Alexandersmap

    Category: Poetry

    • Our Quiet Proximity

      Oh good scholar,
      I say to myself,
      how can you help

      but grow wise
      with such teachings
      as these—
      the untrimmable light

      of the world,
      the ocean’s shine,
      the prayers that are made
      out of grass?
      — Mary Oliver, Mindful

      Yesterday I watched a skunk shuffle along in that skunky way, sniffing and moving through the neighborhood. Bad break for those of us with dogs, and a reminder for us to be more aware. Dogs have no problem being aware, and boldly curious, which is why they end up on the wrong end of skunks all too often.

      On that very same walk, I watched a snapping turtle glide underwater in the stream as I walked over the bridge. The turtle is an active participant in the stream—I’ve seen her before, seen where she had buried her eggs, and expect I might see her every time I walk. But sometimes I see the blue heron instead, or the river otter, or the ducks moving through the slow August current. These characters aren’t fond of spectators hovering over them on the bridge, so I’ve learned to ease up slowly and glance discreetly down. And so has the pup.

      On the day that my father passed from this world, I remained very much a part of it, fully aware of what surrounded me. That we should rush through life without noticing the blessings around us is the curse of a busy mind. If my long goodbye with my father taught me anything, it was to appreciate the gift of presence for all it offers. It’s not a eureka moment, it’s a lingering awareness of all that is and will be in our quiet proximity. The light of the world continues to shine through in unexpected ways, simply awaiting our notice.

    • Small and Transitory Grapes

      How the clock moves on, relentlessly,
      with such assurance that it eats the years.
      The days are small and transitory grapes,
      the months grow faded, taken out of time.

      It fades, it falls away, the moment, fired
      by that implacable artillery—
      and suddenly, only a year is left of us,
      a month, a day, and death turns up in the diary.

      No one could ever stop the water’s flowing;
      nor thought nor love has ever held it back.
      It has run on through suns and other beings,
      its passing rhythm signifying our death.

      Until, in the end, we fall in time, exhausted,
      and it takes us, and that’s it. Then we are dead,
      dragged off with no being left, no life, no darkness,
      no dust, no words. That is what it comes to;
      and in the city where we’ll live no more,
      all is left empty; our clothing and our pride.
      — Pablo Neruda, And the City Now Has Gone

      Life, dear reader! We must live in our time, while there is time. That’s always been the message: Tempus fugit. Memento mori. Carpe diem. Time flies. Remember we all must die. Seize the day.

      We must remember our days are short and use the highlighter with abandon. Sprinkle these moments zestfully with awareness and joyful intent. Do what must be done immediately! For tomorrow is not our day. We believe it to be so at our peril.

      This blog will one day end. That it continues at all is an indication of the stubborn persistence of the writer. It’s merely bread crumbs placed gently in line, one after the other, marking the hour or two of who I was in the moment. These moments pass, and what is left are some memories, maybe a photograph, and some words published for all to see if they somehow stumble upon this impossibly hard to find jumble of words. But we bloggers know that the universe isn’t shifting its attention to see what our thoughts were today. The ego thus shattered, we shift our own purpose to growth, where it should have been all along.

      Words flow through us like days in a lifetime. These small and transitory grapes have found you today. But where will the writer be on this occasion? Somewhere further along, or fallen by the wayside—who’s to know? We can hope for a better place of awareness and refinement, but we know the score. It’s best to simply release these words of who we were today and not worry about tomorrows. We must each do what we can with this time, for we all know the score.

    • A Quiet State of Being

      If I had another life
      I would want to spend it all on some
      unstinting happiness.

      I would be a fox, or a tree
      full of waving branches.
      I wouldn’t mind being a rose
      in a field full of roses.

      Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
      Reason they have not yet thought of.
      Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
      Or any foolish question.
      — Mary Oliver, Roses, Late Summer

      The heat of summer has propelled the growth of the Musa zebrina (blood banana) plants. Bananas have no business growing in Zone 5 New Hampshire, but they don’t follow the rules layed down by zones any more than I do. I’ve had these blood bananas for more than a decade. I bring them out after the danger of frost, patiently wait for signs of life, and watch them reach for the sky when the days grow long and hot. The season is too short for them to produce blossoms, but long enough for them to thrive in their time before I reluctantly drag them back to the cellar to winter over yet again.

      My bride and I were talking about everything that’s happened this summer, and everything that will happen if things go according to plan (we know how plans go, but we also know that some things never happen without a plan). Life is moving along thusly, and we are swept up in the current of being. We are where we are, doing what we believe we should be doing, one blessed day at a time. We may thrive in our time, or simply dance with the days as best we can while we have them. We determine what we can, and accept that whatever will be will be.

      So many people work so very hard to be happy. As if you could earn happiness by how much money you make or how many likes you have from your latest post on social media. Happiness is not an objective, it’s flows from us as a byproduct of purposeful, engaged living. Purposeful in turn is simply moving with awareness towards something. Those potted bananas are trapped in pots, reliant on my inclination to save them from dying of thirst or a killing frost. Yet they dance in the sun each summer day anyway. Are they happy? Or simply living a quiet state of being in the time that they are given?

