TRUST -- the saddest poem I've ever written

I remember the first time, twelve years ago,
   when a spring-loaded kitten
      jumped down from my desk and sat on my lap.
His name was Shamus,
   but we sometimes called him "Wild Thing",
      so I was delighted to have earned a little trust.

Today, "Wild Thing" was sitting on my lap for the very last time,
    as we waited for the vet to open that dreaded door.
He was serene -- I was sad,
   but also delighted that he put all his trust in me.
I remember thinking how his life is truly in my hands,
     and how it troubles me to have already made a decision
         that he doesn't know about ...
 or does he?

Consciousness, Creation, Buddhism and the Bible in 60 seconds

Port-of-Call

At birth,
      we disembarked to a port-of-call
             full of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure.
We may view it as a furlough,
       as a life sentence of imprisonment in a body,
             or as an all-day pass at an amusement park.
When the Captain blows the whistle,
        we stop what we're doing, return to the ship
                     and sail on.

A NEW YEAR (and I don't care)

5:30 am, January 1, 2014.

A new year and I'm still here. For that, I'm grateful.
Yet, what difference does a new year make?
Every day, every hour, every minute,    
every breath is a new beginning,
If I declare it to be so.
On we go.

One step into the future is a step out of the past.
But what of the moment? Where am I now?
If always coming or going,
     when does a human have time for being?
When is Life?

We leave the past behind:
      the celebration and the sorrow.
Memories are safe there -- nothing can hurt them.
Tomorrow has hope and fear, dreams and tears,
     and maybe even glory.
Is that the real story? I don't think so.
Every story has a beginning and an ending.
That's what we remember,
      but it's the middle that really matters:  
      where the peanut butter meets the jelly.

When I look at my hands, I can see where I am and where I have been.
I feel the roughness and the callouses, the stinging that lingers,
      the wounds not quite healed.
One hand is empty - nothing to clutch, nothing to do.
The other holds a pen.
Ah!  There is the moment  - alive and well,
     creating something, pausing, moving, stopping,
     making sense out of life.  So it goes.

Let the revellers toot their tin horns.
Let them have their new year. I don't care.
All I want is one more breath.

Olivia's World

 With photo credit to Lisa Hawthorne and apologies to Andrew Wyeth.

(click to enlarge)

THE LORD'S PRAYER -- St. Cecelia's Mass of Hope

Free sheet music

Lucid, Vincent The Lord's Prayer (St Cecelia's Mass of Hope) + MP3 (audio extract) / MIDI  Choral SATB a cappella + chimes Mass; Choir; Sacred / 2008  Recording is an excerpt from the premier performance, December 7, 2008, by the Syracuse Chorale, conducted by Warren Ottey, at St. Paul's Cathedral, Syracuse, NY V. J. Lucid © All rights reserved Powered by Free-scores.com

TOWARD FULFILLMENT

(Reprise from April 11, 2010 - with one word change)

    Where are you going, my Little One ...?

We choose our path and pack our own duffel,
     mostly with stuff that's not worth its weight;
         and we set out on our own private odyssey --
             or perhaps we wait for a ship that never comes.

Though never quite sure where we are going,
     we are guided by Wisdom bought with pain
         and by a gift of Grace, which somehow appears,
             perhaps delivered by a prophet, or just by a friend.

The Cloud of Unknowing hides some distractions
      and we suddenly realize what we've known all along:
          that Being Loved is the place we have been longing for;
              and Loving is the only way that will surely get us there.
       
                    All the rest is colored bubbles.

Part I. CRITICISM FROM OTHERS

From CRITICISM,  A TRILOGY


FOREWORD

My head wrote this poem to buoy up my heart 
     when it was low in the water. 
It worked -- so now we offer this verse to you, 
     with sincere hope that you’ll find something useful. 
If you don’t like what it says or how it’s said, 
     we really don’t give a dust bunny.

It’s Not About You

Do not take to heart
     any judgmental comments from others.
Cynics and most critics
     are cursed with a relentless itch --
A need to convince themselves
     that they are not inferior to others.

They project their fears and inadequacies
     onto whomever they can.
So when they make disparaging remarks,
     it is one self-image chastising another.
Neither one is yours.
     It’s not about you at all.

If someone throws bricks at you,
     do not stoop to throw them back.
Build something with them --
     perhaps a wall around your garden.
Leave an open gate – you want a boundary,
     not a fortress or a prison.

Elitism is a Euphemism

Snobbery is Insecurity all dressed up
     in fancy, musty clothes from a stuffy attic.
False Pride is Shame going the ball --
     but dreading midnight.
Snobs are afraid they’ll be found out
     to be like everyone else, frail and flawed.

