The good news is I have found a new Good Book. I first heard of it from a distant (in miles) blogging Friend (you know who you are). I found it at a used book sale, and it stayed for a while in the corner of the living room in the stack of books on the floor, waiting for the long awaited expansion of bookshelf space. I kept putting off reading it because of a (false) impression I had gotten, of possible foreignness and dry subject matter, from the unfortunate back cover description.

I picked it from the stack and started reading it this week, and have been swept away into that too rare state of being torn between wanting to abandon all else in life to just read it, and wanting to read for ten minutes and put it away for a while. In the same way I always eat chocolates in the slowly melted in mouth method, to prolong the pleasure.

I don't usually recommend a book before I even finish it, and it may disappoint by the ending, but I seriously doubt it. There are references to opera music, which I like to find on YouTube and play as I read, dramatically enhancing my reading enjoyment.

What a good feeling, being in the middle of a new Good Book.

In the dark

there is no help from false lights.

I don't mean to blow yours out

but your sketch of pretty candles

will not guide you in the dark,

in the shadow of the dark,

in the pit below the shadow of the raging rolling dark.

You will know the dark is winning

if you find yourself so low.

Only hold, you can,

to memory of knowledge of a light,

and hope someday to catch

a flicker

of a lighter shadow shown

and by intuition known:

that somewhere beyond the darkness

an almost unknown distant light,

and that you are in its sight.

Oct 2, 2013 5:45-6:00 am, after a dream of oppression from confining and restricting societal laws, and anger, and gang danger, including a poem duel and then I woke up with the first two lines, having seen a knife drawn. (Even in my dream I was struck by the novelty of a poem fight, hoping I had a good sonnet or two in my holster. But after the unfair introduction of a knife, oh well!)

Are you afraid of life?

Is your head still ringing from the last blow dealt?

And have you seen his blade?

Have you seen the blood where the last one knelt?

And does your pulse pound out,

does your breath come gasping and your sight grow dim?

Does the dizziness and the nausea come

at the knowing you have no chance against him?

Will you stand up tall?

Will your quaking legs hold you up through it all?

Or will fear of pain

Lay you down with a whimper and a sob as you fall?

 Autumn Morning Sonnet
Yesterday's leaves that crunched in crackling alarm

fold softly now, awash in morning dew. 

I may surprise a squirrel along the way,

or sparrow startled I may chance to view.

And if I pause in perfect silence there

the leaves begin to whisper and to sigh,

the distant geese draw near, fly swift and low,

full songs and whistling feathers cross the sky.

Somewhere nearby a woodpecker gently taps,

a magpie raucously declares the news.

And always waves of whispers and of sighs

wash over me more peace than I can use.

The sun pours through the leaves its shining light:

its warmth remembered in the woods at night.

 

 Foam on ditch water, and red osier dogwood leaves.

Today, because I was worried for someone I love, I tried to pray like I used to pray, with words that I trust God to hear. There was only silence and absence. I am patient.

I floated out into empty air

a prayer.

Can anyone hear me?

If so, are you near me?

I felt no arms around me

so I let nothing surround me.

And yet

in the emptiness fullness abounds;

full is the silence with endless sounds.

I seek because needing,

my need itself knowing:

the seeking is the showing.

I saw a low but broad-leaved grass,

Its blades were all ashiver.

Vibrations humming soundlessly

The Song Beside The River.

Captivity there is, and pain,

And loss beyond reclaiming

But there is One beyond all things

Ever raising and renaming.

I tried to not buy books

But I could only hold it in so long

And it burst out of me in a dizzy explosion

And after the light-headedness had passed

I came to myself outside a used bookstore

with a small stack on my arm.

Three paperbacks and a biography of Gertrude Bell.

I feel better now.

Do You not pity us more than love?

We are so fragile made.

Apt to crumble at slightest touch,

gasping for breath we need so much.

Do You not wonder in sympathy?

We are so fragile mad.

Prone to failure and to pain,

seeking a slaking even in rain.

Do You not weep for us more than condemn?

We are so childish women and men.

Reach out and touch us on our face,

You who are love, and mercy, and grace.

Uncoil your mind and lay it flat

beside the lake or on the grass.

Spread out your worries and your arms

let go of tight and just relax.

The jewel weed rests beneath the dock

where water strokes the rocky shore.

Stones let the waves their soothing work

perform, and worry never more.  

The sun, the shade, will welcome you,

your only duty: to enjoy.

And soak in gratitude for life,

more person than you were before.

Come, let me show you my hawks.

We are old farmers,

with old machinery that needs replacing,

and have some wooded pastures

no farm animal grazes

(though we do not speak of this to farmers).

So woods remain, and long grasses,

with small animals secret.

When I walk the trail through the woods they come to me.

My hawks.

They swoop above me in full screech

and hang almost still until

just as I aim my camera,

then glide swiftly down the sky

behind the sheltering trees.

Mostly the male calls down curses

to keep away from his life,

and sometimes is joined by his warrior queen.

I have not gone near their treetop nest,

in honour of their majesty.

We also wished to be left in peace

as we raised our children.

Our children grown do not want to farm

And we do not wish it upon them,

Only keep the land and lay yourself down,

Let the solid peace soak up through your bones

And rest yourself on the land.

And see the hawks soar,

Masters of the sky.

And know yourself owned by the land

And a subject of long live the hawks.