Meditations in Fast Times: 38. We all walk this path

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.

                38.

We all walk this path,
The blood in our veins dances
As we follow the stars;
Each pattern is a math
Of blind schemes and chances,
Of discovery solely ours.

We seek the still,
Where at the still point
There might be peace
Within which to find will
To withstand all disappoint,
To accept a final cease.

Where have we been?
It is difficult to say;
Perhaps we are the place
Where there is no sin,
Only experience may
Mark our path and face.

We watch one we love
Ascend the final tree;
Sacrifice does not mar
The healing of the Dove,
It is here for all to see,
Being reconciled to the Star.

Freedom and release,
Both time and timeless,
Past and future join now,
Where the only timepiece,
Is being, explicitly ceaseless
—Only truth hangs from the bough.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Entirely

Dawn depicts reach,
over, around and above,

in ambient expansion,
even in seeming an alteration,
like an invisible map
made entirely for the senses,
that they too might reach
beyond the boundaries
of what is imaginable,
bending the limited into
something more liminal,
that the soul might bask,
released,
into the light of possibility,
perchance to perceive
something of the future
that surrounds us all,
embracing and engaging
creation.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Il Pleut

Like a sanctification,

it rains, sending all inward
to the physical and psychic centers.

Veins of flowing water merge,
becoming tiny ribbons and rivulets,
streaming, flowing and cleansing,
outlining paths of reconciliation
we might take, once sun returns.

There is a world of hurt out there,
being bathed and healed in holy tears;
the birds are already rejoicing.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Katharsis

O Pure Wind!
O Spirit Divine!
blow through my soul,
sweep me through and through;
sweep away all the noise of my discontents
—blow through me,
as you do through
water reeds and tree tops;
cleanse me, empty me,
until I be a bottomless vessel.

O Spirit Divine!
O Pure Wind!
blow through this vessel
with a heavenly friction;
create of me a bell tone and
send me in the ten directions
—waves of sound you set in motion
by answering this humble prayer.

And when I have been your song,
stretched abroad to the outer
reaches of infinity,
if it be your will,
pull me back,
that I may abide
as an echo
in your bosom,
O Spirit!
O Wind!
O Love Divine!

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

independence day

not from,

but to;
more specifically:
to be,
no matter
who,
what,
when,
where,
how or
why—
independence
to integral connection,
to the mindful dance
of spatial presence
and understanding,
of communion
within community,
where imperfect us
sings the chorus
to perfect now,
anticipating silence
will sing the verse
that opens our hearts
from inward outward to together.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen 

Arose In Winter

i.m.  Pauline D. (1922-2011)

She had filled every role,
from child to grandmother,
from partner to friend,
from advocate
to the glue,
which holds people together,
if they will allow it to do so.

People mattered most:
family,
community,
the joys of fellowship;
the affirmation,
and meaning, of life—
a gracious and flourishing tree.

Time went on,
slowing movement,
but never dulling sense
in those matters
that meant most.

But, winter had come
and her tree
had long been losing
its precious leaves;
all her friends
were gone.

Home and place
had contracted,
from mansion to house,
to now a compartment,
too small to contain
the grandness or the minutiae
of her experience, much less
the people, places and things
that had been her life
and meaning.

The last leaf on her tree,
she realized.

I don’t know what I’m waiting for,
she said.

Though brought low by illness,
still was she able
to feel her feet
roaming the beaches
that had long memorized
her footfalls and
to hear the voices of those
whom she loved,
and who loved her.

Systems failed, though,
body resistant to the will.

Take me home,
she said.

From a final comfort
in her own bed,
she let herself go;
a well-loved, well-lived leaf,
the very last on her tree,
she let herself go,
to drift downward
to the ground.

Take me home,
her spirit breathed.

She was answered
by a breath of wind
that raised her up,
a small fanfare of fluttering free,
and carried her off to the sea.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen