(don't be bewildered)

don't be bewildered

by the cold weather!

dragonfly

--Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), Japanese poet and haiku master, written 1811, translated by David G. Lanoue

.うろたへな寒くなるとて赤蜻蛉
urotae na samuku naru tote aka tombo

(from the heart)

I swear

I see a demon...

billowing clouds.

--Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), Japanese poet and haiku master, written 1811, translated by David G. Lanoue

.心から鬼とも見ゆる雲の峰
Kokoro kara oni to mo mayuru kumo no mine

(Lanoue says Kokoru means literally "from the heart.")

Photo: Evening Clouds at Windridge Solitude, 2018

The Last Day

At year's end, the garden bare, whatever
lives there locked in the grip of zero, blessed be
habits that keep you warm through iron weather:

Light-led motion from sleep to stove to larder,
clink of dishes, clatter of spoons and forks
arranging themselves like words into ritual order;

Clear pour of water under clotted stems
and swollen arthritic joints of old begonias;
Dusting and sweeping out of rooms;

Froth of soiled wash in baptismal suds
and brisk embrace that leaves it fresh and folded;
The stroll between canyons of canned goods,

choosing simple quarry you hunt by proxy,
hiss and slap of mail through the brass lip
of solitude, inviting life in, (but slowly

not too close, or the trapper's scented
lure will draw you out into danger,
into some false thaw, the cry of the hunted);

By night, the slink into sleep again, turning
in that wound-licking posture flesh remembers,
wanting nothing to come but one more morning.

--Rhina P. Espaillat (1932- ), Dominican-American poet

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat 
   to live. 

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it 
   has been since creation, and it will go on. 

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the 
   corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to 
   be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around 
   our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down 
   selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the 
   table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. 

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in 
   the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents 
   for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering 
   and remorse. We give thanks. 

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are
   laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

--Joy Harjo (1951- ), poet laureate of the United States 2019- , member of the Muscogee Nation, from The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, 1994.

On a branch

On a branch

floating downriver

cricket, singing.

--Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828), Japanese poet and haiku master, translated by Jane Hirsheld

Advent Benedictions

Advent 1 Benediction
Be people of hope. 
Let hope live in your heart and share the hope of Christ with all you meet. 
Share hope by noticing someone else’s humanity. 
Share hope by listening to someone’s story. 
Share hope by praying for our world. 
In this Advent season, we need to see, feel, and share hope. 
As you go out into the wonder of God’s creations, share hope with those you meet. 

And the blessing of God Almighty, 
The Source of Our Being, 
The Light in Our Darkness,
Spirit of Wisdom in Our Seeking, 
rest upon you and remain within you, always.
Amen. 

Advent 2 Benediction
Be people of peace.
Let peace live in your heart and share the peace of Christ with all you meet.
Share peace by acting out of compassion and not fear.
Share peace by listening to all sides of the story.
Share peace by praying for our world.
In this Advent season, we need to see, feel, and share peace.
As you go out into the wonder of God’s creations, share peace and hope with those you meet. 

And the blessing of God Almighty, 
The Source of Our Being, 
The Light in Our Darkness,
Spirit of Wisdom in Our Seeking, 
rest upon you and remain within you, always.
Amen. 

Advent 3 Benediction
Be people of joy.
Let joy live in your heart and share the joy of Christ with all you meet.
Share joy by seeing the good in each other.
Share joy by remembering good times and hoping for good times to come.
Share joy by praying for our world.
In this Advent season, we need to see, feel, and share joy.
As you go out into the wonder of God’s creations, share joy, peace, and hope with those you meet.

And the blessing of God Almighty, 
The Source of Our Being, 
The Light in Our Darkness,
Spirit of Wisdom in Our Seeking, 
rest upon you and remain within you, always.
Amen. 

Advent 4 Benediction
Be people of love.
Let love live in your heart and share the love of Christ with all you meet.
Share love by loving those you see regularly.
Start by loving your community.
Share love by loving those you do not know.
How do your actions affect the rest of God’s creation?
Share love by praying for our world.
In this Advent season, we need to see, feel, and share love.
As you go out into the wonder of God’s creations, share love, joy, peace, and hope with those you meet. 

