Each day I wake to dim light spreading slowly, sending away darkness, spreading out the land. Here it is! I say to myself - the new day not yet broken! Hope swells in waves. Then, as the sun shines or the rain pours and the cold, comes news of the world washing over me, bending my wishing spirit, my heart's desire, my weary and forsaking hope. What to do but work and pray? One hand holding the sacred earth the other the splendorous sky. Another night begins - autumn eve writing under lamplight. Bent but not broken, my hope. _________________________________________________________________________________ Portland, Oregon - October 8, 2021
Hope
Light
Early morning autumn
waking in darkness.
For a moment
pushing aside the covers
placing my feet on the floor
I wonder
sleep still slung about me
will the light come?
It comes.
The world opens
in white petals
a lotus flower
in still water.
Portland, Oregon – October 1, 2018
Something Is Not Coming
Something is not coming
from out of the thin curving horizon.
I cannot wait for what may be
as if the future was a being with power
rather than an illusion, a chimaera of time.
Hours and days, years I’ve lost seeking
a phantom I thought might be
sought in the night, could have become real
imagined would be if I were another.
I have lost myself in a tyranny
of expectations, plans, dreams
as a child wishing for unicorns and faeries.
It, whatever it is for me,
is not out there or on it’s way
from a never-never land before me
as if my steps would take me there.
What I wait for is in my loins
my essential self as a pure oil –
balm and nectar – heart, soul, salve, healing.
My projects and plans
my precious hopes and dreams
vanish before me again and again
while in me is stirred the cauldron of life.
Hope has no foot in tomorrow
but walks the path of each moment
as the shadow of my steps
on the path below my feet
on this day and in this season
as the leaves begin to fall
the wind bristles the hair on my arms
the light slants low over the horizon
and I swallow an evening star
as it lowers gently before my eyes.
Portland, Oregon – September 4, 2018
Advent in a Troubling Year
Something is tapping, pounding
on the door, the windows and the roof.
It wants in, is insistent!
It is the rain.
Something jostles the bare tree limbs
siren slow moans in the vents
demanding entrance in the night!
It is the wind.
Something hurries down the streets
brushing aside the lowering winter sun
scuffling its way into forgotten places – it comes!
It is darkness and winter’s cold.
We clothe ourselves against the rain and strong winds
put up cheerful lights to dispel an entreating darkness
but hope alone will bear our salvation –
it is coat and hat; it is lamp to light the way.
Portland, Oregon – December 2, 2017
The Advent season, in the Christian tradition, is a season of waiting in anticipation of the coming of the messiah. It is a remembering of the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. But, the underlying impetus of the season is the virtue of hope – hope that something good is coming, something to save, to redeem, to heal, to forgive. Hope is a virtue not confined to any spiritual tradition but is essential to all and, in these troubling times, is a paramount virtue to have and hold. It is the antithesis to cynicism, fear and anger.
The Cricket
In silence I wait, in stillness watch
to discern the movement of darkness
sifting through the window,
sliding across the floor.
I listen for rain on the roof,
the susurrus sound of wind in the trees
through their glistening autumn leaves.
I await familiar sounds of night –
the whistle of a train and its rumble on the tracks,
a siren moaning in its coming and its going,
the dull delirium of clanging steeple bells
to tell me of saints and seasons,
to chime again and again that all will be well.
This night, the whistles and sirens fade
to the chirp of a cricket, just one,
sounding out alone in the darkness –
All will be well. All will be well.
Portland, Oregon – October 19, 2017
Spes Salve
Darkness begets morning
dripping in dawns of seed birth
reaching up through summer days
crackling storm rains veiling
purple twilights in evening showers
of scarlet and billowing sun sets.
Black nights peel the illusions of sleep
in dream layers revealing at dawn
a warm light peering over the horizon
waking creation to forgotten hope
that must be, must be, it must be
or it will not be it will cease to be.
Portland, Oregon – July 18, 2017
“Spes salve” – Latin: “Saved in hope.”
In Cascadia 