pull up a chair

early morning is when the veil is thinnest, my soul most porous. i sometimes imagine the air i breathe then, the soft air, the air a recipe of oxygen and dew, is dispatched directly from the heavens. it’s why i slide out from under the bedsheet, to begin the percolating thoughts that rise while the coffee brews. i step outside, and there, as always, is my old friend ancient moon. all but winks at me, that moon, lets me know i’m not alone. there’s watchkeeping at work. from up where angels roam.

my thoughts feel less alone then. in bed they sometimes wrestle me, won’t let me sleep. but once i’m upright, once there’s mug in hand, and moon above, they settle down, fall in some semblance of a line. i find sense then. i feel infused then. infused in a Godly way. as if my gliding out of bed when the clock strikes five gives me just a wee little jump on what God might want me to consider. as if that might be the hour when the clarity comes.

this morning was one of those mornings, after a long, long week that took every ounce of courage my little self contained. i flew hundreds of miles away to talk to a doctor who knows a thing or two about the cancer in my lung. i walked into a shiny tower with expanse of glass, where as much light could shine in as the heavens had to spare. the place is infused with light, as if to tip the balance of all the darkness you can feel in every hallway, in every bent over human body, bodies leaning on canes, on walkers, in wheelchairs, on whomever walks beside them. where every body seemed to have an extra limb in the form of plastic tubes and tiny pumps, all attached, sometimes trailing, peeking out from under pant legs or flapping-open gowns, or tethered to misbehaving poles. all chasing out the demon cells that know not when to stop.

to sit in those waiting rooms is to witness human compassion at its most majestic. hands rubbing shoulders, rubbing backs. hands trying to knead the ache out of someone else’s flesh and bone. foreheads pressed against foreheads. words whispered. holy words. the most emphatic prayers i might ever have witnessed from across a room.

the prayers prayed there are the ones that gush up from untapped places in the soul. those places not known till life excavates to its deepest depths. till prognoses are spelled out, and sentences put forth — and i don’t mean the sentences with verb and nouns.

my visit was not so dire, but it was a visit that’s left me plenty to sift through, as i work hard — so hard — at absorbing all that’s been, and deciding how to seize my holy, holy days.

so i’m up early. where me and God are most likely to bump into each other. where sometimes when i plant my bum on the stoop just beyond the kitchen door, i almost feel another shoulder rubbing up against mine.

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little gems just kept floating my way this week, in that way that sometimes blessings know to come. r.s. thomas, an anglican priest poet who kept watch on the rocky edge of wales, is one of my most favorite holy poets. i discovered him when i went to poetry school at yale divinity school a few blessed summers back. reading him always carries me back to the sunlit seminar room where i first met him.

THE BRIGHT FIELD

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
— R. S. Thomas

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this one came from a gentle tender soul who breathes poetry. i thought as i started to read it, that she had written it, but then i glanced down and saw “david whyte,” another in my pantheon of saintly poets, the ones who capture threads of my very own heart and weave them into stanzas…

AT HOME

At home amidst
the bees
wandering
the garden
in the summer
light
the sky
a broad roof
for the house
of contentment
where I wish
to
live forever
in the eternity
of my own
fleeting
and momentary
happiness.

I walk toward
the kitchen
door as if walking
toward the
door of a recognized
heaven

and see the
simplicity
of shelves and
the blue dishes
and the
vapouring 
steam rising
from the kettle
that called me in.

Not just this
aromatic cup
from which to drink
but the flavour
of a life made whole
and lovely
through the
imagination
seeking its way.

Not just this
house around me
but the arms
of a fierce
but healing world.

Not just this line
I write
but the
innocence
of an earned
forgiveness
flowing again
through hands
made new with
writing.

And a man
with no company
but his house,
his garden,
and his own
well peopled solitude,

entering
the silences
and chambers
of the heart
to start again.

   -from The House of Belonging
David Whyte

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this one, from pablo neruda, needs no introduction. simply behold it.

Night,
night of mine,
night of the entire world,
you have something inside you, round
like a child
about to be born, like
a bursting
seed,
it is the miracle,
it is the day.
You are more beautiful
because with your darker blood
you feed the poppy being born,
because you work with eyes closed
so eyes can open,
so water can sing,
so our lives
might resuscitate. 

—Ode to Night by Pablo Neruda (translated by Ilan Stavans)

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and here, if you’ve read all the way down to here, is one last succulence. again, sent by a friend, a blessed friend, of this old chair.

Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

L.R. Knost

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what time of day is thinnest for you? and did any gems flutter from the heavens for you this week?

i swear there must be more babies born in august than any other month (it’s not the case; i’ve checked) and some of my favorites are in the parade: my beloved brother david (today); my beloved blair (sunday, in which he will find himself among those competing in the triathlon world’s big national swim, bike, run along milwaukee’s lakefront); and my teddy (who is camping under the stars out in the rocky mountains for the next two weeks, and whose big day is tuesday). happy birthday to each of you whom i love with every chamber of my heart and then some! xoxoxox