A FEW WORDS ON THE SOUL
Wisława Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare CavanaghWe have a soul at times.
No one’s got it non-stop,
for keeps.
Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.
Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood’s fears and raptures.
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.
It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.
It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.
For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.
Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.
It’s picky:
it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds,
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.
Joy and sorrow
aren’t two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.
We can count on it
when we’re sure of nothing
and curious about everything.
Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.
It won’t say where it comes from
or when it’s taking off again,
though it’s clearly expecting such questions.
We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.
Our Soul’s and everything that’s sacredly in them always need to be free and untethered not so much that they can fly about willy-nilly but to continue to create what seems to be timelessly re-created in them;
SOUL SEEPINGS
Of course there’s testing to be done samples to be taken cross matches to be completed intentions to be discussed therapies to be administered advanced medical knowledge to be applied scientific discoveries to be utilized None of it All of it necessary or unnecessary to these Soul Seepings that come from places not yet dreamed never to be understood but known like a familiar place that needs no lighting for steps that know the way in the dark all so intimately known and at best shared Whatever seeps from the Soul outshines any rays of light refusing to be hidden. . .
but if you don’t look
but if you don’t see
it doesn’t much matter. . .
Robert Frost said, “A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a home-sickness or a love-sickness.”¹ If a poem doesn’t give us a lump in the throat, is it really great poetry? My final theological conclusion is that there’s only one world and that it’s all sacred. However, we have to be prepared to know what we’re saying when we say that. If we say too glibly that the trees are sacred, along with our dog, a friend, and the roses, then we don’t really believe it. We first need to experience “a lump in the throat”to have encountered the sacred. The sacred is something that inspires awe and wonder, something that makes us cry, something that gives us the lump in the throat. We must first encounter the sacred in the concrete and kneel before it there, because we can’t start with the universal.
Poets . . . make the connection between the concrete and the universal. When we make that connection, there’s suddenly a great leap of meaning, an understanding that it’s one world. The very word “metaphor,” which comes from two Greek words, means to “carry across.”A good metaphor carries us across, and we don’t even know how it’s occurred.
. . . If we’re reading a poem too quickly, between two urgent meetings or other hurried spaces, we probably won’t get it, because we don’t have time to release ourselves. We need quiet, solitude, and open space to read poetry at greater depth. Then and only then do poems work their magic.
Robert Frost, “Some Definitions,” in Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays (New York: Library of America, 1995), 701.
It’s not that the Sun doesn’t gloriously melt through the clouds so much as we just don’t take time to NOTICE; which kind of means that the worst poem of all isn’t the one not yet written, just the one not recognized or read. . .p o n d e r e d
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not how shall I correct it? Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia? Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.
Hmmmmmmm’s
They’re mostly unnoticed severely unrecognized but they do reside softly in the soul in a place that doesn’t have secret places And even though they may be out in the open they’re never really seen and even more rarely understood But always questioned without the hope of ever being answered Hmmmmmmm’s are a holy hymn of their own never to be sung or hummed but painfully heard in endless refrains Hmmmmmmmmmmm’s always get me thinking and at their worst, WORRY. . .AND YET. . .
Ahaa, AND YET, indeed; the vastness of the
AND YET
has some glorious answers
or at least some well welcomed comfort
hanging out of reach of frosted over trees
but still very much in touch
with what brings comfort to our souls
when everything else seems to steal it. . .
WORRIED. . .Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .
JUST FOR THE RECORD
Dale A. Lombardi
When I’ve reached that certain age
and you wonder about my mental fitness . . .
Don’t ask me
who's President
or what year it is
or even what month
Ask me
what finches are drawn
to the thistle feeder
or what color the fire
when the hardenbergia blooms
in March
or how Willie-dog
spent his final hours
lying in the cool morning grass,
face tipped toward heaven
to receive the last of this earth’s sunshine
as a final blessing
Don’t ask me
to count backwards
by sevens
or to draw you a clock
or to tell you the time
Ask me
to tell you
when time stood still
or if I want more time
or how time passed so quickly
Don’t ask me
to take a deep breath
or to breathe normally
Ask me
what took my breath away
or when I knew beauty
so clear and pure and true
I couldn’t catch my breath
Don’t ask
to listen to my heart
Put your stethoscope away
and listen to what set my heart
on fire, what frayed
its very edges, or when pride and awe and love
nearly broke my heart
open
Ask me
What really matters
Was it all worthwhile
Who I’ve loved
and how
Ask
What binds us to all eternity
What’s at the very center
when all else is peeled away,
What will last—really last—
not anger or grief,
but music and art and poetry
and trees
Ask me
if I have hope,
not for myself
but for the world
And if I don’t answer . . .
Set down your hurry
Bring me a slice of calm
with some tea
Then pull your chair close,
take the pale wither
of my hand in yours,
and just sit, sit
with me
awhile
(text as posted at this link)
Maybe it’s not so much for what we reach for as what stretches out for us; sometimes that’s a hand, sometimes it’s an idea, a thought, a story, a poem, but it’s undeniable when it makes contact and causes not even ever so slightly to move us ever so powerfully.
