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Resurrection pulses through me like a river
pushing aside moments of death. My foot steps
ahead toward the Russian olive, solitary, about
to bloom in the meadow, fresh-mown for summer.
But for now it is spring, the season of risings.
What good are prayers for the already dead? Where
does that love go? I see the raccoon’s den-hole
beside the grass-covered log long fallen,
its dark opening only he can trust. I hear
the watery throat of a cowbird and know it
as the same stream, already across the pasture
where I follow. I watch her fly away, and disappear.
April 2012
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19 comments:
Such a lovely juxtaposition of question and answer - where does the love go? I think it gets played out in the song of the cowbird...
Happy Easter Ruth! I only realized yesterday it's this coming weekend.
This are good words for me this week as I am in a contemplative mood and concerning myself with those thoughts beyond life's understanding. Indeed, Happy Easter, Ruth
Anyone who's lost a deeply loved one has asked, where did they go?, never content with the arguments provided. Our presence here is so physical (yes, pulsing through us like a river) that only presence can suffice in an always-vanishing world. Hardest to understand that everything courses in that stream that's meant to overspill and flow out. Gorgeous and delicate poem, Ruth, and the pic's exquisite. Here's to a grand month of poems. - Brendan
A very fine poem, Ruth, and I especially like the imagery you have chosen. For me, death and resurrection are constantly pulsating throughout the days of our lives—even the hours of our lives. They sing together as a duet, each with a different pitch and range, each voice giving meaning to the other. What rises falls, what falls rises, and it's nice to be in the season of rising.
Where the dead have gone none may know because they can't tell us-- yet, it seems one of those "secrets" everybody knows, in this case 'everybody' being the natural world which death and resurrection are constantly emptying and refilling, like one of those cups in a water-fall fountain. A beautiful start to a month of poetry, Ruth.
So lovely to walk with you in this beautiful flow of a poem.
what if that spring bloom is us? what if we are it? then what of resurrection? and too, what of how we treat the world? (but how do we already treat one another?) oh, through this lens of hope (i seem to have this spring) i trust what is inside the raccoon's den-hole because what other choice is there?
xo
erin
I love the photo as well as your words :)
Ruth, this is absolutely exquisite...the picture perfect with the words.
This poem is especially meaningful, coming as it does after the death on Palm Sunday of the 54-year-old best friend of my sister. Cancer has taken her life.
I've come to think of "resurrection" as being that act of memory that lets us forever hold close the loved one(s) we have lost.
Thank you for these beautifully expressed words.
Thank you, Pauline. Yes, love is all around, in this shape and that.
California Girl, Happy Easter! I know, it is hard for me to keep track of Easter every year now.
The Broad, I'm glad you found something good here during your contemplative mood. Sometimes I think there are no answers, only questions.
Thanks a lot, Brendan. You and I know that brothers who've passed are still very much alive, in our love for them. Amazing how Bennett is alive to me in some ways he wasn't while he lived. Yes, here's to poetry month!
George, thanks so much. To live with death and life as a duet is to live with wisdom. May your risings be more than your fallings, my friend...but I do believe they are part of a whole.
Hedge, nature knows and does not need to talk about it, yet how beautifully, and sometimes terrifyingly, it tells us. Thanks for reading. Happy poetry month to you, my stellar poet-friend.
Thank you, Miss Jane. Your account of your walk at my last post was transcendent, and I think something of it seeped through here.
erin, every morning is a new answer. I can start fresh, without fear, with more trust.
Thank you, Babs. :-)
Nancy, thank you so much for your kind words!
Maureen, oh I am so sorry to hear about your sister's friend, gone too soon. Your concept of resurrection is beautiful. May your friend be alive for your sister and you and all her loved ones in the coming days. Be comforted by that love.
Magnifique! Particularly with raccoon.
Beautiful, Ruth. Death and resurrection, hand in hand.
Happy Easter.
Ruth,
As is so often the case , I never have words. I cannot express how your art gives meaning to something I am feeling , or makes me feel something that I wish I could capture but am so grateful that of course, I can't.
And I'm about to watch your slideshow, and while it will no doubt make mine look so very amateur, I am more honoured that you take the time to see and hear me than I ever would be intimidated by your exquisite everything. ( okay , maybe just a little... :) )
I know it's almost a week later but resurrection seems to be what spring is all about...for an entire season. I love that it's not just a day or a weekend. I love that Mother Nature tells her own sermon year after year....and that it "pulses through [us]."
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