this would cost around four hundred dollars. Instead, he charged me nothing for the hour he spent taking impressions and paid half the dental lab fee. I was so touched by his generosity that I tried to thank him. He gave me a hug and said you deserve it.

There have been a few negative experiences in my living a life of abundance. They involved fairly substantial monetary loses as well as psychically painful losses in the betrayal of trust that took place. Two of Paul's former workmen, both of whom he warned me about, seemed to be in immediate need of help for rent and living expenses. It turned out that one had relapsed back into his old drug habit and the other was a scam artist. The interesting thing was that I didn't harbor any deep feelings of anger or revenge, just sorrow that other fellow human beings could fall in such a way. This was hugely transformative for me, no judging, rather something that bordered on compassion. Others' pain, no matter what form it takes, should lead to acts of love. This, of course, is the ultimate goal and gateway to the Divine.

I am at the stage of life now where reviewing its' trajectory seems like a sensible thing to do; time is certainly getting shorter. My first and greatest teacher of the power of sacred abundance was my mother. Sadly, I didn't realize it at the time. She was the kindest person I have ever known. Not that she didn't have faults, she had her share. She had been trained as a nurse in Canada during the Great Depression. As a new graduate, there were virtually no jobs in Ontario for nurses. She came upon an ad in a nursing journal seeking a new graduate for a position in Long Island, New York. She promptly came and found herself in a surgeon's private hospital in his house, of all places. He turned out to be a well trained practitioner, but performed a number of major operations that the small facility and staff were ill equipped to handle. There was a well to do rather forbidding looking woman, a judge's wife, who came in for a radical mastectomy. This was a very dangerous procedure in 1932. Another patient required urgent attention causing a major delay in admitting Mrs. McGuiness. My mother could imagine how angry and upset she would be and approached her with trepidation asking if she could make the lady a cup of tea. Mrs. McGuiness replied "Yes, if you'll have one with me."

This gave my mother an opportunity to explain everything that was involved and what she could expect post-operatively. They went on to chat about their families and other non-threatening subjects. The next morning, after Mrs. McGuiness recovered from the anesthetic, she told my mother that she had never been so terrified and their tea and conversation gave her the strength to face it. One simple act of kindness and they were life long friends. I was only about five or six, but I still remember visits from Aunt Patricia and the tea chats they always had. Mother's nursing career was full of similar incidents. I didn't find out about many of them until after her death when I went through letters she had saved from other patients she had touched with her kindness.

As I look back now over my formative years, there were so many finespun instances of Mother's compassion that eluded my frenetic adolescent mind. In fact, my adolescence extended well into my twenties. I think that grace showers those of advancing age with transcendental memories such as these if we strive for open caring hearts. Just the other evening, I noticed a young woman attending our Hare Krishna group for the first time. Since she seemed very quiet and overwhelmed by the size of our group, I sat with her and we chatted about our backgrounds and what she could expect at the session. Shortly after, a very old memory popped into my mind. Every month my mother used to attend a monthly woman's guild group that supported a local hospital. She noticed a very young woman sitting alone and looking at the older members with quiet trepidation. Mother sat with her and invited her to come over to our house for a visit any time. Jean showed up the next day with her one year old boy, Ronnie. She knew no one else in town at this point. The visits became a weekly ritual until Jean's children were teenagers. When Mother became an invalid during the last two years of her life, Jean resumed the weekly ritual.

Of course, there were many charitable contributions. I remember one very special case. She sent monthly money orders to an Indian priest for years and they corresponded about his mission to the untouchables. The money came out of her modest household allowance. She never asked my father for more money and made sure that we children never lacked for anything. I remember that she rarely bought anything for herself, except the essentials. She lived in sacred abundance all of her life. Her rewards weren't monetary, but her currency was far more durable. The many lives she touched with goodness, mine in particular, were her legacy. Even my difficult father began sending monthly stipends to the Indian priest's successor.

