May the Clay Dance

Beannacht (A New Year Blessing)

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The grey window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colours,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the currach of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.

—John O’Donohue

image:   Yehuda Edri III

Elegy for Sunday Drivers

Sunday morning is all hurry now, too, like the rest.  All zip and zoom, the need to be someplace you're not, doing whatever you aren't.

What of the mild meanderers who set out with a folded map and thermos of coffee in a bright Guatemalan bag to find a walled garden or Benedictine abbey down a one-lane road, stopping to feed a winesap apple to a dappled gray in dappled shade, or visit an antique shop on the way, or out of it, and rub the bottoms of the copper kettles full of history and time with a gentle shirt-tail, admiring the verdigris—where have they gone?

And those slowed by a flow of sheep, an unnamed monastery open to the sky with broken stairs that lead no further than a fig tree?

Those who photograph sand bars when the tide is far out, and a blue fishing float, a steady track of small bare feet?  

The unhurried pair of sisters with the Cairn Terrier named Poo Bah?

The retired geologist who ambled off to have lunch out in Chimayo, where bees hummed at the honey bear intended for the sopapillas?  Who left the car in the shade afterwards and walked to watch the weavers and consider a handwoven blanket colored by dyes obtained from flowers, leaves, or insects, but ended leaving the purchase for another time?  What of the group I thought I recognized, having martinis in real glasses on the Pecos River later in the afternoon, slicing green chile bagels to eat with good country pâté?

Another SUV roars past, not looking back, and I pull off on the quiet side road, tired of rush and its oblivion.

image:  Dappled Grey

Katholiko or Gouverneto Monastery, Crete

Sandbars, Provincetown (Christie B. Cochrell)