Selected Poems on Physical and Spiritual RealityYou are invited to critique these poems, or any poem in The Entire Packet or Gleanings and Giftings, for which please visit the Books page. Send critiques to hwagener2001@juno.com.
© 2004, 2006, 2008, by H. D. Wagener. All rights reserved.
Nikolai
August, 2000
Notes in a Russian orphanage ledger:
Right leg; no knee or calf below a stunted thigh
Left foot; turned at ninety degrees, outward
Left arm; fully functional
Right arm; a stump at the wrist
Method of mobility; drags his lower body along the floor
Most common expression; expressionless
In photographs; blankly staring
Playfulness; absent
Loving care; absent
One-on-one attention; insufficient staff
Sense of separateness; large
Age; 4 ½ Size; 3
October
Three thousand miles away
in response to a photograph, an appeal
a family reaches out:
a couple willing to love, no matter what the risk;
a surgeon, a prosthetist, willing to serve
without thought of reward.
January, 2001
The paperwork done, a Russian caretaker flies to Boston
bringing Nikolai, dirty, soiled, a little old man
staring, without brightness.
The couple meets them, and takes Nikolai to Maine
to their home brimming with children
once-broken children, whom they have taken in
and allowed to become whole:
brothers and sisters; a gift for Nikolai.
The first evening, Nikolai sits and stares
and cringes when offered toys.
April
Nikolai has a favorite toy, a squishy rubber tube
to push on and pull off the right arm.
"Da",” is now, "Des.".
Other English words come quickly.
His usually serious gaze breaks into grins and giggles
when his new mom hugs or teases him
or quietly talks to him in love.
His nose has a scrape from biking with his brothers.
Seated on an examining table in the surgeon's office
Nikolai, the surgeon's stethoscope in his ears
carefully listens for the heartbeat of a toy.
X rays decorate the walls.
The surgeon's examination is done.
The prognosis: The foot can be straightened
the boy will walk, perhaps unaided.
In the operating room, the staff is upbeat, expectant.
A long incision is made; tendons are cut.
There being no bones for an ankle joint
the foot is pinned straight ahead for walking.
Tendons are rejoined
the incision sutured, a cast applied.
Phase one of the work is done.
August
Pins out, cast gone
the foot has healed.
The prosthetist fits a limb to Nikolai's right thigh
a limb of metal bones, red, green and blue
and lockable joints.
The limb is in place now.
Nikolai's new mom holds his right arm where the hand would be.
On the left, he is hand-in-powerful-hand with his new dad
and for the first time in his life, Nikolai stands erect.
Looking down at two straight feet in new black shoes
he smiles a triumphant smile.
Joy surges at the feel of the floor beneath his feet;
he realizes, I am like the others.
I can do what they can do; run! climb! and I will.
They try a little walk.
Nikolai mostly drags the prosthesis.
His dad squats, works with him and the limb.
A few rounds using a walker, and he gets the knack of it.
Nikolai is determinedly walking, now
left hand gripping the walker, followed closely by his dad.
The boy lays out his spirit and his destiny:
"I want to walk home."
The prosthetist weeps.
In six days, Nikolai is walking unaided, without falling.
He climbs up and down a bunk bed ladder
for the mastery of it.
Occasional deep, rich laughter
sounds from here or there in the house
as he exults in the joy of moving about upright, alone.
With the other children
Nikolai tears through the house, out the door
and careens down the driveway on locked joints
handless arm out for balance, unabashedly
flying full tilt into life.
I Have Observed
reality in gullies
sought truth in rotting rock
and trudged the farthest mile
of track in southern heat
to hear the ring of steel on stone.
I have inferred, from chips of ledge
subterranean realms.
When my houses of hypotheses collapsed
I built again.
Truth came quietly
in rare moments
in the laundromat, the shower
when the Self was ready to transmit
and the mind to receive.
I have attained
a sense of timeles
changeless change;
the stillness of millennia;
the knowableness
of the remote unknown.
I was a name.
I am become a pilgrim
one line farther up
the melodious ascending scale.
Narrative and Psalm
Brilliance in pale yellow
echoed in snow banks, slants through windows
reflects from two steel freezers and a wall
and draws me from chopping vegetables
to the window, gazing seaward.
In a delicately yellow haze
swells break over hidden ledge
subside and break again, rolling, rolling
throwing up bolts of spray
the west wind catches and throws back
in rhythm with the rolling, and the waves
bounce and roll toward shore
trailing white plumes of spray
like God's horses, tossing their manes.
In a moment the brilliance is gone;
Above the horizon, lavender,
pink and yellow bands
fade into a light-blue dome.
The fiery yellow globe goes, too
with frightful suddenness.
A dusky band of gray-blue
inherits the slant of sunlight, rising westward
sweeps the blue dome like a wiper blade
and becomes the dome itself.
Snow fields take on a subtle inference of sky
and retain it into dusk.
Lights begin to twinkle
from juts of ledge
along the arc of shore.