It’s been one of my constant companions since my college days. Way before that I had a love affair with WORDS and books filled with WORDS and poetry who plays with WORDS. . .
I N T O X I C A T I N G Likewise
I like to know not only the root of the word and where it came from but also phrases and their origins, too. . .
L I K E:
People used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery…….if you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor” But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot……they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500s: Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . …… . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof… Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.” There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive… So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.
INTERESTING STUFF. . . ?
In my mind there’s only one thing more interesting:
P E O P L E
and the simple, powerful question of
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT
O R
even better,
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR YOU? Yeah, I love me my words (and people who use them)
It seems like it’s raining no where you happen to be in the World and even if the sun is shining, it’s a kind of rain that produces no rainbow, at least none with any ohhhh/ahhhhh breath-taking-stop-your-car-on-the-side-of-the-highway-take-a-bad-picture-kind-of-a-Rainbow; and at best if there’s anything good that can come from this kind of rain is someone willing to share their umbrella to hold space, to provide a protected presence that’s not so willingly given and even harder, at times, to accept.
Yeah, that kind of presence
For the past couple of years, one of the most requested presentations I do is called, HOLDING SPACE–WALKING EACH OTHER HOME, and like any of the presentations I’ve ever done, though done dozens of times, not one has ever been done the same way, twice. . .on purpose. That’s why I never PowerPoint or do hand-outs because even in the middle of a presentation I might tell a story, share a poem, provide an intervention that I haven’t done in previous presentations or may be in any future one to come.
And that’s how it was last night for the HOLDING SPACE presentation where not only CEU’s were provided for nurses and social workers, but oh yes, dinner was served with unlimited amounts of wine. I couldn’t resist encouraging the group that they more they drank, the better I would sound and then, the magic took place. I talked, and they did more than simply listen; THEY HELD MY SPACE, which I highly complemented them because the greatest presentation, I’ve always believed and strived to achieve, is not the one that’s told or heard, but the one that’s experienced. Out of the new differences I added to this presentation was the following poem by Ellen Bass
IF YOU KNEW Ellen Bass
What if you knew you’d be the last to touch someone? If you were taking tickets, for example, at the theater, tearing them, giving back the ragged stubs, you might take care to touch that palm, brush your fingertips along the life line’s crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase too slowly through the airport, when the car in front of me doesn’t signal, when the clerk at the pharmacy won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember they’re going to die.
A friend told me she’d been with her aunt. They’d just had lunch and the waiter, a young gay man with plum black eyes, joked as he served the coffee, kissed her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left. Then they walked half a block and her aunt dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon’s spume have to come? How wide does the crack in heaven have to split? What would people look like if we could see them as they are, soaked in honey, stung and swollen, reckless, pinned against time?
Just a few months ago when I was the last speaker at a workshop, I literally wrote the following poem, waiting for my turn to present the HOLDING SPACEtalk. . .uh, yeah, I added it that talk and last night’s one as well:
PROTECTED PRESENCE
I’m Broken and I’ve lost a lot of my pieces I don’t exactly remember when I Humpty-Dumptied if off the wall No recollection of all the Kings men and all of the horses they rode in on But I know. . .ohhh how I know How I’ve not been put back together again and when you dare to provide protective presence and choose to hold me It’s not so much of an Embrace as a specific piece that never existed You’ve brought to me A wholeness I’ve not known but now never want to forget or ever want to be without
DID YOU NOTICE WHAT JUST HAPPENED. . . ?
Y O U held my space and just like that you made me feel a little closer to home just by walking me through this blog post. . .
Under a sky the color of pea soup she is looking at her work growing away there actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans as things grow in the real world, slowly enough. If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water, if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food, if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars, if the praying mantis comes and the lady bugs and the bees, then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock. Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground. You cannot tell always by looking what is happening. More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet. Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet. Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree. Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden. Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar. Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses. Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving. Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs. Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen: reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in. This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always, for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
I came across this nice Spring Time poem as the weather forecaster is telling us that snow and wintry weather is about to descend down upon us IN MARCH
(uhhhhhhh just 10 days away from Spring) which is enough to make any Thermometer
(AND US)
be a little more than confused
THE UN-CONFUSED THERMOMETER
Sometimes a Place can have all four Seasons in one day that’ll schizophrenically have you guessing how to dress so you’re not shivering or sweating at any unknowingly moment confusing the most sophisticated of Thermometers And yet you meet THAT Heart that’ll have you begging for the harshest of Winter’s Terriblesnesses so IT could forever be Warmed Now any Caring Catalyst S H O W S
that it’s not the Season we’re in
we dress for
but the Season we bring
to the worst
t e m p e r a t u r e s
a confused Thermometer
can ever read. . .
Sometimes the greatest
F I S H
caught are the ones
you never put a line in the water
to catch. . .
In fact,
those fish swim everywhere
in, out, through your imagination
for the greatest tales ever. . .
