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| Ash Wednesday, February 2005
* * * SilhouetteI awake at four to the sound of whimpering through the night, the full moon spotlighting through the window in the ceiling on that precipice of sleep and waking I think it may be a child down the hall running from some terror in a dream. Yet sitting up and turning it becomes apparent the sound is outside this house that holds me in its arms-- it may be a wolf in the night, or sly fox come to deceive or fight--perhaps singing that song after a long hunt and the prey has given up itself to the way of day and night. Slowly I get up, willing life into legs still weary and weak with sleep, pulling the shade aside, moonlight spills down to the snow covered lawn and gives it a glow so unlike any other light; I search for the sound to solve this late night mystery-- There, at the trunk of the barren dogwood, circling back and forth, a black silhouette--coyote, I presume-- making stifled howls as if caught in its throat troubled by the moon and snow making the night a dawning; it pauses with paws up on the trunk of the tree, waiting. I go downstairs to have a closer look, but he is gone. The next day I am out, searching for his tracks, to confirm the sighting-- an eagle scout combing over prints and scat--yes, a coyote here; but there are no tracks besides the back and forth line of the deer run--no prints beneath the dogwood tree. And I am caught up-- what was it in the night, what black, whimpering contour went off into the darkness where I cannot follow--but only imagine-- and wonder if dreams and daylight are bedfellows fumbling in what illuminates the air between them? 12 Mar 05 This is a dream poem that has the feel of portent. This third edit reflects the comments of my writing group to bring out more of the haunting feel of this juxtaposition of dream and reality. --egh * * * Eavesdropping Eavesdropping is verdant, illicit, mischievous--like gossip-- such is the milieu in the locker room at the Y-- snippets of conversations, small talk, prejudices, prattle even among the elderly gents who shuffle their way to the lockers and shower "a lot of snow this year" "yes; "so being stuck at home isn't so bad... "no, just a book, "no cuddling?" "no. Snow melts on the roof it drips from eaves splashes on the shrubs, and with wind, the window sills. If we take the time to listen, to cuddle up with the words, we hear the clarity in the patter. 12 Mar 05 This snippet of actual conversation had packed into it such fundamental questions, that I could not comment, only listen--which is what the last stanza is trying to say. I’ve changed the last word to something that connects with the conversation and with the metaphor of raining down meaning a drop at a time. --egh * * * Snowy Night Late night I go out to the car in the lot to retrieve a bag. In the hum of a street lamp snow falls so slowly I hold my breath take smaller steps look up stick out my tongue and catch this icy lace, this tightly woven singularity-- a cold and melting truth, an evening hour that is no more. 12 Mar 05 In a snippet of a poem, sometimes the shift at the destination can be too abrupt.-- hence lines 11 and 12 to make the turn. --egh * * * Only the silence In this lush woodland that rises from the river teeming, the meditation is of the wisdom of the desert. Snow falls--a comforter over all that would otherwise be noise-- music fills the room and "we enter into the desert, to cultivate a garden." The memory of the abundant breakfast buffet fresh on our palettes-- only the silence is the fast that parches our souls, ripens the sponge for spring rain. 12 Mar 05 * * * Turning over Lying on the floor in front of the long window, the sky becomes the ground and the late winter tall trees reach down from exposed roots that catch in the soil of clouds; the icicles that hang from the eave are clear blades of grass, the ceiling spots--footlights; the exit sign--a door jamb. All the worlds that stop are magnified in this glass through which I peer through which I go. 12 Mar 05 This poem was written while lying on the floor on the conference room --something I do to tend to a lower back in revolt-- and meditating on the Mary Oliver poem Kathleen read. What was the something that I learned by being this lens looking up from the floor? It was the altered perspective--especially when presented with the opportunity to stop and listen to your life, and that of your community--which a retreat affords. * * * Dessert While writing a poem from this morning's meditation, reflecting on the abundance of this place to which we retreat to the forty hours into the wisdom of the desert, I write "dessert" instead, the sweetness fresh on my tongue that I have silenced just long enough to let the words blow in like a sandstorm, the grains of silica blinding me, the salt dry on my lips the wind standing me up. Leaning against it I taste the richness. 12 Mar 05 * * * Dunes Is it the punctures of a brush on an otherwise serene canvas that lets the light through, making holes in what was presumed whole--that shows this web for what it is, so this desert does not become mirage and the dunes of sameness uniform? It was in these dunes at the beach that I stole away with my date, with blanket and sunscreen--hiding in the beach brush from the crowd of sun soakers laid out like hors d'oeuvres on wheat cracker towels; up and behind the children batting a multi-colored ball among all but one-- something in the middle? Among the rustling change of quarter-round leaves of the beach sage and sand roses, seeking out the silence of a new kiss, the smooth forever of a golden calf falling after the white rabbit with the tipped hat, through the hole in the sand, through a moan and pant of breath, to cross over into wonderland-- this was what we sought, and sometimes found. 