Alexandersmap

    Category: Poetry

    • What Shape Waits in the Seed of You?

      Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
      toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
      what urgency calls you to your one love?
      What shape waits in the seed of you
      to grow and spread its branches
      against a future sky?
      Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
      In the trees beyond the house?
      In the life you can imagine for yourself?
      In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
      – David Whyte      , ‘What to Remember When Waking‘

      We get lost in the person we told ourselves we’d be today when we were someone else yesterday. To-do lists and created obligations conspire to hold you to what your scheduled to be. There’s a future you being created in that schedule that should make you burst out of bed with excitement. But waiting a beat or two to listen to the calling informs.

      I’ve mentioned before that I do a one line per day entry at the end of the day. I sometimes wake up thinking about it, contemplating how I might make the line worthy of the ink. Worthy of the day crossed off the short list of days we have on this earth.

      Morning writing forces the hand, you might say. It forces you to reconcile the whispers before getting to those other things. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to figure out what that voice is actually saying in your ear. And when you hear it, what then? Does it chafe against that which you’ve planned for yourself?

      The beginning of the day sets our course based on the conditions and circumstances we find ourselves in. We know where we’d like to go, but must reconcile it with our current reality. With our previous expectations for ourselves, set on the calendar. The question is whether we’ve left ourselves the room to grow into that future sky. The answer, like the question, lingers in that quiet, solitary moment.

    • Freeze and Thaw

      In the dark time of the year.
      Between melting and freezing
      The soul’s sap quivers.
      – T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

      There are more famous lines from this poem, but this is the time of sap buckets and lines run between maple trees in New England, so forgive me for straying from the popular. For these are the days of freezing and thawing – a confused mix of awakening and nature turning a cold shoulder on us. A reminder that warmer days are coming but we aren’t there just yet.

      And so it is with the vaccine and a pandemic that hasn’t quite finished its business with us, despite casual disregard and letting up of guards. We aren’t quite there, but surely we’re closer. So persevere; for we’ll get through the darkness, together in our isolation.

      Eliot wrote Little Gidding during the darkest days of the Blitz, set it aside in dissatisfaction and returned to it again to publish it during slightly brighter days in 1942. Who would ever think of 1942 as brighter days? Someone who lived through the Blitz of 1940-41 I suppose.

      So who are we to complain about a turn to colder days just as the sun began to warm us once again? Who are we to complain about wearing a mask for just a bit longer? Are we that precious and self-absorbed? Focus on the brighter days ahead, but stay the course in the meantime.

      As the snow and ice retreats for another season, the mud rises to meet our favorite footwear in a cold, gooey grip. The warmest days bring swirls of bugs celebrating their brief dance with life. And we, the comfortable masses, find reasons to complain about the mud and bugs and even the miraculously fast release of vaccines to the world that just seem a bit too slow. For all the joy of thaw, we seem to prefer the angst of freeze.

      Spring is upon us, despite it all. The sap flows with each freeze and thaw, and drips slowly into buckets. Drop by drop, the buckets fill. It’s the only way, really. You can’t very well cut the tree in half to pour out the sap. Not if you hope to have another season anyway. No, progress is slow that way. And offers lessons in patience and perseverance. Of going with the flow and staying the course.

    • Something More

      “The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” Neil Gaiman

      This rather cheery quote by Gaiman prompts a challenge of sorts from me. For making something isn’t what makes the world brighter, making something you care about making is what brightens the world. For in the making of something in such a way you honor the world with your contribution.

      As Gaiman rightly points out, we’re lovingly placing something that wasn’t there before out in the world for it to embrace. Will it fly or get lost in the noise? It’s not up to us to decide. It’s up to us to create it and set it free. And then to get back to the business of building another beacon.

      The best of our work becomes accretive rather than reductive. Look around, there’s plenty of people creating hateful, mean-spirited work that divides and diminishes the world. But not us, no: we offer something more. Something that resonates across the table and across time. For the very best work becomes timeless.

