Discovery Drafts

The roses Are enduring The weight Of rain Falling Since last night And through This morning. Thunder, too. And lightning.

“The tropical depression “Will leave in its wake “Riptides, undertows, big waves.” To swim or not? This is not a new question. Always, I weigh risk. Always, I think of the forecasted dangers. Always, I hesitate on an edge. As I watch the waves rise. As I listen to them as they fall before me. Today, though, I think of my daughter. Always, she knows when it is time To surrender to the greater force Driving the wave: She dives through it without hesitation. She does not surrender to fear: She emerges on the other side In deeper, calmer water, A sea nymph Sharing the magic of her being As this lost Odysseus Looks on.

Silent as their shadows: Five pelicans glide Above sand dunes, Equally silent, As the sea likewise declares Its ceaselessness Wave after wave.

The satyr bears The pipes of Pan In his repose: The promise of music And an invitation to ecstasy. Pan’s companions, The satyrs partook In secret rituals So dangerous they could lead To personal salvation-- What we might nowadays call bliss. A writer calls satyrs “savage beasts” Who represent “man’s unruly, instinctive nature.” “Savage” seems so harsh, so fearful, a word choice That I have to look it up; I want it to mean something other than brutal: Savage from the Latin salvaticus , an alteration of silvaticus , Meaning wild, or, literally, of the woods. Campbell talks about the “divine hygiene of nature” As Pan’s blessing for those who yield to the call Rather than surrender to imagined fear. Mary Oliver puts it this way: “You have only to let the soft animal of your body “love what it loves.” Pan’s pipes call you. Come if you dare.

In the darkness, I am alone and feeling This storm that shakes my earth. I am thinking of Poseidon And how he desired a woman For her beauty and the way she danced; How he waited for her When she fled him, running to Atlas As he held the line between order and chaos; How he sent a dolphin To rescue her into his arms And out of her terror Of the world beneath the waves-- A place perhaps like this one in its torrential dark That makes me unknown and naked to myself; How Poseidon, mighty earthshaker, God of horses and the unfathomable sea, Gave her time that she might choose him, too; How he waited for her Until she could see herself as his queen-- Yet who remembers her name? Feeling the close-moving thunder in this enveloping dark, I imagine the golden chariot, those glorious horses, The rhythm of the waves driving Poseidon and Amphitrite.

Neptune emerges from the surf All muscle and might In a vast curl of water, The power of which He cups in his extended left hand: A sea turtle Guides this god of the sea And every mystery therein To the edge of our understanding. Neither can stay. These air-breathing Keepers of the seas’ secrets Are bound to water. Glimpsing them, We behold eternity Playing tag on a cosmic level, Reminding us we are bystanders Unless we respond To the tug of the moon As she draws the sea close To whisper a song of life, An invitation to join in the game.

....and when I was proud to be a part of it.  But then Putin's bitch stole the White House, and here we are.  I look back to move forward.  I read The New Yorker, The Washington Post, the New York Times, everything, because every reputable media outlet sees the truth of where we are: a nation held hostage to a real estate entrepreneur who cannot read or run a calculator but who nevertheless assumes the right to run us into the ground in the name of his ego.  I think of my great uncle, who lies at the bottom of the Pacific, who did not die in combat so that a president of the United States could hand this nation over to the Russians.  I think of all the good people who have respected the integrity of our founding documents as vision statements inviting us to find our best selves and serve the greater good. These thoughts take me here: Which took me here: Reflecting on the power of language.  This is no joke, no corny and romantic notion, no airy dream.  Words have power.