Waves of gratitude rise
for the evolution of seas and days
and the long, slow flowering of my awareness.
Peace overtakes me; sea water wells from my eyes.
Momentarily led beyond the wisdom of Ulysses
brimming with joyful sorrow
I turn from the window to work.
Stroke
The carpenter stopped the alarm, turned on the lamp
moved in a fog to the closet
had trouble opening the door
tried to put on his shirt, but could not seem to.
He pulled the shirt on over the fumbling left arm
but could not button it.
Confused, he stepped before the mirror
and then he saw it: The left eye would not blink.
He tried to say, "Oh, shit," but no words formed,
and he figured he was in for it.
Somehow, he buttoned the shirt, thinking
“Emergency room,” and, “Dining room table.”
The table lay on its side on pads in the parlor.
The kids would have no place to eat.
He went down, tested the dining-room varnish for dryness
slid the table in place and set it upright
using the one good arm. He doesn’t remember how.
Only then did he mount the stairs and rouse his wife.
He spoke to her as well as he could
using muscles that seemed to be anesthetized.
She quickly dressed, woke the children
gave them suggestions for breakfast
and grabbed her keys.
The physician on duty admired the carpenter's wife
as a teacher of his children.
He ordered every pertinent test
and others that perhaps were not.
It became a pleasant morning on a gurney
being wheeled from lab to lab
with time for contemplation and the mantrum
and being aware of joy.
In the midst of it, the carpenter felt the return
of functioning begin in his arm and tongue.
"It appears to have been a completed stroke;
you are out of danger, now."
"When can I go back to work?"
"Whenever you wish," and he did
the next morning, a little late
to resume constructing attic rooms.
In late afternoon, the customer climbed the stairs:
"Didn't see you yesterday."
"I had a stroke," the carpenter said, and that was all he said.
The customer fell silent, and went down.
The carpenter carefully finished his day.
He found the customer's silence odd, but thought,
Doesn't want to pry, perhaps, or doesn't know what to think.
He figured, if she ever decided to alter the work
and removed a section of sheetrock
she might notice the three or four hammer marks
around every nail driven into the studs that day
by one who never missed the head of a nail.
Mantrum Walk
Twenty of us walk together through the dawn
for an hour, at a hard pace, legs stretching
each of us repeating a mantram
along the length of the great sand spit
that constantly attempts to close
the mouth of Tomales Bay.
We trace our teacher’s footsteps.
The Bay traces the San Andreas rift.
We sound our mantra silently
feet with breath, breath with mind
no thoughts, no thoughts
aum mane padme hum
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Aum Yesu Christu
Hare Rama, Hare Rama
Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare
My God and my all
My God and my all.
The sand lies heavily, seaward of low dunes
nibbled at and arced by waves
but shows no sign of displacement
by movement along the continent-effacing rift
that shatters bedrock along its trace, enhancing erosion
and giving us a pleasant linear bay
in which to feel restful, at peace, walking over sand
that buries evidence of Earth’s inner turmoil
the revolutions of the great heat engine that never rests.
We walk out and back, crossing the trace of the rift
with unwarranted faith in the stability of the spit
mantra pounding deeper and deeper into consciousness
toward the enabling of a mantrum engine
to cycle peace from within
as Earth’s engine cycles heat, without ceasing.
The Purposes of Patterns
For Amy Lowell
To break the monotony of a blank wall
the monotony of absence of contemplation;
to replace it with little geometries or floral abstractions
which reinforce the mind’s repetitious
scampering through the day toward dream sleep
an activity of pattern and jumble
in which one accepts all absurdities as real
and so confounds confusion.
To lay out a garden, in imitation of God
whose unpatterned floral bursts
vanquish all gardens in loveliness.
To count or account for
as in geometric formations of men or collated papers;
to facilitate advancing upon and devouring
as with moving columns of men or ants
which can no more be distinguished at a distance
than their militant collective actions.
To funnel the traffic of man
from dendritic clusters of dwellings
(where unpatterned forest or grass land stood)
along linear tracks to orderly dispersal
among rectangular bases of structures
and orderly return.
To suspend a road bed
from a web of uprights and cables.
To divide the late-day winter sky
behind the bridge, behind a grove of trees
into monochromatic panes of stained glass
to inspire poetry and song.
To dissolve into, as subatomic particles
enter oneness with patterns of energy
making the tenuous solidity of matter untenable.
To distract the mind
as it gropes about in ignorance
of the superficially indiscernible
patterns of the purposes of That Which Is.
Acceptance
The table supporting my forearms
I accept as ethereal solid. The window
separating me from the rain, brittle
ethereal solid or solidified
ethereal fluid, I accept with joy.
Waves of thought, my consciousness
whatever these are I accept
and myself; I am what I am
but I cannot express
the reality of my Self.
My opinion of consciousness
cannot approach it. Love
may be strangled by the intellect.
I renounce my opinions.
I desire only to know
and to practice love
beyond intellect and thought
that I may know love absolutely
and in knowing, become and offer it
opening to all that which I am
in the deepest valley of my soul.
