I saw a little gray kitten dead by the side of the road today.  Maybe he lived all of six weeks.  All the matters that seem so important to us had no relevance for the kitten.  His life was so short it almost might seem insignificant.  But then what is my life?  or yours?  just the dash between two four-digit numbers on a headstone?  An insignificant blip?  And yet...the whole world is contained within this moment, in my little finger.

I've often told people I have no regrets. But I will say that my soul does weigh heavy remembering... I know of three specific occasions over the years where I made choices, small ordinary choices that involved nothing criminal or immoral or even irresponsible. But those tiny mundane choices were each part of a chain of events that led to three people's deaths, two of which were quite tragic and involved young people. I bear the burden of knowing my part... There are so many mundane choices we make, and we have no idea where they will lead. While I've never acted with intention to harm anyone, I know that I constantly leave a trail of injury and pain to others. And of course there are people who have hurt me too, even one or two who have brought me double pain by virtue of not even caring that they hurt me. To live is to suffer and cause suffering, is it not? Of course to live also provides opportunity to experience joy and to bring joy to others. I am struggling to make my life accomplish the latter, rather than be overwhelmed by the former. It's difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible, and more and more I feel myself ready to give up and let myself slip into that endless dark chasm...

Aubade for the Executioner 

There are some truths for whom, since their conception,
the way is doomed,
so that the whole of their lives—
though they be lifted, it might seem,
out of themselves,
for a while, rescued—
possess one fate and one alone
which is to tear their way toward death,
go out tied down,
deaf to the voice requiring now acknowledgement,
something, some recognition.
Tied down, yes, tied, and deaf to it.
In such a death there is no ending, none,
and no resolve.
Only lapses like a wheel, forgetfulness.
Who touches the ache touches numbness against relief.
It is remembering with happy tears the worst of winters!
Such halls of want these luckless truths build!
Who can help but love them who taught restraint,
a stone lesson
to endure silence like an excess of suffering
until such suffering to love spills into dreams—
oh, when to hold, when not to hold them,
when not to meet their eyes.
What's chosen earnestly, by faith,
may be used in time against us.
Who can say how many or how few are buried in us.

~Deborah Digges (February 6, 1950-April 10, 2009)

I am simultaneously at a peak and a valley.  Have you ever imagined the possibility of such a geological phenomenon?  I feel everything and nothing.  At this moment I could easily walk off a mountain and fall forever, or walk endlessly into the sea until it takes me and tosses me around and dashes me against rocks and splinters me into a thousand pieces and then each of those pieces would rise and dance and disburse into the universe and I would become a tree and a fish and a stone and an ant and a raindrop and a fox and the sky and a thousand things.  Yes, I am a thousand things at once, and after I am disbursed, I am drawn back together by a great spinning wind, a towering twisting funnel cloud with a deafening roar spinning and spinning and spinning for a thousand years until I am tossed into its vortex and suspended in nothingness and silence.

My dearest Tree friends, I love...

How your fingers delve the deep

And find the secret stores, hidden wells

From which you drink and fashion jewels;

How you dance with the wind,

Flurry of color, whooshing whisper,

Twinkling light weaving through your mighty boughs;

How your fragrance fills the air,

Savory sweetness on my tongue,

So intoxicating all who come your way;

How your reach is ever upwards ever higher

Steady onward, playfully

You kiss the sun, and all is well.

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen -- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives -- I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman." I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

~Kahlil Gibran

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"

He said, "Like what?"

I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"

He said, "Religious."

I said, "Me too!  Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

He said, "Christian."

I said, "Me too!  Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me too!  Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

He said, "Baptist!"

I said, "Wow!  Me too!  Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"

He said, "Baptist Church of God!"

I said, "Me too!  Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!"

I said, "Me too!  Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.

- Emo Phillips

All about us is noise.  All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues….  We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.... What if the mightiest word is LOVE?

~ from Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem ~

 

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Our beginning began when the first primal word broke the silence,

Vibrating breath and sound merging and emerging from the nothingness

Inaugurating the somethingness.

And from the somethingness our words perpetually spill out,

Wildly bursting forth, multiplying rapidly, saturating the air.

Trees and seaweed gather them up, like unruly children;

Ancient and wise green nannies, they lovingly absorb and transform them,

and return them to us cleansed.

~Miri~