Solstice

The shortest night

eases into the longest day;

the light can barely contain itself,

and the land heaves a sigh

of something quite pent up—

the interior landscape

exhales heat and humidity.

The birds take to song early,

take to flight soon after,

until the beating of wings

awakens the whole world

with inescapable rhythms.

Every stone, every branch,

even the driest blade of grass,

all awaken, as if from a long sleep,

and a longer dreaming.

Waves of warmth rise

in circular patterns off the ground,

as do the pollinators, 

flitting from blossom to blossom,

as if self-aware of greater liberties

to propel themselves upward,

despite the heavy weight 

of their cargos.

Everything rises on tiptoe, 

as if weightless,

expectant,

waiting

for the next coming,

Next,

only round the corner, now,

is all poised to bloom

and bear fruit, 

for, verily,

Life is the only choice

on this event horizon.

© 2022 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com

 

Reply to a Message from Magistrate Zhang - a translation

In these later years, I value silence;
worldly concerns no longer stir my heart.
I now move through the days with no plan
but to retire unencumbered to the woods of my youth,
where pine-scented breezes can play through my robe
whilst the moonlit mountain amplifies the music of my lute.
You ask if there are laws governing success or failure;
I say: Hear the song of the fly-fisher, rising up from the riverbank.

English rendering of this poem by Wang Wei (699–759)

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Another Waiting

Waiting,
ever present
in this issue
of living,
encompassing,
as it cannot help but do,
the elegant enigma life,
from birth,
and expansion,
through experience
and arrival at the passage
through which death
may be an another emergence,
if not a healing.

Certainly this life,
this is an exploration,
if you will,
of the complexity
of the soul;
where we are
in each moment,
we think and feel
in a language of
fluidly visible emotion,
on a landscape
of shifting times
and trials,
and waiting,
suspended in either
joy or grief.

For what do we wait?
Will time tell the tale?

Perhaps we’ll never realize
the moment in which we
slip into that possibility
that goes against the
grey grip of fate,
into unforeseen,
unanticipated,
because unimagined,
furthering.

© Elisabeth T. Eliassen 2016

Meditations in Fast Times: 39. I am torn open

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others. This is the penultimate poem of the cycle.

                39.

I am torn open,
The land is shaking;

mend me from my fears,
for all is quaking.

I look around me,
among the rubble of the place,
this is a community, this is home;
the people here have risen together here,
not all of us brilliant, rich or even nice,
but determined here to be,
united in this time and this space,
unwilling to accept defeat, to roam
aimless, beaten, to descend wholly into vice;
disasters help us to see.

The land is torn open,
the whole world is shaking;

save us from our fears,
for all is quaking.

I think of a King,
of three or more touched by Art,
plying their peculiar genius to some service,
uniting despite the challenges of time and division,
of places remembered, re-visioned, restored;
I hear a bell ring,
calling each of us to take some part,
in making or renewing bonds, soothing the nervous,
returning things to rights with care and precision,
finding and cherishing places we thought we’d explored.

We are all torn open,
all the buildings are shaking;

guide us from our fears,
while all is quaking.

We bury the dead,
but we cannot stop while others lie dying,
we must keep calm and carry on the healing,
finding new protocols, building better systems,
because we cannot go back;
it has all been said,
if we say we have not heard it, we are lying,
the life in our care is not for wanton stealing,
yet despite our miserable failures, still glistens,
with vitality even we cannot crack.

Our gates are torn open,
but all has stopped shaking;

Let us dry our tears,
and serve our remaking.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen 

Courage

                       -inspired by Lorraine H. L.

breathe!
o Breathe, my soul,
as the atmosphere caresses you,
molding to the shape of your true self.

breathe!
expand and let the universe
feel the you-ness that is yours;
pour that essence through the chalices of time.

breathe!
o Breathe the now
that is fully all of this and more,
a you-infused gift to anoint us all.

breathe!
o Breathe, my soul,
taste, see and feel your place
in the vastness of your possibility.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

There is a place where singing and love and divine union each feel like swimming in an ocean whose sole purpose is to utterly and completely support you, rising and falling of your phrases, climaxing and subsiding to rest, within and outside you. This is creation and renewal in one motion, rare to apprehend, rarer still to consciously experience. Even at the brink, as we make our song, Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, life abounds within and all around us, over and above us. Breathe and phrase and be who you are.

This Business of Poetry, Part 8: What To Do In The Desert While You Await Inspiration

SO, here you are and the river is dry, now. You had tons of great material flow out onto the pages, and now there is nothing. Arrrgh! This is frustrating and unavoidable.

What does one do, in this situation? (You realize, of course, that this is the single most-asked question with regard to creative endeavor…) Well, I have a short, one-word answer that I can expand upon:

Live!

Ha, ha, cute joke, say you, what should we really do?

(sigh) So, I guess the expansion is required, and I had better supply one.

