Reaching for the light

We who are mired in dark thoughts,

Sleepless in dark nights,

drowning in darkness,

Trapped in the dark grasp

Of a future unknowable,

Still lift our hands,

Reaching out for the light,

Trusting and hoping 

that dawn must arrive before long.

Grace in a time of pandemic

This is grace in a time of pandemic:

To take the remains of what has been lost

And turn it into a home for something new;

To build on what is left, providing shelter

For some new life, in you or in the world,

That is waiting to be born.

Escalations

The numbers keep on growing,

Escalating, exponential;

Thousands struggling for breath

And thousands more braving death

In their efforts to keep their patients alive,

And thousands more, confronted

With familiar chairs, now empty,

Watch in shock as the sun rises again...

How can we breathe through so much grief?

Warily we carry on...

Warily we carry on our solitary tasks,

Wondering what awaits around the corner

And how long it will take us

To rebuild what we have lost.

An invitation to hope

Beneath the threatening skies

And the menacing tendrils of fear,

The cherries lift their branches full of blooms,

A promise there will still be fruit to come.

Watching, trapped behind our windows,

We contemplate their invitation to hope.

Safe travels

Having left the shores of what was then,

We travel now in separate boats

And hopefully provisioned,

To a destination yet unknown,

Over waters unfamiliar for a time unspecified.

May your seas be calm, 

May you remain in health;

May the wind be always at your back, 

and the sunshine warm upon your face.

And may the rains fall gently on your sails

Until we meet again at journey’s end.

Rest in your own company

Listen! Beneath the silence of the skies,

Beside the ribbon of empty roads,

Spring is breathing health into the air.

The earth is helping us to heal,

Sending new life forth as if to say

Staying in place is what allows us all

To deepen, and to bloom: 

Be not afraid to rest in your own company,

For there your future lies.

Imagine you’re breathing for the world

Bored, trapped at home? Perhaps it’s time

To exercise your widest imagination:

Picture the forests and mountains,

Finally able to breathe again,

In air empty of the fumes of a million cars.

Picture the doctors and nurses

In their blue and green scrubs,

Struggling to help their patients breathe

In halls full of tears.

Picture the children, trapped and prohibited

From playing with friends; picture the lonely,

The sick and the elderly, the poor and the hungry;

Picture the artists, musicians and waitresses; 
All of them frightened and newly unemployed.

Picture a whole world struggling to breathe

Through this crisis, and take a deep breath;

Take a deep breath on behalf of them all.

Enfold the world in love

In times like these we offer up

Our thoughts and prayers for all who suffer,

Enfolding all the world in love

As the iris wraps her petals round

The future at her center...

Obsessing on the small things

I am humbled by how easy it’s become

To mourn the small things;

To obsess on minor losses and ignore

The greater impact of this sickness

On the peoples of the world.

Don’t read the news, our friends advise:

To keep your spirits up find ways to laugh,

But then the larger picture seeps in anyway.

Hearts sinking, we lie awake in the wee hours,

Wondering how and if the world will ever recover;

So much easier to obsess on the small things.

The door to compassion

Trapped inside now, looking out at when —

When, before, we were free to move about;

When, someday, we can hug our friends again —

We ignore the prism of the moment.

Instead of dreaming of where we cannot be,

Can we learn what this window 

Of time is teaching us

About how we see the world; us and them,

Inside and out instead of we, and all,

And one, and humankind? 

Let us pray this enforced seclusion

Opens a new door to compassion...

Look beyond the edge

That’s the thing about sunlight and shadow:

Both are always moving,

Sometimes exposing, sometimes masking.

We need to look beyond

Who’s being blamed or praised this week

To the bigger picture that lies before us:

How can we all best support one another?

We’re standing on the edge of something big:

What can we do to keep each other safe?

Cautious but not consumed

Left to ourselves for days on end,

Assaulted by frightening news and images,

How will we stay serene and trust;

Be cautious, careful; not consumed

By fear or its cousin, fury,

But rather by compassion and generosity,

Turning these winter snows to springs

And filling the lakes and rivers 

And the hearts of all who suffer 

with songs of joy...

Rosy enthusiasm

In spite of all the changes,

All the people hovering, frightened, in their homes,

My camellia’s optimistic, 

and blooming with assurance 

That the world’s not ending any time soon.

