Everyday Holiness
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| Wholly holy; god is here. |
Always a Draft.
This evening, my insomniac self did some scrolling. Lying in the dark, looking at my phone just like every sleep doctor tells you not to when you can't sleep, I took the time to read two unread emails that had come in over the last couple days. They happened to be from two different poet friends. One shared a draft poem he had written; the other shared a poem she had read. Both poems explored concepts of holiness.
Religious people like to write to this sworn agnostic, you see. I assume it is not so much to prove to me that god exists, but rather to present to me the multitudinous ways in which holiness expresses itself. To show me that "god" is, in fact, every place where we feel deep connection. They seem to be suggesting that "god" lives in any experience of a oneness bigger than ourselves, an understanding of oneness with everything. Or maybe that's just my interpretation of what they are trying to tell me, as if it's a horoscope I just read into everything to define my own truth.
Whatever; this essay is not intended to be about what I think. It is about sharing a way to think. Here. (I have absolutely no permission to share the first poem; it's a draft. I won't tell you who wrote it until the author approves.) I will interpret no more for you, but rather share these two poems that came my way in the last two days, that you may read your own horoscope into them. Like?
Send me an email; I would love to hear what you think.
A WALK IN THE PARK (Draft One, 12/27/2020)
what do we say? Do?
Must we sing, Silent Night?
Light a candle?
climb a hill
mediate forty
days and nights?
The first confused me
by thinking
highly of me.
to be my friend
when I dripped
with sadness.
a wide smile
full of energy
and wonder.
have lingered and inspired,
laughed and
guided.
was perfect.
Holy? For sure!
But also flawed.
.
Even so, we were
eye to eye, heart to heart.
spirit to spirit
moment to moment.
they
changed
me.
-Anonymous, til the poet says I can share. (The audacity! Forgive me.)
And a second poem:
The Worst Thing
The worst thing we ever did
was put God in the sky
out of reach
pulling the divinity
from the leaf,
sifting out the holy from our bones,
insisting God isn’t bursting dazzlement
through everything we’ve made
a hard commitment to see as ordinary,
stripping the sacred from everywhere
to put in a cloud man elsewhere,
prying closeness from your heart.
The worst thing we ever did
was take the dance and the song
out of prayer
made it sit up straight
and cross its legs
removed it of rejoicing
wiped clean its hip sway,
its questions,
its ecstatic yowl,
its tears.
The worst thing we ever did is pretend
God isn’t the easiest thing
in this Universe
available to every soul
in every breath”
Chelan Harkin
From her poetry book 'Susceptible to Light'
https://www.amazon.com/Susceptible-Light.../dp/0578807270/
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