q

If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.

            Catherine Aird, writer

 

p

On the Uncountable Nature of Things

 

I.

 

Thus, not the thing held in memory, but this:

The fruit tree with its scars, thin torqued branches;

 

The high burnished sheen of morning light

Across its trunk; the knuckle-web of ancient knots, 

 

 

II.

 

The swift, laboring insistence of insects-

Within, the pulse of slow growth in sap-dark cores,

 

And the future waiting latent in fragile cells:

The last, terse verses of curled leaves hanging in air-

 

And the dry, tender arc of the fruitless branch.

  

 

III.

 

Yes: the tree's spine conditioned by uncountable

Days of rain and drought: all fleeting coordinates set

 

Against a variable sky-recounting faithfully

The thing as it is-transient, provisional, changing

 

Constantly in latitude-a refugee not unlike

Us in this realm of exacting, but unpredictable, time.

  

 

IV.

 

And only once a branch laden with perfect

Fruit-only once daybreak weighed out perfectly by

 

The new bronze of figs, not things in memory,

But as they are here: the roar and plough of daylight,

 

The perfect, wild cacophony of the present-

Each breath measured and distinct in a universe ruled

 

 

V.

 

By particulars-each moment a universe:

As when under night heat, passion sparks-unique,

 

New in time, and hands, obedient, divine,

As Desire dilates eye-pulse the blue-veined breast,

 

Touch driving, forging the hungering flesh:

To the far edge of each moment's uncharted edge-

 

 

VI.

 

For the flesh too is earth, desire storm to the marrow-

 Still-the dream of simplicity in the midst of motion:

 

Recollection demanding a final tallying of accounts,

The mind, loyal clerk, driven each moment to decide-

 

Even as the tree's wood is split and sweat still graces

The crevices of the body, which moment to weigh in,

 

For memory's sake, on the mobile scales of becoming.

 

 

~ Ellen Hinsey ~

 

q

 

The body has its own way of knowing, a knowing that has little to do with logic, and much to do with truth; little to do with control and much to do with acceptance; little to do with division and analysis, and much to do with union.

            Marilyn Sewell, minister and writer

 

p

The Pear Tree

 

Today the ninety-year-old pear tree

In my neighbors' garden

Stricken with petals

Is white all over

Startling as a cry

 

Its every branch and shoot

Spur twig and spray

Has broken into blossom

 

And every blossom

Is flinging itself open

Wide open

 

Disclosing every tender filament

Sticky with nectar

Beaded with black pollen.

 

    Anne Porter

 

q

 

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

               Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

 

p

None of Us are Free

 

Well you better listen my sisters and brothers,
'cause if you do you can hear
there are voices still calling across the years.
And they're all crying across the ocean,
and they're crying across the land,
and they will till we all come to understand
None of us are free.
None of us are free.
None of us are free if one of us is chained,
None of us are free.

And there are people still in darkness,
and they just can't see the light.
If you don't say its wrong then that says its right.
We got to try to feel for each other;

let our brothers know that we care.
Got to get the message, send it out loud and clear:
None of us are free.
None of us are free.
None of us are free if one of us is chained,
None of us are free.

It's a simple truth we all need,

just to hear and to see:
None of us are free if one of us is chained,
None of us are free.

Now I swear your salvation isn't too hard to find,
but none of us can find it on our own.
We've got to join together

in spirit, heart and mind,
so that every soul who's suffering

will know that they're not alone.
None of us are free.
None of us are free.
None of us are free if one of us is chained,
None of us are free.

If you just look around you,
you’re gonna see what I say
’cause the world is getting smaller each passing day.
Now it's time to start making changes,
and it's time for us all to realize,
that the truth is shining bright right before our eyes:
None of us are free.
None of us are free.
None of us are free if one of us is chained,
None of us are free.

 

            Solomon Burke

 

q

 

In a real sense all of life is interrelated.  All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you aught to be and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  This is the interrelated structure of reality.

            Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

p

Little Apocalypse

 

The butterfly’s out on noon patrol,

                                          dragooning down to the rapt flower heads.

The ground shudders beneath the ant’s hoof.

Under cover of sunlight, the dung beetle bores through his summer

        dreams.

High up, in another world,

                             the clouds assemble and mumble their messages.

Sedate, avaricious life,

 

The earthworm huddled in darkness,

                                                            the robin, great warrior, above,

Reworking across the shattered graves of his fathers.

The grass, in its green time, bows to whatever moves it.

Afternoon’s ready to shove its spade

                                                            deep in the dirt,

Coffins and sugar bones awash in the sun.

 

Inside the basements of the world,

                                                         the clear-out’s begun,

Lightning around the thunder-throat of the underneath,

A drop of fire and a drop of fire,

Bright bandages of fog

                                      starting to comfort the aftermath.

Then, from the black horizon, four horses heave up, flash on their

            faces.

 

            Charles Wright

 

q

 

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of

civilization. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)