« January 2011 | Main | March 2011 »
God is already present
and always will be.
My prayer won't change that.
My praise won't change that.
I open my eyes:
He is there.
I open my cupboard:
She is there.
I open my front door:
It is there.
I open:
All is there.
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
You have established your one life;
have you secured it
or skewered it?
This midwinter warmup,
this promising breeze
(a premature escapee of spring)
urges:
"Cut loose!
Cut yourself loose!"
Whose voice is this, really?
If the voice of God, hoist anchor.
If your soul, pull up the stakes.
If life itself, jettison the ballast.
Whose voice does it need to be?
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
I accomplished much today.
The western sky turns a satisfying golden pink.
The crowns of neighborhood oaks and elms, summer-full,
darken into rolling hills
toward which crows arc and caw.
Everything heads home.
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
As I get older,
please don't label me
"young at heart."
My goal:
"old at heart"--
much more valuable,
way more interesting.
Life lived,
challenges met,
lines on the face of the soul.
George Bernard Shaw said,
"Life should be lived in crescendo!"
Always, always, always more.
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Why are you here?
Did you come for transformation?
Or to feel good?
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
In the course of the conversation,
over a cigarette and a Negroni,
he'd expressed his passionate opinion
about a local news anchor,
a state politician,
a popular TV show,
an award-winning movie,
a national restaurant chain,
sauvignon blanc from New Zealand vs. California,
global warming,
a friend,
a family member,
and what the woman in the next booth was wearing.
About all of these,
he expressed his crafted, passionate, unnecessary opinion.
Who had taught him to do this, he wondered,
to carry this burden of knowing,
to take and defend innumerable, unimportant positions,
to aggressively postulate so many pointless points of view?
He was weary,
and knew his weariness.
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
We view the past
only through the lens of the present.
Can we trust this perspective?
In the photo below,
that which is modern
shapes our vision of that which is old
as the sleek glass of a contemporary skyscraper
reflects classic New York architecture.
Only a streetlight grounds us
with its lack of distortion,
assuring us that what we see is, indeed, real.
Or is it?
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Like a carpet nobody vacuums,
I accumulate debris--
the dust and dander
of images and dreams,
memories and mistakes--
grinding my fibers,
dulling my luster,
matting my nap.
I need to be Bisselled.
Heaven Hoover me!
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
At any given moment
you are called to abandon
everything that has been
for what is next.
At every given moment--
this one, for example--
you are called to abandon
every actual or imagined thing that has ever, ever been,
for what is next.
At this moment...
and now this one...
you are called to do this.
If your arms are full up
with what has been,
there's no room to embrace
this moment...
or this one...
or this...
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
The Sufi poet Hafiz, writing over 600 years ago, opens one of his poems by asserting: "Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'" You don't say it aloud, of course, but it's there, just beneath the surface, revealed by your eyes, your dress, your speech, your demeanor, your words (whatever they are).
It may be nuanced: "Love me, I dare you" (the bullying approach). "Love me, I'm weak and helpless" (the victim approach). "Love me, oh, please, oh please" (the desperate approach). "Love me, if you want...whatever" (the casual, pretend-not-to-care approach). But we all say it--all of us--because we have the same need, to be approved of, accepted, endorsed, validated, recognized.
So here is this poet, writing not only across the gulf of time, but equally the gulf of culture (he's an Islamic mystic), pinpointing a deep truth as true then as now, as core to the reality of being human as anything said before or since. He knew this. I know this. You know this. Whether you intend it or not, you say to each person you meet: Love me. It's what you want, really, no matter how you disguise it.
Hafiz completes his poem by wondering what would happen if, in every interaction, you were the one to assure the other: "Yes, I do love you."
(Hafiz's poem is titled "With That Moon Language" and is translated by Daniel Ladinsky, from the book The Gift.)
Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Recent Comments