Thanksgiving Day 2019

It has been a difficult two weeks with friends and family concerns. Yet today IS Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. I am grateful for so many things today, I cannot even begin to list them. The poem below was posted on the On Being website several years ago. It is perfect.

I pray that everyone enjoys this day and can move through the downs of the past and look forward with grateful hope.

Three Gratitudes

Carrie Newcomer

Every night before I go to sleep
I say out loud
Three things that I’m grateful for,
All the significant, insignificant
Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life.
It’s a small practice and humble,
And yet, I find I sleep better
Holding what lightens and softens my life
Ever so briefly at the end of the day.
Sunlight, and blueberries,
Good dogs and wool socks,
A fine rain,
A good friend,
Fresh basil and wild phlox,
My father’s good health,
My daughter’s new job,
The song that always makes me cry,
Always at the same part,
No matter how many times I hear it.
Decent coffee at the airport,
And your quiet breathing,
The stories you told me,
The frost patterns on the windows,
English horns and banjos,
Wood Thrush and June bugs,
The smooth glassy calm of the morning pond,
An old coat,
A new poem,
My library card,
And that my car keeps running
Despite all the miles.
And after three things,
More often than not,
I get on a roll and I just keep on going,
I keep naming and listing,

Until I lie grinning,
Blankets pulled up to my chin,
Awash with wonder
At the sweetness of it all.

When Light Was Made

The moment before time,
there was nothing
and there was everything.
All that was and all that is,
and all that ever will be was contained
in that pre-eternal moment.

Physicists call it singularity.
The one moment when all was one.

It was a massive yet infinitely small
black hole with gravity so great that nothing,
not even light,
could escape.

Then it was spoken,
"Let there be light!"
And there was.
From the All in One,
the Nothing and Everything,
Energy became visible,
containing and spreading the Essence of Life.

A Poem for Consideration

George III:

I am the King. I tell, I am not TOLD. I am the VERB, sir, not the OBJECT.

(from The Madness of King George, 1994)

“The Seed of Madness”

King George was

            The VERB.

King George was

A word of action who tells but

Is not to be TOLD.

King George was the one who acts, not the

OBJECT to be acted upon.

In such does the seed of madness sprout.

            The coat splits under a pressure that he cannot resist.

He is powerless to stem the forces that will spiral

            DOWN to the roots of the ego to be fed

                                    an unending torrent of need

and then to spring to the surface and

            UP in the illusory warmth of denial.

           

My Favorites By the Nobel Winner

According to Wikipedia, Bob Dylan has a collection of 522 songs he has written.

We can often accuse Dylan of not singing as we normally think of it. He has a way of using the sound of words to build the emotion and movement. The rhythm of the words is as important as the musical movement.

Hence, in my opinion, the Nobel Prize for Literature is well-deserved. He is a poetic wordsmith that allows music to flow from the words. I have not idea, of course, when Dylan started with the words and when he started with the music. Whichever might come first the connection between the two is always in service of the words. Sometimes, especially in the truly iconic songs, the music may seem trite, the words cliched. But that is only due to the fact that these were there at the creation. In fact, these types of songs ARE the creation story.

First, though, I listed my favorites. I wanted to give my top 5. Didn't work. I easily came up with my top 6. (It's impossible to stop at 1, 3, or 5.) Needless to say they are from after his move into rock. Some of his most powerful- and also among my top favorites- are before that. The words, the sounds, the fun of the first three move into into three songs that moved me internally, numbers 4 - 6. Then I wanted my top 10. Just as impossible to do. But what about...? After that it was how they came to me. It was easier to stop at 20. Hence this list:

1. Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 (1966)
2. Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
3. Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
4. Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1973)
5. All Along the Watchtower (1967)
6. Forever Young (1974)
7. I Shall Be Released (1971)
8. Gotta Serve Somebody (1979)
9. God Gave Names to All the Animals (1979)
10. Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)
11. Masters of War (1963)
12. A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall (1963)
13. Chimes of Freedom (1964)
14. Shelter from the Storm (1975) 
15. Duquesne Whistle (2012)
16. Thunder on the Mountain (2006)
17. Everything is Broken (1989)
18. The Levee's Gonna Break (2006) 
19. Maggie's Farm (1965)
20. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (2001)

There are three songs conspicuously missing from that list. These are the obvious songs. These are the songs that go beyond "favorites" into the realm of the iconic, cultural stepping stones, music-changing music. These are THE creation songs I referenced above. Even if I didn't like them, which I do, they are here forever, as essential as any music ever written. In chronological order:

• Blowin' In the Wind-1963
• The Times They are A-Changing-1964
• Like A Rolling Stone-1965

I will be putting together several more posts on these 23 songs. Watch for them over the next couple weeks.