Easter Message
The choir and its salaried soloists
struck the final hallelujah.
In the momentary silence
before the muted shufflings began
in the third row from the rear, balcony
a parishioner, properly dressed, poised
head erect, strained slightly forward
ready to receive the Easter text.
A lens of his spectacles
popped to the floor, noisily
rolled, staggered
rotated rapidly on its concave side
and accelerated to a stop.
Waves of riot, suppressed
by extremities of will
surged through two rows
of Christian youth behind.
The bifocals of him chairing the podium
having remained fixed on vaulted beams
during the choir's rendition, shifted toward the floor
as he rose with muted rustling of raiment.
His eyes caught the flurry of vigor in the balcony.
He allowed it to subside, ignored.
Today, as he took the two steps to the pulpit and his text
he was allowed to see that it would not work;
that as far as he could see, in all its variations
it had never really worked at all.
A sagging emptiness overcame his spirit
which had been primed by Easter finery
and smiles of cordiality
that faded into whispers
of anticipated decorum of the service
as each body seated itself
as far back from involvement
as could be dared
for the two-thousand-and-eightieth time
since he had received his vestments.
He glanced out over that
overflowing portion of the flock
entrusted to him to feed
intending to begin to speak
but he could only cry
in an inaudible voice
that rumbled through internal corridors
hung with forgotten admonishments
and arched in restraint,
"I thirst. Oh, God, I thirst for the way
to roll away the stones of their faces."
He wavered and stared
clutching the pulpit in awe
as the congregation seemed to melt at his feet
and congeal as variegated lumps in a spattery puddle
spewed from the mouth of the Lord.
As the vision faded
and his composure began to return
he heard, for the first time in his life
the gentle knocking at the door of the heart.
He smiled a little half-smile
dropped his text ceremoniously to the floor
and spoke to them with passionate intensity
out of the deep driving desire of his opened Soul.
Bowing to You
in greeting or departing
palms pressed gently together
I become a kettle of aromatic tea
pouring myself out to you
in devotion to That in you
which is one with me.
In full bow, my eyes are closed
but I am more aware of you
than ever could be
through any visual connection.
I offer myself to you
with no expectation of return
but if you bow also
pouring yourself out to me
we become engulfed
in wholeness and peace.
Primer on Oscillographic Lines
Iin Walls of Marble Toilet Stalls
Water and Light
Light sparkled in a shallow sea.
Oscillations of swells
and white topped turbulence
cycled oxygen to the bottom
where brachiopods, extracting calcium from the water
excreted valves of the carbonate of calcium.
Storm surges darkened the water.
Titanic seas bulldozed stunned brachiopods
into malodorous heaps.
Shells clacked emptily together.
Fragments were distributed uniformly
over the planed remains of older heaps
the floor of the sea.
Generations buried preceding generations
under the accumulations of their existence
until the sea floor sagged beneath them.
Water
Beneath a hundred million years
of dead weight of fragmented shells
fragments dissolved at contact points
precipitated in voids as interlocking crystals
and vast accumulations of broken brachiopods
became rock.
Water squeezed along planes of invertebrate generations
irregularly dissolving mottled rock
leaving behind on the now oscillographic seams
insoluble residua: feces of brachiopods;
carbon from the soft parts; terrestrial and cosmic dust.
Darkness
We, having quarried, cut and polished a miracle
sit in semi darkness, scratching obscenities
across the marbled face of Earth.
Clifford Eubanks
Eubanks raised a twenty pound sledge
with his seventy-seven year old frame
and brought it down
precisely where he wanted it to fall.
The rhythm was easy
the motion smooth and flowing.
Taut muscles rippled his smooth black skin
that glistened in the Philadelphia heat
and wrinkled only above the belt
when he sat at break time
or around the eyes in a smile.
Tom, his partner, fifty years younger
knees in the dust, steadied a steel stake
flattened on top by the hammer.
The summer sun had bleached his blond hair white.
"Cliff, what's the secret?"
"The secret of what?"
The hammer struck again.
"The secret of you.
I wanta be like you."
"Best you be yourself."
"But, you ain't old."
The hammer struck hard.
"Never thought I was."
Eubanks straightened up
and stood the hammer on its head.
"Here, boy, help me string a line.
Got to square these forms."
"Who you callin’ ‘Boy?’"
Eubanks stopped and smiled.
"Joke, son, just a joke."
Tom spoke cautiously;
"They ever call you boy?"
"Yeah, maybe, in the old days.
Later, I was in a lab; a chemist."
"Go on. Then whatta you doin' here?"
"Workin'."
"I can see that, man.
What I mean is, why?"
"You don't work
you sit around, you die."
"You mean, you want to be here
every day, never late, smilin' at the dirt?
Man, whatta you all th' time smilin' at?"
Eubanks bent over, laughing.
"You tell me."
"Shit, you holdin' out."
Eubanks laughed again.
A voice across the site called, "Lunch.”
They sat in the sand, backs to sawhorses
and opened thermoses and sandwiches.
