Contemplatively Sweet

The poems that follow incline more towards being than becoming.  They are slow-down, pondering poems, coaxing the reader to mull and muse and savor.  While arranged in the order they were written, there is no "story line" with either beginning or end.  The reader is invited to stop and linger wherever her or his heart is drawn.

Webster's definition of "contemplate" is "to gaze attentively, to look at intently, to study carefully, to meditate or muse, sometimes specifically in a mystical or religious way."  Contrary to the judgment of our extroverted culture that such apparent non-activity is non-productive, irrelevant, escapist or worse, this volume holds the exact opposite.  Contemplation is not only good for the soul but eminently practical, adding depth, as it does, to the quality of our work and to the caring of our relationships.  It is also, for one cultivating the interior life, inexpressibly sweet.

Plentiful in the pages ahead are references to and quotes from other contemplative kin.  One of the great joys on the spirit journey is continuously discovering new riches, and then sharing the wealth.

October 1996

More Trusting In The Wind

Love of solitude to an extrovert sounds suspicious.
For one whose energies pour outward,
solitude has the feel of unsocial,
escapist,
frankly boring,
not to mention a tad frightening to have to be with oneself
alone.
But many are not extroverts
who know differently.
Solitude is so inexpressibly rich
that no word joins with it quite so well as love.
It's to fellow solitude-lovers that I write,
to the Thoreaus and Muirs, Mertons and Sartons,
who ache inside when deprived of it for long.
Though solitude comes from "solus"
meaning alone, as in isolation,
one feels anything but alone when roaming its spaces.
Think not solitary but solidarity,
realization of commingled presences.
What one experiences in solitude is pure luxury:
letting thoughts range,
intimations rise,
inspirations come.
When you talk solitude to an introvert,
you're talking Grail--
Walden Pond to Thoreau,
sequoias and glaciers to Muir,
hermitage in woods to Merton,
house and garden by sea to Sarton.
Fellow lovers of solitude
are like Zen monks passing each other at a stream,
winking a kindness after sharing a cup.
Returning from solitude your actions have more
     quality,
your relationships more caring,
the tree of you is more trusting in the wind
for being so rooted.
April 1987