So I Said I am Ezra by A.R.Ammons

A.R. Ammons “So I Said I am Ezra” 

So I Said I Am Ezra
and the wind whipped my throat
gaming for the sounds of my voice
   I listened to the wind
go over my head and up into the night
Turning to the sea I said
             I am Ezra
but there were no echoes from the waves
The words were swallowed up
   in the voice of the surf
or leaping over the swells
lost themselves oceanward
   Over the bleached and broken fields
I moved my feet and turning from the wind
   that ripped sheets of sand
   from the beach and threw them
   like seamists across the dunes
Swayed as if the wind were taking me away
and said
            I am Ezra
As a word too much repeated
falls out of being
so I Ezra went out into the night
like a drift of sand
and splashed among the windy oats
that clutch the dunes
of unremembered seas

Light Will someday split you Open

✣ ... Light Will someday split you Open
Even if your life is now a cage.
… Little by little, You will turn into Stars.
Little by little, You will turn into
The whole Sweet, Amorous Universe.
Love will surely burst you Wide Open
Into an unfettered, booming New Galaxy...
✣ Rumi

Go above your nerve

If your Nerve, deny you

292

If your Nerve, deny you—
Go above your Nerve—
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve—

That’s a steady posture—
Never any bend
Held of those Brass arms—
Best Giant made—

If your Soul seesaw—
Lift the Flesh door—
The Poltroon wants Oxygen—
Nothing more—

Emily Dickinson

Love the word poltroon. As a noun it means a complete coward. As an adjective it means contemptible.  The poltroon, the coward within one's self, merely wants oxygen when one's nerve, or courage, denies one's need to find the fierceness to be soft.

the fierceness to get softer

Do I have the fierceness to get softer
The truth-telling to become more vulnerable
The kindness to support my deepest knowing
Can my inner owl wisdom
give me eyes to see love
and wings to fly with compassion

by Linda Bergh, a friend

a life-affirming economy

Rudolf Steiner indicated, near the turn of the 20th Century, that everything in the cosmos is a kind of hologram of everything else. And everything is threefold. One need only look to the human being's threefold nature to see a microcosm of everything.

Human cultural life is threefold:  social, artistic and economic. In a health, threefold social order, the economic realm exists solely to serve the social (schools, roads, power, etc) and artistic (creativity, self expression, spirit, art, laughter and more) realms. In a healthy Threefold Social Order the economic realm exists in perfect equipoise the the other realms of culture.

Fernanda has a little different take on generating a life-affirming economic realm but she has great insight into economics. And there is no one right way.

This TedX talk is worth a look and listen.

true freedom:

I envision police forces that are only capable of actions motivated by love. I envision a whole world in which people are solely capable of actions motivated by love.

I am free

In 2006, I entered into a connection with someone, not a friend. Almost immediately I wrote to him that I felt as if I were being drawn into a Luciferic vortex. I even had the audacity to briefly describe my beliefs about Luciferic energy. Lucifer and Ahriman are two dark, 'fallen' angels that together comprise what most people think of as the Devil. Lucifer entices people into wrong choices with light-appearing things. Ahriman entices and enchants with darkness.

An example of Ahrimanic darkness:  war, physical violence on any level, hurting others physically and emotionally. For some people, there is a draw to dark behavior. It's a slippery slope.

Lucifer entices with light. The play Damn Yankees is a perfect capture of Luciferic energy. Lucifer wins the soul of a young ball player by promising the young guy will get to play in a World Series. Get it? The World Series is ensorcelling the young fool with something that appears good.

My higher, wise self knew the relationship I have referred to was Luciferic. Instead of fleeing, I was not only enchanted with this charming, Luciferically delightful man, I was enchanted by my cleverness, by my use of the phrase 'Luciferic vortex'.

Even though a part of me knew what I was feeling was Luciferic, I happily danced into that Luciferic energy.  Like a lemming lead to the sea or the children of Hamelin following the Pied Piper into oblivion.

I was ensorcelled.  I did it to myself. I knew I was in dangerus energy but I let myself slide towards it anyway.

Like most foolish choices, I have paid for my error in judgment.

I am free of the delusive, Luciferic charm of this person.  Praise Goddess.  It's been a hard slog.

