On Prayer

Prayer can be trouble. The uncertainty of it, the humility of pleading, or worse, speaking to a wall. Not many accounts of prayer have been able to persuade me of anything, but Milosz’s vague statements are beautiful and are, at the very least, worth consideration:

On Prayer
-Czeslaw Milosz

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All i know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
and walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
above landscapes the color of ripe gold
transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
where everything is just the opposite and the word is
unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: i say we; there, every one, separately,
feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
and knows that if there is no other shore
we will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

A Day

I usually don’t do this kind of a post, but something is pushing me this way.

Today is Friday, January 15, and I am officially halfway through the school year here. For the record, this is not some kind of reflection essay on my time there so far. It is a list of things to remember about the day. And it begins last night:
After a frantic and stressful afternoon of trying to get my students’ grades organized, I sat down at the computer and checked on the penguins game. It had just started (a late night game in edmonton) and I wouldn’t get to see all of it. My bedtime this winter has hovered around 9:30. Honestly. I remember falling asleep at 8 once or twice.
Anyway, the real point of this all is that, for the first time in a long time, I broke the rules. It was a slow persuasion that did it, but I was eventually completely invested in this hockey game, streamed through pixelated graphics, stuttering and quitting every so often. I was enthralled.
The short story is I got to bed finally at around 1AM, which wasn’t so bad I guess, but I knew I had an early morning the next day, which brings me to

TODAY

After a rushed wake up and shuffle out the door, I was at school, at a before school meeting and then finally at the sign-in desk having my schedule altered with extra coverages that would have me subbing in for teachers who had called in sick. This is the excitement of teaching. Even before the kids arrive the school is electric.

I made it to my room after head nodding and “mornin’”ing my way through three corridors, and with only 5 minutes until the morning bell. One student had even beat me to my room, although I’m sure he had to sneak up some secret staircase to do it.

Despite the frantic start, I was resolved to try some new things today. I had been having a load of trouble with my kids–mainly insubordination–and I was desperate for some kind of resolution. I made a pact. To stay positive (entirely positive) all day, and to stay lighthearted too. When the kids didn’t do the work, I joked with them. When they complained, I gently mimicked them. It was all trial and error, but what I was seeing was an incredible transformation. Kids who had been pains all year long were engaged. They were laughing–sometimes at me or what I was doing or saying about the class or the kid in the front row who was sleeping and whose hat I stole and put up on a hook in the front wall–and that laughter told me they were with me. It was a show I was putting on, and I never felt more like an actor.

Of course, some kids weren’t so different today. Some of them were their usual peaceful, do-nothing selves. But my class is so ridden with clowns that calming even 5 of them is a blessing. I do not expect that our next day of classes will go so well, but I do believe these students capable of using their brains, despite their typical behavior and reputation.

Maybe all it takes is pretending to slam a book onto a sleeping student’s head, and then brandishing the book like a sword, making slicing sounds and gutting up the groggy victim. That’s all it took 5th period today.

Evening

by Charles Simic

The snail gives off stillness.
The weed is blessed.
At the end of a long day
The man finds joy, the water peace.

Let all be simple. Let all stand still
Without a final direction.
That which brings you into the world
To take you away at death
Is one and the same;
The shadow long and pointy
Is its church.

At night some understand what the grass says.
The grass knows a word or two.
It is not much. It repeats the same word
Again and again, but not too loudly…

This is It

It’s the smoke that we watch, now
that the snow has come. The cold
so reluctant to reach us, and then
here. Behind us
neighbors walk with menthols
in their lips. A few more houses
and the boys roll their own
for after dinner.

Yesterday,
it was the exhaust of this tired green
pickup, the two passengers
old friends. If ever there was a time,
I said, this is it.

Today I woke in the dark to tracks in the snow
and woodsmoke,
rising.

The Wren

- Barbara McCauley

he was small not ready yet
frantic
under the hedge
I caught him took him home
my father wasn’t sure
wild birds he said
we’ve tried so many times
but he ate
what we made for him
and in three days
could fly
around the living room
it’s time my father said
you have to let him go

outside
he sat on my shoulder
I shook him off he flew
to a branch of the maple
perched there
silent
his little eyes
I was a child I called him
back he came
stood for a moment
on my finger
then gone
I felt the spring of his legs
all day

Summer Secrets

A year ago today I was concerned with distance, afraid of growing apart, hoping that the purple martin inside of me could still be seen. Today a year of distance is between us, and I’m done with second person for a while.

The distance was not a gorge or a raging river to be crossed; it was just the foggy sea of space that we had put between ourselves. Things had been hazy for a long time.

Now I’m finding clarity in cemetery walks and ice cream shops. The future is full of plans, of bright shining plans. We are all drawing blueprints, all of the time. We are all speaking softly at night, whispering almost, because these plans are secrets, and we are hushed and dying to share them.

Walking through the cemetery, you may stumble across one of mine. I forgot it there last night, left it somewhere in the matted, dewy grasses of the hillside in the dark. I won’t go back for it, though. Had you not been there, I would have never known I had it in the first place.

Bon Iver–Re: Stacks

Vernon says this song is about a time he saw his soul at a poker table.
And don’t forget to look up a word if you don’t know it.

And for a good look behind the scenes, head over to Wordsworth. What a great place.

This my excavation and today is Kumran
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed

I keep throwing it down two-hundred at a time
It’s hard to find it when you knew it
When your money’s gone
And you’re drunk as hell

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks are your load
In the back with your racks and you’re unstacking your load

I’ve twisting to the sun I needed to replace
The fountain in the front yard is rusted out
All my love was down
In a frozen ground

There’s a black crow sitting across from me; his wiry legs are crossed
And he’s dangling my keys he even fakes a toss
Whatever could it be
That has brought me to this loss

On your back with your racks as the stacks as your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
In the back with your racks and you’re unstacking your load

This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me

Band of the Week 5-26-09: Bon Iver

The rain is sweeping in to cool off what was a scorching Memorial day, and the dullness behind it all must be something like what Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon felt two years ago, alone in a cabin in northwest Wisconsin. After break-ups with his band and girlfriend, and while struggling through disease, he moved from North Carolina back to his native Wisconsin, north, to spend the winter in the cabin his father had built. For the next three months he recuperated, making sure to keep busy with jobs like chopping wood. Making sure to avoid the black hole that time alone can become.

Though he didn’t intend it, a record began spiraling into shape in those woods, and now For Emma, Forever Ago is ours to enjoy. From this winter in the woods comes the name of the band, Bon Iver, from the french for “good winter.”

Here is a man sometimes grieving, sometimes struggling, sometimes remembering the sweetest of things.
Here is a man who feels it.

Skinny Love

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt, we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in this moment this order’s tall

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind

In the morning I’ll be with you
But it will be a different kind
I’ll be holding all the tickets
And you’ll be owning all the fines

Come on skinny love what happened here
We suckled on the hope in lite brassieres
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full, so slow on the split

And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind

And now all your love is wasted
And who the hell was I?
I’m breaking at the bridges
And at the end of all your lines

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

Moons

by Josh Ritter

There are planets you don’t know
And there are moons that you don’t see
Invisibles between the rings of
Mars and Mercury.
The harbors that they built
for the ships to set me free,
And sometimes when it’s all too much
I know they’ll come for me
Come for me

The End of the 5th Sun Circle Is Approaching!