Ordinary

[poemsbycelia]

                          Photo by Barbara Richardson, Gray Tree Frog

Peace Garden

To plant a seed of peace, we first prepare the soil, remove the weeds of violence and the poison snares of hatred and pride.

The ground must be tilled, free from the cutting rocks of prejudice and the brutality of terror.

With intention and willingness, we comb the earth, removing the impurities of greed and the blindness that rains fire from the sky, leaving rubble, orphans, and waste.

With careful hands, we place our hope and our trust in this earth.  

We plant this seed of hope for the day on this planet, when no children will look to the sky with fear and know that death does not play favorites. A day when ignorance has departed, when there is no sting of discrimination or hate.

Already the white iris is blooming, telling us that others walked this way before. Our path is in their footsteps.

Our arms linked, we stand together, a garden of blooming, open-hearts, brave and free. Caring for our garden, for this future, tending the flower of peace.

[poemsbycelia]

There is no teacher and no student

There is only becoming

The surety of the seed uncoiling in the moist earth

stretching upwards

leaves unfurl with unwavering certainty that makes this one lobed or variegated

that cuts a notch here or there--ruffles an edge

This is the wisdom of becoming that lives in us all

If we can only still the noise and listen like a snail to the heartbeat of the earth

It is our future calling to us to become the present

[poemsbycelia]

To Love

In Buddha’s garden

The clouds move to show the sun

My heart uncovered

[poemsbycelia]

Stillness

What keeps me from stillness? The cat meowing at the door, the ambulance siren, yesterday’s unwashed soup pot and the laundry that won’t fold itself.

The long list of UNREAD grows while I sleep and the rented quiet of the monastery expires with the click of a button.

My TO DO list is never done. The clean gets dirty, the stomach needs filling, the bladder emptying and there’s the cat, looking at me with that guilt inducing stare. My world does not offer me stillness.

In truth, what really keeps me from stillness? Why, I do.

When I leave off trying for a gold star in living. When the soap bubble of self pops, then the choosing comes. I become a nobody without a title, a free person. I am not anything, except alive.

My stillness lives in this heartbeat and in the rise and fall of breath. In stillness my hands move, but I am not busy. Looking from the outside, nothing has changed, but the secret is,

I am resting on the inside.

[poemsbycelia]

Acorn: Reflections on the Diamond Sutra

I hold in my hand a roly-poly nut with a clever pointed end. it came from forever ago.

The first oak brought forth this brown baby.

It is a millennium old and not yet born. Inside the perfect shell are ripe instructions. 

My little acorn is already growing leaves and branches as thick as my leg. 

A million, billion trees burst forth from this nesting fruit, sun warmed in my hand.

I am an acorn too, born from time before time. 

I was here before my great grandmother first stood on her tiptoes and turned her face to kiss my great grandfather.

 We go forward, blooming flower, fruit and rot.  Meeting here—now, before and always. Me and the wonder, the past, the present and the future resting, small and sweet,

potential unlimited in my hand.

Celia Landman, C. March 2011

[poemsbycelia]

Night time I am tired but surprised by happiness. When I stepped away from the unending chorus of myself into a fresh made minute filled with the sweetness of creation. No me, No you-we bowed to the space between, while spring frogs sang welcome in the dark.

[poemsbycelia]

                                        Children in Uttar Pradesh, India

                                              Five, Six, Seven

 Before worry, before doubt and second guessing there was five, six and seven.

Sturdy flowers who spent their time breathing in the whole of the sky, 

the Moon, the Sun and the stars, so nothing was separate from them.

And the constellations glowed inside of them, delighted to visit planet Earth.

 Five

Knows she’s the best in the world because she has the gift of life, of legs, and arms, of a heart and eyes.

So busy with the business of living, for there are possibilities and projects forever.

Splendidly adorned in a hand-me-down tutu with sequins,

 five tap dances on the driveway in old shoes colored silver.

Each performance earns her a standing ovation.

Five has discovered the metal crashing thrill of gravel tumbling in the dryer

And the heart beating happiness of a rock snaking hungrily down the long blue and gold neck 

to land with a hollow plunk in the silver belly of the Electrolux.

 Six

Has a pie to make,

With no recipe because that’s how the best cooks do it.

“Waste of ingredients.” Mother shakes her head.

But Why? Six wonders. It is a pie, even if it is as hard as a picnic table.

 There’s seven

An acrobat, who climbs to the top of the big rock to perform an Olympic dismount.

“Are you Ok?” The neighbor asks. “Kid jumped on her head. What’s wrong with her?”

Seven is old enough to be embarrassed but there isn’t time to keep it.

There’s a bird’s funeral to plan.  A noble bird we found in the street.

Look at the feathers. They’re the Pharos’s chevrons of black and gold.

Now walk behind and sing a song that isn’t too happy. Pick flowers to lay on the grave, so pretty.

Seven practices holding her breath so she is ready to

 rescue people from tall burning buildings.

There are no obstacles that cannot be overcome.

