Seen through a window mist dimly

My heart is full from these rainy roofs,

from a yellow-gabled window interrupting purple slope,

sage green next to white next to rusty red,

cedar shingles seen through a window mist dimly;

from wooden animals carved in a far-off land

     now lined up along a window ledge,

     always travelling by standing still.

Though this is just a small town on a damp day

and my coffee is bad and my toes cold,

there is some mystery here beyond the misted pane,

just out of reach of my grasping mind.

I have travelled to this place in search of a presence beyond

but the mystery meets me in a wet sidewalk like any other

and in the simplicity of metal roofs carrying rain down from the sky

– another journey upward turned down.

Bursting into the fug,

a little girl spins around the pillar singing

“Sun, sun, mister golden sun!”

and while he isn’t shining down on us today

her yellow hair and rippling laughter are my sun,

and the mystery

is in me.

This is not my town

nor the cafe I wanted to sit in,

but resting my feet on a window ledge

something inside me comes home.

Another journey outward leading in,

always travelling by standing still.

(Tuesday 9th April 2013,

St. Andrews-by-the-Sea)

A Good Question

Never underestimate the power of a question.

Don’t dismiss it as mere herald to the all-powerful answer,

Or despise its uncertainty as feeble or unsafe.

A good question is full of life.

It bursts with the curiosity and promise of undiscovered worlds.

Its key turns the lock of never-opened doors.

So don’t let your own question spill heedlessly from your mouth.

Instead, turn it,

Like a hard toffee between tongue and teeth.

Savour, smooth and hone it.

Hold and admire it, a wild bird balanced on your faltering hand,

And when you release it to another’s charge,

Be ready for it to return to you unfamiliar,

Changed beyond recognition,

And pulling in directions you did not predict or desire.

Learn to listen,

Just listen,

And to let answers be extended questions.

Likewise, when another’s question comes to you,

Don’t push it away if an answer does not spring instantly, comfortingly, to mind;

For this question’s gift was fashioned in the ferment of someone else’s strange soul.

A question should be given space

To roam through forgotten rooms.

Perhaps at first it will seem to bounce like a discarded rubber ball,

Its lonely thud echoing against the emptiness of abandoned space,

Bareness of untrodden floorboards.

But refrain from picking it up to thrust again into a cosy pocket,

And its ricochet will knock open closets,

spill chests,

split windows,

Drawing invisible arcs to connect random points,

Until the tangle of lines

Suddenly

Reveals a picture.

This picture you may pick up

And wonderingly exhibit,

Or carefully fold to store in your heart’s chest.

But the question?

Let the question bound on...

Life's Small Things

A few things brought this 3+ year old poem fresh to mind yesterday:
1) I finally found a beautiful recycled glass jug at Ten Thousand Villages to replace the one the cat broke all those years ago; and we christened it last night, filled with water to rehydrate the cells after some lovely ruby red Carmenere.
2) Brianna's kind invitation to guest blog on her 'winter survival plan' brain child, Reflections on Darkness, has encouraged the light-dark motif to begin playing around the edges of my winter-slumbering consciousness. As I wonder if words will come again, I recall that they have come before.
3) As life continues to meander through its many patches of shadow and brilliance, and as I fail and succeed, fall and pick myself up again as much as I ever have, this poem helps re-ground me by reminding me that today's struggle and this year's struggle are also yesterday's and last year's and next year's; that mine is yours and theirs and ours and God's ("In all our wanderings, in light and in dark, you are the journey and the journey's end."); and that the hope and longing - and the journey in and through and towards them - remain constant, and must be kept alive, and are really what counts.
"How we get there is where we arrive." (Richard Rohr)

SMALL THINGS

Today the cat broke my treasured water jug, a wedding gift from friends.

I cried as I swept up the shards of glass.

Today a friend spontaneously ploughed our oppressive mountains of snow.

We were left with miraculous open space, and the faintest hint of tender green.

Today something was irretrievably lost.

Today something was given, something gained.

Today I was ugly and angry with my daughter over nothing important.

We both cried, and I wondered how I am wounding her.

Today she asked for a kiss on her bumped head.

I marvelled that my loving touch still holds healing magic.

Today love was trampled and neglected.

Today love was simply asked for and freely given.

Today power was abused and vulnerability wounded.

Today there was connection, and tenderness, and healing.

I am a lover and a hater, a hurter and a healer, a bully and a friend.

I am control-freak one moment, carefree singing the next.

I am light and dark, good and evil, hidden and revealed.

Driven at times by an inner force of injury and rage,

Love rises at others to turn my small choices to good.

