Sea Haiku

A storm blew the bird
far off her intended course ~
our boat her refuge.

(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.
And if you're just tuning in,
the story behind this haiku
is in the second paragraph
of the entry just below this one.)

Wings

I am one of the most confident women I know, and I'm not sure why.

Surely some of my "can do" spirit comes from the care my parents took with me when I was young; my childhood is full of stories about their encouragement of my trying things I maybe technically shouldn't have been able to do yet. Putting real records on a real record player before I could even read. Riding my bike home alone even though it meant travelling on old Route 17 for a mile or so. My parents seemed to radiate a sense of "well, of course you can do that," and in many instances I took that as my cue to live up to their expectations. As I grew I guess I internalized their confidence and made it my own.

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When I was growing up, my family spent as much of our free time sailing as we possibly could. One time my father was sailing by himself, bringing the boat across Lake Ontario so that we could join him for "the fun part" of the vacation, cruising in the Thousand Islands. As it happened, my father ran into a big storm, and was hard-pressed to keep the boat on course. As the clouds finally cleared and the waves began to subside a bit, he saw a tiny bird which had obviously been blown far off its usual flight path making its way to the forward deck of our boat. There the bird lay in a tousled heap, so still for so long that my father thought it might be dead. But eventally, after some long anxious minutes, the bird began to show signs of life. It gradually progressed to the point of being able to hop around the foredeck and forage for food, happily pecking at the bug bits it found. Finally the bird got up the energy and courage to test its wings again. It flew away... and came back. Then it flew a little further... and came back. At last the far shore of Lake Ontario came into sight, and the bird threw itself into the now-blue sky and headed straight for the smudged line of trees on the horizon.

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In my work life, I am a college counselor, which means -- among other things -- that I stand at the doorway of adulthood and watch as my students try to navigate their way forward.

Sometimes I get to cheer. Sometimes I hand out Kleenex. And sometimes I just shake my head in wonder.

We are a K-12 school, so we are witnesses to some incredible transformations. Students who seem completely unmoored one year discover the things that matter most to them and take flight.

It is impossible to predict the point at which young people will "come into their own," but when they do, it is a beautiful thing.

So here's what I think flight requires: faith in yourself, belief that the seemingly impossible can sometimes be achieved, some sense of where you are, and a place to land.

Wings alone won't do it.

(Thank you to the women of Sunday Scribblings
for their continuing inspiration.)

Flame Haiku

Tiny leaves are out
on every tree I can see,
fearless flames of green.

(The Poetry Thursday "completely and totally optional"
prompt this week was to write a villanelle.
To which my muse responded, "Yeah, right.")

Earth Day Haiku

Dirt beneath our nails,
we hum songs of praise and thanks
while planting pansies.

Guilt beneath our nails,
we plant pansies in the sun
at the asphalt's edge.

(Thanks to the women of One Deep Breath
for their continuing inspiration.)

Everyday Miracles

Everyday Miracles

What probably happened,
I explained when retracing our steps
turned up bark with beetle trails,
stone steps leading to a rock that was
big enough for both of us to sit on,
and an abandoned bike with its chain
rusted completely solid (horrifying to you),
but no cell phone,
what probably happened is
that someone already found it
between when we dropped it
and when we turned around to look for it.

Probably what will happen
is that someone will call our home
to tell me that they found it,
and we'll get it back that way.
And when it happened just that way,
you seemed pleased but not surprised.
After all, this was the same day 
we discovered
that our shadows could touch and tickle
even if we never did.

Art Haiku

Just one green pencil
takes you to another world –
such concentration!

(D sat in the living room for a long time with his replicas
of a Northwest coast totem pole
and a Mayan sculpture covered with glyphs,
and then came into the kitchen to announce
that he was going to trace them and draw a house in between them.
He turned the picture around to show me,
but couldn't stop working on it for even a second.
He was living in that house.)

PS: last day for THAT shirt! He loves it, but look at how short the sleeves are.

Rooted

Like many people, I came to Quakerism as a kind of spiritual refugee.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church, and was into the whole thing pretty seriously... Vacation Bible School, singing in the choir, mission trips with the youth group, etc. etc. I can still rattle off all the books of the Old Testament with very little effort.

But right about the time that I started kissing girls it became clear that my church of origin and I were going to have to part ways.

While in college, I bounced around a bit, sometimes attending the University chapel, sometimes the Unitarian church at the edge of campus. Maybe once or twice I made it to Quaker Meeting, and remember both times being somewhat unsettled by the silence. (I am not a naturally quiet person.) (My friends are chuckling at the depth of that understatement.)

When I moved to Philadelphia in the early 1990's, I felt a renewed sense of urgency about my on-again, off-again quest for a new religious community to call home, and since Philly is in many ways the cradle of American Quakerism, it makes sense that I would try Meeting once again.

