Category Archives: Poetry

Introductions

Posted on April 23, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

When we remain mindful to the world and others, we stumble upon people and things to love. Once we find it, we carry it carefully as a bright cup of water and a loaf of bread.

Moya Cannon suggested that being mindful keeps us open to what might be overlooked. We find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the unexpected places and times. We learn to become mindful and attentive over time, knowing we cannot  always be mindful.

The commonplace waits for us to notice its extraordinary beauty and sensuousness. We find it in the sweet taste of the  water and the inviting smell of freshly baked bread. Those seemingly ordinary people and things become the purse of gold.

Some of what we love

we stumble upon —

a purse of gold thrown on the road,

a poem, a friend, a great song.

And more

discloses itself to us —

a well among green hazels,

a nut thicket —

when we are worn out searching

for something quite different.

And more

comes to us, carried

as carefully

as a bright cup of water,

as new bread.

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The Door

Posted on April 22, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

When we go to the door, do we know what lays beyond? That is a question of wonder, full of wonder and wonderful. Miroslav Holub suggests we go and open the door. Opening the door, we are not sure what to expect. Is there a magic city, a picture of a picture, or the sound of the darkness ticking waiting for light to break through?

What drew me to the poem was the very last word: “draught.” It is an uncommon word, suggesting when I open the door a breeze will pass through the house. Somehow, the breeze relieves me of the stuffiness and certainty of what I think is inside. The wind blows gently and clears the clutter of certitude from my mind.

Go and open the door.
Maybe outside there’s
a tree, or a wood,
a garden,
or a magic city.

Go and open the door.
Maybe a dog’s rummaging.
Maybe you’ll see a face,
or an eye,
or the picture
of a picture.

Go and open the door.
If there’s a fog
it will clear.

Go and open the door.
Even if there’s only
the darkness ticking,
even if there’s only
the hollow wind,
even if
nothing
is there,
go and open the door.

At least
there’ll be
a draught.

15 Comments

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A Prayer Among Friends

Posted on April 21, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

We live in a world populated by others and surrounded by things. Often, we take the communal nature of living for granted. John Daniel suggests we walk together “in the light of this unlikely world that isn’t ours for long.” He counsels that we spend our time with each other and the world generously.

Being present, mindful, and attentive to others and the world lifts our relationships from the taken-for-granted to the meaningful. We elevate the ordinary to the status of extraordinary, finding beauty in the smallest details that are easily overlooked in the busyness of our living.

Sam Intrator wrote about the etymology of companion, which is breaking and sharing bread on one’s journey. As a teacher, eating lunch with students became an important feature of my relationships with them. I got to them and they me during those more informal moments, adding depth to the pedagogic relationships.

I often feel eating lunch with students added to “gift of good work” that pedagogy calls teachers and others to be part of. Taking time with each other over meals is similar to a prayer spoken from the heart and the listening for responses.

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive
with one another, we walk here
in the light of this unlikely world
that isn’t ours for long.
May we spend generously
the time we are given.
May we enact our responsibilities
as thoroughly as we enjoy
our pleasures. May we see with clarity,
may we seek a vision
that serves all beings, may we honor
the mystery surpassing our sight,
and may we hold in our hands
the gift of good work
and bear it forth whole, as we
were borne forth by a power we praise
to this one Earth, this homeland of all we love.

 

3 Comments

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Love Does That

Posted on April 19, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

I have not used Meister Eckhart in my writing and what little I know about his work comes indirectly through reading others such as Thomas Merton and Richard Rohr.

His poetry follows the mystical line of his other writing, exploring spiritual questions that are challenging to explore. The monk in the poem is a whisperer who for a few moments lifts the worries from the little burro. He shares a pear, rubs her/his ears, looks into his/her eyes as if the he might see the burro’s soul, and offers kindness to the burro.

How often do we find ourselves worrying about things that only bother us? How tired we feel in those times. Sometimes, we pause and lift the burdens that weigh down our minds and spirits. Other times, we have our whisperers who share love with us and help lift life’s burdens. Similar to the burro, we are free to laugh, even for a few seconds. Love is the balm for our tired spirits.

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,
he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does
that.
Love frees.

10 Comments

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talisman

Posted on April 17, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

When we pray, the words are an amulet for someone to wear. Suheir Hammad suggested the words remind us there is a divine space in each of us, waiting to be brought out as we write and speak. Inside each of us, there is a space of strength and courage we can offer to others as we write and repeat the poetic words.

In silence that endures within each of us, we discover the gestures and words of prayer and poetry another has written and spoken. A prayer reaches out to the other and adds strength to their living in moments of hardship, reminding them they are not alone. It is in those moments that something stirs gently and unexpectedly in us, reminding us we are not alone and perhaps a smile appears similar to the sun and moon’s warmth.

During those moments, we find the words written and spoken in silence. It is essential we set aside the busyness of daily living and listen attentively for those words to bring the god out in each of us.

it is written
the act of writing is
holy words are
sacred and your breath
brings out the
god in them
i write these words
quickly repeat them
softly to myself
this talisman for you
fold this prayer
around your neck fortify
your back with these
whispers
may you walk ever
loved and in love
know the sun
for warmth the moon
for direction
may these words always
remind you your breath
is sacred words
bring out the god
in you

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The Other

Posted on April 16, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

When we lived in rural British Columbia, there were winter nights that were so crisp, cold, and clear that the silence made sounds. It cracked and crackled. Things sounded so much closer in the cold. At the farm, trains went by 2 kilometres away, but in the cold, clear night they were just outside.