Pantoum for an Apple Tree

 A sophic sentinel, our aged apple tree, witnessed much 
 We three sibs played under her winglike boughs 
Mother gathered apples underneath her then
Her flowering crown dropped blankets of rose tinged snow

 We three sibs played under her winglike boughs
 Mother made pies from her flawed but savory fruit 
 Her flowering crown dropped blankets of rose tinged snow
 The tree's limbs grew weaker; she succumbed in a storm

 Mother made pies from her flawed but savory fruit
 She makes pies no longer 
 The tree's limbs grew weaker; she succumbed in a storm
 Mother sat with only one sib, pondering what once had been


 She makes pies no longer 
 The days are long and empty now
 Mother sat with only one sib, pondering what once had been
I miss my shining days, phantoms now, she said 

The days are long and empty now
Mother gathered apples then
I miss my shining days, phantoms now, she said 
A sophic sentinel, our aged apple tree, witnessed much

A Pilgrim

As I stumble along the rocky road I feel hesitant.
When pilgrims passed this way long ago, did they feel hesitant?

My unquiet mind overflows with doubts and tortuous questions.
My earnest goal of transformation eschews self-indulgent hesitance.

Unrelenting fear of inadequacy is like a hungry ghost wandering,
always wandering, doomed to walk to the threshold blocked by hesitance.

A myopic mind constricts one's broader horizons,
obliterating  others' needs and tolerance for their hesitance.

Inclusion and genuine acceptance of another's unvarnished self
is the first and greatest step toward a transformed life without hesitance.

Take one step, one step at a time, Clare, ahead not sideways.
The path is never straight, but staying the course transcends hesitance.

The Big Picture

What is the 'Big Picture'?

Legions of mavens of many persuasions now,

political, financial, religious, hordes of others

engulf us in a cauchophonous chorus.

They claim, with vehemence, that they alone know it.

Such has it always been throughout recorded time.

The dilemma is that many little pictures arise in time.

What determines the bigness of this metaphorical picture?

If pressed, could any of these autocrats define it?

True bigness is deeper than the quotidian now.

True bigness is not the basso profundo of the chorus.

True bigness does not divide earth dwellers into others.

For there is really only One, who enfolds all others.

That One has always been the 'Big Picture' for perpetual time.

Mystics and sages who spoke of it were muted by oppressive choruses.

Self-righteousness and fear close minds to the 'Big Picture.'

Crossing the threshold into Oneness is absorption into the eternal Now.

Leaving all of one's egoistic anchors behind is the essence of finding it.  

 A truly terrifying proposition, to trust in the Unknown's way of it.

It requires an extraordinary leap of faith, far beyond any other.

No matter what one's concept of the One, it dwells in the eternal Now.

The past is but a memory and the future, a chimera of time.

The Now is all we have, where we dwell, where resides the 'Big Picture.'                         To see each moment as divine and live it mindfully is alien to the chorus.

St. Teresa's epiphany, "heaven is now," is anathema to the chorus

because their worldly treasure is never enough to savor it.                                             

A grasping nature cannot conceive of a dimensionless picture.

Neither can it see the divine mirror in the face of another.

Old Blake beheld infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour of time.

For what is time but a ciphering artifice in the transcendent Now.

 Not often, but when consumed by an incandescent moment, one tastes the Now.         

Earthly time stands still for a foretaste of the eternal, a voiceless chorus.

All mystics strive for these breaths of eternity that occur in earth bound time.

What about ordinary mortals?  Are we capable of attaining it?

Those who live in harmony with the world, themselves, and others

They see the Divine in others, mirrored in themselves, and dwell within the "Big Picture."

The eternal Now is always present to those who strive to reach it.

The ever present chorus of disrupters are Divine others.

After a lifetime of striving to reach it, we are already there, in the "Big Picture."

First Draft 3/25/12

Note: The reference to Blake is his lovely poem, "Auguries of Innocence"

Questions, a Villanelle

A child asks if there is a reason why
Small children die and suffer round the world
Old men reply that God alone knows why

We skim the countless numbers; few will cry
Untold lost legions' silent flags unfurl
The child asks if there is a reason why

We look, but do not see that numbers lie
Has numbing excess sent our minds awhirl?
Old men reply that God alone knows why

The wealthy spawn more wealth; the poor still die
Indifference has stony silence hurled
A child asks if there is a reason why

In time's ellipse we meet cruel fate nearby
Can empty hearts find solace through their worlds?
Old men reply that God alone knows why

Labyrinthine life presages plans unwise
Why do we see and still ignore such pearls?
The child asks if there is a reason why
Old men reply that God alone knows why