      So what makes something timeless? I believe it’s the deep connection between two people that your work represents. Paint placed just so on canvas. Architecture that stirs the heart generations after the last stones were laid. Words that transcend the author or poet and connect one soul to another. This is what brightens the world. This is the shining soul beacon of the artist that keeps hope alive, like a Fresnel lens lights the distance in a turbulent dark sea:

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
      – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

      “Tell me, what is it you plan to do
      with your one wild and precious life?”
      – Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

      “If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”
      – Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

      “This above all: to thine own self be true,
      And it must follow, as the night the day,
      Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
      – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

      All words across time, offering a path through the darkness in the world. Offering hope and direction and illumination. This is something more. And this is our opportunity too. Great artists are ambassadors to the world, bridge builders to the future, and infinite soul connectors. That’s something to aspire to.

    • What You Are Not

      In order to arrive at what you are not
      You must go through the way in which you are not.
      And what you do not know is the only thing you know
      And what you own is what you do not own
      And where you are is where you are not.
      – T.S. Eliot, East Coker

      This is the way: we march on through the unknown, discovering the world and ourselves in each step. That’s part of getting older and, too infrequently, wiser. We don’t know our identity until we’ve reached beyond that which we’ve done before. Life is the sorting it all out part in between steps. Knowing with certainty that this thing is not my thing. But maybe the next thing is… or maybe not.

      I know I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that the more we learn and grow and experience, the more we recognize ourselves in the patterns and energy around us. The more we encounter that which is not us, the more we seek another way. Life is learning to navigate the channel even when it isn’t clearly marked. You experience a few bumps along the way but you don’t sink unless you’re reckless.

      If we have any freedom at all eventually we stumble into uncharted territory. Some turn right around and go back to where they came from, trusting the familiar over the uncertain. But life changes around you whether you’re a willing participant or not. So embrace the things you don’t know and revel in the discovery.

      You can’t possibly know what being a parent is like until you’ve had children. And you can’t really understand until you’ve nudged them through each stage of their own lives. I say this knowingly, but also knowing what I don’t know as they grow beyond the previously familiar. And so we learn together and embrace the unknown.

      This is just the next step in the journey for each of us. We all reached the pandemic and experienced the changes it made in us. Some grew, others crawled to darker places. But we were all transformed over twelve months and will be again as we rediscover the changes in those we once thought we knew. If it wasn’t the pandemic it would have been graduations or career changes or major life events. Change is part of the game.

      Where you were is not where you are now. And so it follows that where you are is where you are not going to be soon enough. Accept that for what it is and step boldly into the unknown. For there you’ll find yourself.

    • Trust Our Heaviness

      How surely gravity’s law,
      strong as an ocean current,
      takes hold of the smallest thing
      and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

      Each thing—
      each stone, blossom, child —
      is held in place.
      Only we, in our arrogance,
      push out beyond what we each belong to
      for some empty freedom.

      If we surrendered
      to earth’s intelligence
      we could rise up rooted, like trees.

      Instead we entangle ourselves
      in knots of our own making
      and struggle, lonely and confused.

      So like children, we begin again
      to learn from the things,
      because they are in God’s heart;
      they have never left him.

      This is what the things can teach us:
      to fall,
      patiently to trust our heaviness.
      Even a bird has to do that
      before he can fly.
      by Rainer Maria Rilke, How Surely Gravity’s Law

      It’s been a long time since I posted an entire poem, but Rilke’s demands a full reading. And if I were bolder I might just leave it there by itself, instead of injecting my own commentary on the world. But a blog (to me) necessarily demands contribution not simply reposting. And so my own words dare to follow Rilke’s, reaching for a place at the table.

      The key word in the poem is surrendered: to earth’s intelligence, to God’s heart if you will, to our own heaviness. You realize your imperfection and embrace it. In doing so you recognize the entanglements and struggles in others. You accept them for what they are as well. And learn to trust others and most of all your own voice.

      You reach a point in life where you let go of it all and to stop worrying about place and whether you’ve earned it. You stop worrying about everything, really. The work remains, but the will is stronger. You’ve rooted yourself to things tangible and true and begin to rise up.

      To push out beyond. Grounded. And anchored so, we begin to fly.