Eubanks reached for the sledge
held the head to his lips
smiled, and kissed it.
"The secret's in the head."
He laughed and shook his own.
"Used to be I sat at work
and worked out hard at lunch.
Now I work out hard at work and sit to eat.
'He's crazy', folks at the lab would say
'Workin' out at lunch.'
Most of them are dead, now.
Workin' is livin', Tom."
"Work ain't all of it."
"No, it’s not."
"You got your family."
"Yeah," said Eubanks, slowly.
He put a finger to his grizzled head.
"There's more–you've got to work with this up here
keep it in trim, like the old bones.
That's my life."
"What is?"
"Studyin', son, studyin'. At night
while you're sittin' in front of a screen
I'm hunched in front of a book."
"What kinda books, mysteries?"
Eubanks smiled. "You might say.
Sometimes it's the New Testament .... in Greek."
"Je–sus!"
"Well, Paul was a Greek.
It was all first written in Greek."
"What's the matter with English?”
"What if the English is wrong?
When I was young the preacher would say,
Faith, hope and charity,
Faith, hope and charity.
Nobody really believed it was true
and nobody talked about love.
Then, somebody took a new look at the Greek
and now the charity’s love.
"But Greek .... man
how'd you learn that shit?"
Eubanks grinned at the sand.
"Work hard every day;
study a little at night."
Tom shook his head.
"Books ain't for me."
"I guess not," Eubanks said.
"You've got to love it."
Eubanks stood, packed his thermos, grinned
and grabbed the sledge.
"Time to get back to the forms, boy."
Tom frowned after him
studied a little about ‘boy’
and followed.
Before the RaceA Painting by John Gable
A summer afternoon;
the broad sweep of a river;
in the distant haze, buildings of Boston.
In the foreground, a youthful sculling crew
calf-deep out from the sandy shore
stands in a line beside a ready scull
all eyes focused together across the water
in intense anticipation of their first race
and in awe of the power displayed
by older crews on the river.
On grass above the narrow beach
children scamper, oblivious of the drama.
Off to my left, trees.
To my right, an artist before his easel
recreates the scene with the deft hand
of decades of similar strokes in realism
but he has opened a fourth dimension
beyond any flight of words;
a subtle brightness in pink/beige
an overwash of genius.
All has this impossible shade
sand, water, scull, sky, oarsmen
drawing me into the painting
to experience the reality
of this moment with the oarsmen
beyond my awareness as part of the scene
and drawing the oarsmen into oneness with all.
Or is the painting the scene
and my standing here the unreality?
What skill in word strokes
could bring about this magic?
Summer Concert in the Square
I
The natural air conditioning of Maine filters through the trees.
Eight musicians command a stage, most of them Caribbean
the lead singer-chanter-promoter
small, pouring out energy, punctuating every movement
with a plastic soda bottle with beans inside
like a baton, a pointer, an emphasizer.
The drummer, accomplished, competent
very large, has a complexion like brown butter
the blackest of beards, and smiling, compassionate eyes.
It is good music, good music–one cannot sit still
although many manage to appear to.
II
A family group, quietly animated, overwhelms
a large portion of broad steps to the sunken plaza;
couples, cousins, friends, and two girls, seven and nine.
Their father tall, slim, sharply profiled, alert
the young executive in shorts, has his shirt tail out;
the mother, nearly as tall, larger boned, blond
with a broader face, is a little subdued
but ready to dance with her children.
The slim, sandy-haired nine-year-old, her profile sharply chiseled
has the facial kindness of her mother’s eyes.
Her sister, equally slim but darker
has an upturned nose and deeply set, dark eyes
around which incipient beauty flickers.
The father dances with the girls
separately, swinging the smaller one about
a little more formal with older.
The father’s uncle walks in from across the square;
full head of grey hair, distinguished, with a poodle on a leash.
All embrace him separately, joyfully;
the seven-year-old jumps into his arms.
The poodle, loosed, roams freely.
Late in the program, the father’s sister walks down the steps.
They great each other fondly.
Her face has the dark beauty budding in the younger child.
She is slim, like the little ones, who swarm around her.
They skip across the concrete, three great friends
dance a bit, converse, and converge
on the table of musicians’ wares, excitedly
to pick a sticker for the aunt.
III
Enter two more girls, one two, one four
both light-blonde, roundish, short and cute
in ribbons and pink pleated dresses
for an evening outing with their father
also roundish, blonde and short.
He dances alone at first, always energetically
feet keeping up with the beat, no matter how frenetic
always near the girls, but never pushing them.
Tentatively, the four-year-old works at joining in.
The father joins her on occasion; she has the beat.
The two-year-old, reluctant, stands in one place
now and then spreading her pleats with both hands
almost ready to fly. Only late in the afternoon
does she begin to abandon herself to the music.
After the concert, the three of them
climb the wide-tread stairs in the Museum of Art
the father leading the way; independent spirits
approaching the soulful animals of Bernard Langlais
Independent Spirit.
