p

The Old Trees on the Hill

When you were living

and it was later than we knew

there was an old orchard

far up on the hill behind the house

dark apple trees wrapped in moss

standing deep in thorn bushes and wild grape

cobwebs breathing between the branches

memory lingering in silence

the spring earth fragrant with other seasons

crows conferred in those boughs and sailed on

chickadees talked of the place as their own

there were still kinglets and bluebirds

and the nuthatch following the folded bark

the churr of one wren a dark shooting star

with all that each of them knew then

but whoever had planted those trees

straightening now and again over the spade

to stand looking out across the curled

gleaming valley to the far grey ridges

one autumn after the leaves had fallen

while the morning frost still slept in the hollows

had been buried somewhere far from there

and those who had known him and his family

were completely forgotten you told me

and you said you had never been up there

though it was a place where you

loved to watch the daylight changing

and we looked up and watched the daylight there

W. S. Merwin

q

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know
how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
Soren Kierkegaard

p

To Hold

So we're dust. In the meantime, my wife and I

make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,

we raise it billowing, then pull it tight,

measuring by eye as it falls into alignment

between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I'm lucky

she'll remember a recent dream and tell me.

One day we'll lie down and not get up.

One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

Until then, we'll go on learning to recognize

what we love and what it takes

to tend what isn't for our having.

So often, fear has led me

to abandon what I know I must relinquish

in time. But for the moment,

I'll listen to her dream,

and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling

more and more detail into the light

of a joint and fragile keeping.

Li-Young Lee

q

The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning
of life.
Leo Tolstoy

p

After Shih-Te

I climb these hills as if walking on air

body too light to fall

bamboo staff resting against a great stone

torn cloak snapping in the wind

a lone bird soars the azure depths

far distant springs reflected in its eye

carefree, singing a timeless song

gone—on a journey without end

Shih – Shu (trans. By James H. Sanford)

q

Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time – that is the basic message.

Pema Chodron