Thursday ~ April 30, 2020

Once again I return to happiness,
which means something, somewhere is in bloom
and the notion, however ridiculous,
is born again: love will not go on without me.
See how a thing like weather changes
everything? The warm earth spins a little at a time
so I won't lose my footing, and the April wind
pushes me toward collecting what it is I came for:
the belief that even in the beautiful places,
I am exceptionally possible.

(Christopher Goodrich, b. late 20th c.)

Tuesday ~ April 28, 2020

We're not lovers because of the love we make,
but the love we have.
We are not friends because of the laughs we spend,
but the tears we save.
I don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share,
but the words we never have to speak.
I will never miss you because of what we do,
but what we are together.

(Nikki Giovanni, b, 1943)

Sunday ~ April 26, 2020

All That is Glorious Around us
is, not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled overlooks
towering clouds, but doing errands on a day of driving rain,
staying dry inside the silver skin of the car, 160,000 miles, still running fine...

Thursday ~ April 23, 2020

My efforts now turn from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love wherever I can find it.
Stripped of causes and plans and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything I could ask for is right right here -
in flawed abundance.
We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life of compassion...
There is nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Accepting this, we can do everything and go anywhere.

(Mark Nepo, b. 1951)

Monday ~ April 20, 2020

Relax

Bad things are going to happen...

There's a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.

When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine

and climbs halfway down. Bit there's also a tiger below.

And two mice - one white, one black - scurry out and begin to gnaw at the vine.

At this point she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.

She looks up, down, at the mice.

Then she eats the strawberry.

So here's the view, the breeze, the pulse in your throat.

Your wallet will be stolen, you'll get fat,

slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel and crack your hip. You'll be lonely.

Oh, taste how sweet and tart the red juice is, how the tiny seeds crunch between your teeth.

(Ellen Bass, b. 1947)

Sunday ~ April 19, 2020

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

(Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886)

Saturday ~ April 18, 2020

Because the year is new and the great change already underway,
we concede a thousandfold and feel, harder than the land itself,
a complicity for everything we did not see or comprehend: cynicism borne of raw despair,
long-cultivated hatreds, the promise of leaders traveling like cool silence through the dark.
My life is here, in this small room, and like you
I am waiting to know - but there is no time to wait for what has happened.
What does the future ask of me?
those who won't have enough to eat by evening,
those whose disease will now take hold -
and the decades that carry past me once I've died,
generations of children, the suffering that is never solved,
the heat over the earth, its marshes,
its crowded towers, its unbreathable night air.
I would open my hand from the wrist,
step outside, not lose nerve.
Here is the day, still to be lived.
We do not fully know what we do.

(Joanna Klink, b. 1969)