(4th and final chapter: Awe Mixed Up)
Blessing Wreath Prayer
Blest is this earth; of great worth is this gift,
from grassland to forest to mountain it shifts.
Receiver of seed, deliverer of fruit,
dark home for the dead, mighty anchor for roots.
Blest is this water, our Earth’s lovely crown,
wherein creatures swim and wherein creatures drown.
The most of our bodies, it leaves us no doubt,
of fluid connections we can’t live without.
Blest is this air which we breathe yet can’t see,
in fresh breeze or hurricane, horror or glee.
It blasts away villages, lightly lifts feathers,
showing, as we do, diverse forms of weather.
Blest be this fire, hot spirited flame.
Where it dances nothing’s the same.
Cremator of matter, releaser of light,
it burns us, it warms us, it holds off the night.
Blest be our people, our yearning for truth,
from outlook of age and from freshness of youth.
Help us use wisely our powers of being,
of stillness, of movement, of building, of breaking,
of weaving these powers in that of creating
good lives which delight us and bring joy to others,
with peace that sustains us, to love one another.
For the goodness of all creation,
in accordance with natural law,
let this be so.
Growth Ring
Green Ring
of growth, beneath
thick bark, around strong wood,
becoming both, always alive.
Be so.
Father, Brothers, Sons
En Route to Rendezvous
A long flight, eyes bleary, thought moving
slowly as pencil scrawls for once…
Eight hours ago I kissed my wife and kids,
checked in, boarded, flew, changed flights
in the state that holds my mother’s ashes.
From three places three men fly to one point,
to land in Anchorage where sun won’t fully set.
Their darkest hour in June is twilight.
The plane is full of families,
baby songs, babbles, wails,
muted by ventilator vibrations,
in articulate grownup chatter,
cocooning white noise of flight.
Big black ravens, small white whales,
swimming in air, flying in fluid.
This jet also gets where it goes
balancing thrust, lift, momentum.
Buoyancy with gravity lets us propel ourselves
from all our different ages, places, faiths.
Our father has reached out to us.
A rare occurrence, what does this mean?
A stirring in my chest, joy, excitement, fear.
We have love, our common bond, our male selves.
We have old battle scars and hail from different
eras, norms, worlds; we speak English in different ways,
with non-voiced language hardest of them all.
What does it mean?
An empty, spacious stirring in
my chest and gut, coming in for landing.
Chugach Range: Flattop Mountain
We got to the top, though footing was treacherous,
crumbling rootless slopes unlike the Appalachians
we sneakered up in our respective youths.
A sense of danger…
a view so wide it went beyond our vision.
Of what do mountains dream of in eons,
their rocky souls reaching to hot Earth’s core,
while peaks like prows cut wakes
within the whitecapped sky? Dense
must be the memories from which
those dreamscapes form, ocean floors
thrust up to raw-edged air, offering fossils
as sacrifices to forces beyond time.
Slowly, slowly the mantra goes…
ascend…
descend…
ascend…
descend…
countless times the spans of mortal years.
Brains contours know glimmerings of mountain truth,
while bodies learn it intimately in
ascend, descend, ascend, descend,
tiny efforts to dance dreams of
boundless perfect earth-stuff moving
in its sleep. Life in form of bone and flesh
knows deep within its molecules the bond
of human dreamers with dreams of stone giants.
So humans dream of immortality
while mountains dream of brief intensity,
ascend, descend, ascend, descend, the silence
sings of agelessness to us while we dance,
sometimes agile, on the lovely, rocky skin.
Off the bus: Denali Park.
Two caribou recline on windswept tundra,
bodies, heads, velveted antlers
aligned like shadows of each other.
Rain small multiple slaps mark sharp rhythm,
my windbreaker flapping like loose sails.
The reindeer hear, accept my presence,
let me watch symmetry and grace
of heads lifting in unison,
antlers small black trees,
swaying in the wind
against the treeless tundra.
On the ride back Dad asks if I believe
such slopes, peaks, skies exist
within our souls. Like reindeer wind
his question whips my breath away.
To reply takes some time.
“That does seem true.”
What I meant was “yes”.
There have been times I’ve seen
the wilderness behind his eyes
as he has looked on mine.
Sometimes tears wash away time,
clarify vision.
