The Pressure of Living

I can't take the pressure of living;

It drowns me 12 feet underwater;

it weighs on my chest and crushes my lungs.

It would be simpler just to be left here

under the sea

where no one expects that much of me.

But I rise to the surface,

lest I waste the rare and precious fragile hours

of sunlight and oxygen

I breathe it in, I let it out...

Feel the rhythm pounding in my chest,

it is a bass drum, and the drummer never tires.

It beats, and beats, and beats,

just a muscle and some veins going,

and going, and how do they know?

It quickens at the thought.

I stand it awe of what's in my chest,

frozen and underwater.

I can't handle the pressure of living--

I have been given this tiny, delicate thing, and have no idea how to use it;

what to do with it.

Is it a toy, for my amusement? Or a tool? Who do I use it for; what needs to be fixed?

So I try a million things,

and I can't be certain that any is right.

I am so afraid to be wrong and to break it

or to waste the gift- this present- that sometimes I don't want to use it at all,

so I just stare at it in awe

of its astounding beauty and power, for what its worth...

At once such a great and delicate thing.

I hold it in my hands-

there is no cradle soft enough,

nor any venture daring enough

to be worthy of this thing I hold.

It would be easiest just to crush it

and be done with it- with the worry of it.

I hold it in my hands...

Breathe in, breathe out.

Life.

A Prayer

O Lord, make my hands instruments of your love;

make my feet to walk in peace.

Even though I see that humans are being irresponsible

with what you have made--

with the earth and with each other--

turn my rage to love

and my eyes to You, God.

I can give you nothing but these feet and hands;

make their movements pleasing in Your sight.

What have we to work with, Lord, but this broken world?

You created everything in it,

but we are not good.

You delight in showing clemency, you are full of mercy,

yet we kill each other

and trample creation underfoot,

as if it were much less than a miracle.

Give me the patience to endure this world

and the love to overcome it.

Give me the courage to do justice, love kindness,

and walk humbly with You, O God.

Amen.

Food for Death

Food for death-

all of life is food for the grave.

Will I nourish the soil

that has borne my life?

Will I repay it well,

the earth of my grains and fruits

and forefathers?

Will I bear vine-ripened youth

and delicious communion?

For those who play in the glow

of the harvest sun,

coming together at a table lovingly laden

with the fruits of my flesh,

oh, I hope to join them there

and give them the joys of my toil

under the sun that tends the fields,

and watches over them by day.

Will I help make healthy

a generation that so earnestly

needs to till this soil,

to feel it in their fingers and in their bones?

For they will one day be food for earth,

and I hope they nourish well.

Goodbye, I!

the Farmer drove his tractor where the soil had been tilled

planting Corn in rank and file from the silo to the lumber mill

he rode along in silence as he looked out past the Honeysuckle field,

watched the water turn the waterwheel

thinking about his daughter with affection,

her reaction of disdain

the day he replaced the blue Hydrangea

with the climbing frame

while her disappointed Sister looked on,

quiet as the snow, knowing well:

those who know don’t talk

and those who talk don’t know

but (tho she tried)

she couldn’t help but sing!

the Tortoise in the wheelchair wrapped his forehead in a bandage

wore a plaster cast on his phony broken leg

so he’d get pushed around the sidewalk by the Zookeeper’s assistant

with the Hummingbird observing from behind a yellow Flower,

flapping his tiny wings so fast you couldn’t see them

with resentment for the Tortoise (which was clear by his expression)

but the Tortoise turned and smiled with a Peacefulness which proved

there’s a movement in our stillness and however much we move

we’re bound to stand completely still

so let’s stand completely still!

come, Tortoise, standing still -

go, Hummingbird, my will

come, Tortoise, stumbling blind -

go, Hummingbird, my eyes

come, Tortoise, letting go

go, Hummingbird, ‘I know’

come Tortoise undefined –

go, Hummingbird, my mind

come Tortoise, empty hands -

go, Hummingbird, my plans,

come, Tortoise, come and die -

go, Hummingbird, my I

goodbye, I!

(mewithoutYou)

The Cure for Pain

If you care to know, my dear,

There are but three seasons in my year:

Autumn, Spring, and Heartbreak

(also known as Being Here).