I am hopeful and despairing, as life’s small things bring loss or gain, fracture or growth,

As small things reveal the great circle of death and life before which I am powerless.

I am a small thing – powerless, yet powerfully held in the greater circle of love.

And so I watch the fall and the splinter, helpless to prevent or repair.

I know the wound and the wounding, and the barriers to love.

I hope, too, for the unsolicited miracle of healing,

For all that restricts to be pushed aside,

For the gift of a wide open space in which love can grow up

Like a tender shoot.

Rachael Barham – Thursday 26^th February 2009

Herald

Raise high the standard of spring!

Hold up the budded boughs,

As you stride through greening woods,

Your skirts lifted from a gold leaf floor.

See, dancing birds follow in your train,

While others circle overhead.

Hear grateful brooks herald your coming

And frogs sing a chorus of praise.

As you pass,

Bare branches still too proud to bow

Know that spring’s sap will soon

Force them, clothed, to their knees.

So, lift high the standard!

Winter, lay down your frosted arms,

And earth, yield again with joy,

That all might see and

sighing

surrender.

Rachael Barham,

Friday 1^st May 2009,

Chickadee Lodge, St John River, New Brunswick.

You can't contain a child

You can't contain a child

Let one loose in a field

And she will run, fly

Too much life in the limbs to walk

Always the full charge

All this waiting life calls for dash and tear

Tearing to open this moment’s present

To be present to it all

Enough for me

--------The foot of the cross--------

Enough for me this place, still strange to me and me a stranger

Enough to see this small patch of rough wood

The rest towering too tall, too lofty looming for me to grasp

Enough for me the gift of this mysterious tree

A space carved out for me beneath and within it

A bowl hollowed hallowed and now smoothed endless in capacity

Enough for me to know myself somehow carried there

Received and held there

Despite myself, uncomprehending and unsure

Enough for me to rest here, sleep here

Soul-stilled and quiet waiting

Weaned with, and weaned within

This one rose

And so gratitude grows up like a rose among the thorns.

This is all there is.

This one rose.

This one sunlit window seat.

This one painted mug filled with steaming coffee.

This one warm moment to savour.

Look around and all is barbed and spiny.

The light does not reach, the heat does not penetrate.

The coffee grows cold.

The pottery is brittle and will one day break.

This one rose, this one moment, is not enough.

But turn back, and this is all there is.

This one precious moment is all

there

is.

This one fragrant rose still grows up,

Beautiful among thorns.

Starting the Joy Dare today - choosing to notice and catalogue the "one thousand gifts" that surround me every day.

1 -My bubbly daughter preparing for her school talent show today.

2 - This ruby red couch and warm wood that make a spot that is home.

3 - Preparing delicious and nourishing food to feed my mitochondria today! :-)

Please, sadness, don't leave me.

Please, sadness, don’t leave me.

You have softened my hard heart and opened my eyes to see secret sorrow bravely borne in familiar faces all around me.

You have unearthed my dormant soul, giving tender shoots of desire room to breathe again and slowly climb towards the light. You have revealed with sorrow what has been my delight, and with grief what remains my unfathomable love. You have given me hope that delight and love can grow to guide and sustain me, that holy desire can give birth in me – through me – to life in the world.

Your gentle tears make me feel alive and present, tender and open, woman and human.

So, sadness, why do you stand up now to take your leave? Why so soon?

Is my loss, my need, too small for you to stay any longer? Am I so shallow, my life so easy, that you cannot feel at home here with me?

Why does your gentle hand pry away my clinging fingers? And why – do you know – DO they cling?

Tell me, sadness, is it GOOD that you leave me?

Is your work complete here, your time done? What is it that you came to do, and what do you see in me now that turns you towards my door?

Sweet sadness, I cannot hide from you what I have tried to hide from myself:

That your tears have not only opened my eyes but, lately, have also threatened to close them to the gifts that crowd so thickly around me; that they have opened my heart towards others, but have sometimes also turned it away, and in, and down.

Perhaps you feel that I toy with you now, USE you – to feel alive and exceptional and entitled – and you know that the hard work of sorrow must give way to the hard work of practised gratitude in the everyday, and of life and love re-gifted to the least of these.

So, sadness, if you must go away, then take with you ingratitude and self-importance, but please leave behind soft-heartedness and thankfulness and compassionate presence.

I will leave the door unlocked for you; your tentative knock will no longer be ignored. If it is your time to come and eat with me again then you will be welcomed here, as will your sister joy whose light step I hear approaching as you bid me farewell with a final glance and a fond smile.