In most ways, it would be easiest to say that my favorite Bob Dylan songs are the songs written by Bob Dylan. Dylan and the Beatles dominate my iTunes songs in the popular music. No one has done with and for music as much as these artists. Dylan is unique. Always moving, always creating new ideas, always a step ahead of even himself. Folk, rock, country, bluegrass, jazz, the American songbook have all been impacted by this minstrel of American music in the past 55+ years.

It is poetic literature. It is amazing.

At 10:49 PM, CST....

Winter.

From Shakespeare:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

You Ask: Why Winter?

by Emmanuel George Cefai

You ask: Why Winter?
Winter gives warmth to my verse
And as no other season it gives
Birth
To beauty in its hoar and horrid wonders
In its rattling cold and sundry thunders
Its rain that floods woods and vales
And hamlets trembling small:
O Winter! Winter!

[Winter Poems Link]

Chimes of Freedom

Bob Dylan's remarkable song, Chimes of Freedom came on my iPod shuffle mix this afternoon. It has always been one of my favorite of Dylan's protest era songs. It speaks of the ever-present need for the chimes of freedom to be tolling for so many of us. As I was listening, the first verse listing jumped out at me as befitting all the news of refugees in Europe. This part of the song reminds us of the responsibility that I believe we have toward our fellow human beings:

Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Link

Here's the whole song. 

But the rest of the list is just as powerful as that first verse...

I can find myself at least a couple of times in the list...

or people I have known and met...

the rebel, the rake
the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake

the gentle, the kind
the guardians and protectors of the mind
the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time

the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
the deaf an’ blind, the mute
the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit

the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail

the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe

We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing!

Link

It's hard to beat the poetry and depth of Dylan. Even when the words seem to be coming from somewhere the rest of us are unable to find, the way the words meld and move make us stop and pay attention. Dylan has often used words as others use musical notes.

The chimes flash full and loud in this unequaled song. Listen again, or hear Bruce Springsteen's superb version (Link).

The Mystery Continues

Dan Clendenin, from the web site, Journey With Jesus, selected a number of poems with spiritual themes and challenges. I came across this one the other day when thinking about Epiphany as the conclusion of the Christmas season and the beginning of taking the Word to the world. It is by Denise Levertov (1923–1997) and lays bear for us the miracle that Epiphany brought to the world.

On the Mystery of the Incarnation

It's when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

A Remarkable Song's Ascent

It's about Biblical images of a shepherd King named David; it's a story of Samson and Delilah; it's a reflection on making love; it's a universal awareness that in the end there's nothing but standing before a Creator and singing.

Hallelujah.

Leonard Cohen wrote the original verses; John Cale sang the first variation; Jeff Buckley turned it into an anthem; Rufus Wainwright made it more playful; k d lang performed it at the Olympics and helped make it international.

It has been used for weddings, Yom Kippur services, movie and TV soundtracks and 9/11 reactions.

Hallelujah.

I just finished reading the book, The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of "Hallelujah" by Alan Light. It tells the now 30-year journey of what has become an iconic song. Light traces the composer, Cohen, through his career and how this song, barely noticed for the first ten years of its existence slowly rose to the stature it has today.

It is a remarkable song that has a life of its own thanks in part to Cohen's own openness to change. The melody is simple, haunting and unforgettable. The first time one hears it, you think you've heard it before. It builds on its own familiarity and pulls you in. Light examines the song, the various verses added to it, it's use in the movie Shrek, American Idol and as the instrument for a resurgence and appreciation for Leonard Cohen, who as Light points out does the simple and radical thing of rhyming "what's it to you?" or "come to fool you" with "Hallelujah."

In the end for many, it may be the closing stanza of Cohen's original lyrics that speak of an attitude and a spirituality that we all seek to live. It is a holy or broken

Hallelujah!

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Here is the now wise elder Cohen singing at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2008.

Note: Go to You Tube and hear the other three remarkable interpretations by
John Cale
Jeff Buckley (life at Sin-e) and
Rufus Wainwright.
Each is unique and will bring out different emotions.

In Memory: Maya Angelou

A woman of immense courage, insight and grace. Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014)

Her last tweet, just five days ago:

Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.
1:43 PM - 23 May 2014

Ponder also one of great poems:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Canyons of Snow

Canyons of snow,
More and more
Falling with uncanny regularity
A winter of records
A winter of broken pipes

But overall a winter of
Canyons of snow

It keeps piling higher
Every storm adds to the pile
Every morning saw the plows
Scraping and
Lifting and
Pushing
Front-end loaders
Making mountains.

Canyons of snow
Hiding rooflines
And pedestrians
Intersections become
Blinded by the white
Oncoming cars upon you
With little warning

Canyons  of snow
May be with us till spring
Canyons reminding us of
Powerlessness in the face
Of Winter

Read- and Weep at the Beauty

Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains,
         and the maker of canyons and pine mountains!
     All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars.
     The acid that tests gold is there, and the one who judges jewels.
     And the music from the strings no one touches, and the source
         of all water.
     If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
     Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

Robert Bly's translation of a poem by the great Indian poet, Kabir.