Quaker Meetings, at least the ones I am familiar with, are communities of spiritual seekers, and because one of the central tenets of the Quaker faith is the belief that we are each in a direct and individual relationship with the Divine, people are wary about expressing an opinion about where anyone "should" be on their spiritual journey.

It is not unusual for someone to be an "attender" at an unprogrammed Monthly Meeting for years before taking the steps necessary to becoming a member, so I was in very good company as a long-term attender at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.

Eventually, someone suggested to me that I might want to sit in on a Meeting for Worship with attention to business, where, as the name suggests, the members of the meeting consider the business of the Meeting (requests for space rental, requests for clearness committees, budgets, planning special programs, whatever comes up). And it was my attendance at these Meetings that finally made it clear to me that I needed to move from being an attender to requesting membership in the Society of Friends.

What I saw, in those meetings, was an inspiring combination of individual ability in the form of some incredibly talented clerks, and a deep and rich tradition of corporate discernment. I can't remember now the specific topics at hand that evoked this response in me (although I'm pretty sure one of them was gay marriage), but here's what I do remember:

I remember feeling as if I should probably remain quiet during the meeting; since I wasn't yet a member, it seemed more appropriate for me to just be quiet and listen. I remember finding it difficult to be quiet because the issues at hand were so interesting, and the discussions so full of life. And then I remember feeling incredibly grateful and a little awed when, on several occasions, someone else spoke out of the silence in a way that absolutely resonated with what I had been thinking and feeling and working not to express.

When I hear the traditional Quaker phrase, "That Friend speaks my mind," it is these early moments in my life as a "convinced" Friend that I most often remember.

I felt such a sense of joy and peace, to not only be supported in my own individual spiritual journey, but to know that I would not be alone, that I would not have to be the "ball carrier," even on those things that mattered most to me, that I could trust in the work of the Spirit through people, and that the important work would go forward, no matter what.

I still feel that way. And I depend on my Quaker community – still predominantly that of my Meeting, but widening now to include Quakers to whom I am connected only through cyber space – to help keep me rooted, committed to a life that is increasingly Spirit-led. I feel that I live in a society that is sometimes punishingly secular and, in places, inappropriately religious; I need a faith community to help me work out what my path will look like going forward.

This is something the internet can help with, I think. No matter who you are, no matter what your experience, there IS someone else out there whose experience can speak to yours. Until recently I'd been thinking about this mostly in terms of those rare connections that can be hard to find in the physical world (e.g. hey, I can find all the other grownups who still love Lego now!), but now I'm realizing it doesn't only have to be about the hard-to-find connections. I can work towards having my cyberlife mirror my realworld life in all its dimensions, and so here I am, connecting with writers and Quakers. It's a good time to be alive.

(Thanks to the women of Sunday Scribblings
and the good folks at QuakerQuaker
for their continuing inspiration.
And congrats, Gautami!)

Safe Landing

Safe Landing

On the fifth anniversary of your adoption,
we left our jobs early to scoop you up,
and we all three walked to the museum
where we paid our respects
to a mummy and the top figure of a totem pole
that had once stood sixty feet high.

On the way to our next adventure,
the day seemed to be warming up
(finally, after all that rain),
and a patch on the sidewalk
called out a challenge you couldn't ignore.

"Watch me!" you called, as if either of us
has done anything but since we became a family.
One of us stood to mark the spot where the leap
should start, while the other tried to stay
out in front, ready to cheer, or catch,
or possibly pick up the pieces.

Behind you, a young man heard your joyous yell,
recalled his own sidewalk challenges,
and turned around just in time to see you take flight.
The trees murmured their approval
as you came back to earth
and reached up
with both arms
to take our hands again.

Easy Monthly Installments

Easy Monthly Installments


Today I heard a mayor say
that we lose thirty citizens
a day to gun violence.
Every day.

Are we so shot-through
with fast-cut smooth-talking
bite-sized-for-easy-consumption
everything

that we've lost the ability
(or is it the desire?)
to remember the wild possibilities,
the as-yet-unwritten splendor of
every life?

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

Here I am standing in line
at the company store
again,
wondering who signed us up
for this devil's bargain
payable only in blood and heartbreak,
borrowed against our souls.
What will I say to my son
when he asks me
what's for dinner?
The choices aren't choices,
and they never seem to change.

(Thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing inspiration.
I am letting myself feel this sadness.
I taped up a few copies of my poem – it's meant to be one poem w/ two parts –
in my school today. My heart was pounding. It felt very transgressive.
I gave Anonymous the credit, because I didn't want it to be about me.
And I left a few blank versions with just "Go ahead. Write a poem." on them
(Dana's idea). You can see one of the blank ones a little further down
the hallway in the photo below.)