IV
A woman alone, slim, long black hair
tied back with strands roaming free
her profile showing incipient signs of age
breasts forced high by a bra beneath a blue-jean shirt
quietly dances, swinging her arms slightly, gently
and softly shuffling her feet
which remain essentially flat on the concrete
toes showing out from under pants legs
sewn to thin leather soles beneath her heels.
She focuses internally, seeming to keep the same tempo
no matter what the music
and stays in the same spot for an hour.
From the main street side of the square
a man of, perhaps her age, with shoulder-length, rich red hair
threads the dancing crowd, moving deliberately
almost in a straight line toward the lone dancer.
She notices at the last moment.
Her eyes rise to his, partly sideways
smiling without involvement of the lower face
and transform into clear, dark, sultry acceptance
with a touch of expectation.
No words are exchanged as he begins to dance with her.
A sultry joyfulness enters her body;
instantly gone is any hint of aging.
Now she dances with him in mind
adopts precise, undulatory movements
of arms, wrists, hands and fingers
that speak many paragraphs
as the two become one.
Many times they have danced this way together
bodies gently flowing into Latin and island music.
They do not touch
but there is a touching we all can feel.
September 18, 2001
Monument Square, Portland, Maine
We gather beneath the massive bronze tribute to Union dead
to light candles, grieve, pray, keep vigil in silence
wave flags toward streams of passing cars
and listen to testimony–intensely personal eulogies;
to ring the monument four deep with tumblers filled with light
and be with others who might reach out
with an unthreatening presence, a sad smile
a face on the verge of tears
or help relight a candle in the wind.
Down Congress Street, art students at the Ccollege
set up tables in the lobby, load them with brushes and pots of paint
tear cloth into squares, and invite us all to paint our thoughts
and post them in the great old show windows
of a converted icon of consumerism
or hang them on twine strung beneath the long marquise.
Hundreds of variegated cloths are up:
insights, works of art, glimpses into the heart
messages and poems of love, peace and hope
mandala-like tributes to a friend, an attendant on Flight 93;
pleas for no war, references to Ghandi;
a small sea of love notes from a people
previously unaware of being in love.
Union Square, New York City
On every approach to Union Square
on every phone booth, lamp post, nearly every space of wall
the new graffiti of New York reshreds the already shredded heart;
desperate messages, pleading for information, any knowledge
of the whereabouts of the smiling face in the snapshot
whom the poster already secretly knows
will not be seen again in this city of heartbreak.
Union Square park tonight is a sea of candles and flowers.
Every inch of fence is posted
with expressions of grief, fragments of poetry
excerpts from the Gita, the Bible, the Koran, the Sufis.
Long scrolls of paper cover the sidewalks. Marking pens
are scattered everywhere, for all to write their thoughts.
Spread along one scroll, someone's line from Ghandi, lettered large
has been surrounded and the letters filled in
with quiet calls for peace and love.
On a scrap of paper taped to a fence: "Trust in God; love heals."
Over all lies a vital absence of calls for revenge or retaliation.
Tonight, the park is overfilled with intense sadness, hope
and absolute certainty of the innate goodness of us all.
Cumberland County, Maine
No rich, ruddy earth hues, but uniformly
gray sandy soil, churned by the great ice mill;
a reminder of what was and could be again.
Lake water, cold, choppy, clear
fills deeply gouged valleys
mirrors mountains on days of calm
and reveals its depths; reflects
the midnight moon, awash
in spotless navy blue at summer solstice.
Juniper and its fragrance, flooring a white birch wood
give way to flame trees, yellow birches
and wood smoke, lying down breeze from chimneys
permeating crisp, clear dusk.
Snow pours down before a street light like flour
from a sifter. Four feet of snow in a month;
shovel blades hover momentarily
over eight-foot snow banks.
A steamy restaurant, deep in January; warmth
of uninhibited conversations between people unafraid
to wear work-a-day boots out to dinner.
In many among the women, affectation is absent.
Their faces and body language reflect the soul of the world.
Fog horns into a southeast gale;
the distant roar of surf on stone, late into night;
the long, slow upward crawl to warmth.
In the short spring/summer, a car from New Jersey
pulls up to the ledge-locked shore at Two Lights
on a cool, clear, brilliant day.
The husband exits, scrambles up on the ledge
looks out over the water, turns, his eyes wide in wonder
and exclaims to the wife, “Look at the air!”
How soon will heavy brown layers obscure
brilliant stretches of cloud at sunrise, even here
or Spring merge with Autumn to shut Summer out?
The Maiden
On the beautiful day Dad first entrusted me
with the family car on my own
I walked down a concrete ramp in a parking garage
and saw the maiden for the first time
seated on a plain wooden bench against a wall
waiting with her parents for the valet.
Her hair was short, dark, reddish.
She smiled at me in untarnished beauty with her eyes.
There was a momentary connection
deeper than any feeling. But I passed on by, cowed
by the Southern expectation of proper introductions.
For days after, I knew my first yearning of loss.