 No cat will be left un-hugged

No baby curls un-shorn

No need to worry

 If we walk far beyond the big field of fear and grown up plans and climb high in the green Oak tree

That’s where we will discover you and me.

Breathing in and out, the whole of the sky

Do not wait too long, for there is much to do

We must hunt the copper eyed toads and kiss each knobby head to save them from the witches’ curse

We will ring the anthills with sugar, for a surprise morning feast

And sing songs that only dogs can hear

Then we will rest on the Earth that is our home

And that is a good day’s work.

[poemsbycelia]

Rain

If you are unhappy when it rains, put on your coat and hat and go outside.

It is hard work to be discontent in the midst of a miracle.

[poemsbycelia]

Simple

It’s OK to just say it out. To be simple. To stumble and hesitate, to forget the lines because you don’t know them. Just to say what is happening now. Nothing that is created is perfect, that’s part of its beauty. There is only bubbling up and change and meeting this event.  All of living is a run-on sentence until the final punctuation, and even then how do you rehearse for that breaking apart into wholeness?

Only you can unbuckle your armor, the protection of polish and sheen. What’s beneath the soft belly of shyness.

A child’s broken heart bound up in time.

Stop trying to take the control and being so responsible for what you didn’t make. Somethings are better without the gilt frame. Don’t be afraid to speak without preservatives.

When your words come from the marrow of your truth, they find a space in my heart. We can be unbound and free from the burden of perfect.

Just two hearts, yours and mine. Open, unprotected and fearless. That’s good enough.

[poemsbycelia]

A Tiny House, one with wheels, for a Sea Captain

A tiny house, one with wheels, for a Sea Captain

Round the world, six or seven times he said

I saw the inside of every bar and

there’s the women who know how to be nice. You know I was young.

They can take the rest,

the house, the furniture, the blooming impatience.

One suitcase, that’s all I need.

A house on wheels and one suitcase,

Let me go like that into the world, just myself, a clean shirt and underwear.

Let me be the traveler and when my time is done,

a house on wheels, a single case, nothing more.

All the rest, it’s just sightseeing.

[poemsbycelia]

Every day is a Poem

All day you’ve made your poem: it begins as you leave your soft bed, pulling on socks and finding lost shoes. Your poem is in the tilt of your head and curve of your mouth as one hand reaches for the coffee, the other drops change into the tip cup.

Your poem is in the crossing thresholds, stepping in and out of doorways, of comings and goings.

In the rhythm of your finger scrolling through emails on the train, not meeting the eyes of the others.

The standing, waiting at the drugstore line too long for the lunch break.

In the cadence of car wheels, buckled in seatbelt, praying the light don’t change. Last one in the pickup line.

The verse of unfilled time, rolling into lateness, watching for the bubbles to rise in the pasta pot. The poem of expectation and leaning forward.

The moment of your poem arrives with an exclamation and a nod to this time of in betweens, of beginnings and endings and middles, a poem is yours today in each moment of making.

[poemsbycelia]

The Trees Listen

  The Trees Listen

When there is no room for me in any heart, I walk beneath the tallest pines. They close ranks around me, guardians, storehouses of living. A column of sunlight stabs into the dark forest and lights the litter of pine needles and old beer cans, while I deliver myself to the mercy of the woods.

The suspicious goose eyes me, the crush of last year’s leaves beneath my torn boot. She hears stranger, predator, interloper. Only this moment. But the forest hears it all, the years of drought and flood, the fire burnt edges, the bubbling up birth, the soft slide of tadpole body slipping from jellied womb, the high-school kids’ first inhale of reefer beneath the cool canopy of almost summer. The quilt of cicadas’ song falls heavily on her branches, the sounds seep beneath the interstitial sheath of bark and bud.

Gripped by the hawk’s arc, the rasping gasp enters the flux of xylem and phloem, held in the repository of measure and time in sweet crystalline chlorophyll born from sun imbued green.

The trees listen all day and night, to car noise, to the tremble of warped beech leaves and the sounds of freeze and thaw, to the acquiescence of the virgin snow, lay down upon the seeded mound of bear scat.

Hear me with no ear, see me with no eye, hold me in your armless embrace. Take every molecule of the grief of living into your being and force it into new growth, into sun warmed sugar sap and the life that continues, witnessed, vigilant, and known.

[poemsbycelia]

Loving what will die.

 Two robins fly upwards, smashing their wings together in contest or courtship. They are so… something…angry, desirous, infatuated, all non-stop. Are you in heaven or hell? All desire looks like one blind rush from where I stand.

A white violet crouches in the field, if there can be such a thing. It’s too early in the season for bees, but don’t get complacent. Fish sleep with open eyes, watchful geese stand sentry above soft chicks. What is without risk? Only pudding and wool socks.

Everything that breathes will stop one day and close their eyes, fall back into Earth and sky. For nothing beautiful ever comes without daring. The glass shattered into bits before being polished by the pull of water, moon, and tide.

We were born to love living things. That is the job description, if you choose the work.