Note: last revised on 3/17/12. Revised again on 3/19/12 based on an excellent suggestion by my favorite cousin, Paul Kavanagh

Twilight Sonata

My fingers press on silent outstretched strings,
resounding  high as gliding bow descends 
I feel the wonder though my hands lack wings,
immobile due to palsy's cruel bends
My artist's soul is now bereft of hope
So many losses darken all my days
My friends depart in silence; who can cope?
I sit and ponder future's hidden ways
 
A living death's erosion must not root
Impaired confreres find strength to bear and grow
I think of Milton's witness, strong and mute,
He waits in hope, not fear for springs to flow
Acceptance brings forth many veiled guests
New birth can now reward real seekers quests
 
Note: last revised on 3/19/12

This I Believe

This I believe.  A grateful loving heart is the key measure of a life well lived.  In fact, I believe it is the only relevant one.   In a lovely poem by e.e. cummings, the poet rejoices:

  i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth

Love transcends all else.  And, gratitude is her handmaiden.  This is where it begins.  Gratefulness makes things happen.  It is the key to joy.   Brother David Steindl-Rast, an eighty six year old Benedictine monk who through his books, lectures and participation in the global Gratefulness for Living Network (gratefulness.org) has brought spiritual depth to countless souls, describes faith as “radical trust in life and in the Source of life,” the opposite of fear.  He says to be grateful is to entrust yourself to life, much as you entrust yourself to water when you swim.   Trusting life helps you let go of fear.  When you trust life, you become open to surprise (hope).   Hope allows us to be attentive and see the gift in what life actually throws at us, even when it is not what we expected.

I didn't find this truth until later middle age. A near fatal pulmonary embolism uncovered an aggressive autoimmune disease. Three major hospitalizations, the last in a psychiatric unit, pushed me to the precipice, to choose life or death. I was given the grace to choose life and during a long recovery it became clearer and clearer that my dark night of the soul (and body) was a very great gift, indeed. The focus of my life had been on material things, achievement and acclaim in my chosen career, wealth, and earthly security. Now, I have none of these, but have never felt more happy and fulfilled. Letting go was surprisingly easy; I was ripe for it. Dealing with a progressive disease brought me to the heart of acceptance and the kindred souls I continue to meet on this journey illuminate my path.

Flashback

After an intense rain shower my cane and I were limping away from the Dupont Metro.  We looked like a  demented  crab  trying to avoid the newly sprouted  puddles.  At the Circle a delivery truck barreled through a deep puddle by the curbside heaving a tsunami of foul detritus which upended the cane and me.  Time stopped.  Dirty puddles.

I am six years old  happily waiting with my first grade class on the transport line.  It is three o'clock and the incipient scholars are more than ready to call it a day.  I am togged out in my new pale blue snowsuit which is much admired as is another kid's "I Like Ike" button.  A darkly clad nun on patroll issues admonitions in a high staccato voice.   My hooded ears miss the one about waiting for the bus to board before walking over to my waiting mother's car.  I wave to my friends  as I begin to run across the driveway, but trip and fall into an oozy mud puddle.  As I struggle to stand upright in my sodden snow suit, the dark robed martinet encourages a round of communal laughter.  Through tear blinded eyes it seems like an interminable interval before I reach the car.  My mother's eyes are welling up as she drives down the driveway past the statue of Jesus with the little children. (revised on 3/5/12).  

Summer Storm

Sailboats dozing under summer skies
beneath a canopy of cottony clouds
Seabirds basking in the balmy interlude,
forty winks on fluid futons

On the horizon blustery breezes
Confused clouds morphing into grotesque contours
Sleepy sea gulls ascending with strident cries
Careening craft lurching in their liquid chambers,
Lines slapping loudly on steely spars

Pelagic winds wafting landward
redolent of ripe seaweed and moist reeds
Sheets of spattering rain slapping
on straining sloops and slick docks
mirror my voyage through myriad permutations

From a very great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore

Death is not extinguishing the light
It is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come

Fleas

Sometimes my mind feels like matted fur with
clinging doubts, fears, resentments, karmic fleas
gnawing out of habit

Celebrating the Hours

Time is like a juggernaut hurtling through our lives.  It mows down our precious days into a compressed heap of dissatisfaction and regret.  Perhaps, we are the compressors.   Have we forgotten the timeless wisdom that each day is a mirror of life, with  its birth, coming of age, and eventual ending?  At aurora's first blush, greet the coming of the light with the crimson mantled Angel of Lauds.   Her name is praise.  Gratitude pours from her lips for a new beginning.

