Just Say the Word
December 16, 2009
by William Bradley
I’m trying to think of a word. It’s a word that I’ve forgotten, that I suspect we’ve all forgotten. We knew it once, it’s on the tip of our tongues, something just reminded us. No, it’s gone. Love? No, no. Good? Well, close, but not quite.
It’s like, when I was born, wrapped up in a white blanket, and put to my mother’s breast, my guardian angel leaned in to me and, with breath reeking of Maker’s Mark and Marlboros, whispered it to me. He said “Here it is. Check it. Dude, it’s all that you need to know.” And I understood, and felt at peace. And I know that I won’t remember what the word was until my heart monitor stops beeping and they disconnect me from my respirator, and my guardian angel returns, pulling the pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jacket and offering me that smoke I’ve waited so long for, since I quit in order to prolong my life on earth. He’ll hook me up with a match, light his own cigarette, then smirk at me with that arrogant, knowing grin of his. The dick. “You remember what I told you?” he will ask. “Almost,” I’ll answer. “God knows I’ve been trying.”
It’s the word that we’re missing from all of our common vocabularies, regardless of language. It is all parts of speech, but it is not a vulgarity; far from it. It is the word that connects one idea to the next, that links one narrative to another, that clears up all misunderstandings. The Christian, the Jew, the Muslim, and the atheist could find all that separates them made insignificant by its utterance. “Oh, that’s what you meant,” they’d say in unison, then have a hearty laugh over the misunderstanding. It all seems so obvious, once the word’s been spoken.
The word names the bond shared by all who live. It soothes us when we worry, it alleviates our fears. It is the name of the universe, and the name of the universe’s creator. It is the knowledge that brings us closer to the Supreme Person, it expresses the best possible tidings to those who have faith and do good works; in the beginning, it was there with God, and it was God.
My guardian angel will lean in closer to me, excited. “Do you give up?” he’ll ask. “Just give up. None who lives ever remembers the word, even though they all want to.” And then he’ll tell me, and I’ll shake my head and groan at my ignorance. It was there all the time. How could I have missed it? It will all seem so obvious, when I’m dead.
In the meantime, though, I’ll get by the best I can, with my ignorant, half-formed ideas formed by my insufficient vocabulary. Most of the time it doesn’t even bother me. Hardly at all. I stand in the kitchen, stirring the pasta and watching the clock. The house fills with the scents of the dinner that will be ready soon. These are the moments, I know, when my wife loves me most. This is when I love her most, too—during these relaxing hours after we have escaped from the office but before we start preparing for the next day’s labors. And when we’re loving each other the most, the word love seems insufficient. So my wife comes into the kitchen and stands behind me while I stir. Her left arm goes around my waist, and she stands up on her toes to kiss my shoulder.
“I love you,” she says with a sigh that indicates frustration with the word’s inadequacy.
“I love you too,” I say, sympathetic to the shortcomings of our language but content in the knowledge that we understand each other regardless.
William Bradley’s work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Normal School, Brevity, The Bellevue Literary Review, and other magazines. He teaches at Chowan University in Murfreesboro, NC, and he can often be found acting like a know-it-all on his blog, The Ethical Exhibitionist (http://ethicalexhibitionist.blogspot.com).
Solitude
December 14, 2009
by SuzAnne C. Cole
Like a knight preparing for dragons,
she arms herself for a day alone—
instead of a sword, a journal of handmade
paper and an antique fountain pen.
For provisions, a bottle of spring water.
As talismans a baby doll, half-hand
bitten off and raggedly glued, smiling
bear fetish, tarnished brass pendulum.
For outer illumination a candle,
hoping meditation will bring inner light.
No shield for protection from demons
she knows will arise from the midnight
of her soul, shadows which must be
faced —and embraced.
She retreats to her room for solitude,
closes the door to the world,
opens the door to her self.
SuzAnne C. Cole, former college English instructor, enjoys being a wife, mother, and grandmother, traveling, hiking, exploring her consciousness, and writing from a studio in the Texas Hill Country. She’s been both a juried and featured poet at the Houston Poetry Fest and once won a haiki contest in Japan. Editor’s note: “Solitude” originally appeared in Sage of Consciousness.
As Above, So Below
December 12, 2009
by Christine Stewart-Nuñez
A canopy of silver maples:
fifteen feet of trunk thrust
leaves into blue Nebraska sky.
We stood underneath, arms
wrapped around waists,
grass cool against bare feet.
Below, root systems spread
out as wide as the trees are tall;
roots of two growing close
web beneath earth, interlace
to share water or sickness,
whichever love is theirs to bear.
Christine Stewart-Nuñez is the author of The Love of Unreal Things, Unbound & Branded (Finishing Line Press 2005 and 2006) and Postcard on Parchment (ABZ Press 2008). Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Calyx, Arts & Letters, and North American Review. She teaches at South Dakota State University.
