When the Caravan Leaves

We were fortunate to be able to bring Rumi's Caravan to two places this month, Berkeley and Redding.  Soul nourishing for us, and hopefully for the audiences.  We had our largest audience ever in Berkeley, and stayed with good friends in Redding, so both were wonderful.

This little poem arrived after we returned home.

When the caravan leaves,

all that remains are the story

and some leftover poems.

We sit around the lavish breakfast table

and tell the story, intone the orphan poems,

feast, laugh, and bask in the memories.

The tent is packed up and stowed away,

the instruments are in their cases,

the lavish garments folded and stored,

but the afterglow of good company and good words

lingers, as everyone departs for home

or the next oasis.

Photo by Larry Robinson, set by Larry Robinson and Rebecca Evert

Returning from Mendocino: Rumi's Caravan and a New Poem

 Last weekend, Rumi's Caravan was invited to Fort Bragg.  We were beautifully housed, fed, invited into community gatherings, and of course, we spouted some poems in a wonderful venue, the Spirit House for Attitudinal Healing.

Barry and I took advantage of being up north on the coast to spend an additional night in Mendocino.  After we got home, this poem came (although the whole weekend was a balm for the soul, not just the way home.)

Returning from Mendocino

 

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

-Wendell Berry

 

 

When the early autumn day

is clear and still;

when the broad Pacific’s waves

crash in towards your toes

and then roll the beach pebbles

back out to sea, hissing and rhythmic

in susurrating whispers;

when you head inland then,

alongside the river’s relentless rush

to the opening ocean;

when arriving at the redwood forest,

you enter the trees’ majestic vigil

as into a ritual;

when you leave the car,

feet crunching fragrant dry needles

on the fern-filled forest floor;

when you rest your forehead and palms

against a rough and fibrous trunk

and feel your kinship;

then you know with no uncertainty

what a privilege it is to be

in places so silent and sacred

that man-made desecration

does not touch them.

Oh, there is the tarred road

and the rude disruption of

a passing car or logging truck,

but the holiness is undiminished,

so vividly alive and vital.

All the earth is sacred,

but some places reveal this truth

so clearly, so compellingly,

that your heart breathes

a sigh of relief, and you offer

a silent prayer of gratitude

for this world,

for this life,

for this magnificence,

for this cleansing

of dispirited and

and weary souls.

The Pains of Living: A New Poem

This morning I had the treat of listening to my friend and Rumi's Caravan fellow traveler Kay Crista share some of her poetry and memoir writing (on a monthly Zoom poetry sharing).  Sometimes transcendent, sometimes plumbing great depths, Kay's work and the way she delivers it reveal her luminous soul.  I'm not exaggerating.  It was a marvelous half hour, time well spent.  You can get listen to the recording here with Passcode: ROp*Q!2=

It led me to reflecting on the wonderful diversity in poetic voices.  How we each experience the world and then reflect on it and shape it into new and original forms of language... well, it's a miracle.  How wonderful that we have others' art and voices to appreciate and be moved by.

My own poetic way seems to be one of simple language and images.  Who knows why the poems come to us in the way they do?  I don't often have a poem with a lighter or more humorous touch emerge, but one small one did come to me recently.  It's not at all that the subject matter is funny.  On the contrary.  I do think of it as in the realm of the elder, though I'm sure many youngers can also relate.  

The pains of living,

sometimes existential,

sometimes physical,

are like the phone

ringing constantly,

or the doorbell.

You want to write a poem,

or dive into meditation,

or watch the birds at the feeder,

but there it is again-

Ring! Ring! Ring!

“I’m here again.

Pick up the phone.”

Ring! Ring! Ring!

“Answer the damned door!”

Just a reminder that Rumi's Caravan will be in Sebastopol next Saturday, February 11th for our first large event in three years!

And, if you haven't seen my recent book, Distilled: Poems on Eldering, you can find it here.

A New Poem: The Directive

The pool is one of my favorite places to go over poems, but now it seems to also be my new venue for getting poems.  Today, I was swimming laps and reviewing poems for next month's Rumi's Caravan, when these words came into my head.   Brand new and not revised or edited!

Here is the directive:

            No matter what is coming,

            No matter what is here,

            No matter what you feel,

            No matter what you fear,

Sing!

Lift your head and sing

            to the sky and the tall trees.

Bow your head and sing

            to the earth and the tender

            green shoots raising their heads

            after the rains.

No matter if you can’t carry a tune,

No matter if you wake up raspy-throated

            and hoarse,

No matter what your feeble excuse,

            Sing your morning prayers.

            Sing your evening prayers.

            Sing just because.

Even if you only sing a silent song

            inside your own head,

Even if all you do is hum, or chant

            your little walking song,

The earth and this life

            are so worthy of praise.

And what better way to praise

            than to sing?

By Heart

People often are impressed by those of us who memorize poems for salons or events like Rumi's Caravan.  I tell them, "It's a muscle.  You have to exercise it."  Why bother, though?  I can only say that poems you really love, that you bother to commit to memory, have an effect on you.  They work on you in mysterious ways.  For instance, I've been living with Theodore Roethke's "In a Dark Time" for going on two years now.  I can't explain it; it's mysterious.  But really worth the effort.  Plus, with oral traditions salons, we feel we are restoring soul to this very needy world.  Certainly, poetry writing and reading have their places, but poems told by heart are another thing altogether.  Come to a salon and you'll feel the difference.

One night, I got some lines for a poem, about poems, in a dream.  They disappeared in the morning, but the ideas behind them stuck.  So, I wrote a poem.  I don't know if this is one I'll learn by heart, but maybe it will give you a sense of what that is like.  (As always, this poem is fresh and mostly unedited, so please forgive any chunkiness.)

By Heart

The poem is not your friend.

The poem is a pest. 

It gets under your skin and

nestles down inside you.

You would like it to go to sleep,

give you a break,

but the poem tosses and turns,

throwing off its blankets to expose

this line or that.

The poem does not care about you.

It is looking for a home,

and when it finds one in you,

it will move in for good, or at least

for a long stay.

If you ignore it, the poem will pout

and keep tapping you on the shoulder.

The poem will tell you,

“Here.  I belong to you.”

The poem doesn’t care who wrote it,

only who gives it residence.  

The poem will 

pick at your scabs, 

make you cry,

yell in your face.

Then it will pat your back and say,

“There, there.”

As long as the poem includes

one line of mystery, it will continue to

niggle at your thoughts,

tug at your heart,

poke you in the gut.

Repeatedly.

But although it isn’t your friend,

the poem will be

your companion.

It will move you,

agree with your deepest thoughts,

tell you if you are on track.

Even if you forget one of its lines,

the poem will reveal the lesson

in that omission.

The poem will be 

your teacher.

And you will love it.

One of my SoulCollage® cards

P.S. I will be doing a Persephone Rising SoulCollage® event on April 8th.  Email me if interested.