Even when you feel like nothing decent is extant in your brain, you should try to write something every day. Don’t kill yourself if you don’t like what you see. You might even pull out those poems that you haven’t been able to finish, for one reason or another, and rework those. If reworking gets irritating, stop and move on to other things, such as:

Hiking
reading
attending concerts
having coffee or tea with friends
housework
gardening
discuss current events with someone

One should fully engage in all the commonplace activities of life. This, after all, is the seed bed for all of life’s inspiring moments. Engaging in activities fully and wholeheartedly is about as inspired as it gets, as any zen practitioner would say.

I alluded to the word practice just now, and also in the last entry in this series. All of your writing is a practice, of sorts. Your creative energy and outpouring is all done in a specific medium, with a specific sort of way that you go about doing the activity, but this is an exercise of the mind, just as physical activity exercises the body, chants, prayers, songs or other devotions exercise the spirit. Each and everything that you do and experience, feel, see or hear is part of your existential databank. I cannot think of any better practice than expanding your horizons with ever more experiences.  Listening is a good part of such practice.

It is always good to take a break, to treat yourself to a change of scene. Any activity that feeds your senses is bound to open you to new channels of thought.

Discussions About Life

It had been such a beautiful day! Warm, Spring-like, gorgeous!

It was late in the afternoon. My daughter suddenly wanted to go to the beach, even for just a short time. My son did not want to go to the beach.

At their age, it is either all or none. I decided that we should go; the sun would soon be setting, we wouldn't be gone long.

So, off we went.

We are extremely fortunate to live within a mile of a lovely beach and bird sanctuary. Because of the fantastic weather, the beach was crowded with people of all ages, and birds, of many different feathers, were floating, flying and walking around the area. Couldn't have asked for a more perfect setting.

My son, however, was moping. At first, he didn't want to play with his sister, and then he did want to play with her, but she wouldn't play the way he wanted to... (sigh) One of those moments every parent has to deal with. I usually try to deal with it by casting my mind back to my own childhood, sifting through the memory banks for similar experiences.

He finally came over and sat by me, arms crossed, with a cloudy look on his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked (already knowing).

"She won't let me play with her," he said.

"Really?"

"Well, she will, but only if we play the way she wants to," came his answer.

"Hmmm..." Meanwhile, the memory banks were flicking images through my brain, and I was winding up to formulate some sort of response to his difficulty, hopefully a response that might be useful.

"You know, when I was a child, I was serious, just like you are. The difference between you and me is that you talk more about what is going on with you. I didn't talk, thinking I had to handle everything on my own," I paused, to see if he was listening.

"You do have to handle your experience on your own; I cannot change your experience for you, to make things happen the way that you think you want them to happen." I swept my arm around at the fabulous view and the people enjoying it. "Here we are in this beautiful place, in this beautiful moment, and you are choosing to be miserable."

"I know that it is disappointing when things don't go your way. Most days in life are like that, honestly. I can think of few days in my life when things have gone perfectly or the way that I wanted." He cut a glance at me, considering this with some skepticism.

"I think the secret to getting along through life must lie in letting go of the need to control circumstances that, let's face it, really can't be controlled, and by taking time to look at what is actually happening around us. If we can do that, it may be possible to find the beauty that just is, not a moment that we manufacture or manipulate, but one that is just there and includes us. Do you see?"

He was thinking about what I said.

"I think that if you spend more time finding and being within the beauty of things the way they are, you will feel less need to control them. There are so many people in the world who spend all their waking moments trying to make things happen and in continual frustration over not being able to control everything and every person around them. Ultimately, I think this is a waste of good living time, when you could be appreciating that you are part of this beautiful and remarkable place and moment. This beautiful moment is yours, if you can see it, hear it, taste it, touch it. bathe in it."

He looked out over the water. The sun was making a glorious red slide down behind the San Francisco skyline.

"There, see? We can go home now--this was only a quick outing anyway. Let's go home and make dinner."

He was watching the colors change along the horizon. He seemed more relaxed. But, I wondered, had he been able to digest what I had said? I don't know. But it seemed to me like he was thinking about it.

"Why don't you go get your sister, and then we'll go."

"Okay, mom." He ran over to where his sister was drawing pictures in the sand and splashing around.

Looking after him, watching them both, and remembering my own years of frustration and seriousness (then and now), I wondered if what had I said would help, or not.

If there is one thing I know, it is this: as a parent, I cannot mitigate my children's experiences--they must experience what they will experience.

Experience is the great teacher, but only if we are willing to be pliant and infinitely flexible students. Experience is the reason for life, though perhaps life's meaning is beyond experience, as meaning implies a synthesis that can only be derived from a culmination of all experiences.

I thought about what I had said to him. I wondered if I were modeling, in our home life, any of what I had suggested. If so, was it enough to be a good model?

And then I wondered if I could remember what I had said long enough to write it down, to be a wisdom that I, too, could quietly consider.