She appeared again, after five years, in a kitchen, at a party.
I was making a foolish play at crushing an egg
with its ends between my palms, fingers locked.
Watching me with intense interest
her long, flowing auburn hair
accenting a certain loveliness
she poured herself right into me, saying,
“Does that make you feel all masculine?”
Again, the connection from the depths of reality.
She was taken, though. Gone again.
Eight years elapsed. I was seated on a wooden bench
knees spread, rump thrust out over the back
at night, in a crowd, near an open fire.
The maiden singled me out, approached
with a golden-brown marshmallow on a stick
and in process of freeing the marshmallow
propped her foot on the bench’s edge, between my legs.
We exchanged a couple of comments
as she enjoyed the marshmallow. Her hair
intensely red, seemed almost to move about on its own
matching her absolute openness. Finally yielding
to awkwardness, she took back the foot, but too late;
the connection had been made. This time
it was I who was taken, and engrossed in work.
After decades of marriage and family
the maiden had become a memory, until
a second divorce stirred up the unconscious
yielding, “Who is the maiden, actually?”
She obliged by showing up again
in a convenience store, near the university
in boots and workman’s coveralls
brown hair curling from under a hard hat
her face a portrait of composure and gentleness.
We smiled, connecting again.
She drove off alone in a contractor’s truck.
I smiled again, but didn’t hanker after her.
It had occurred to me, the hankering
is an unconscious, ongoing, groping about for joy.
Joy is the maiden.
March 20, 2003
I stand with the crowd in the square.
We display our hand-made placards
inscribed with thoughts of peace
satire, and attempts at truth
as the juggernaut begins to move
across the face of the desert
crushing our lost opportunity
to apply clear terms of tough love
in concert with our neighbors
to corral this man Hussein.
In the center, the younger among us
sway to drums in a moving corporate beat
chanting slogan-songs
some well-remembered by the older among us:
“One, two, three, four
We don’t want your war no more.
five, six, seven, eight
We will not cooperate.”
“Show me what democracy looks like;
This is what democracy looks like;”
drumming, drumming, circling, dancing
rhythmic, rhythmic, infectious.
Far off to one side
three policemen stand and chat.
They know how easily positive moods turn angry.
Horns of passing cars are sounded;
arms reach out of windows in support;
others cars go quietly by.
The occasional passenger shouts defiance.
On the panel windows of a large
unnecessary, fuel-hungry vehicle:
“Too late to protest. Support our troops.”
We rally for the generations of our children
and the children’s children.
Those whose tactics we protest
posture turning a deaf ear
but quietly alter their war plans
in response to our presence.
The path to Light leads through darkness.
Each great campaign has its Battle of the Bulge.
Our resolve is to persevere.
I resolve to expunge all thoughts of others as evil
so that I will not be led
to champion sentences of death
against the glory of the human spirit;
to offer one quiet, affirming voice
in the clatter of tank tracks and thud of boots;
the way to the Light is known;
in unfailing resolve is victory.
Herb
In the ‘50s and ‘60s, when Black America
was spread out in the hills and jungles of eastern Asia
getting shot at, we well-to-do white boys, draft-deferred
were cozy in colleges and universities, getting educated
but not to the fate of Black America. “What Black America?”
we might have asked, if the subject had come up.
“Oh, you mean Herb.” Herb was our janitor.
Herb was strong, had a high bald pate and seemed to be
about the size of Mr. Clean; you know, on the cleaning aid bottle.
So, he became Mr. Clean. We enjoyed the pun.
Herb seemed to, also, until one big, deep-southern boy
pushed it too hard and caught a bit of backlash
which tightened things up a little for a while.
Our university was in the Southeast, an enormous
ethnic neighborhood of Anglo-Saxon Protestants
with a black subculture and other minorities, like Catholics.
The blacks began to call us WASPS, which, of course, is redundant
but, then, they had little education. (We had it.).
We knew of the blacks, of course, but pretended they weren’t there
or didn’t count for being counted, or were .... what were they?
People. Just folks. Folks like us, if a bit more soulful
but we made no connection, until the ones marching
or calling us WASP or Whitey, backed up by the new
Law of the Land, drew out of us enough awareness to try to connect.
Well, we started from ignorance, hard of heart
but we’ve come a ways. You’ve seen the black
bank tellers and university students. And now
the Secretary of State is black, or pretty much so.
In the old days, he would have been black for sure.
Nowadays, we tend to take folks more as they are
with a shake of the hand: “Hi, Mr. Paylor.”
That was Herb’s last name. Nobody would have thought
to shake his hand, then, except maybe one of the Northern boys.
Herb’s mother’s account at the local department store
was listed as “Fannie,” under “F;” not Fannie Paylor
or Paylor, Mrs., but Fannie. You wouldn’t want to apply“Mrs.”
to Fannie, now, would you? And you’d better not
if you like your accounts clerk job.