Savasana
December 10, 2009
by Mary Ann O’Gorman
Teacher, watch. Sit still.
Settle them. They’re leaves swept up
by breezes, until
their feet, tulips bent
toward last light, lay flat, toes
uncurled–and heads, sent
like stones in a lake,
let surface ripples gather
to stillness. They’ll make
no noise, just engage
in the rise and fall of breath.
The V’s where ribs uncage
form flocks of geese
etching the gray, dusky sky–
homeward bound, released.
Mary Ann O’Gorman lives in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where she teaches English and yoga. Her publications include a chapbook, Life in This House, and a poem forthcoming in The Bellingham Review. Her poem “Invisible” won the poetry prize at the Words and Music/Pirate’s Alley conference and was published in The Double Dealer.
Wonder
December 8, 2009
by Jan Keough
I would like to mention
that there is no preparation
for wonder.
It doesn’t appear on the pages
of all those books
you’ve read.
It doesn’t linger
on the backside of memory
with the most delicious taste.
It can’t fall out of the sky
like sun showers
to dazzle you.
It doesn’t rise like waves
full of pushing forward
with small tingles of anticipation.
Or appear from outside
like phone messages
blinking your attention.
No, it hovers,
waiting for you to be ready
to see it.
And swim in it
and absorb it
since it’s always there.
That something-joy
born of your
letting go.
Jan Keough lives in Northern Rhode Island and is part of the Origami Poems Project of RI. (www.origamipoems.com) She’s received 1st Honorable Mention from the Bay Area Poets Coalition. Her poems have appeared in New Verse News, The River Poets Journal, Providence Journal, and the RI Writer’s Circle 2008 Anthology.
Easter Sunday
December 6, 2009
by Marian Kaplun Shapiro
at the Quaker Meeting House.
See us sitting. See the rows and rows
of dark wood benches. See the spring sun-
light prisming through the windows, linen
handkerchiefs fallen on the dark floor tiles.
Hear the expectant silence of apple trees,
buds about to pop, each in its pink or white time.
Now a baby papoosed on his daddy’s chest,
trills his tipsy giggle into the air.
Hmms, cackles, coos, gurgles, squawks,
squeals, he hatches sounds that have no spelling.
We grownups laugh our soprano/alto laugh,
our tenor laugh, our bass laugh, wrapping
the room in a kind of ‘stadium wave’ of love.
The father rises.
“This is Jonah,” he says. “Jonah wants to tell you
that he is very happy.” The father sits,
and
we
remember
what we’ve lost. That seemingly
impossible Faith. And, especially,
that unmitigated Joy,
born today
lost again today,
slipping through the sieves of consciousness,
new and old, inevitable, entwined,
as relentless as time, and as certain.
Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988), a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) and two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). As a Quaker and a psychologist, her poetry often addresses the embedded topics of peace and violence, often by addressing one within the context of the other. A resident of Lexington, she was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006 and again in 2008.
Viable Option
December 4, 2009
by Barry Harris
“The only viable option is….”
the voice trailed off as I passed by
like the doppler shift a car makes
on the highway as it zings into nothingness.
I wondered all the way back to my desk
what the real answer was,
what nugget of knowledge I might now know
if but my walk were a few steps slower
or my hearing keener.
It was probably just
a calendar appointment that would not fit
or a budget number that would not crunch,
but what if it were a secret of the universe
whispering in the hallway like silent wind?
What if the only viable option
was here, today, in this moment?
What if I had heard?
Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and has published one collection, Something At The Center, and one chapbook, The Soul At Work: Poems From The Office. His poetry has appeared in Saint Ann’s Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, The Centrifugal Eye and is forthcoming in Writers’ Bloc.
Authentic Self: The Story Big Enough to Live In
December 2, 2009
by Amy Pierce
Oneness / Home
Evolutionary enlightenist Andrew Cohen writes, “And that’s what the world so desperately needs: mature, enlightened human beings who are willing to wholeheartedly take responsibility for the entire process, forever – to participate in the creation of the conscious universe, with and as the very force that created it. That impulse is . . . your very own Authentic Self.”[i] Authentic Self is that Spark of Divine Fire, that initial God-individuation that is the Greatest/Highest Self; Authentic Self is Oneness with identity.
Built into each of us, sitting in our deepest heart, is a longing for connectedness. Sitting alongside the yearning is a belief and fear that we are ultimately alone. The longing for connection is about Home, the Great Source of Being that many of us call God. The “good news” is to be found in the truth of the reality of Oneness – meaning that whether or not we know or experience it, we are literally One with All That Is. Every tree and tank, every hellion and healer, every bully and baby, are One and cannot be separated from the Whole.