I drink in her rosy enthusiasm 

And feel warmed with possibilities...

The comfort of old friends

Morning again, another day 

Of social dark, though sunlight tosses

Sparkles on my lap, like sprinkles on a cone;

Sweet blessings to remind me

Of the Spring that’s yet to come.

I turn to my dearest, oldest friends for comfort:

Hafiz, a cup of coffee; a rocking chair, a fire;

The sculpture friend Anita made,

And just around the corner, 

another person struggles for

The breath that still comes easily for me.

As the world turns to flame

From the window of my chosen isolation,

I watch as the dying sun

casts one last glance upon my garden,

Igniting for just a moment,

Like the last sight of a friend

Before we close our doors and all goes dark.

And in the night, 

we hold our loved ones close and wonder,

Keeping watch as the world turns to flame...

What patterns?

And in the empty park

the ducks still gather on the pond

Hoping for a crust of bread that never comes.

What patterns have we formed,

Only to be forever altered 

by these strange/estranging times?

Will we finally learn to fly,

Or just keep paddling?

Light on the other side

In faith, we reach across the darkening abyss,

Praying there will be light on the other side.

Comfort in isolation

We cannot know where this new path will take us;
We only know the choices and the chances that we take
Will make or break us.
Acquainted though we are
With the inevitability of death,
We continue nonetheless to hope for life
And do our best to find some peace
And comfort in the enforced isolation.

Before our petals turn to dust

And here we are at the center of things:
This fragile, delicate ecosystem,
All the tender care we put in
(Weeding out dark thoughts, feeding the soul)
Culminating in a single bloom;
All our life preparing for this one moment;
This one critical chance to show
Our courage, our compassion, and our faith
Before the petals fade and turn to dust...

Keeping our spirits up

No children play outside the school,

No children in the park,

No toilet paper on the shelves,

The stores and streets are dark.

How can we keep our spirits up,

Faced with thoughts of doom and death?

Finding ways to help and hope;

Feeling gratitude for every breath...

How can we continue to trust?

However beautiful my home is from a distance,

I must confess it’s challenging 

To be down here on the ground

Where fear, disease and confidence 

Are struggling for supremacy.

How can we continue to trust

that what will happen is what is meant to be?

The work of a lifetime

Somewhere within you,

Ancient truths, like Sleeping Beauty lurk:

It will take love, and dedication,

To fight your way through the overgrowth 

And discover the roots of being.

Start now: it’s the work of a lifetime...

Secure in the arms of love

Whatever precipice you’re eyeing,

Know that you are held,

Secure in the arms of love.

Liftoff

Whatever your natural habitat may have been,

Whatever your dreams of fitting in,

The time may have arrived for you to act:

To recognize your true self, find your wings,

Pull free, shake the water from your feet 

Take flight, and find your new horizon.

Aching to bloom

All nature, aching to bloom,

But wary of vulnerability,

Pressing at the seams of wonder;

A flame within, longing to burn forth...

Reddening skies

Waking in the morning 

To a red sky full of warnings

We bravely venture forth and trust

The sky, still red at night,

Will bring sailors delight.

Emptied by fear

The boats sit empty, idle,

Eerie echo of the barren shelves,

The coffee shops where no one sits,

The streets, the planes, the halls

No longer echoing with children’s shouts —

A community, emptied by fear,

Becomes just a cluster of houses,

Each clinging to its own hope for survival...

Armed and isolated

Worst-case scenarios abound,

And so, awash in fear, wondering what-if and when,

We arm and isolate ourselves against the storms,

While thoughts of scarcity 

Drive a deeper wedge between us.

Who’ll reach out and offer help,

And who will turn a blind eye to the troubled?

Collaboration

Collaboration makes it possible

For all of us to cross the waters that divide us.

Together we can accomplish

So much more than as individuals, alone.

Why, then, do we insist

On squabbling over differences

Rather than focusing on and resolving common goals?

Hold and spill out love

We are all cups, drying in the sun;

Created by divine hands, each unique,

And yet, from a distance, all the same;

Each needing heat and light

To firm us and prepare us 

To perform that sacred duty

For which we were created:

To hold and spill out love;

To hold and spill out love.