Virgil stayed Dante with a wayside word; But long, and low, and loud, and urgently, The poets of my passion have I heard Summoning me.
It is their closest whisper and their call. Their greatness to this lowliness hath spoken, Their voices rest upon that interval, Their sign, their token.
Man at his little prayer tells heaven his thought, To man entrusts his thought – ‘Friend, this is mine.’ The immortal poets within my breast have sought, Saying, ‘What is thine?’
When Earth speaks silently of her mothering beneath a deep blue sky, and our lungs are filled with cool, clean, fresh air – may hope for Spring-time regeneration in the soul of all humankind prevail everywhere.
8000 miles in diameter. We don’t take up an awful lot of space in the firmament but we sure make a lot of noise at times! I think I knew first time round that Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast was always going to warrant a second seeing soon. Oddly enough, years ago, I saw the 3+ hours long Titanic on two successive nights and was reminded today of her having been built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast’s famous shipyard – but I digress: I think I hoped I’d be able to shape a choate response to Belfast after second seeing. My friend and I agreed that, whilst the glorious cinematography stole hearts the first time, the nuanced and poignant dialogue won the day today. But further response? Still too early. Still too stunning. Especially poignant today – as Ukraine comes under fire. Words fail. I’m sitting in silence, gazing at a photograph of our small and precious planet, and for the umpteenth time I yearn for a quietening, wondering what – in the name of every imaginable good – what do we humans think we’re doing waging war with one another – nation upon nation, or one on one? When will we ever learn? My small silence reaches out unto the greater, knowing Silence. And recalling a bus, trundling down a tragic street, bearing away to unknown future a small and fragile family, far from all that had mothered them, parentally and metaphorically, I keen …
Why the storms in our lives? I’m thinking of the kind that flood rivers, whip up seas, bring down branches and trees, and tear down heavy roof slates. But also of the metaphorical storms that knock us off our feet sometimes, the kind that leave us ‘at a loss.’ For each of us, innumerable, unique, losses.
There’s never an easy answer is there? Never one simply understood reason. But our brains are hard wired to keep asking the questions anyway. And that, it struck me today, is why poetry has been one of the bedrocks of my life. Poets help me to process both my never-ending questions and my never-ending little-by-little answers. Poetry places me among community – the arena in which all our lives are lived and sometimes buffeted by ‘storms’ we can’t immediately (and perhaps never will) understand.
Little by little, poetry – ‘creating something’ – comforts and sustains me. Poets show me that big questions, little answers, and both storm and sunshine – are making something. And I am thereby encouraged to believe that, for all of us, there will be some ultimately good purpose in that ongoing creation.
I came across some sage counsel in the University of Instagram a day or two ago …
EGO? Do yourself a favour – you want to enjoy your life? Drop the E and just GO
Yesterday I wrote of the inspirational collection ‘How To Love The World’ – the place and space in which I encountered Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. You can meet her there too – along with an entire firmament of other bright shining lights, all engaged, as we are, in learning how to ‘drop the E and just GO.’
You can also meet Rosemerry at TEDx – and find yourself delighting in a post-locked-down world beyond masks, frames and walls. And maybe for a while you’ll become a pen, a butterfly, an arrow, or simply walk a path, enjoying your perfectly imperfect lawn. It’s really up to you (and all of us). Really.
Friendship is designed for the sharing of beautiful, thoughtful, wondrous things, isn’t it? And you are my friends, and I think you might love ‘How To Love The World’ (and beyond) as much as I do. Herein, Laura Grace Weldon, thinking on the words of an asteroseismologist, and writing of stars, notes: ‘I can’t hear them, but I’m told they / sing of things we have yet to learn.’
Oh, and there are other wonderful stars and colours and twinklings and music between these covers too. The Epigraph and the Foreword warrant several slow readings. And before you get to the words you might stay awhile with the cover, after which, opening, I think you’ll be opened. I hope so. And I am grateful for you.
This beautiful photograph reminds me very much of one I stopped to capture (below) while visiting San Sebastián de la Gomera in January this year. I’ve been wondering what caught the eye of two photographers, in different places, each looking at weathered boards through a lens? And of course I can only speak for one of us!
What I think beautiful in these images is, precisely, the weathering seen in them. Once upon an unidentified time a painter stood before these shutters and they were beautified and made to look like new with shiny coats of paint. But as surely as the new exists in this world so too does ageing – and I contend that the beauty of the history brought to bear on these shutters – sunshine, wind, rain, heat and cold is shining today.