I am free.   I am free. I am free.

weirdmasté

if bitterness arises, give it a gum drop

If bitterness wants to get in the act, I offer it a cookie or a gumdrop.

James Broughton, subject of multiple prize-winning documentary about this gay poet and filmmaker, Big Joy.

Big Joy is streaming on Netflix -- I think. Check out bigjoy.org. Someone you know would love a tshirt that says, as does one I am proaud to own, "When in doubt, twirl." Sage thought, eh?

Ah! honey in the heart

The Well Dressed Man by Wallace Stevens

After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
The aureole above the humming house...
It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

respect: to actually listen

love isn't a perfect state of caring

The Blue by Billy Collins

The Blue by Billy Collins, a former Poet Laureate of US and one of my current favorite poets:

The Blue

You can have Egypt and Nantucket.

The only place I want to visit is The Blue,

not the Wild Blue Yonder that seduces pilots,

but that zone where the unexpected dwells,
waiting to come out of it in the shape of bolts.

I want to walk its azure perimeter

where the unanticipated is coiled, on the mark,
ready to spring into the predictable homes of earth.

I want to stroll through the pale indigo light

examening all the accidents about to rocket into time,

all the forgotten names about to fly from tongues.

I will scrutinize all the surprises of the future
and watch the brainstorms gathering darkly,

ready to hit the heads of inventors

laboring in their crackpot shacks.

A jaded traveler with an invisible passport,

I am at home in this heaven of the unforeseen

waiting for the next whoosh of sudden departure

when, with no advance warning, no tiny augury,

the unpredictable plummets into our lives
from somewhere that looks like sky.

borrow the beloved's eyes

Borrow the beloved's eyes.Look through them and you will see the beloved's face everywhere.
~ Rumi

You're so beautiful it is starting to rain

Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting To Rain by Richard Brautigan

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
A+!

We aint got money, honey, but we got rain: Charles Bukowski

We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain by Charles Bukowski

call it the greenhouse effect or whatever
but it just doesn't rain like it used to.
I particularly remember the rains of the
depression era.
there wasn't any money but there was
plenty of rain.
it wouldn't rain for just a night or
a day,
it would RAIN for 7 days and 7
nights
and in Los Angeles the storm drains
weren't built to carry off taht much
water
and the rain came down THICK and
MEAN and
STEADY
and you HEARD it banging against
the roofs and into the ground
waterfalls of it came down
from roofs
and there was HAIL
big ROCKS OF ICE
bombing
exploding smashing into things
and the rain
just wouldn't
STOP
and all the roofs leaked-
dishpans,
cooking pots
were placed all about;
they dripped loudly
and had to be emptied
again and
again.
the rain came up over the street curbings,
across the lawns, climbed up the steps and
entered the houses.
there were mops and bathroom towels,
and the rain often came up through the
toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling,
and all the old cars stood in the streets,
cars that had problems starting on a
sunny day,
and the jobless men stood
looking out the windows
at the old machines dying
like living things out there.
the jobless men,
failures in a failing time
were imprisoned in their houses with their
wives and children
and their
pets.
the pets refused to go out
and left their waste in
strange places.
the jobless men went mad
confined with
their once beautiful wives.
there were terrible arguments
as notices of foreclosure
fell into the mailbox.
rain and hail, cans of beans,
bread without butter;fried
eggs, boiled eggs, poached
eggs; peanut butter
sandwiches, and an invisible
chicken in every pot.
my father, never a good man
at best, beat my mother
when it rained
as I threw myself
between them,
the legs, the knees, the
screams
until they
seperated.
"I'll kill you," I screamed
at him. "You hit her again
and I'll kill you!"
"Get that son-of-a-bitching
kid out of here!"
"no, Henry, you stay with
your mother!"
all the households were under
seige but I believe that ours
held more terror than the
average.
and at night
as we attempted to sleep
the rains still came down
and it was in bed
in the dark
watching the moon against
the scarred window
so bravely
holding out
most of the rain,
I thought of Noah and the
Ark
and I thought, it has come
again.
we all thought
that.
and then, at once, it would
stop.
and it always seemed to
stop
around 5 or 6 a.m.,
peaceful then,
but not an exact silence
because things continued to
drip
drip
drip


