Ukrainian Rain

on a field of blue and yellow

sky and gold

on plains of wheat

and cities of old

an ancient rain falling

fresh as blood

and raw as meat

a lone baby crying

an aria forgotten

and a mercy unsuckled

a prayer still screaming

Prayer of Gratitude to a Ginkgo Leaf (poem 020-2021)

 

 

 

 

O holy leaf

You got me

Caught my eye

My everything else

Hailed arrested halted

My step my gaze my self

Your indescribable yellow

Pale skin fanned

Out in greeting

O holy raindrop

Eyeing my eye

Soaked in sight

Stilled and solemn

Waiting for my now

To bow

Before you

O holy moment

Bathed in mist

O holy this

Almost missed

echo chamber

Say it again. And again n n n n . Re-re-re-re-reverb erb erb erb. Anyone here? Anyone hear? Echo and Narcissus. Waves. Repercussions. Re-echo. sierra echo x-ray. A room of one's own. Cathedral choral. Chamber music. Sacred sound. Ordinary space. Ordinary sound. Rippling. Less less less less less gone. Repeat beat. Narcissus and Echo. Solo. Vox. Voice. Void. Hollow. Hallow. Hollow. Hallow. Hollow.

petitioning the desert fathers and mothers

The Zen Dads and Zen Moms barely walked barefoot into the desert. Their silent footsteps and stilled voices echoed against the dunes. For the curvilinear tawny dunes, picture, the landscape of Lawrence of Arabia. 'It is written.' By accident or providence, the barefoot pilgrims discovered the Holy City of Lightanddark. They commingled and communed with the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers. The sands were hot, the nights cold. Our protagonist applied to join the community in the desert among the dunes. Only by invitation, he was told. What was on the application, he asked. A portfolio of pain, a paean of penance, a prostrate petition, he was told. This is not the French Foreign Legion, he was warned. You don't enlist, we don't recruit. The hardest question on the application (which existed neither on paper nor on digital atoms) consists of: why? Our applicant surmised this would be a cinch. Easy. Yet he was forewarned. No whining, self-pity, or quixotic gestures toward finding oneself. Skip the escape rhetoric, the confession, or the absolution. The self-actualization crap. Our fallen hero wanted to join, even if momentarily out on the periphery, along the outer borders that required a Passport of Perfidy. The chasm between then and now, between her and him. Hesychasm. Sacred stillness silence. I want to be honed, carved, cured, our triumphant warrior wailed. There is no cure, there is no cause, replied the palindromic Abba (Father). I want to be whittled, reduced, spared, declared the supplicant-applicant. There are no words, smiled the recursive Amma (Mother). Iconic. Dolorous. It is not to hide but to expose, not to lose but to find, implored our narrator. Let me dry out, sober up, be salved, o saviors, prayed our petitioner. Why, the Abba and Amma intoned speechlessly. Read my lips. Quiet. White sands. Ascetic fasting, paring down through prayer, alms as balms. 'Though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed.' The desert monks and nuns, in a chorus cried, Cities of the night, metropolises, subway roars; there's your desert for you. Dig in. Delight. Yet the applicant seeking to join the Settlement of Sandy Silence persisted. Let me be hewn, tell me how, he said. And waited. 

the turning: vigil / aftermath

"Your mother has taken a turn . . . "

Eyes closed shallow breathing. Words into her right ear. A hum a chorus not a groan an affirmation on each exhalation some sort of yes. The right arm rising not quite flailing. Calls and farewells held to her ear. Softly hold her hand down her right hand the nails done pink the other day by Adrianna. Holding hands. Warm yet warm blood coursing. Who the child. I had clasped her hand such that her skin so papery reddened near her ring. The right arm fitful the left arm still the rest of her stilled. Her chest slowly heaving. The pulse in her neck. 

"Turn! Turn! Turn!"

That song. The Book of Ecclesiastes.

"It is written . . . "

Circle of prayer. Our right hands raised in benediction. The aura of presence. A surrounding. An upper room on the ground floor. Us. An us.

Unable to get the words out at first my throat my heart.

Whispers into her ear.

The paperwhites, the poinsettias.

Kiss on the forehead. Kiss on the cheek.

The lamp. The vigil the night. Now turned toward us. Slower breath. Her tongue caught between her dry lips never saw that before not her custom. The morphine.

Nearing midnight my hand nearly numb let go her hand our hands let go. The blanket from Evelyn to cover her the cozy covering she so loved. Warm still warm. Her chest slowly heaving. The pulse in her neck. Slower.

"I love you. Good night." Not good bye who knows why.

Morning becomes mourning.

So cruelly rigid unmoving hollow dry so angled. 

So infinitely other than mere hours before.

Kiss on the forehead not her forehead anymore. Cold. She is gone. To somewhere there here anywhere everywhere. Other.

Can't stay in that room.

Exit.

Into the hall into the world this new old world turned.

One less leaf. 

a secular prayer

Have we lost a sense of commonweal? The common well-being, the body politic. A shared welfare (another word whose shades of meaning are often shrouded).

Commonweal.

A Secular Prayer

Would that we could summon, or have someone, or something, summon unto us, for our own behalf, the solidarity of community, not riven by solipsism or divided by dissonance. Would that we could respect and honor our very own commonweal, even if by not trashing the land we traverse, or by unlittering the litter strewn before our averted or blinded eyes. Amen.

the time of day

It is Sunday morning. I thought of going to church, even wanted to, but staying up so late last night (in the wee hours) now leaves me so tired, after breakfast, that I am toying with the idea of crawling back to bed. It is an idea I hope and pray I resist. Is that depression? The whole feeling has echoes of the days of Sunday morning coming down, with hangovers both physical and existential, now 35 years ago, thank God, but still there for me if I succumb to it. I hear the sparrows and robins. The meteorological conditions seems pleasant. I don't know if any of those factors will be enough to rouse me. Morning is not my time of day anyway. Give me evening, its vespers charms of setting sun, chirping robins, and something something something. Yesterday I browsed two bookstores for a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. Here at home I have one, taken from an Episcopal church more than 15 years ago. Maybe they gave it to me. I guess I'm still a member there but have always wrestled with its suburbanness. I've been thinking of secretly returning it one Sunday, placing it in the pew holder. Why? I guess to allow me to float somewhere else, or because of a secret guilt over stealing that book. Which is nonsense, of course. Maybe I need a book of uncommon prayer. I already have those. In the morning -- usually mornings -- I read from a compilation of writings by Thich Nhat Hank and also, these days, The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. The latter was given to me last year as a birthday or Christmas present. My tea has gotten lukewarm, not warm at all.

focus

It has been said the whole universe is found in a drop of water.

I saw it today.

Extending my arm out the car window to send out some cards (hand-written communication? how quaint!), under the lower-right lip of the mailbox's mouth, one plump drop of rain held itself suspended (or was held suspended), waiting, frozen but melted, pausing, seemingly still.

Bird Man Alert

I'm thinking maybe the Secretary of Dawns is morphing into the Bird Man Chronicler Imam Shaman.

Wings of prose taking flight.