And further, that’s how it is for us. The rosy cheeked beauty of our human infancy is subject to the weathering of our days, and we must learn to recognise the ageing beauty in our unique stories. My friend Lori and I were conversing about the late, great poet John O’Donohue recently. Apparently, John was fond of posing the question ‘what would some of your unlived lives say to each other?’ We agreed that this would be a super discussion starter for a small group of close friends. Perhaps another question, for the same group of friends, might be ‘what would the lives you have lived say to each other?’
There’s history in these shutters, reaching all the way back to the rootedness of trees in the earth, and to the skills of glaziers, joiners and painters. And there’s history, rootedness, the works of craftspeople, and weathered beauty in each of us, too. Were the shutters to be flung open wide, what of life and love might be celebrated, contemplated, learned from, mourned, or otherwise reflected upon, inside?
Happy birthday, Mum. We’ll remember today’s celebration for weeks and months to come – the wonderful meal, the family members gathered in spirit if not in person, the phone calls, the little gifts, the old letters and photographs, the being startled about exceptionally sharp memories of some things, and somewhat foggy ones of others – whilst the important fact of the matter remains our shared enjoyment in reminiscing.
Your birthday, like all birthdays, is special. And birthdays are special because they provide occasion for fond re-membering on the one hand, and also act as a kind of diving board into all the living that’s ahead of us all – saying, with Dag Hammarskjöld, ‘for all that has been, thanks: for all that will be, yes!’ We’re shaped by the passing of each and every year we remember, rooted in family and friendships.
And taking stock of how our years have made us who we are, we take especial note of our having been dearly loved in the course of our journeying. And as we think on being loved we realise that birthdays – and all our days – are still bringing new life to birth – yours and ours. Happy birthday, Mum. Thank you for all that you are. And may your everyday be a happy day.
I’ve loved VW campers since a colleague of my father’s delighted us kids, driving his newly purchased home-from-home straight to our family house (to show it off, of course) well more than 50 years ago. But lately I’ve been chatting about them a lot, and dreaming about the little vans too! I wonder why? Where might I be heading for in a modern-day VW? Some count sheep on their way to sleep. Tonight I’ll count possible destinations 😊🚘
A potter friend tells me that she thinks of her work as ‘making beautiful space to hold beautiful stuff well.’ You’ve probably guessed that she’s a gifted poet, too. I was thinking the other day about connections and remembering – the kind that resonates and vibrates across time and space. Mulling this some more today, I re-membered (brought to life again) Lao Tzu, the great Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 BCE. What he said long ago, and I wrote, quoting him, more recently in 2015, still seems worth contemplating in February 2022:
Thirty spokes meet in the hub. Where the wheel isn’t is where it’s useful.
Hollowed out, clay makes a pot. Where the pot’s not is where it’s useful.
Cut doors and windows to make a room. Where the room isn’t, there’s room for you.
So the profit in what is is in the use of what isn’t.
Lao Tzu
Ecology, economics, gender, politics, poverty, religion, sexuality. Walls keep getting in the way. So, wearily, we return to same old, same old, same old. Cycling round the same old certainties. And the pot’s become more important than the life it’s made to contain. In the melting pot of our early 21st century societal debate it strikes me as absolutely true that Where the pot’s not is where it’s useful. When and where we’re hollowed out we learn to hold water.
When I fell asleep, in the early hours of the morning, I knew there was a reason I had failed to make a Sunday post. Turns out it’s because I needed to backdate it, today, Monday, to share a link to one of my alltime favourite friends, writer, philosopher, and family woman, dear, dear Mimi – whose words, whensoever and howsoever published, are to me as the scent of (Bette Midler / Amanda McBroom’s) ‘The Rose’ or Elkie Brooks’ ‘Lilac Wine … sweet and a-heady …’
Thank you, Mimi, (and here’s the link),Waiting for the Karma Truck, for all that you and yours are to us; for all that you and yours have been, are, and will be, to me. You are a one-woman epiphany … and if our conversation in the world was more closely akin to yours, more often, the lives of every single one of us would be changed immeasurably for the better.
My dad would have been 98 a few days ago. I whispered happy birthday wishes to him …
… and all of us can hear his whispering back, your mother’s too, ‘soulfully’ – for there is, in the human soul, always and forever, always more xxx
