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.

It’s been a while since I looked at any of the poems in my recent book.  After revising and proofreading them so many times, I really thought I’d never want to look at any of them again!  But, for some reason, as my three-month scan cycle is approaching its end, I opened the book to look at my Going to Hel section, which includes a bunch of poems from when I was actively dealing with cancer.

I have been fortunate to be 2 ½ years in remission now. Sometimes, life almost seems “normal” now.  Sometimes.  Almost. But then scanxiety (a word I'd never heard until cancer) unavoidably creeps in. And today I re-read the following poem:

Undying Companion 

 

Once upon a time,

         the word cancer

evoked such terror

         that merely reading

or saying it superstitiously

         tempted a raging

death curse into

         the body.

 

How things have changed,

         now that the interloper

invisibly insinuated its rapidly

         growing presence inside.

I can say the word now,

         without flinching.

Even after surgical removal,

         this disease has asserted

its place as my undying companion,

         and always will.

 

I will walk with cancer.

         I will dance with cancer,

I will sit with cancer, and

         I will sleep with cancer,

until I sleep

         for good.

 

It is not that the terror

         has dispersed.

It is only that uncertainty,

         which is true for all,

has traveled from a

         complacent distance

to take hold

         of my hand.

            

Uncertainty is truly what we all have. Here it is again, my undying companion.

A New Poem: Spirit's Slipstream

 On my way to healing....

A single chime rings.

Silver ribbons dance in the breeze.

 

One tree waves.

“Come along,” it says.

 

But where? And how?

The clouds glide slowly

 

west to east, with relentless grace.

“Flow in seamless increments,” they say,

 

“the way we do.

“Even the rooted ones sway with us.”

 

The trees, the clouds, the hovering hummingbirds

find Spirit’s slipstream.

 

“But what does this have to do with healing?” I ask.

“Everything,” they say.

 

“Everything.”

“Join us.

 

“Plunge into the slipstream.

Let go.”

Navigating Mystery

 I'm back to a topic that I did a whole series of (prose) posts on a while back, this time with a single poem. It is an inquiry I am in a lot - how to reframe living with uncertainty to navigating mystery, the words and concept coming from Martin Shaw.  

Now, I wrote this poem, some weeks ago, before I fell and broke some bones, and, oh, the irony!  The day I fell I was evidently not looking at my feet, just as I advise myself in the poem, and look what happened!

Hmm... Maybe some middle way is called for.  I remember Angeles Arrien saying so many times, "Walk the mystical path with practical feet."   My feet and I need to get a grip!  But I still think the poem has something to say, to me, at least.  

I am now spending much of my time healing, but also considering what healing really is about.

So, here's the poem.  And the Mystery of the sunset sky.

“Navigate Mystery,”

the storyteller says.

Look at it this way -

You can cower in fear

with all of life’s uncertainties,

or you can open to

the adventure.

Every story has suffering.

Every wanderer loses the way.

You live in the center

of your own imagination,

privilege your own story,

accentuate your own

pains and sorrows.

Traveling the trails

of the unknown

you have this choice:

either focus on your feet,

afraid of stumbling and falling,

or look up to the trees, the sky,

the birds winging their way

to a place of belonging.

Pain does not define you,

but if all you see is suffering,

all you will do is suffer.

Instead, watch the story unfold,

step by step, mile by mile

into whatever future

awaits.

A New Poem: The Season of the Dark

 First, the poem, then something about it.

The Season of the Dark

  

This is the season of the dark.

It is not only the natural ebbing

of the year’s light that causes distress.

This dark has shadowed many lives

with difficult and deep times:

-   broken bones;

-   the death of a friend’s beloved;

-   another’s home lost to fire.

A new normal descends, with needs for:

-   walking carefully;

-   hunkering down;

-   exhaling pain and grief.

 

And what is happening in our small lives

mimics what is happening in the world

and to the earth.

 

But in my dreams:

-   my hands turn towards healing;

-   a whale approaches the sacred cliff;

-   I bring flowers to a ritual.

 

The oracle advises yielding, and so I:

-   move slowly;

-   privilege the small;

-   let the Ghost River carry me.

 

I have spent a lifetime

trying to change the mind that

equates dark with bad.

In this season of suffering,

that challenge more than abides.

 

Don’t tell me that

this will all pass:

-   the darkness;

-   the pain;

-   the acute grief.

I know in my head that this is so,

at least for humans.

I do not know if it is true

for the world.

 

What I do know is that 

I must follow the oracle and

attend to the dreams,

which tell me:

-   to heal all that I can;

-   to pray my way through;

-   to offer flowers with respect and gratitude.

 

May we move through the dark

with a modicum of grace.

May we see what is precious

in the darkness and what

gestates here.

May the light return

in its season, for all.

 

 The Light Seeker

(my first SoulCollage® card, 2006)

The broken bones in the poem are mine. I fell on a walk a week ago and fractured my elbow, plus got a hairline ankle break. If you haven't seen me posting this week, well, I've been busy getting to doctors' appointments and trying to adjust to one-handed living and clunking around in a boot.

The other traumas are friends'. A lot of sorrow surrounds.

Plenty of time for new poems, though. Let's see if they come.