When Dr. Walt Wheeler was about to start back teaching
after his bout with polio, which was as onerous
as anybody’s who survived
Walt and some faculty were talking it over
in the foyer of the old building. Walt’s office and labs
were second floor. There was no elevator, and the ceilings
were high. Walt couldn’t do those steel and concrete stairs,
even with two canes. Hell, he was told
he would never walk or talk again, and here he was doing both
but until he learned to navigate those stairs
Walt was a ground-floor man.
Herb walked in, and stopped for a minute, listening. Gesturing
with his arms out backwards, Herb hunched down in front of Walt
saying, “Climb on, Dr. Wheeler, we’re goin’ up.” Now, Herb
was big, but Walt was bigger; when Herb stood with Dr. Wheeler
piggy back, that was a package of bone and muscle.
Every work day, until Dr. Wheeler got his stair legs back
Herb carried him, like a brother, two flights up in the morning;
two flights down in the afternoon. Sometimes, he carried him down
for lunch with friends and up again, but Herb wouldn’t go along.
Herb and Dr. Wheeler liked to talk sports stats over coffee
but that was their only socializing.
After Dr. Wheeler died, the story of him and Herb
was inscribed on a monument in a rock garden by the new building.
Epilogue
Around 1970, it was, a Dr. Benson took a prestigious position
at the Medical College of South Carolina. He and his wife
made an appointment by phone with an agent
to look at a house in an expensive white neighborhood.
In those days, “expensive white” was redundant, too.
First, the agent parked quietly curbside. After a while
Dr. and Mrs. Benson pulled up right behind. Seeing black folks
in the rear-view mirror, the agent stuck to her car.
Benson walked to her window. “You the realtor?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I am Dr. Benson.”
“I am sorry. I can’t show you the house.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t do it.” She drove off.
He sued.
She lost; big bucks.
The old order faileth.
Ramana Maharshi's Question
Who is this I ?
The observer in dream sleep, I know as I
although my body lies immobile in bed.
I am not aware of immobility
nor of any simultaneous I
associated with the body
which, having no awareness
cannot be an I.
I, therefore, am in the dream
and should end when the dream ends;
but no, the waking I associates with the body
only to abandon it again
in re-entering dream sleep.
I has high mobility;
has no fixed home;
moves rapidly through the atmosphere
effortlessly, feeling no wind
and along the walkway without feet.
Being unattached, how can I end
when the body ends?
What, then, is I?
Not a thing–nothing–
a bit of awareness
manifested from the Divine Ground
complicated by tendencies arising out of memories
and anxieties tied to projections.
Inspiration enters I, or proceeds from I
in proportion to the separation
of I from the Ground
which increases as a function
of tendencies and anxieties.
Who is this I?
I am I, was I, will be I.
I add to, or subdue
I's tendencies and anxieties.
Without these, what would I be?
Pure I.
Still.
Moving in freedom.
One with the Ground.
Graffiti
In Paul Green’s drama, The Common Glory
Jefferson sits center stage
at a small table, alone, writing.
His quill pen, its sound amplified
scratches across the paper.
He crosses out words and lines
and makes new entries
thinking aloud in amplified whispers;
“....all men are created equal....”
“....certain inalienable rights....”
“....life, liberty and property.”
He pauses for a long time, deletes
property with deliberate strokes
and accompanied by his own determined
whispered voice, writes in
“....the pursuit of happiness.”
Extraordinary! Never has a document
drafted by Western political man
contained the language of the Heart.
Jefferson feels this deeply;
it informs every stroke of his pen.
___________________
After two hundred years
we have written property
back in, not with a pen
but a spray-paint can.
We are kids, glossing over
the brickwork in the wall of life.
We have betrayed the revolution.
Healing the Thumb
Folded wooden table under arm, I stumbled
up the two steps to my daughter’s place.
All went sprawling – my thumb impressed itself
along a spring-steel band beneath the table top,
laying open a three-quarter by quarter-inch flap of skin
and a linear cut beyond the joint.
I held the thumb head high until the bleeding stopped
and drove home one-handed, thumb up and tissue-wrapped.
Resident nurse Marion applied a squeeze of ointment
and two one-inch Band Aids.
The blood cells, having worked quickly
and well to coagulate, sacrificing thousands
in wiped away over-coagulation
(in the manner of excess acorns crowding the base of an oak
or ungathered dust and gases in a galaxy after star birth)
moved on to other duties. The skin flap seemed
too big to save, but blood and skin cells knew the work
and had already set about it.
Next morning, the skin flap’s white jagged edge
was matched, irregularity by irregularity,
by a dead white rim of skin across a chasm
the width of a thousand cells.
In two days, the chasm was closed, its edges tightly knit
to new tissue, no gaps, no leaks, jagged edges
jumbled aside, out of the way of the work force.
The skin flap, its lower portion now over fluid called up
from glandular recesses, was sensitive, like a pink blister.
Coagulation, the delivery of fluid, construction of new tissue
the efficient sealing of the wound, all were accomplished quickly
as work for the good of the whole, in which
coordination replaced rivalry
without question or argument, following procedures
worked through and honed by billions of cell generations
since the earliest beginnings.