    • Perfectly Reasonable Reasons

      “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” — Mary Oliver

      It’s always the poets and the artists who draw our attention away from the straight and narrow path. And if we ever need a poem to call us out and force us to reassess what we’re focused on, reading Mary Oliver’s Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches in the quiet time before the world awakens to demand we fall in line will do the trick. We listen at our peril, for to do so is to shatter the illusion that this life we’ve wrapped around ourselves in this protective shell is enough.

      How long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters, caution and prudence?
      Fall in! Fall in!

      What are we doing with our time? Have we noticed, even as we’ve entered the height of summer, that the days are growing shorter? We must venture to the tingly work now. What is bold and a little scary? What are we truly working on but clever excuses and perfectly reasonable reasons for not leaping? Do we really believe the audacious life will sit in the corner awaiting our approval?

      What do we see? What do we seek? Go to it. For our time grows ever shorter. May this day leave us breathless with wonder at what we’ve done with the time.

    • Being Mad in a Prudent World

      “Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.” — Rumi

      We are too often prudent. We like to think ourselves mad, but we gradually move back to doing what is expected of us, what is logical, what will pay the bills and such. When all along our wild side cries for release. Do you still hear the cry, or has it been smothered to death?

      I’m not suggesting we each take the sum of our 401(k)’s and put it all in at the craps table, merely that we stray off the straight and narrow more often. Do what nobody ever expected of us now and then, just to keep them from believing they have us figured out. We are more than the expectations others that have of us—at least we ought to be.

      We stack our experiences neatly in a line, one day to the next. Towards the middle, we start to see a trend as our collection of experiences become our identity. This is who I am is as powerful an anchor as any. To slip that anchor in favor of this is who I will be is a scary proposition. And this is why most people never sail beyond that safe harbor. They reach the end of their days wondering where they might have gone but for a little courage to weigh that anchor and set the sails for adventure.

      I see my light come shining
      From the west unto the east.
      Any day now, any day now,
      I shall be released.
      — Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Released

      A blog is a form of expression. Perhaps it’s a way to let the cries have their say, or to document the gradual release of this writer from the anchors that once held him firmly in place. There’s far more to say and do, and following the heading of who we will be is easier said than done. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are we, friend. The voyage begins with each step away from prudent, towards what once seemed quite mad. We find that what was prudent at anchor is mad when we’ve sailed beyond who we once were.

    • The Incredible Gift

      And under the trees, beyond time’s brittle drift,
      I stood like Adam in his lonely garden
      On that first morning, shaken out of sleep,
      Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,
      Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.
      — Mary Oliver, Morning in a New Land

      I’m nearing the end with my father, I can see that clearly now. In some ways our time ended years ago, back when we lost him to another life. And then we lost him again when his mind began to fail him, and you no longer recall the last time he said your name, because maybe your own memory betrays you in the recollection. Dementia is a bastard in this way, stealing the lives of people well before the heart stops beating. But eventually the heart will stop beating too. It won’t be long now.

      We may live in the present, but we still carry the past. Whatever it is that we carry is part of who we are, wherever it is that we are going. We may choose to release some things to lighten our load, or to hold on to memories that feel like someone else’s story the further we move away from them. Memories drift with the winds of time, offering glimpses of who we once were, like some movie that we watch again and again even though we know how it ends. When memory ends, does the story end with it? I think that those with dementia have had their burden released to those they leave behind—their memories are now only for others to carry.

      Life is this incredible gift, too often wasted on frivolous distractions, or perhaps we believe they are harnessed in relentless pursuit. But tell me, the pursuit of what? The gift is the present itself, whatever it’s wrapped up in. We must savor the days for what they bring. Even this. The long goodbye is its own gift, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.

      Amor fati: love of fate. It’s easy to say these words, harder to live by them. We cannot control what fate brings us, we can only accept it and do the best we can on the test. For the sun will rise again, and we must carry on. The miracle remains that we were ever here at all.

    • Some Palpable Pursuit

      Jack London drinking his life away while
      writing of strange and heroic men.
      Eugene O’Neil drinking himself oblivious
      while writing his dark and poetic
      works.

      now our moderns
      lecture at universities
      in tie and suit,
      the little boys soberly studious
      the little girls with glazed eyes
      looking
      up,
      the lawns so green, the books so dull,
      the life so dying of
      thirst.
      —Charles Bukowski, the replacements

      Do interesting things. There’s no other way to quench a thirst for living. Do something interesting today that you hadn’t even considered when you woke up this morning. Leap into the unknown and see where it takes you.

      I haven’t had a drink in 16 days. Not for any reason but deciding that this was a good time to try something different. To abstain from something isn’t anything more than a decision acted upon. Decide what to be and go be it. I’ll likely have a drink again someday, because that habit doesn’t rule my life, it simply spritzes it with effervescence. It turns out ice water is a decent spritz in the moment. We learn as we grow into new experiences. To challenge everything we believe is necessary is to open our minds to new possibilities.