That we exist here on this duality planet as unique individuals by necessity means that there exist many distinctly differing paths to bring us Home. What works for one will not necessarily work for another, and to me, this is part of the beauty and grace of Consciousness Itself, of Creator, of Home. Eventually, we will come Home to the undifferentiated Oneness. Yet we can also choose to come Home here and now as our Authentic Selves in form, which means that we must live and “behave as if the God in All Life matters”[ii].
The Keyword of the Times is “Change”
Huge changes are upon us. Time seems to be speeding up, and the consequences of the conscious or unconscious choices we make show up almost immediately. This instantaneous response lets us see that there’s no longer any room for doubting our authorship of the experiences we have. It’s time to wake up to the fact that we, like the God Who made us in its image and likeness, are Holy Creators who must now take authority over both what we will make and what we have made.
We are all in the movement of Life together. In fact, we ARE the movement, we ARE Life. Whether we are completely unconscious of this truth, or at the edge flirting with the idea of conscious evolution, or already immersed in the soup and fully engaged in creating a life of deep, profound spiritual responsibility and integrity, the times are calling loudly to each of us to take our place at the table and consciously create a new world.
For the Sake Of
Why the urgency? Because this Universe and our beloved Earth – a living, conscious Being – will no longer support our hiding behind the mask of separateness, another word for victim consciousness; we simply no longer have that luxury if humanity is to survive and thrive. You and I must really “get it” that there is literally no separation between us – you are another me and I am another you – and that every choice, every action, and every belief affects the Whole.
For the good of All, for the sake of the Whole, and in service to the One, we must look at what it takes to embody Authentic Self so that we will choose to live and behave as if the God in All Life matters. We must examine the ways and means of “healing the holdings of the heart” and look at how it is we create both the joy and suffering that we – and others – experience. When we take such a level of self-responsibility to heal ourselves, we help heal the world by becoming a healing presence wherever we are. From this embodied authenticity, we love each other back into our forgotten Wholeness by living as Authentic Self, that over-arching Aspect which has never left Home, and which holds the door wide open, waiting for us to remember who we are.
[i] Excerpted from Andrew Cohen’s “Quote of the Week,” http://www.andrewcohen.org/quote/?quote=132
[ii] Phrase taken from the title of Machelle Small Wright’s book, Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered, published by Perelandra Ltd.
Amy Pierce is an ordained Minister in Integrative Healing with a Master’s degree in Applied Healing Arts. She is well known in North Carolina’s Triangle region for her holistic, ecumenical approach to spirit mind body healing through her teaching and writing, as well as her counseling ministries. Visit www.authenticself.us or read Amy’s blog at http://imentheos.wordpress.com.
What If
November 30, 2009
by Paul Goldman
I ceased putting off any longer all
that needs doing now? Immediately
I set to recast the canvas of my life,
to paint anew each of the karmic
stains carried from lifetime to lifetime
accumulated now above palette
and paints.
Pure white shimmered around the perimeter
as I emptied each act, thought or deed gathered
from the myriad moments of eons
onto the empty slate.
To my surprise each splatter dried, casting
clues to unseen mysteries heretofore not
revealed. Still, the picture painted did not
yet satisfy these eyes.
With brush raised, I begin to channel all
the masters: Van Gogh, Monet and even
Titian—
new hues dotted, stroked and spattered
as whole bits and chunks of karma
transformed until a beautiful panoramic view
unparalleled dropped me to my knees as
I settled on the scene of my life set before
me now.
What if I had finally solved the puzzle
of my self-created Zeno’s paradox to reveal
a continuum in space and time where I —
a motionless runner—
had always been? Unvarnished now, I sit
waiting— beside the tender shoots of the
newly planted Bodhi Tree in my own
backyard.
Paul Goldman is a published ecstatic poet whose work can be found online at www.stonespiritlodge.com, www.kansaspoets.com, and www.artistshelpingthehomeless.org. His poetry has been published in Evolving Magazine, Spirit Seeker and in various Midwest literary journals. A video segment of a recent poetry reading can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FTtW1bm7l8.
While You Were Dying
November 28, 2009
by Lois Marie Harrod
Absence makes what?
Presence, presence. ~ John Thompson
The wooden house with its widow’s walk
squatted at the top of the hill.
From the sea, its cupola–
a gentleman’s bowler like your own.
I was your wild widow
stalking its rim.
Below a wooden ship
stayed the roots of the sea.
The vines strung their grapes
on the cedar until it cracked.
I busied myself putting new wine
in the same old sacks.
No one asked
where you were going.
Sometimes the birds on the wedding plaque
seemed to know
but they kept flying
as if the wooden sky were blue.
Lois Marie Harrod has published 9 books of poetry, most recently Furniture (Grayson Press, 2008 Poetry Winner). Over 350 of her poems have appeared in scholarly journals. She presently teaches Creative Writing at The College of New Jersey.
