W.S. Merwin

To Where We Are

With open arms the water runs into the wheel.

I come back to where I have never been.

You arrive to join me.

We have the date in our hands.

We come on to where we are, laughing to think

Of the Simplicities in their shapeless hats

With a door so they can sit outside it

I hope I may say

Our neighbors

Natives of now, creatures of

One song,

Their first, their last,

Listen.

-W.S. Merwin

On Hope.

"Only in the perspective of this God can there possibly be a love that is more than philia, love to the existent and the like--namely, agape, love to the non-existent, love to the unlike, the unworthy, the worthless, to the lost, the transient and the dead; a love that can take upon it the annihilating effects of pain and renunciation because it receives its power from hope of a creatio ex nihilo. Love does not shut its eyes to the non-existent and say it is nothing, but becomes itself the magic power that brings it into being. In its hope, love surveys the open possibilities of history. In love, hope brings all things into the light of the promises of God." --Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

This book is rocking my world in the best and simplest way possible. Read it.

1613.

I walk through the door left open

to the orange chair my

great grandmother left

and the table of my childhood,

I sit and remember the truth

of love and vacancy and new beginnings

as if stopped in the moment by

the familiar scent of truth,

of peace

and conversation worth dwelling upon.

Few are these moments, grateful

am I for this glass and these men,

for rest and for now.

Wind taps the window, rain wets the sidewalk,

and I dream of now.

The Morning

Smoke arose from the flume left open

Across the foggy September street,

Stillness hard to discern through

Boughs of laden fir and passing cars.

I turn my eyes toward the table before me,

To remembrance and weighty contemplation,

To here and now, to what has passed,

And to what through grace shall be.

And now this morning in stillness I say grace.

And in grace given I receive

Not new gifts, only what is continually offered

In the sacrifice of Love.

Ballard Sunday Market.

That ancient brick street ended in a garden

Our satchels soon filled with community and

The summer harvest of joy and light.

My fingers pierced the ground and

Grasped squirming figurines, their death

The meaning of dark months.

In gratitude and grace, with friends

And full hearts, the magic of the soil

And sun of the sky lay before us.

We gave thanks. We ate long, we laughed full,

And we drank deep.

Our souls knew peace.

CCC.

This Sabbath morning there is life in this coffee shop:

-Families come and go: sometimes dragging kids, often chasing them. There are tears and there is laughter. Some parents are enjoying their place in life, their kids and relationships; some are obviously overwhelmed by their life and responsibility for new life. There are grandmothers with grandkids; books are being read, games are being played. A dad is singing the words he knows to the Police song that is playing.

-New meetings and old relationships: a woman just walked into the coffee shop and walked over to a man waiting for his drink. They made eye contact, the man had a sheepish and nervous grin and they exchanged pleasantries before walking out of the shop together, all for the viewing pleasure of the coffee shop. There are young couples discovering one another; there are old couples enjoying shared life and history.

-Reading and Writing: there are books and newspapers and journals and notepads. Folks are engaging their minds and hearts through self-reflection, prayer, writing, and discussion. A man is reading a book to his young daughter. I'm reading Berry, Kierkegaard, and Dillard.

This is ordinary life. People are eating and drinking, talking and sitting. People are resting.

VII

The clearing rests in song and shade.

It is a creature made

By old light held in soil and leaf,

By human joy and grief,

By human work,

Fidelity of sight and stroke,

By rain, by water on

The parent stone.

We join our work to Heaven's gift,

Our hope to what is left,

That field and woods at last agree

In an economy

Of widest worth.

High Heaven's Kingdom come on earth.

Imagine Paradise.

O dust, arise!

-Wendell Berry

june 14.

Candle wax was fleeing

across your mother's finest chair,

the baby's crying opened hallways

to moons and a leaf slowly falling,

and the lamp above your

dying bed.

I watch the wind, it catches,

your dress, it dances as we did

and I feel you, smell you in

the ink of this pen and in the

song of others' conversation.

Remember our lunch by the sea;

my hand resting in yours, we

spoke of angels and visions

of love, of rain on your window, a

crack in mine.

Was I blinded by the view?

Had my ears gone deaf by

the sound, the beating of hearts?

Is there knowing without doing,

loving without hurting?