After much conversation -- and, of course, much soul searching -- Barbara and I agreed that it's time to let go of Lectio Poetica. All things emerge and endure only for a time, then dissolve back into the silence and stillness from which they arose.
I tried to come up with a poem, or a quote, or a photograph, or something to share with you. To mark the moment. But, alas, I couldn't find anything that spoke to me, or felt like it would speak to you. So I'll try speaking to you myself, unmediated.
After much conversation -- and, of course, much soul searching -- Barbara and I agreed that it's time to let go of Lectio Poetica. All things emerge and endure only for a time, then dissolve back into the silence and stillness from which they arose.
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Early Sunday morning, I awaken from a nightmare about the U.S. Presidential election. With only two days left, a sickening sense of dread that all may be lost looms over me like a thunderhead crackling with malevolent energy.
I stare at the ceiling. I worry. What if racism, misogyny, xenophobia, greed, hatred, ignorance, and insanity actually win? Traveling Through the Dark By William Stafford Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off; she was large in the belly. My fingers touching her side brought me the reason-- her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born. Beside that mountain road I hesitated. The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine. I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen. I thought hard for us all—my only swerving-- then . . . Then . . . What? “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice.” —Mary Oliver If you live with chronic pain, as I do, eventually you’ll hear almost every imaginable remedy for what ails you. As soon as some wise and kindly soul in the vicinity discovers you’re in pain, whether you ask for it or not, whether you want it or not, he or she will offer some tidbit of well-intentioned advice.
Nails on a chalkboard could not be more annoying. Normally I grit my teeth, smile, and scope out the nearest exit. You’re Joking Years ago, for example, as I was waiting for an appointment with my deep tissue massage therapist, a woman came in, started chattering away, asking nosey questions about which of my body parts were in pain, and for how long. Before I knew it, she was pressing a business card into my palm. “Believe us, they say, it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.” —Mary Oliver Walking along the little creek near McIntosh Lake this morning, the air brisk, sky dense with clouds, head down, brow heavy with rumination—I jerked upright suddenly, startled by golden sparks of lightning flashing across my field of vision.
No, I wasn’t having a seizure. A flock of goldfinches chased each other from tree to tree, pausing briefly, little bursts of color, zipping here and there. Such beauty! All thought ceased. I became all eye, all ear, all here. “The mink had a hunger in him bigger than his shadow . . . For me, it was the gift of the winter to see him.” —Mary Oliver Winter is a time of hunger, a season of searching for sufficient sustenance to survive the frozen, denuded landscapes of nature, of life, and of work.
For animals in the wild, sources of food become more difficult to locate. Waterways become covered over with ice. Insects hibernate and die. Vegetation shrinks back to barren sticks, often buried beneath the snow. More animals die in winter than any other season. It can be a risky, terrifying, and lonely time. "It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men [and women] die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." -- William Carlos Williams Note: I wrote this reflection one week after the terrorist attacks in Paris. With subsequent attacks in San Bernardino and elsewhere, terrorism could easily come to dominate our consciousness. At times like these, we may be better off getting the news from poets than from the media.
“Now I become myself. It’s taken / Time, many years and places; / I have been dissolved and shaken, / Worn other people’s faces . . .” —May Sarton Rainer Maria Rilke was just 29 years old when he began writing his now famous Letters To A Young Poet, to Franz Xaver Kappus, a German military student who was 19 when the two began corresponding in 1903. Kappus had nervously sent Rilke some poems, asking his opinion.
“You ask whether your verses are any good,” Rilke replied, with tenderness. “You ask me. You have asked others before this . . . I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. “As for the poem, not this poem but any / poem, do you feel its sting? Do you feel / its hope, its entrance to a community? Do / you feel its hand in your hand?” —Mary Oliver Sunday morning, July 12, 2015. Seven of us sit for a few moments in silence. To my left, Barbara quietly recites a blessing by John O’Donahue, which contains these words:
May this be a safe place Full of understanding and acceptance, Where you can be as you are, Without the need of any mask Of pretense or image. “And I thought / how I meant to live a quiet life / how I meant to live a life of mildness and meditation / tapping the careful words against each other . . .” —Mary Oliver On a quiet Sunday morning, a small group of introverts and contemplative types gather in a circle for two hours to ponder a single poem together. Our contemplative practice ebbs and flows like the tide between silence and speech, solitude and community, the poem a gravitational force.
When we slow down and really pay attention, something intriguing tends to happen. |
About the Blog
These are the personal reflections of Jay Valusek on the process of Lectio Poetica, on nature, on poetry in general, and on some of words or phrases from poems we have used in our local gatherings. Archives
January 2017
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