Most of their shortcomings matter very little,
     but one crucial virtue is lacking.
Humility – the habit of seeing yourself
     as you truly are, not as you wish to be.
Once you accept the truth,
     there is nothing left to prove.

Part II. SELF-CRITICISM Reprise from April 6, 2010

From CRITICISM: A TRILOGY

The Road To Perfection

The harshest critic is usually the Judge within you
     taking over the task begun by your parents.
Perhaps it’s time to send that judge down the road –
     and to exile the Judge’s soul-mate, the Victim --
that pin-cushion Martyr, with arrows by the hundreds
     sticking into him or her from all angles.

Do you set higher standards for yourself
     than you do for others? Isn’t that Vanity?
Why be so slow to forgive yourself for making errors,
     when you would so quickly forgive a friend?
Do you think you can achieve Perfection?
     If so, you’ve already made one big mistake.

Accept the fact that the Road to Perfection
     has not been completed -- nor will it ever be.
Check all your baggage except for one knapsack,
     then tear up the ticket and travel light.
Let the Judge and Victim trudge toward Perfection,
     while you head toward Fulfillment instead.

Your Garden

Peer into a mirror as if it were a window
     looking out on a garden.
Then step outside into that garden
     and just admire it for a while.
Now you may look around for weeds,
     but go slowly and carefully with the hoe.

Every new sprout is not an evil alien invader
     on a mission to choke your petunias.
Welcome some wildflowers,
     like Spontaneity and at least a little Risk.
Trust Helen Keller -- “Life is a daring adventure or nothing.
     Security is mostly a superstition. ”

Take time often to water your garden,
     but not with a fire hose.
Compassion is a persistent shower,
     but a gentle one --
Enough to wash the dust from the leaves
     and refresh the thirsty roots.

Now go somewhere else
     and do something different.
Come back in the morning light to see how well
     the garden grew during the night --
Simply because you turned it over and left it alone --
     trusting that all would be well. It is.

In Memoriam: Meus Deus-Pater

A man of joy.
A man of sorrow.
Easy to love.
A contemplative genius
Too deep to fathom.

He looked like Santa Claus.
The children, for a while, believed he was.
No ... the beard was too well trimmed.
More like Hemingway, I'd say, though
Hemingway's prose was not as poetic.

He excelled at everything.
Even warfare for which he later atoned.
After bombing Nantucket, accidentally,
A fighter pilot in the oxymoronic Pacific War.
He came home more penitent than triumphant.

No mother, no father -- but embraced
by aunts, uncles, cousins and a brother,
plus a new brotherhood of disciples
of Ignatius, in which he made reparation
for acts of war by facilitating Acts of God.

A teacher, missionary and spiritual director.
On countless occasions,
he touched thousands of souls
in hundreds of ways over scores of years,
sharing the grace of one God.

Not without a demon.
In his hour of darkness
he made it down that hallway
with the help of others.
I know he helped them, too.

Even after being struck down,
unable to talk, unable to walk,
his eyes were clear as a starlit sky.
I looked into those eyes one day
as I cut up his chicken dinner.

There was no doubt that my Godfather
was still in there, with an awareness
that would make Buddha smile.
Liberation would inevitably come.
When the Father called, he went in peace.

If You Close the Door ...

So,
you think no one can hurt you
if you close the door
and lock it from within.

Now,
no one can hear you
no one can help you.
no one can even ask "How are you?"

Soon,
your friends stop trying.
You think no one can hurt you?
Someone just did.

A View of ADD -- from the Inside

It's not a deficit of attention.
On the contrary,
there's an abundance of attention,
with a sensory overload to match.
The Creator, for some impish reason,
didn't bother to install a stimulus filter
in the brains of some of us:
butterflies, cabbage moths, hummingbirds
and me.  You too, perhaps?
Like the rip-tide in swift river
where the flow converges
at the downstream end of an island --
and at the mouth of that river,
when the wind is blowing onshore --
there's bound to be turbulence
where the flow of thoughts collide.
With unfiltered sensations
from the usual five senses
plus a few more that, for now,
we'll call intuition and inspiration,
trying to get something accomplished
is a bit like boiling a 3-minute egg in a geyser.
Making a decision is similar to
pointing out your favorite snowflake
before it hits the wet pavement.
If you prefer,
imagine the life of a goldfish in a lava lamp.
It's not like a hurricane with a headache --
not so organized or directional.
Rather, more like an electrical storm:
with lightning sky to sky and sky to ground,
sudden cracks and ominous rumbles
that no one can hear but us.
You may see it in my eyes sometimes,
when you're talking to me
but you're not sure if I'm tuned
to the same channel.
Salmon know what it's like,
swimming upstream through the rapids,
leaping above the whitewater now and then
to gain some distance.
Paradoxically, we sometimes hyperfocus,
with steel-wire determination, unable to let go.
Despite the turbulence,
Salmon are intent to spawn and die.
And so, I suppose, must I.