      Honestly, I get like this sometimes, where I’ll simply stop doing something just to see how it feels to not do it anymore. And replace it with something else. A year ago I was cycling like mad trying to meet one challenge I’d set for myself. This year the goal isn’t distance but duration. To simply turn my days upside down from what they were a couple of weeks ago. The healthier character I’m becoming is a nice side benefit, if still incomplete. Naturally, there’s still work to be done. And isn’t character development a joyful pursuit?

      Changes become habits, and habits become identity. Don’t like your identity? Change your habits. Life doesn’t have to be a tedious march to the end, and it doesn’t have to be a drunken stumble awash in distraction from the inevitable. We may choose to be alive and engaged in some palpable pursuit. Mine isn’t to stop drinking, and it’s not to exercise more, though both are occurring in the same timeframe. Mine is to quench a thirst for new experiences and to see who emerges on the other side. And sure, to reflect on it in words formed of this emerging identity.

    • Put It to Words

      “Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such” ― Henry Miller

      Some mornings I don’t do anything right away. Nothing but let the pup out, feed the h’angry cats, step outside and settle into silent appreciation for the day as it is. Busy will come soon enough. Productive sometimes joins busy to offer a leap forward. And that can be enough some days. Having done some things, we feel that familiar pull to do something even more still.

      The trick in all of this is observation. We must listen more than we speak (two ears, one mouth). And we must learn to see what is dancing right in front of us, for it is life in all its tragic, hilarious, glorious entirety. And Walt Whitman had it right all along: That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

      That verse doesn’t write itself. I have some avid hiker friends who would do well to blog. To put their thoughts and feelings to words that would outlive their adventures traversing the granite and schist. Writing pulls something out of us that pictures don’t, even as they tell their thousand words. For those thousand words are mined from within, and brought to the surface to be shared.

      A woman I once worked with took a creative writing class and now every social media post is a beautiful postcard to the world of her early morning walks around the north shore of Massachusetts. The only reason to ever go on social media is to see what someone is doing with their brief go at things in this world—why not post something beautiful? Whatever our choice of expression, we do well by sharing our very best observations with others, that they may see what in that moment was only ours.

      These days I’m inclined to soak up everything for all it offers, yet I keep choosing that dance of busy and productive. One can have both, if each moment is approached with intent. These days will soon be over like all the rest before. What have we got to say about our encounter with it? Put it to words, friend. And share it with a world looking for something beautiful previously hidden from them.

    • To Be Filled

      When I am among the trees,

      especially the willows and the honey locust,

      equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

      they give off such hints of gladness,

      I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

      I am so distant from the hope of myself,

      in which I have goodness, and discernment,

      and never hurry through the world

      but walk slowly, and bow often.

      Around me the trees stir in their leaves

      and call out, “Stay awhile.”

      The light flows from their branches.

      And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

      “and you too have come

      into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
      with light, and to shine.”
      — Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees

      This morning it’s raining again.

      For the thirteenth Saturday in a row, I might add.

      Breaking a record, I’m told, for consecutive weekends of rainy Saturdays.

      And even though I’d rather have the sun warm my face and draw my tomato vines to the sky, I don’t mind a rainy morning. If only for the sounds it brings to the forest. If only for the quiet it brings to an otherwise busy mind.

      We may choose how to face each day. My inclination to shine may seem out of step with the times, but it’s my day to face in whatever way I decide to face it. To bring light to darkness is a choice, just as it is a choice to bring darkness to light. How we bring balance back to the world is determined by the collective, but I’ll go on shining as best I can in my time.

      Filled with light, I’m inclined to share it.

    • To Love the Expanse Between Us

      “The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
      ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

      My bride likes things I shake my head at. Things like programs about serial killers and home remodeling. Those things may not sound similar but in my mind they’re essentially the same thing—innocent people lured into tragic consequences, played out for all to see. She also gushes about shark week all year. It’s can’t-miss programming for her. All programming aspires to be shark week when they grow up. Nothing but bites and blood and thin plot lines with cliffhangers just before the next commercial break. Stop me if you think you’ve seen this one before.

      Me? I’m in the other room reading a book. Or watching a sailing video, or researching the next trip where I’ll force(!) my bride out of her comfort zone doing daring things that involve heights she wants nothing to do with, or daring cross-country escapades that require sleeping in a different bed every night and a willingness to try new foods. No lying on a quiet beach for this vagabond. Not when the maps are full of blank-to-me spaces.

      In short, we’re very different in many ways, yet similar in other ways. Do we focus on the gaps between us, or the things that draw us together? The answer to that determines a happy marriage or a miserable eternal slog praying for the end of time, as Meatloaf used to sing, rest his soul, back when paradise was nothing but a fling illuminated by the dashboard lights. Good luck keeping a marriage going on that illusion. That car better be tuned up, topped off and fitted with new tires, for the journey is long. But isn’t anything worthwhile?

      We reach a point where living side-by-side grows comfortable. We can go an entire drive without saying a word but simply appreciate the time together. We learn to listen for clues hidden in small spaces, and ask questions that get right to the point. Marriage is a journey through time, but also across distance. We’ll never fully close the gap, but why would we ever want to? Be as you are, and give me the space to do the same. That’s where a lifetime together is nurtured. Life isn’t infinite, but it can be marvelous.