The cells behave like creatures having awareness,
partaking in consciousness.
We deny this, not wanting to admit
that cells may be aware as we are aware
or have a communal awareness,
cooperating, interacting, interpenetrating,
living, working, dying, in response to trouble
or yielding to routine in the vast
interior communities of themselves.
Bringers of New Things
Some run up hill and down dale
whacking the stones to pieces with hammers;
analyzing optically thin slices and kilogram chunks;
studying mountains with the microscope and crucible.
They say it is to see how the world was made.
Some endlessly pipette into rack after rack
of test tubes, to track the movement
of molecules from cell to cell in the brain
and autonomic nervous system, to map
the neurobiochemistry of disease
and pin down the ground of emotion.
A few accelerate particles on the subatomic scale
causing collisions, to analyze the arcuate, fireworks-like
bursts of new particles in a magnetic field,
in the search for an ultimate pattern,
a force uniting all reality. A few
scan the night sky, by use of telescopes
of unprecedented size and range
to seek the beginning on the macro scale
of that which has not been shown to have an end.
Most walk ordinary paths in no extraordinary way.
They have no contact with those who whack,
pipette, accelerate or scan, but are in no way
at all apart from them, except in their own minds.
They seek the resolution of their lives
and have as much grasp of their own identity
as those who accelerate particles,
the margins of whose untraveled worlds
fade forever and forever as they probe,
bringing something more, endless showers
of particles, beyond understanding
but within the boundless realm of realization.
Such are our bringers of new things, toward whom
Ulysses leans, feeling right at home, while Krishna
dispassionately looks on, sees nothing new
and waits with infinite patience the dawn.
August Morning
My breakfast window
opens to the sun.
Cool damp air
pours over the table
into my lap.
Behind a rim of trees
the misty cove
has been subsumed
in white brilliance.
Begin the day.
Embrace the East.
Let go.
Abandon yourself
to brilliance.
Epiphany of a Physicist
The scientist has faith in experimental
procedure. If it fails to reveal the object,
the procedure is modified and carried forward
with equal faith that the object will manifest itself.
The result is not prejudged, but accepted,
as in turning a problem over to That.
In the first half of the twentieth century, atomic physicists
observed results that flew in the face of established wisdom,
the mathematics of Newton and even of common sense,
but they persevered in the manner of the Buddha.
By the end of the century, physicists still had
no clear picture of the nature of the atom and its parts,
could not yet fully answer Heisenberg (mentor late in life
of Capra), who asked himself again and again, on a lonely walk
in ‘27, after late night discussions with Bohr, “Can nature
possibly be as absurd as it seems to us in these experiments?”
The perseverance continues unabated.
In the late sixties, Fritjof Capra, atomic physicist,
had an epiphany. Sitting on the beach, absorbed in the rhythms
of his own breathing and the sea, he experienced his total
immersion in a great cosmic dance. His work with
mathematical formulae and fireworks-like collisions
of subatomic particles that produce new particles
in cloud chambers, his knowledge that showers
of cosmic particles charge into the upper atmosphere
and into his body, colliding with atoms in air and cells,
all of this came vitally alive for him.
It was a revelation beyond any function of the intellect,
and was thus remote from his many years of work, but he knew
he had received a vision of physical realities he had known
only approximately through experiment. This experience
was to define the path to The Tao of Physics.
He knew he had realized what Hindu mystics know
as the Dance of Shiva. That infinitely vast reality, beyond
understanding, had been momentarily manifested in him.
_________________________
A colleague of mine in the sixties, a chemist, dismissed
out of hand as unworthy Raynor Johnson’s plea
in The Imprisoned Splendor for scientists to accept
psychic phenomena as a valid field of investigation.
He violated thereby his own unspoken pledge as a scientist
to investigate all phenomena without prejudice.
In this way, generations of scientists have stifled
the unorthodox. Capra, in contrast, aware of the realities
of professional rejection, courageously followed his Heart.
The sixties saw the experimental introduction by Chuck Cazeau
at the State University at Buffalo of an elective course in psychic
phenomena, which had to be scheduled in the largest
lecture room on campus. The unexpected demand reflected
an imprisoned hunger, a hunger manifested in the eighties
and nineties in the migration of the laity to Hatha Yoga classes
and Buddhist sanghas, followed by consolidation of parishes
and selling off of sanctuaries, as leaders of church,
synagogue and mosque tenaciously clung to orthodoxies
more pertinent to the millennia flanking the birth of Jesus.
We are in the midst of a revolution. The answers from my youth
to questions then thought impertinent no longer have validity.
Atheists take the literary stage, adopt the in your face
attitudes of current culture, and draw large audiences. In the midst
of this, Capra writes and moves, a quiet voice of compassion
and unquestionable competence, performing such feats
as transforming a book-length treatise in difficult, convoluted
prose by David Bohm into a page and a half of simple, profound
clarity, and moving small groups of us toward accepting as reality
the absolute interconnectedness of all that is.