Ringing

Today’s inspiration comes from chapter 2 of Jean Shinoda Bolen’s book Close to the Bone. The chapter title is “The Ground Gives Way Under Us.” Then I read Nick Flynn’s poem “Marathon,” and I was struck by these words and decided they deserved a spine poem, simply to process what I have been reading and thinking.

…until this cloud is pulled back from the sky, until the ringing is pulled back from the bell…

until the gate opened signaling 

this new reality, I was a

cloud of uncertainty. It

is worth noting I had recurring doubts

pulled from I-don’t-know-where, coming

back to a rhythm of underlying worry

from fear of loss and 

the loss of fearlessness. The

sky is where I’d look and breathe

until I could see with clarity

the constant shifts, and hear the

ringing of the birds voices, and know this

is joy and a reminder to me,

pulled from inner knowing

back to a place of freedom

from loss and fear,

the yet unknown possibilities in reach, the

bell of joy here in my heart.

“presiding over all those miracles”

Winding backwards on a morning walk at my local beach, I am thinking of this Billy Collins poem:

 

Dogma

I might be an atheist

were it not

for all the tall angels

and the pudgy cherubs

in the silvery clouds

presiding over all those miracles.

While driving, I saw ice rainbows in the clouds....

Tall angels in the form of osprey....

Pudgy cherubs in sunrise clouds…

Pudgy cherubs in the silvery cloud reflections…

 So many dragonflies...this one posed for me, then flew on...

I find my broken tree, drop my shell in, and speak out loud that God and I will always preside 

over these miracles together.