At the noon hour the Angel of Sext blows his golden trumpet.   With the midday hour a  diminishment of spirit often intrudes.   A day half spent with unaccomplished goals, frustrated in a sea of busyness,  now awaits the inevitable waning of the light.  The Angel's clarion call sings out look upward.  Stop for a moment and reflect.    The sky hasn't lost its blueness and the birds still sing their joyous  songs with abandon.   Awaken to the wonder  anew and with the Angel whisper a prayer for peace.

At the day's close, about an hour before retiring, the Angel of Compline, clad in a diaphanous robe of muted hues, descends with closed eyes.   This can be a time of tranquility or terror.   The Angel invites us to deal with ourselves gently.  The prayer of Compline embraces the whole day, its vertiginous  heights and labyrinthine depths, and enfolds  us in a merciful mantle of protective serenity.  

The Preacher and Me

I recently had the opportunity to do a video of a very special moment from my childhood. My dear friend, Judy Wagner, is a marvel with these things and she deserves the credit for our 'production.'. The time is around 1952 when I was 7 years old. The Preacher was my first romantic interest (he didn't know it of course). Here is the link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-P8XFu4ISg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Or, you can just go to YouTube and search on: Clare Gnrcco Preacher Roe

Veil

The ancient Celts called them the thin places, those geographic sanctuaries of spirit where the veil between time and the timeless is as sheer as a dragonfly's wing.  The isle of Iona in Scotland's Inner Hebrides is such a place. It's a deceptively small and rocky spot, just a dot on the map near the large isle of Mull. There are few motor vehicles, a few crofts for farming, long horned chestnut hued cattle and black faced sheep roaming at will down ancient pathways leading to the surrounding sea. The old Abby church still stands overlooking the water as it has for hundreds of years. One early summer's day after morning prayers, I was gazing at a tall weathered Celtic cross trying to decipher its runic like symbols. A young ewe and her wee bairn were grazing near the Cemetery, burial place of ancient Scottish kings and saints. She seemed to be beckoning to me. I followed them down a rocky route through deep green grass toward the sea. It was a breezy day and I could taste the salty sea winds, a delightful sensation. My animal guides stopped near a small stone chapel close by the sea. As I crossed the threshold, time stopped. I sat on a sturdy wooden bench near the unadorned altar and gazed out through the single window at the sea. My monkey mind slowed down to a whisper and I had the sensation of looking into a deep clear pool. I lost all sense of my physical body, absorbed in the serenity of the eternal now. A strong gust of sea wind struck the window and I came back. Two hours had passed. As I was walking away from the Abby, two young islanders, who were repairing the ancient stone fence in front of the Cemetery, greeted me. They were looking at a small stone as if it were a perfect emerald. After a lengthy search, they had found the stone that fit a small gap perfectly. In a way they were praying, you see, and so was I.

Mid-summer Madness

YeeeOwwwwww!  Eeeeeeeek!  Piercing screams and squawks penetrate the steamy air of a languid summer's afternoon.  Assorted moppets, playing in the sun drenched courtyard, run for cover.  Anxious parents emerge to investigate the source of the cacophony.  Then, a whining  siren-like sound  begins, quickly reaching an ear piercing crescendo.  "Where are the cops?" my neighbors enquire as they approach my house with trepidation.  Momentarily a squad car, with siren blaring and strobe lights flashing, roars into view.  A police officer with a buzz haircut sporting a pair of those bug-eyed reflective sunglasses, begins to pound on my door with a cudgel-like implement.  He screams "What the hell are y'all doing in there - havin a crack party?  Open the door before I kick it in." As I comply, he is accosted by an angry lime-green creature fanning a magnificent set of tail feathers.  My parrot, Spanky, responds with hysterical laughter and a "Hey, Big Boy." He dive bombs the interloper with clawed feet flailing leaving a pea green dollop of organic material on one of his meticulously polished jackboots.  The peace officer promptly exits the premises tossing a citation of some sort on my lawn as he jumps into the safety of his adamantine auto and streaks off.