***

The cure for pain is in the pain,

so it's there that you'll find me.

If I could laugh I'd surely laugh,

but who would recognize me?

The Work is in the Work

The work of life,

which we may never cease,

is in the work

of finding oneself.

We must distinguish ourselves from the world

so that we may not accept the world,

as the Tao Te Ching teaches.

This work of life

we must never tire of

or retire

or hang up like a damp coat after the rain,

coming inside the warm home of pleasure

and distraction.

The beguiling and delightful music

we have grown so fond of

is inviting and free

and reminiscent

of everything we want to be.

But it is mere noise to drown

the cries from our insides.

It begs us to move and dance

And quicken our steps

and gives purpose to our feet,

but only for a little while,

a few songs

until the feet grow sore and tired.

We are dancing, twirling, spinning, moving

Joyful, joyfully exuberantly busy

but never breaking out of the circles of our steps.

We are moving and shaking and laughing and loving,

but not going anywhere at all.

The work is in the work

of leaving the dancehall,

of silencing the rhythms of our youth.

Of letting our feet grow tired of dancing

but never ceasing to move.

The work is in the work of finding the movement,

the moves that we were made to make.

Of heeding the call of the cry from inside

and silently, slowly working toward truth

and not stopping until we die.

The work of life

is in the work of dancing in silence,

and moving our lives to the rhythm of truth,

of getting somewhere and going somewhere

without even needing our feet to move.

The Candle and The Flame

The insect circles the hard wax of the candle, far from the flame,

over and over he circles.

But soon all the wax will be hot and become melted,

and the insect will be stuck

and engulfed in hot wax;

the flame it so desired was the death of him.

Just as the insect, so we circle sin--

on the outside, not fully jumping in,

but still fixated on it

so that we will eventually succumb, as the warm wax melts beneath our feet.

The flame is so inviting,

brilliant and glowing,

and around it feels warm and lovely,

though neither in it or from it are we safe.

Still More from Africa

2/20/10- Durban, South Africa

Last night I had a vision

that your love hung low like the heavens

and your roots were growing through my soil,

turning it, tilling me.

3/7/10- Windhoek, Namibia

I am Emily Dickinson. And if she were indeed right that the mind is an ocean, then I should drown and never be bored. Yet I am counting down the days until I can be with the ones I love, and I am hoping that until then, my mind will be enough. How horrible it would be not to have a memory! Mine keeps me going, day by day, and reminds me how good life can be. And though human nature baffles me, and I am all the while losing faith in people, I recall those good souls who know how to love, and spill mine out onto papers and notes to mail their way.

Some from Africa

So I found some old poems in my journal from Africa, and wondered why I hadn't put them up anywhere. Well, here they are:

3/11/10- Khorixas/Swakopmund, Namibia

Oh, lachrymosa! The tears fall

like that hard and steady

rain on the tin roof.

I live in the lighthouse

with dust and grey, by day

I sit, ship-searching

and wondering

what the waves have to say.

Fog covers ocean,

clouds hide sky,

sand claims the tide...

Oceanside people play,

sway in the ebb and flow,

wandering with ancient questions

that linger with the ocean's spray.

I will never join them in the bay.

I nightly leave my post when the world is mine,

and the stars shine and revive me with their lonely light.

The birds bring news,

crying notes of foreign seas

and making sad those

on whose ears fall

tales of suffering they've seen.

Time

I love you until Kansas,

where all the blood and wealth of my youth

is lain to rest;

beneath the sky of possibility that no one sees,

In between cars and cold

on the construction site- grey highway,

that makes me gasp in panic

for my own coming days.

Where the kids are all buried alive I love you.

Do they panic for their children--

the ones they are having only

16 years into their own existence,

stopped short in the realm

of whatever, not quite alive

enough to feel the weight of their fleeting numbered days,

and minutes away from nothing.

I love with all the health and truth

of my outstretched

arms, seeking humble lines

of wise and hurried words

to mumble at the stars

and those whose ears cannot contain;

for the only truth of our existence

brings new the heavy hand,

lifted.