YARD WORK

The man who lives next door to me
Mows his lawn obsessively
And then he'll fertilize it, so
All the faster it will grow
And once again he'll have to mow.
This makes no sense at all to me.

But wait! There's more ...

He complains about the work, but still
He rakes the leaves so they won't won't kill
The grass he wishes would not grow,
The grass I know he loathes to mow!
I don't rake or mow and never will.
So, he calls me an imbecile.

Go figure.

A few Haiku pour vous

A REFLECTION at LAKE NEATAWANA
February 24, 1997

A gull with a limp
is still majestic in flight.
Be not quick to judge.

A REALITY TRILOGY
February 9, 2010

I wait in Silence
hoping that a Dream will come
and swallow me whole.


Reality dawns
to awaken me again,
so I close the shade.


Real Life rings loudly,
but I don't want to wake up.
Where's the snooze button?

YODISH WISDOM
June 18-ish, 2010

Hurts, to walk, it does
If, on comfort, you insist
For the hearse, here wait

A SONG of THANKS

Thank you for the Dawning
  of one more newborn Day.
For the Innocence of Morning
  and Fog that burns away.

Thank you for the Sunshine,
  the Warmth of Afternoon.
The Stillness of the Evening,
  the Brilliance of the Moon.

Sometime after Midnight,
  I’ll choose one distant Star,
And ponder in the shivering light
  what Miracles we are.


Note:  I plan to write a refrain and set this to music.

MORE THAN THEY APPEAR TO BE*

“Things are not always what they appear to be.”
That’s true enough; and it’s not just about being deceptive.
Sirens, grandmotherly wolves, and wax grapes notwithstanding,
the people in our lives, and the principles we live by,
are often much more precious than we realize.
We may not recognize their value until they’re gone.
Then regret seeps in to fill the vacant space.
Who did you meet on your way to Emmaeus?**

.
“If I had realized ..." [insert the Whole Truth here] ...
"I would have cherished ..." or "I would have told him ..."
or "I wouldn’t have acted as I did ..."
or yada this or yada that.
It’s not too late to heal those wounds, Dear Soul.
Sometimes, though, it takes years -- and it takes tears.
If you ask me, I’ll tell you how I did it
with the memory of my father. Right, Dad?

NOTES:
* Inspiration courtesy of Jennifer.
** Luke (24:13-35).
***For more on “not always what they appear”
see this Blog for May 5, 2010: “God’s Image and Man’s Imagination”.

ETERNAL LIFE

In the Here and Now,
Time is a non-entity
Just as it is in Eternity.
In the absence of Time,
We cannot be moved or stopped.
We cannot cease to be.
Eternal life is Here and Now.
A gift that few unwrap.

The WISDOM of INNOCENCE - A Lesson for Grown-Ups

Children keep their sense of wonder
Even when hard rain is falling.
Why does lightning beat the thunder?
Why must all the birds stop calling?
Why do grown-ups keep complaining?
It won't stop the rain from raining!

GOD'S IMAGE and MAN'S IMAGINATION

The Good Book says God created Man in His own image and likeness.
Man returned the favor -- and Michelangelo notarized it
by creating a corporeal image of the Creator, as well as for Adam.
Scripture is still assumed to refer to bodies rather than souls.

Life then imitated Art; and millions more made the same wrong turn.
Man's imagination tends to be limited by his senses.
Even a genius, in the role of artist, has this limitation. Besides,
the fussy old pope probably demanded a picture he could see.

God is a whole lot bigger than our little brains can imagine.
The Universe, His creation, is not merely what it appears to be.
Neither are we. There is much we don't know about ourselves.
Of that we can be certain, humbly confident of our ignorance.

REALITY

Reality is, more or less, the Will of God.
Our Free Will accounts for the "less".
Nothing is anything,
if (or unless) God wills it,
or at least allows it.
So...
I can do anything I wish, God willing.
Conversely, without God, I can do nothing.
Sometimes, God lets me do nothing.
He doesn't expect me to do anything!
Isn't that something?