And the blessing of God Almighty, 
The Source of Our Being, 
The Light in Our Darkness,
Spirit of Wisdom in Our Seeking, 
rest upon you and remain within you, always.
Amen. 

Christmas Eve Benediction
Tonight, as we celebrate God is with us in the birth of Jesus, let us continue to live lives of hope, peace, joy, and love. Share God’s love with the shepherds you meet on the hillside. Let the communion of the Holy Spirit fill your heart with glad tidings like the angels. And the Prince of Peace born again tonight, may He live in your heart to comfort and challenge you as you seek to live as one of his disciples.

And the blessing of God Almighty, 
The Source of Our Being, 
The Light in Our Darkness,
Spirit of Wisdom in Our Seeking, 
rest upon you and remain within you, always.
Amen. 

--The Rev. Susannah DeBenedetto, from LiturgyLink.

The Morning-Watch

O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow’rs 
And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds! 
All the long hours 
Of night, and rest, 
Through the still shrouds 
Of sleep, and clouds,
This dew fell on my breast;
Oh, how it bloods
And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings 
And hymning circulations the quick world 
Awakes and sings; 
The rising winds
And falling springs,
Birds, beasts, all things
Adore him in their kinds. 
Thus all is hurl’d 
In sacred hymns and order, the great chime
And symphony of nature. Prayer is 
The world in tune, 
A spirit voice,
And vocal joys
Whose echo is heav’n’s bliss. 
O let me climb
When I lie down!The pious soul by night
Is like a clouded star whose beams, though said 
To shed their light
Under some cloud,
Yet are above,
And shine and move
Beyond that misty shroud.
So in my bed,
That curtain’d grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide
My lamp and life, both shall in thee abide.

--Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) Welsh poet and inspiration for the Oxford Movement

Caedmon's Hymn

Nu sculon herigean      heofonrices Weard 
Meotodes meahte      and his modgepanc, 
weorc Wuldor-Fæder,      swa he wundra gehwæs 
ece Drihten      or onstealde 
He ærest sceop      ielda bearnum 
Heofon to hrofe      halig Scyppend 
ða middangeard      moncynnes Weard, 
ece Drihten      æfter teode 
firum foldan      Frea ælmihtig

Now we ought to praise     the Guardian of the heavenly kingdom,
The might of the Creator     and his conception,
The work of the glorious Father,     as he of each of the wonders,
Eternal Lord,     established the beginning.
He first created     for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof,     holy Creator;
Then the middle-earth,     the Guardian of mankind,
The eternal Lord,     afterwards made
The earth for men,     the Lord almighty.

--Caedmon ( 7th Century CE) monk of Whitby and former cowherd who was commanded in a dream to "sing to me the beginning of all things," acclaimed as one of the greatest English poets of his age by the Venerable Bede, written between 658 and 680 CE, translated from Old English by Elaine Traherne.

A different translation is offered here:

Praise we the fashioner now of Heaven's fabric,
The majesty of his might and his mind's wisdom,
Work of the world-warden, worker of all wonders,
How he the Lord of Glory everlasting
wrought first for the race of men Heaven as a roof-tree,
Then made he middle-earth to be their mansion.


Photo: Whitby Abbey ruins, Whitby, from the British Library

Corsons Inlet

I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning

to the sea,

then turned right along

   the surf

                         rounded a naked headland

                         and returned

   along the inlet shore:

it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,   

crisp in the running sand,

       some breakthroughs of sun

   but after a bit

continuous overcast:

the walk liberating, I was released from forms,   

from the perpendiculars,

      straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds

of thought

into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends   

               of sight:

                         I allow myself eddies of meaning:   

yield to a direction of significance

running

like a stream through the geography of my work:   

   you can find

in my sayings

                         swerves of action

                         like the inlet’s cutting edge:

               there are dunes of motion,

organizations of grass, white sandy paths of remembrance   

in the overall wandering of mirroring mind:

but Overall is beyond me: is the sum of these events

I cannot draw, the ledger I cannot keep, the accounting

beyond the account:

in nature there are few sharp lines: there are areas of   

primrose

       more or less dispersed;

disorderly orders of bayberry; between the rows

of dunes,

irregular swamps of reeds,

though not reeds alone, but grass, bayberry, yarrow, all ...