When this not-not-so-small-minnow
jumped into my boat
I wasn’t ‘fishing’ for it but
it caught me way before I even thought of reeling it in. . .
It birthed
almost immediately these
poetic thoughts:
FIRST TIMES
I don’t remember the first time I sucked a lemon but I’m sure it prepared me for the second time I knowingly wouldn’t suck up to pucker up again. . . Candle flame burns Electrical outlet shocks Black ice falls Hit the thumb instead ofthe nail hammerings Hot pans on hotter stoves Stumbles off of shaky branches All First Times that make a Second Time not so much a lesson learned
as one to be remembered
to ever be taught
again. . .
FISHING BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO FISH
Courtney MartinThrough the pines and the one maple I hear her.
I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish.
I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish.
There she stands
legs impossibly long
pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy
pole in her hands
and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook.
I don’t tell her, but I do think
Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that.
Fishing before you know how to fish.
Leaving before you know how to leave.
Speaking before you know how to speak.
Fighting before you know how to fight.
Loving before you know how to love.
Dying before you know how to die.
We are all the child with the pole
worrying about who we’ve hurt.
And we are all the fish on the hook,
hoping for mercy.
Her aunt hears her muttering prayer
and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years
grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands
and dislodges metal from cheek.
And this, too, is all of us.
Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying
and a witness we forgot was listening.
Thank you, Miss Courtney for taking us Fishing before we knew we even had a pole, bait and some not-always-needed-know-how. . . .
Ok, full discloser, I LOVE WRITING. I always have. Perfect gifts for me have always been books, notebooks, pens, pencils, paper. . .lots of blank paper. And with this I always believed that I would be a raw child phenom writer; published way before my time (and everyone else’s) to the chagrin of many who tried but could just never succeed or even be recognized and affirmed. THIS is why, with the help of my school secretary mom, who had access to the office ditto machine, I put together a poetry book and handed out to friends and family when I graduated from high school. College brought on a whole new challenge as I actually majored in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing. HEAVEN but, but still no official publication except from some college newspaper and literary magazine we put out quarterly, but I had a big drawer with rejection slips politely telling me, “We thank you for your submission, but it doesn’t fit our standards. . . .” Pages and pages were written and as I moved to and through Seminary with an emphasis on Social Ethics/Pastoral Care, I was able to convince my Advisor to write five short stories for my Thesis based on some theories of Peter Berger. It got me my Master of Divinity Degree and with graduation and full time parish ministry came lots of speaking, sermons, teaching, youth grouping and continued rejection slips. But the writing never stopped. Writing classes. Two unpublished novels. Lots of poems. Many speaking engagements and an idea. Brilliant actually, especially for the acting President of the IMPOSTER SYNDROME CLUB. I write, because I can’t help it. Which is probably why I have close to 2000 blog posts, many of them featuring some of my poetic expressions. I no longer write for traditional publication. I write now for all things to Self-Publish (because I can totally control all aspects of the writing/publication and distribution) and, wait for it. . . TO LITERALLY GIVE IT ALL AWAY. . .in fact, one of my goals for 2023 is to give away up to 1000 books hand in hand with my presentations. (WHICH BRINGS US TO THE REASON FOR THIS PARTICULAR BLOG POST
A GIVE-AWAY of sorts. . .
I accepted a poetry challenge this past year, actually three of them which resulted in over 60 poems. The first Challenge was in February where I had to write 15 poems in 15 days of just 15 lines on several prompts that were provided. I think in one-liners or poetic lines. (I DARE YOU TO LOOK AT MY FACEBOOK/TWITTER/INSTAGRAM feeds). The second Challenge happened in April: NATIONAL POETRY MONTH where I was allowed to write 30 poems in 30 days up to 30 lines or less a piece. The third Challenge was this Fall where it followed the first challenge of 15 poems, in 15 days of just 15 lines on the prompts they suggested. I was a little surprised that they were published and both appeared in Amazon Prime as separate Chapbooks for $10.00 a piece. I was able to purchase them at half that price and have given about 50 a piece away and now for a brief period of time, will use as a fundraiser for the small church I have served at North Royalton Christian Church since 1995. No price tag attached, not even a suggestion–purely whatever you’d like to donate
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I did mention that I am the acting President of the IMPOSTER SYNDROME CLUB, didn’t I?
As another safety net
(p a d d i n g)
or layer
I found this perfect quote
almost as a disclaimer: So as I have accepted a few Challenges this year
Let me know if you’d like to accept mine
and donate accordingly. . .
and I’ll leave you with one more meager poem
(not yet submitted or self-published:
THERE ARE NO WORDS. . .
we say
and then. . .
All we do is use w O r D s
to say THERE ARE NO WORDS. . .
We’re walking
talking
DICTIONARIES
not so much looking for definitions
as for real, living M e A n I n G s
and dare we try
GIVING THEM
Wait. . What. . . ?
Did we just play THE OPPOSITE GAME (or have we never stopped)