Bark Eaters
I don’t know but doubt my bro’ and Dad
have wept together; something stops them
from gazing on wild sanctuaries so alive in each,
each mirroring the other’s soul.
Porcupines with tender skins, tiptoeing
‘round each other, whishing no ills,
yet somehow quills have ways of finding homes.
Each man bleeds from barbed histories of wars,
silent or noisy, not to be discussed. It hurts
like hell to tear out quills, clean wounds,
help each other heal.
I tried to call a different dance but blew up
when they could not heed the tune,
my feet so clumsy when I try to dance with family.
Quills tangle with quills, tearing skin,
until I back away, sorting
their spines from mine.
Their dance is theirs, my dance my own.
Perhaps our steps are right for us,
and us alone.
Home Flight
One hour plus delayed in Minnesota.
Phone calls are made; I wait for my flight home.
Around the sweets I’ve eaten old fears coil,
hissing “Wait and see, they’ll leave,
always, always they leave…”. Soon
I’ll be suspended in the sky again as though
once more the rope in parents’ tug of war,
a childhood disjointed, drawn, divided.
I breathe, remember this flight is a blessing,
taking me home to children and wife.
I watch the video lullaby, the safety show.
This plane will land; the cab will take me home.
My wife’s asked me to wake her when I get there.
She’ll know just what I mean
when I speak to hear of reindeer.
Slanting up, we take off; Leaning back,
my body aches for her embrace, and I ache
for brother, Dad, myself. What does it mean?
A mystery surely greater than we three.
We ascend as my chest rises, falls,
remembering wild sanctuary deep within
where two brown caribou bearing
black antlers, move in perfect symmetry,
a holy dance reminding me of sacred joy.
The plane banks over Logan.
Ten days I’ve not seen night, just twilight
between post, ante meridians.
Windows show the sun has truly set,
the sky is truly dark.
Thousands of lights shine truly from homes
upon the ground, like stars within
mist clearly seen within night skies,
washed clean with water of the eyes.
Evergreens
I would touch your roughness, learn from you,
my tall, sharply fragrant elders.
Your depth, height, steadfast purpose
binds dark earth with bright sky hues,
sure as stitching in a quilting experts quilt,
beautiful as quills plucked off indignant porcupines,
to be tinted, lovingly worked into matte tan of deer hide,
long before such things as beads and white men.
You are older still, far older
than the oldest memories trapped
within ghostly synapses, cupped
within earth stained bowls, fragments
of fossil skulls once owned
by our most remote ancestors.
They too looked up to
countless sharp green needles
embroidering bright skies,
exquisitely drinking light.
All that is merely what we see.
The other half is anchored deep,
branching into blackness of fertility.
So it is with all live things.
Our secret lives grow deep beneath
the sunlit parts, not to hide,
but reach that hidden strength within our earth.
Thus as we reach we grow,
while as we grow we reach.
Prodigal Sun
Much awaited, somehow disconcerting, warm Spring
knocks wild on our doors. We’ve lived long months
cocooned in rooms. hiding from chill white some might
find delightful to ski on but frightful to hold,
deathly against our skin; therefore we wear protection.
On hurried forays wrapped in wool or ersatz fleece, we hear
sharp cracks of river ice snap like rifle shots.
The warming mud smells strangely sweet,
prefacing green odors soon to come.
Grown used to winter numbness, we’re uneasy.
If such things change so all around then what of us?
Our clothing melts like snow banks under sun,
blanketing grown thinner, showing form,
brown shades of earth beneath, pulsation,
movement, growth, the vitals of creation.
Unlike that black rich soils we Yankees cling
to frigid scraps of fabric, a decent modicum of cool
not needed by our bodies, but the social peace,
comforted by time-honored convention,
protected from unseemly warmth.
Doomed futile vain efforts. Each of us
is made of earth despite all our pretensions.
As though drawn, heads turn to catch
the flight of vibrant birdsong; internal rhythms
quicken as we feel the fragrant breath
of wind warm over and around us,
soaking in through lungs and skin until
our flesh is saturated to the very marrow
of our bones. Inevitably, regardless of what’s worn,
our singing souls dance naked in the primal light.
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Acknowledgements
Truly I owe everything
to loving souls taught me to sing.
Still, lest I ungrateful seem,
Thanks to those taught me to scream.