predominantly reeds:

I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries,   

shutting out and shutting in, separating inside

          from outside: I have

          drawn no lines:

          as

manifold events of sand

change the dune’s shape that will not be the same shape   

tomorrow,

so I am willing to go along, to accept   

the becoming

thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends, establish   

         no walls:

by transitions the land falls from grassy dunes to creek   

to undercreek: but there are no lines, though

       change in that transition is clear

       as any sharpness: but “sharpness” spread out,   

allowed to occur over a wider range

than mental lines can keep:

the moon was full last night: today, low tide was low:   

black shoals of mussels exposed to the risk

of air

and, earlier, of sun,

waved in and out with the waterline, waterline inexact,   

caught always in the event of change:   

       a young mottled gull stood free on the shoals

       and ate

to vomiting: another gull, squawking possession, cracked a crab,   

picked out the entrails, swallowed the soft-shelled legs, a ruddy

turnstone running in to snatch leftover bits:

risk is full: every living thing in

siege: the demand is life, to keep life: the small

white blacklegged egret, how beautiful, quietly stalks and spears

               the shallows, darts to shore

                            to stab—what? I couldn’t

       see against the black mudflats—a frightened

       fiddler crab?

               the news to my left over the dunes and

reeds and bayberry clumps was

               fall: thousands of tree swallows

               gathering for flight:

               an order held

               in constant change: a congregation

rich with entropy: nevertheless, separable, noticeable

          as one event,

                      not chaos: preparations for

flight from winter,

cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, wings rifling the green clumps,

beaks

at the bayberries

    a perception full of wind, flight, curve,

    sound:

    the possibility of rule as the sum of rulelessness:

the “field” of action

with moving, incalculable center:

in the smaller view, order tight with shape:

blue tiny flowers on a leafless weed: carapace of crab:

snail shell:

            pulsations of order

            in the bellies of minnows: orders swallowed,   

broken down, transferred through membranes

to strengthen larger orders: but in the large view, no

lines or changeless shapes: the working in and out, together   

            and against, of millions of events: this,

                         so that I make

                         no form of

                         formlessness:

orders as summaries, as outcomes of actions override   

or in some way result, not predictably (seeing me gain   

the top of a dune,

the swallows

could take flight—some other fields of bayberry   

            could enter fall

            berryless) and there is serenity:

            no arranged terror: no forcing of image, plan,

or thought:

no propaganda, no humbling of reality to precept:

terror pervades but is not arranged, all possibilities   

of escape open: no route shut, except in   

   the sudden loss of all routes:

            I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will   

not run to that easy victory:

            still around the looser, wider forces work:

            I will try

       to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening   

scope, but enjoying the freedom that

Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision,   

that I have perceived nothing completely,

that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk.

--A R Ammons (1923-2001),American poet and National Book Award Winner in 1973 and 1993 from the Selected Poems, 1988

Praise Song for a Bright Winter's Day

As morning light gilds the heavens,
drawing an azure veil over the dancing stars,
we praise you, O God.

As noonday sun makes shadows disappear,
we think of your steadfast love beside us,
through whatever may come,
and we praise you, O God.

Though winter chill abides with us still,
we hear the whispered promise of spring
as the dry branches murmur their secret
of abundant green life rising, surging,
deep within their veins,
and we wonder in awe of your mysteries,
O Lord of Creation.

As evening sets the sky alight,
catching fire to the wingtips of darting sparrows
whose trills of joy stir an echo of hope
even within the winter heart,
we remember your tender care, O Holy One,
your watchful eye on the smallest creature,
and we praise your steadfast lovingkindness.

Even as the shoulder of Earth
turns toward night with a sigh,
like a sleeper settling deeper into dreams,
so we too rest secure, Blessed Savior,
within the bounds of your mercy,
and ask for your healing hand
to rest upon the brow of all for whom we pray
by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

--LKS, February 8, 2019