and there was no smog then
and by 8 a.m.
there was a
blazing yellow sunlight,
Van Gogh yellow-
crazy, blinding!
and then
the roof drains
relieved of the rush of
water
began to expand in the warmth:
PANG!PANG!PANG!
and everybody got up and looked outside
and there were all the lawns
still soaked
greener than green will ever
be
and there were birds
on the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
they hadn't eaten decently
for 7 days and 7 nights
and they were weary of
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrows off
but the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
smaller and quicker,
got their
due.
the men stood on their porches
smoking cigarettes,
now knowing
they'd have to go out
there
to look for that job
that probably wasn't
there, to start that car
that probably wouldn't
start.
and the once beautiful
wives
stood in their bathrooms
combing their hair,
applying makeup,
trying to put their world back
together again,
trying to forget that
awful sadness that
gripped them,
wondering what they could
fix for
breakfast.
and on the radio
we were told that
school was now
open.
and
soon
there I was
on the way to school,
massive puddles in the
street,
the sun like a new
world,
my parents back in that
house,
I arrived at my classroom
on time.
Mrs. Sorenson greeted us
with, "we won't have our
usual recess, the grounds
are too wet."
"AW!" most of the boys
went.
"but we are going to do
something special at
recess," she went on,
"and it will be
fun!"
well, we all wondered
what that would
be
and the two hour wait
seemed a long time
as Mrs.Sorenson
went about
teaching her
lessons.
I looked at the little
girls, they looked so
pretty and clean and
alert,
they sat still and
straight
and their hair was
beautiful
in the California
sunshine.
the the recess bells rang
and we all waited for the
fun.
then Mrs. Sorenson told us:
"now, what we are going to
do is we are going to tell
each other what we did
during the rainstorm!
we'll begin in the front row
and go right around!
now, Michael, you're first!. . ."
well, we all began to tell
our stories, Michael began
and it went on and on,
and soon we realized that
we were all lying, not
exactly lying but mostly
lying and some of the boys
began to snicker and some
of the girls began to give
them dirty looks and
Mrs.Sorenson said,
"all right! I demand a
modicum of silence
here!
I am interested in what
you did
during the rainstorm
even if you
aren't!"
so we had to tell our
stories and they were
stories.
one girl said that
when the rainbow first
came
she saw God's face
at the end of it.
only she didn't say which end.
one boy said he stuck
his fishing pole
out the window
and caught a little
fish
and fed it to his
cat.
almost everybody told
a lie.
the truth was just
too awful and
embarassing to tell.
then the bell rang
and recess was
over.
"thank you," said Mrs.
Sorenson, "that was very
nice.
and tomorrow the grounds
will be dry
and we will put them
to use
again."
most of the boys
cheered
and the little girls
sat very straight and
still,
looking so pretty and
clean and
alert,
their hair beautiful in a sunshine that
the world might never see
again.
and

if it ever bloody rains

If it ever bloody rains by Ivan Donn Carswell

I never said I would, I only said I could
do what you wished, the subtle difference
should have raised a cautious flag;
maybe I bragged out loud, made it sound
as if it was intent, I never meant to make
it seem that way. So today I wear your
brittle animosity – just out of curiosity, how do
you manage that? It smacks me to the core, though
I’ve felt it thus before I’ve never managed yet
to live at ease with towering dread that’s leaden
in your steely, silent gaze. I suppose my only road
is plea of raw insanity, I’m bruised and battered
from a false belief that rain would fall and give relief,
that you would see the consequence of acting
out too soon. I should tilt the moon, I knew
you’d never fall for that. Alright, I’ll clean the goddamn
drains; God forbid, if it ever bloody rains I’ll take
the chance and also dance a naked jig.
© I.D. Carswell

This one is not really about rain but I am posting it because, looking for poems on rain, I found this and like it.

If people ever bloody stop being imperfect!

the language of rain

Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows! ... And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer. -

Thomas Merton

It's raining in Berkeley today. We got enough rain that it messed with the morning commute, with some streams overflowing, roads slicker. It's all good.  May it rain all day.

my blood whispers to me

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.
~ Hermann Hesse

a living, breathing, screaming invitation

 

This was posted to Elephant Spirituality's FB page and reposted by my friend Kim Wright.