Dreams

April 4, 2020 by leximagines

Dreams, Photograph with PicMonkey, Lex Leonard

The hands have passed twelve i have music in my ears not to wake him twinkle lights in my window because they make me happy and i see the black only one porch light lit it is quiet deadly quiet as one may imagine no cars few planes the wind and i think about those dying as i sit in my privileged cocoon wondering if i will be next regardless of my care and caution and i am sad at the beauty that is lost to this world and maybe She is shaking us off slapping us across the face to make us finally listen to stop and just be be who we are revel in just the basics foot bare to earth wind across my face the birds, oh, the birds, and it will go away and we will have learned from it i hope but i ache for the beauty that was possible and will never be and i want to reach out and touch each one and let them know they are loved and they were enough and they brought beauty just by being and i want to touch those remaining and tell them the same tell you the same in my sadness and privilege in my being why did we ever think we couldn’t that it was hopeless that we weren’t enough we’ve missed the beauty we are and we have been given may this time show us look for the helpers look for the beauty let others see you take off your shoes and walk outside breathe deeply celebrate the little things every day always and know you are loved and you are enough and

i love you

Author’s Note:

I was up after midnight last night, or, is it today. The prompt for today is about dreams. I wrote this as I looked out this window with deep sorrow in my heart. I can’t find the right words. I see silver linings of what we can be, finally realize who we are and what is important and how to proceed from here. Yet, the loss takes away my breath.

I shall leave this here, although it was not a dream. I feel as though we are living in a dream, if we learn. A nightmare, if we don’t.

From the NaPoGloPoWriMo Folks:

Our prompt for the day (optional as always) takes its cue from our gently odd resources, and asks you to write a poem based on an image from a dream. We don’t always remember our dreams, but images or ideas from them often stick with us for a very long time. I definitely have some nightmares I haven’t been able to forget, but I’ve also witnessed very lovely things in dreams (like snow falling on a flood-lit field bordered by fir trees, as seen through a plate glass window in a very warm and inviting kitchen). Need an example of a poem rooted in dream-based imagery? Try this one by Michael Collier.

Certainty

December 28, 2017 by leximagines

There is a certain kind of beauty in unwashed windows,
windows that reach so high I can only get to them

once in a very long time, oh, I still see out
when sun’s angle allows which gives me reason

not to tend to the common task, keeping it
for another day, a day when there is less to do,

a day when more important things have been tended.
But when clarity is diminished as sun shines its eye directly

confusing view, when looking out becomes staying in,
disorients need for accuracy, rests in shapes and shadows

that whisper through, no compulsion for definition,
just a gentle telling of story, a compassionate perspective,

not by smoke or fog, nor snowfall, but years of life
leaving only breath as it passes on conceding spaciousness

between that which I cannot change knowing all remains
secret to my interference until sun presses on

and glare is gone and I see once more that which was obscured.
There is a beauty in not seeing leaving certainty behind.

Little by Little

May 16, 2015 by leximagines

If I don’t still myself I can’t welcome the birds. It is
against the backdrop of silence I hear them. Little by

little their being unfurls. First the loudest, closet to
my ear. When I release into you, relax in your arms,

beauty erupts. Flap of wing, flash and whirr, a trill
between two lovers. I hear. I don’t need to see. But

I must welcome silence first. Little by little
I become One with your Incarnation.

Author’s Note:

Sorry, but this note is a bit long.

I go to a retreat house several times a year. Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House is a silent house, unless there is a group retreat where the participants are encouraged to share in their workshop. However, they are still required to keep silent in the rest of the house, as well as on the grounds outside. Being that this is new for most, whispered conversations, stolen giggles or phone calls home can ring through the house without the suspects suspecting anything. One does not realize how expertly silence carries sound. I don’t mind. I understand.

But this weekend there are no groups. There are only ten of us and the silence is luscious.

Except for the birds. Oh, the birds.

I have never heard such a choir in my life. It has continued through day, except for an occasional pause allowing them to listen, along with us, to the thunderstorms.

My poem came from my wide reading so far this weekend.

Nadia Bolz Weber‘s homily at the 2015 Festival of Homiletics regarding Jesus instructing his disciples to become-child like is refreshing. Also, I so welcome her choice of referring to God as God, not Him or even Her. Thank you.

Also, informing this poem is a group that is new to me. Street Psalms makes a home in Denver and my pastor, Scott Jenkins, works with them. This quote from their e-mail scripture lesson spoke volumes to me. It is adapted from their book, Geography of Grace: Doing Theology from Below, Chapter 4, by Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke

“The Apostle Paul uses another metaphor to unpack the incarnation in Ephesians 2:10. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do.” The Greek word here for workmanship is poiema. For Paul, the incarnation means that “we are God’s poetry” to the world. God is speaking poetry to us and through us to the world.

It is our distinct privilege to be in community with people in hard places who live as God’s poetry in this world enfleshed in human form. Raising up poets to incarnate God’s gospel song to lost, disenfranchised, and marginalized people is a vital enterprise.”

I cannot live my spiritual life without my home base. This weekend I am reading Eknath Eswaran‘s A More Ardent Fire, bringing me back to the basics of passage meditation and discovering the path to the Way of Love and the Way of Knowing. Thanks to my meditation partner, Kathleen Gorman, for this brilliant suggestion.

Finally, I am memorizing a new passage for mediation. Who would think that this would tie everything together – even using some of the same terminology spread throughout my reading – as it was chosen first before the other readings came to me.

Ah, yes. Synchronicity.

St. Teresa of Avila:

Her heart if full of joy in love
for in the Lord her mind is still
She has renounced all selfish attachments
and draws abiding joy and strength
from the One Within.
She lives not for herself, but lives
to serve the Lord of Love in all,
and swims the sea of life
breasting its rough waves joyfully.

Here are some photos of birdies I snapped on my walks.

I don’t know birds, but this one was lovely.

Look closely. Little green hummingbird walking with me.

This tiny little one was so precious, not bold in color. But the song was glorious.

At first I thought he was imagining himself a bird. Then I noticed he was just looking t himself in the clouds.

At first I thought he was imagining himself a bird. Then I noticed he was just looking at himself in the clouds. His little paw is balancing himself on the tree limb.