12 Mar 05 A more sensual image-- I recently learned that “haptic,” to which I am no doubt related, means “relating to or based on the sense of touch.” If all revelation is incarnational, then we do well to pay attention to the carnal --egh * * * Silent Lunch I seek out the silent food, the soft slice of pork loin with baked apples, tomatoes without the skins, small mesclun greens without the snap of stems. The Terra chips I left behind beckon when the meal is done. I steal away a handful to munch alone a breaking silence in another room. 12 Mar 05 More tongue-in-cheek, reflecting the amusement of the lunch table sounds, this hints of the everyday Fall presented in the smallest of temptations. --egh * * * Cross country In the silence of new snow a solitary skier glides the long left-right of the Nordic trail-- to the right, a river runs it rapids, to the left, the rails of a train long quiet-- the skier makes his way between the voluptuous murmurs and the cold straight steel, making his own sound-- a swoosh, then crunch as shifted snow packs under the weight of his wooden rails; the sun is watching over the arms of pine tree sentinels, a lone bird calls from a perch somewhere unseen-- these are the sounds of holiness on a path of straight lines that meander, that are true only to the one who follows himself like a cat watching from the hillock. 12 Mar 05 * * * PrayerUnder the curve of blue sky that is eternity, this slice of sunlight between the winter trees is a burning bush in the snow-- I shed my shoes and curl my toes into the melting. 12 Mar 05 This short poem is based on two things: the stopping and paying attention to nature as prayer--something Mary Oliver evoked--and David Whyte’s relating a Hasidic student’s comment on his use of the burning bush story--that the Hebrew word for “take off” your sandals… is the same word for an animal shedding its skin. So shedding our all-to-busy lives we are given the opportunity to reconnect with our ground of being, and realize that we’ve been standing on holy ground all along (David's insight.) --egh * * * Timeless This place in the cleft of Berkshire foothills where the Housatonic runs wild and free there are no signals; my cell phone pans the waves searching in vain, disconnected from other worlds, even time is not displayed I don't like being late but often am, never leaving enough time for the transit, holding on to where I am until I must dash out to the car and highway, praying for no traffic, no long red lights. The weekend program notes that checkout time is 9:00 AM, the morning Eucharist 9:30, lunch at 11:45 and I am watch-less Yet I can watch and wait for when the people here get up from chairs near fireplace and windows, and follow-- somewhere in this chain of people with whom I am connected there will be a watch ticking just as surely as my cell phone scans to synch-- and I will lean on them and know the time. 13 Mar 05 This first poem about time and connections is the interior journey paralleling the external one in the poem below. Both refer to the transformation of the weekend, as we moved from the metaphor of the wasteland, to the desert, then arriving at the garden gate ---egh * * * Telling Time While skiing on the path through the wood, I grab my cell to check my time and drop it in the snow-- the battery pops free and lays there disconnected. The gloves come off, the poles tucked under one arm, I bend to snare them brush the snow from the silver case and snap it back together. Pushing power I wait for the telling buzz with satellite icon searching the sky as if a radar looking for planes lined up for final approach and landing-- there are none found, and I have no idea how long I've skied, how far I've come and when to turn back-- I listen to my breathing and the ache in my legs and know. 13 Mar 05 * * * Train in the distance In the stone chapel where we gather for the Eucharist shoulder to shoulder in pews and chairs around the walls and table-- every seat is taken-- this being the close to a silent retreat, we are as expectant as Advent. As the first lesson is read the train sounds in the distance, the ground begins to shake and it rolls by the windows behind the altar, behind lumbering tandem diesels car after car-- this could be our train and sinewed together we could almost rise up and board as one-- we who hear this call as if it were a shaking-- no-- a recovery of the foundations. 13 Mar 05 The juxtaposition of the train and the reading were too connected to pass by. --egh Easter service, 11:31 AM What is this rush of emotion, that rises up in me like the wind in a sail, as the Wesleyan hymn begins the Easter processional? I cannot sing for this is the heart-in-your-throat revealed-- all the stones that collect over days that weigh me down are moved away, and in this moment I am new again. 24 Mar 05 Easter, like Advent is anticipation, and despite the familiar forms of liturgy and hymn, is ever new. The rising of faith in the face of fear and defeat, is a message that is often lost between the defeat of Good Friday and the victory of Easter. And the message of Easter for here and now is often lost in the desires to know, or prove, what really happened and what did not-- how we squeeze the mystery out of encounters to be cherished! All the Easter images are here in the moment of opening of a hymn --egh All Poems © Copyright 2005, E. Granger-Happ, All Rights Reserved. Contents - Lent, 2005 |
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Document last modified on: 03/14/2006