Which made me think of another quote, this one from Lao Tzu:

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds
whatever we want.

The Rushing Waters

“Hark!” she said; “I hear a rushing,
Hear a roaring and a rushing,
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha
Calling to me from a distance!

Summer Life

The Summer Day ~ Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

Something to Remember This Spring

Yes, I know I am to be positive and look on the optimistic side of things. But we just finished the wettest May on record and the 5th wettest month, EVER, since records have been kept. Overall I would lean toward these wondrous words of of of our great American poets, Langston Hughes:

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
-Langston Hughes

But on the other hand this spring I think I prefer Shel Silverstein:

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.
-Shel Silverstein

A Daily Reminder of Our Need

You are so weak. Give up to grace.
The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know.
― Rumi, The Essential Rumi

If it were not for grace I have absolutely no idea how I would have made it his far.

One Last Reflection - I Hope

All that snow

          Now rapidly gone back;

          Returned to where it came from.

H₂0 in a cycle of

          Drought and flood.

          Which, of course,

          Gives us - on average -

Just right.

By New Jersey Poet Ed Smith

Wall at Penn Station

New York, NY

8/21/2012

No Rhyme (or Reason)

I found an interesting list somewhere last month. It was the five words that have no rhyming words in English:

• depth
• month
• orange
• silver
• purple

Whoa, I thought, I never realized that such common words can't be rhymed. I was sure that purple would rhyme with maple surple.

Or perhaps depth and month were rhymes.

But I discovered, much to my literary and poetic dismay that rhyme, true rhyme must be more than ..th deep.

Then I went Googling around the Internet and in the depths of Wikipedia I found

a list of English words without rhymes, called refractory rhymes—that is, a list of words in the English language which rhyme with no other English word. The word "rhyme" here is used in the strict sense, called a perfect rhyme, that the words are pronounced the same from the vowel of the main stressed syllable onwards.

Lo and behold there were more

• angel
• angry
• foible
• obliged
• polka
• sandwich
• wolf
• zigzag

Then to my majestic surprise I find an obscure rhyme for purple:

rhymes with curple (the hindquarters of a horse or donkey) and hirple (to walk with a limp)

and for silver:

rhymes with chilver, a female lamb.

Finally I got into Dr. Seuss land when I discovered a rhyme for month:

rhymes with en-plus-oneth (n + 1)th, a mathematical term; also hundred-and-oneth (= hundred-and-first)

I am glad English is a living language. I can hardly wait for someone to come up with a new, but very real word that will rhyme with sandwich or, even better, foible. Think how much easier it would be to write poetry or a good rhyming song.

The Longest Night

No, I'm not up at the early hour to "enjoy" the longest night, I just posted it to publish now. I'm not that crazy.

Anyway, Jan Richardson at The Advent Door posted this wonderful blessing for the longest night. It speaks well to the darkness- and the soon to be seen light. Walk in any direction, she says, and we will head toward the dawn.

Longest Night © Jan L. Richardson.

Blessing for the Longest Night

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,


making ready,
preparing for
this night.

It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.

So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.

You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.

This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.

So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

© Jan L. Richardson. janrichardson.com

It Is 11:30 PM. Do You Know Where Winter Is?

It is the day and time of the Winter Solstice. The days are as short as they will be; the earth's journey is heading toward our northern summer. Though summer is weeks and months away, the darkness has been brought to a halt.


“The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come.  At the darkest moment comes the light.” 
– Joseph Campbell

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






Lord of the Dance

Traditional

I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun;
I was called from the darkness by the song of the earth,
I joined in the singing and she gave me birth.

(chorus, repeat after each verse)

Dance, then, wherever you may be!
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you on, wherever you may be,
I will lead you all in the Dance, said he!

I sleep in the kernel and I dance in the rain,
I dance in the wind, and through the waving grain,
And when you cut me down, I care nothing for the pain --
In Spring I'll be Lord of the Dance again!

I see the maidens laughing as they dance in the sun,
I count the fruits of the of the harvest, one by one;
I know the storm is coming, but the grain is all stored,
So I sing of the dance of the Lady and the Lord.

We dance ever slower as the leaves fall and spin
And the sound of the Horn is the wailing of the wind;
The Earth is wrapped in stillness and we move in a trance,
but we hold on fast to our faith in the dance.

The sun is in the south and the days lengthen fast,
And soon we'll sing for the winter that is past,
Now we light the candles and rejoice as they burn,
and Dance the dance of the sun's return.

They cut me down, but I leap up high!
I am life that will never, never die.
I'll live in you and you'll live in me --
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he!

The moon in her phases and the tides of the sea,
the movement of Earth, and the seasons that will be
Are rhythm for the dancing and a promise through the years --
The Dance goes on through joy and tears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 


“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” 
- Albert Camus