We had a dog, a wonderful German Shepherd and on those nights she would often become agitated wanting out and barking at the mountains and sky. I listened, but could not hear what she heard. Even though there were new sounds for me, there were likely others that escaped me and our dog heard them.

I think R. S. Thomas captured this sound of silence and prayer brilliantly. It reaches out and we hear something even when we do not hear actual sounds and see the people speaking to us. We feel them and the world at large. We are in concert and communion with the other – sentient and non-sentient – even though we cannot see them, sharing a prayer in that silence. Laying there, words come to us out of silence finding their way from heart to heart to heart.

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl calling
far off and a fox barking
miles away. It is then that I lie
in the lean hours awake listening
to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic
rising and falling, rising and falling
wave on wave on the long shore
by the village, that is without light
and companionless. And the thought comes
of that other being who is awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.

8 Comments

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Walking Meditation With Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted on April 14, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about an experience while visiting Seoul, South Korea. He walked with a large crowd and felt tired. When he meditated on his walking and the earth beneath his feet, he felt lighter. The earth supported him and he walked tirelessly. Tess Gallagher writes about a similar experience.

I often take for granted people and things that give me comfort and support. I take for granted the earth and how it effortlessly supports me as I walk, but I also take for granted the steps I take in moving the mountain.

Through mindfulness and attention, I live with the ebbs and flows of energy that I experience in daily life. We become part of the world and it becomes part of each of us.

Fifty of us follow him loosely
up the mountain at Deer Park Monastery.
We are in the slow motion of a dream
lifting off the dreamer’s brow. Steps
into steps and the body rising out
of them like smoke from a fire
with many legs. Gradually the flames
die down and the earth is finally under us.
Inside the mountain a centipede crawls
into no-up, no-down.

Our meditations
waver and recover us, waver
and reel us in to our bodies
like fish willing at last to take on the joy
of being fish, in or out of the water.
When we gather at last at the summit
and sit with him
we know we have moved the mountain
to its top as much as it carried us
deeply into each step.

Going down is the same.
We breathe and step. Breathe,
and step. A many-appendaged being
in and out of this world. No use
telling you about peace attained.
Get out of your feet.
Your breath. Enter
the mountain.

5 Comments

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Hope

Posted on April 12, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

The line that stands out in the following poem is the one about hopelessness being that when we turn our back on the world it is snatched away. Czeslaw Milosz wrote wonderfully and tied belief and hope together.

The French phenomenologist and philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote about how we perceive the world. What exists between us and the world is our flesh, which forms a sensuous boundary between the internal and external worlds we simultaneously co-inhabit.

It is through all our senses we experience and remember the world. In turn, it experiences and remembers us, but we have to believe it does. There is a fidelity, a trust, that exists for those experiences to be true and believed.

We bind ourselves to the world, the universe, and the divine, not through blindness, but through unproveable faith. Paradoxically, it is through believing we do not have to prove this faith that we accept the world and it, along with others and things exist even when we do not see them, even when they are not immediately within the range of our senses.

Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.

7 Comments

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The Sea Question

Posted on April 10, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

We don’t think of those inanimate objects, such as the sea, asking us questions. They do in indirect ways and when we sit a listen. It takes quiet patience to hear the questions and answers, if they are forthcoming

Elizabeth Smither wrote about how the sea asks those indirect questions. It does so by changing colour, watching the tide and wave actions, and how the pebbles move. When I am mindful and sensitive to the world outside my self and beyond my self, I understand it in relationship to me. It does not exist without me and I do not exist without it.

Through mindfulness, the world teaches me and I learn from it. What changes in the continuous flow of time that I miss, regardless of how attentive I am?

The sea asks “How is your life now?”
It does so obliquely, changing colour.
It is never the same on any two visits.

It is never the same in any particular
Only in generalities: tide and such matters
Wave height and suction, pebbles that rattle.

It doesn’t presume to wear a white coat
But it questions you like a psychologist
As you walk beside it on its long couch.

13 Comments

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Wouldn’t it be wonderful

Posted on April 9, 2016 by ivonprefontaine

if you were a butterfly and I was a bee wouldn’t it be wonderful we would fly and be free in a world full of somethings in a world full of woe wouldn’t it be everything to fly to and fr…

Source: Wouldn’t it be wonderful

I had a long day. It began in Fernie, BC in the midst of great ski country. I got as far as Olds, Alberta, within view of the Rockies, and encountered car trouble and was towed home. We have a regular shop we take cars to, so we dropped it off.

What a treat it was to find this poem and image waiting. What if we were butterflies and bees? We could live in a world of somethings.

David at Barsetshire Diaries suggested we need a contemporary Dr. Seuss. Perhaps with a concerted effort we can match his wit and wisdom and as Jonathan at By the Mighty Mumford commented we would have a Seuss on the Loose. Oh, that is so wonderful and Seussian.

11 Comments

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