    • We Must Be Still and Still Moving

      Old men ought to be explorers
      Here and there does not matter
      We must be still and still moving
      Into another intensity
      For a further union, a deeper communion
      Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
      The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
      Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
      – T.S. Eliot, East Coker

      Beginning at the end as I do in quoting this masterpiece is admittedly the easy path, but seems appropriate given the context. I’m roughly where TS Eliot was when he wrote East Coker – middle of life (hopefully). Or maybe just past the middle. But who’s counting? Days are days, and here and there does not matter. Time will tell, as it always does.

      This blogger has settled into this rhythm of still and still moving. Moments of quiet contemplation, deep reading and exploration interspersed too infrequently with mountaintop adventures and faraway places. Thoughts of past exploration and schemes of future possibility fill the mind, and are betrayed by more than a few posts. We aren’t sharks, always moving, but humans immersed in life in all its complexity. The thoughtful wrestle with the same ideas, the masses distract themselves with media and games.

      Old folks ought to be explorers. And us not-so-old folks too. We ought to be out seeing the world, exploring vast waters and rounding bends. Bridging gaps in language and understanding and toasting the folly of it all with old and newfound friends. Catching a sideways glance and throwing it back. Dancing in celebration and settling into deep conversations. We will again, we see that now. Where will you go? What will you do with the time you’re given?

      This human journey leads to another, more intense place, or perhaps merely to stillness. Who are we to know, really? Do you choose logic or faith? Which is the real leap? Our path is one of tapping our potential, to struggle and explore the darkest and brightest days alike. To make the best we can of ourselves. To turn it all over and understand where we came from. This seems to me the way, for the end is the beginning. In some ways, we’ve known that all along, haven’t we?

      Beginning

    • The Heart of the Bay

      Nobody owns the sky or the trees.
      Nobody owns the hearts of birds.
      Still, being human and partial therefore to my own
      successes—
      though not resentful of others fashioning theirs—
      I’ll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early.
      – Mary Oliver, Winter and the Nuthatch

      Oliver writes of building trust with a nuthatch that eventually learns to eat out of her hand. One morning she arrives later than other mornings only to find her nuthatch friend eating from another person’s hand. And thus she resolves to arrive earlier the next morning. I’ve felt this myself, not with birds in the hand so much as places of solitude.

      Early Spring is still a time of hard frosts and temperature swings. Maple syrup weather – when the sap flows and gathers in buckets around Maple trees throughout the region. But not here. Cape Cod is more temperate, not subject to the extremes that draw the sap out. And then there’s the trees themselves, which seem to prefer the other side of the bridges. No, here we have a different sap drawn out in the early mornings. And I’m drawn to the light and the chorus.

      Buzzards Bay, well before the dawn, is awash in deep blues and burnt orange and the calls of thousands of Eider Ducks off in the distance. They have a lot to say to each other. It must be breeding season for these migratory birds. They didn’t pay much attention to the stranger on land, and I let them alone in their banter and flirting. The chorus felt altogether different from the bay in warmer months, when outboard engines of fishermen roaring off to favorite holes pierce the silence. Eiders quickly become white noise as I refocus on the task at hand.

      I crunched across a deep frost, leaving footprints in the grass on my walk to the shoreline. Low tide drew me out further into the bay, right to the waters edge quietly lapping in quiet surges like a heart beat. The bay is alive in this way. Alive in its vibrant, nutrient-rich, welcoming way. It pulls at me as it pulls at the Eider ducks, down from northern regions for their version of Spring Break. I suppose I am as well, looking for a change of scenery from New Hampshire to Buzzards Bay. For a return to salt water reflections and big skies.

      The chorus of Eiders ends with the sun breaking the horizon. Mating time gives way to feeding time. I leave the shoreline myself, for I’m not adorned in the down of a duck and the morning chills me in lingering too long. Hot coffee and inadequate words await me, with the glow of the morning alive in my mind.

