No Safe Distance

Madame Zutzaka Knows All

Totally off topic, but I thought you might like a quick view into the inner workings of my family. My sister Jen sent my mother this awesome Buddha with an electrical storm globe thingy for Christmas because, you know, she didn't have one and once we fired it up one thing led to another. Here's Scott playing with mom as she gets her psychic game on.

Requiem For a Little Girl

I stand poised like Abraham
with her tender body stretched out
on the altar before me,
praying any moment the Angel will appear
to tell me this is just a test.

But the Angel does not come.

And how am I to tell her?

Her innocent face beams up at me
as she tells me of the marvels of the forest,
her fingers still purple from the wild grapes
she has been harvesting there.

She doesn’t seem to notice she has been tethered
to this altar set hard upon the earth.

And who am I to tell her?

I’ve watched her from afar,
making her way across the meadow
gathering endless bouquets of wild flowers,
pausing with tilted head to capture the breeze,
so carefully absorbed in memorizing
the rustle of the leaves and
the evening’s report of the catbird.

And I’ve seen her return home again,
cradling the meadows and the woods
so gently so as not to spill
one single drop of dew
nor one sweet note of the wood thrush.

For these are her offerings,
the only medicine she has.
She doesn’t know that
her medicine won’t work this time.

And I don’t have the heart to tell her.

So I stroke her hair while she sings
the songs she hopes to teach him
wondering how I will ever find the words to
comfort her when this little girl with berry-stained fingers
is left cradling the remains of her brother in her arms.

And still she speaks to me of Springtime
with its trout lilies and trillium.

How can I speak to her of ephemeral
when all she sees is Eternal?

Laura Young, 2005

A Poem For Those in Grief : Wait

Wait

Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven't they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become lovely again. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. Wait. Don't go too early. You're tired. But everyone's tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a while and listen. Music of hair, Music of pain, music of looms weaving all our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear, the flute of your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion. Galway Kinell (Thank you, Erin, for the find.)

Grace in Suffering: The Paradox of Living with a Life Threatening Disease

Great post at Kristie's blog (go just to see the picture with it!)

This is part of a sermon shared by a retired pastor discussing what the experience of having cancer had taught him. Below is an excerpt. Please see the original post for the full article.

LIVING ON THE EDGE HAS OPENED THE DOOR TO GAIN A GREAT DEAL OF SELF KNOWLEDGE.

You learn so much about yourself so fast that it is a roller coaster ride, new ideas, fresh thoughts, internal understanding all rush into your consciousness with such speed you can hardly take it all in.

Our disease can speak to us and if we open the doors of perception I think we may be amazed at what comes in and you realize that you can use your pain for personal transformation. Somehow you understand that if you die you want to die healed and if you are going to survive you have to change in order to heal. You realize the only time you can be alive is in the moment, the Buddhists call it “living mindfully.”

You stop feeling sorry for yourself because even in the midst of dying you begin to realize that this whole process is worth every minute because you have learned so much about yourself.

Cancer has been a wake up call for me, I have been graced with cancer, it has been the best teacher I have ever had, I have had some great teachers who have given me ideas, but this one has taught me to experience my life. How can I not be grateful for being blessed in this way?

Prayer of a Barren Mother

You close your eyes
and fall silent
head bowed
weary
older now

I breathe you in and
trace the scars
like Braille
reading the poem of you
like a prayer

Patterns playing along your flesh
reveal the history of your pain

You breathe and
for the moment

for just

this

moment

you allow me to bear you
releasing your strength
beneath my fingertips
your head sinking into my chest
as my hands flow over you
in meditation

I press my lips to your crown
and in this moment

this

one

precious

moment

I know you to be my son.

Laura Young, 2006