Leaves, waiting, cling to cold branches
on trees beside a watercourse,
restless, brittle, resolute.
They twirl in solemn anticipation,
green life gone; spring breath lost –
swift passing season.
Brilliant light sweeps across frozen mesquite and sage,
gathers in rock, cliff, wash, basin,
severs – quiet, unknown mystery – the last hold.
They come down – wintry life swirling in the desert wind.
___________________
Reno, Nevada – 1989
Creativity as Gift
“We can’t predict the fruits of our labor; we can’t even know if we’ll really go through with it. Gratitude requires an unpaid debt, and we will be motivated to proceed only so long as the debt is felt.” (pp. 65-66)
“Having accepted what has been given to him – either in the sense of inspiration or in the sense of talent – the artist often feels compelled, feels the desire, to make the work and offer it to an audience. The gift must stay in motion….Mary Sarton writes: ‘There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one’s gift to those one loves most…The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.'” (pp. 188-189)
C
From The Gift – Lewis Hyde
Mr. Hyde’s book is a “defense of the value of creativity.” It is not only for the dedicated writer or artist, but for any of us who believe that creativity and gift is at the heart of our being and flourishing in our circumstances. When we cease to create, in our own unique ways, and when we cease to offer our creation or give it away, we lose our heart, our compassion, and we begin to feel that there is not enough anymore, so that we must hoard what little or much we possess. Creation is the understanding that there is more, always more, and giving it away brings the increase.
Advent Mouse
Some years, Advent arrives quietly
like a mouse who hides behind walls
leaving behind crumbs of rain swept days,
nights when the moon passed through broken clouds,
warm evenings and starlit mornings.
Other years Advent arrives like a crazy mouse
who runs back and forth before our eyes
during a well-planned and lit cocktail party.
We were not ready for him –
his perfect absurdity and his insouciant bravura.
We excuse him to our guests who stand on chairs
hoping they will forgive us and return some day.
This year? That wild mouse!
The extraordinary mouse who assails the year
with babies, houses, and sickness;
awakenings in the night,
hammering in the daylight.
We opened the door of the new year and in he ran.
There was little we could do but watch and scamper from chair to chair.
Seattle, Washington – December 2006
Advent – For Our Enemies
It is now the solemn season of peace
when we wait for the Holy One;
wait for a sacred stillness and loving-kindness
a peace beyond all imagining
to be born within us.
We are the Holy Ones
who give birth to the peace for which we long.
We pray for our enemies,
for men and women –
today in foreign cities
tonight in our own towns –
whose thoughts are tangled up in a violent story
whose ending is too terrible to say.
We bring them, especially them,
the peace we seek.
They are wounded, fearful, angry, and afraid
as we are.
They are confused, frustrated, and overwhelmed,
like us, so like us.
They are mourning the loss of someone
or some ideal of a life they thought could be theirs,
just as we mourn our dead and our broken dreams.
They are strangers in a strange land.
We pray for them.
We welcome them in our deep and open hearts,
hearts not crushed in spite of reasons to be crushed,
hearts that still have a place for our enemies.
If they do not have a welcoming place in us
then they have no place at all.
If they have no place at all
they will bring the fruit of their emptiness to bear
in dark and consuming violence.
Our suffering will continue.
This is the day, a day of waiting
to see whether our hearts will open or close.
The season asks us to choose.
Portland, Oregon – December 2015
Advent Vigilance
In winter I must take care
or darkness will overwhelm me.
I will forget the silence of the earth
spinning in the glistening heavens.
I will see clouds without rain
darkness without stars
sunlight without warmth.
In Winter I must be vigilant
or I will lose my way
in thickets of tangled thought.
I will forget to walk out the door,
to pick up one foot after another.
I will be drawn back in, out of the rain,
by a cunning, persistent lure.
I will forget that always, always,
I am leaving some thing, some place behind –
clutching at my clothing, dragging at my steps,
encumbering my arms, closing my eyes.
But too late. Even for the past –
what was or was not – too late.
Again, again and again, it is Advent.
The coming of some small thing –
some laughter behind me,
some shouting around the corner,
whispers in the eaves, scratches on the door.
A sudden turning –
a pause, a listen, a quickening pulse.
A gathering of will in the face
of something sacred, scared, scarred,
wrapped in wind, rain, cold
like a god forgotten
who will not forget,
pursuing through the days and nights.
Seattle, Washington – December 2003
In Cascadia 