      Buzzards Bay

    • To Roam the Roads of Lands Remote

      “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
      To gain all while you give,
      To roam the roads of lands remote,
      To travel is to live.”
      – Hans Christian Andersen

      Good God I’m ready to roam remote lands again. Exploring faraway places in a world that has shaken off the pandemic and opens its arms in welcome. We aren’t there just yet, we know, but every day we get a bit closer. A year into this and I’m chomping at the bit for the quirky randomness of faraway travel.

      Such thoughts are low agency conspiracies, for the world is right outside, awaiting our arrival. Crossing borders to lands remote may be just out of reach, but crossing thresholds is still very possible. And so the question isn’t the roaming, the question is the focus. I can row a million meters away (and be a different person when I arrive) right in my house, I can time travel in the chair behind me, and I can fly above the earth on snowshoes just outside the door.

      The secret all along? To push through our own borders, wherever we are, is to live. To become by working through. To move. To breathe… to gain all while you give.

    • What Is

      “What is left
      is what is.”
      – Wendell Berry, The Broken Ground

      Lingering soreness from a long winter hike and tackling a foot of snow with a snowblower that quite halfway through the task, leaving only shovels to overcome mechanical obstinance. Fatigue, not all of it in muscles, wished me a good morning with a smirk.

      Looking out the window, I saw the tip of a snow drift dropping down from the roof, as if a wave frozen in the middle of its break. This naturally lured me outside for a look, which led to a walkabout, which led to slipping on snowshoes for a walk in the deep snow out to the bird feeders at the edge of the woods. Silently carving my two foot path across the yard, nothing but the rubbing clumpy sound that cold snow makes when compressed. One foot in front of the other, out and back, feeders filled. Were the yard only longer, for I wasn’t quite ready to finish.

      The feeders were wiped out by Starlings. Greedy, sloppy eaters who cast away seed by the shovelful to get at the dried fruit and other choice treats they favor. What’s left is an empty feeder and a mess on the snowy ground that is gobbled up by squirrels and Mourning Doves and other such ground feeders. The food is there for this purpose, so do I have a right to complain? Only at the waste and frenzied emptying. I can either pause feeding until they find somewhere else to ransack or tolerate the intrusion. But once you commit to feeding the birds you can’t very well stop after a heavy snowstorm.

      For all the dry sameness of the inside of the house, outdoors offers something new at every turn. The second morning after a big snowfall lacks the drama of tackling the job at hand, but it makes up for it with time to have a look around. To see what’s changed. To assess the landscape and yourself. To see what’s left. What is.

    • In the Grace of the World

      “When despair for the world grows in me
      and I wake in the night at the least sound
      in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
      I go and lie down where the wood drake
      rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
      I come into the peace of wild things
      who do not tax their lives with forethought
      of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
      And I feel above me the day-blind stars
      waiting with their light. For a time
      I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
      – Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

      The iPhone is a blessing and a curse, for all that it brings. Sometimes you want to be away from the made up frenzy of short traders and politicians and debates about which quarterback is best (long since answered).  Great for a picture and for safety in a pinch, but best left stowed away the rest of the time. I used to post pictures while I was still on the summit of a mountain, for that we’re here! moment. But the act of posting takes you out of the moment, and so I leave it be until later in the day locked in as a memory of what was. #saveitforlater

      Walks outside in quiet places serve the body, but mostly the mind. Free from the frenzy we create for ourselves. One notification at a time, relentlessly poking a hole in your soul. What have we done to ourselves with all of these pings and vibrations? Pavlov couldn’t have dreamed up a more diabolical experiment in self-torture.

      “To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind, you come to your senses.” – Alan Watts

      The wind shakes the house and reminds me to bundle up. January days are short in New Hampshire, so you’ve got to get creative with your time in the grace of the world. The edges of the day work, and sometimes, dog-less as I am at the moment, late night star-gazing walks with a flashlight or headlamp to fill in the blanks and keep stray cars at bay.

      I’ve learned to pause longer. To fill the void with more silence. To quiet the mind and seek out small pockets of stillness. Time flies by anyway, but it feels like yours once again. Isn’t it, in the end? Step outside. Find the stillness. It’s out there waiting for you.