Spring: I believe.

haystack rock, cannon beach, oregon (march 2010) If you live in many parts of the northern U.S., you've probably been saying to your friends, "Winter was hard this year, wasn't it?" And your friends have been nodding their heads, squinting their eyes, and pulling their sweaters closer around them. Those of us in the northeastern states still look pale and shellshocked from all the snow, the ice, the darkness, the Polar Vortex, the fear that maybe this time spring really wouldn't come. Starting a few weeks ago, we began to see photos from our friends down south and in more moderate climes -- all those soft, bright blooms! It was too much to bear. Yes, April: that cruellest month, mixing memory and desire, hyacinths, hope, and apprehension. But quick now, here now, always: the daffodils are beginning to peek out. The buds on the pear tree are undeniably about to pop into petals. And despite the snow that dusted us here in Pennsylvania just two days ago (it always snows in April), despite it all: I believe. I believe in spring, in the return of the light, in warmth, in love, in second chances. Some days I'm tempted to sit down and list out exactly what I do believe, side-by-side with all of the beliefs that I've lost along the way, just to see which list is longer. Where, I wonder, is the Life we have lost in living? But to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I want -- or need -- to know, becuase what we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.**

So in honor of endings and beginnings, in honor of spring, here's a little blessing that I wrote a few years ago. (When I read it, I like to imagine that I'm standing at the sea, which is the land's edge.)

A Springtime Blessing

May you be rooted like rock
That reaches down beneath the constant tide
And pushes tall into the air.
May you shimmer like sun-skimmed sand
Along white, white waves.
May a line of footprints lead you
To adventure and home and back again.
May your perspective be one of compassion and beauty.
May you ruffle your wings in the water
And flutter them dry on the breeze,
Plump with the knowledge that you are as permanent
And as temporary
As this land.

 

**Italicized words, plus references to April as the cruellest month and hyacinths, from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Four Quartets, and The Rock. (It seems I can't go a spring season without quoting at least one of these.)

January Thaw (a prose poem)

river through the window screen

In between writing and revising essays during my month here at Vermont Studio Center, I've been writing little prose-poemish nuggets. Here's one I wrote last week.

January Thaw

The river has a false bottom made of ice. It looks murky brown, like semi-solid silt, as though you could stand on it, the icy water around your calves. But the submerged ice would give way as you tried to put your foot down. Down you'd go, to your hips, your shoulders, your ears. Maybe deeper. I don't know how to gauge depth from the surface. Not many of us do. This is why we assume or argue, why we end up in over our heads. When the river freezes and snow falls, it's hard to see where the banks end and where the water begins. It's a different story over on the other side of the bridge: fast moving falls and huge sheets of ice a foot thick wedged atop ice chunks, like a continental shelf washed upon cold boulders. Over there, there's no mistaking the danger.

Thresholds: Danger & Possibility

beach fire, gearhart, oregon; friday, july 13, 2012

"Twilight is a fascinating threshold for it is then that the light finally falls away and the dark closes its grip on the world. This is a frontier of tension; it is at once beginning and end, origin and completion. Here is where two opposing forces reach towards each other to create a vital frontier filled with danger and possibility."

~John O'Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

I'm becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of thresholds, the edges of things, the ecotones of the world, the places where one thing gives way to -- or seeps in to -- another. The here-and-there, now-and-then, this-and-that, both/and-either/or nature of places, thoughts, and beliefs. Even people.

I've written several essays about thresholds (between the visible and invisible, between the known and unknown), and they're making their rounds at literary journals, looking for a home. Even this process is like standing on a threshold, waiting for that one acceptance letter that will transform an essay from one thing (unpublished) to another (published).

While looking through my journals tonight, I found a poem that I apparently wrote in response to a writing prompt (from Liz Lamoreux) back in February 2011 at a Be Present Retreat. I don't remember writing it, but there it is in my own hand, and I have to admit that yes, it sounds like me. It brings up the tensions between things, the thresholds of which I'm so fond. In my journal it's untitled, but I think I'll borrow a line from Mr. O'Donohue and call it "Danger & Possibility."

I don't write a lot of poetry, and I share even less of it, mostly because it always has me walking the thin line between pride and embarrassment (it's own threshold). But finding this forgotten collection of words felt somehow serendipitous tonight, so here it is.

Danger & Possibility

I am an overripe peony, full-blown and prime
A drab beggar on a pilgrimage
A haunted dove afloat
The vanishing point.
Ginger butterscotch in a honey pot.
I am bewildered, raw, the cosmos in a circus tent.
I am the chomp and fold
The echoes of flocks
A flat prison mattress.
I am the joy
The lens
The plume.

** ** **
Upcoming in-person reading: I'll be giving a reading of some of my prose (not poetry!) on Friday, September 21 as part of Juxtapositions, a quarterly live music and reading series at the Keynote Cafe in my hometown, Jeannette, PA. I'll probably be reading from an essay entitled "Thresholds," as well as from my "Roller Derby Makes Me Brave" series. If you're local, please come out for a fun night to enjoy live music from Essential Machine (folk pop), The Feel-Good Revolution (indie folk duo), and The Fledgelings (post-rock), plus readings from Dennis C. Lee (dreams and lyrics), Meghan Tutolo (poetry), and me (prose). Tickets are just $5 at the door and include light refreshments. It's also BYOB (so bring me a drink if you come!). More details are here.

It's all right if we do nothing tonight.

You and I have spent so many hours working.
We have paid dearly for the life we have.
It's all right if we do nothing tonight.

from "The Ant," by Robert Bly (Read the whole poem here.)

This is just to say

I hope
to start
writing
in this
space
very soon.

image originally uploaded by cursedthing

In the meantime, did you know that it's National Poetry Month?

Here's a poem I really like. Share your favorites in the comments.