One (of Everything) at a Time

[Image: “Nowhere Man,” by user cayusa on Flickr.com. Used here under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river:

One Way In

This is how I hold my place in the world:
one line at a time, counting beats until
they come out right, chasing the sound of words
the way a dog chases cars to get her fill.

And this is how I fill my days: I slip
the ink across the page — a second skin —
and leave behind the color that my lips
print on the glass, a way of coming in.

This is how I stay in view: I take down
everything exactly how I see it,
I say it one way then turn it around
to see if there’s another way it fits.

I hollow out a page to make a nest,
I stretch the pen out like a branch and rest.

(Joyce Sutphen [source])

…and:

Sending These Messages

Over these writings I bent my head.
Now you are considering them. If you
turn away I will look up: a bridge
that was there will be gone.
For the rest of your life I will stand here,
reaching across.
If these writings can bring a turn
or an echo that touches you — maybe
a face, a slant, a tune — you will stop
too and bend over them. When you
look up, your thought will reach
wherever I am.
I know it is strange. and there is no measure
for this. The only connection we make
is like a twinge when sometimes they change
the beat in music, and we sprawl with it
and hear another world for a minute
that is almost there.

(William Stafford [source])

…and:

The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out of all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.

(Frederick Buechner [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Secret Agent Man

You looked so good at the top of the stairs
that I wonder if you might consider

standing at the bus stop near Franklin
and 22nd at about 6:30 AM,

wearing a dark overcoat and a red
scarf, nodding (just slightly) when

I pass, and I wouldn’t mind looking
Out my office window at about

10 AM and seeing you (so small I
couldn’t be sure) waving from

the far corner of the parking lot,
and then, at lunch, you could be

the mysterious man sitting in the bar,
the one who never turns around until

I am almost out the door with friends
who would have no idea who you are,

and it would be wonderful to see you
disguised as a UPS man, coming in

at 3 PM with a large package
full of various useless things

and a note, telling me exactly
where I could find you later on tonight.

(Joyce Sutphen [source])

…and:

Sitting In The Orchard

A man sits in an orchard, fruit trees full
and the vines plump. He has his head
on his knee; his eyes are closed.

His friend says, “Why stay sunk in mystical
meditation when the world is like this?
Such visible grace.”

He replies, “The outer is an elaboration
of the inner. I prefer the origin.”

Natural beauty is a tree limb reflected
in the water of a creek, quivering there, not
there. The growing that moves in the soul

is more real than tree limbs and reflections.
We laugh and feel happy or sad over all this.

Try instead to get a scent
of the true orchard. Taste the vineyard
within the vineyard.

(Jelaluddin Rumi [source])

…and:

Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way…

They used to say that he carried a sacred stone with him, like one he had seen in some vision, and that when he was in danger, the stone always got heavy and protected him somehow. That, they used to say, was the reason that no horse he ever rode lasted very long. I do not know about this; maybe people only thought it; but it is a fact that he never kept one horse long. They wore out.

(Nicholas Black Elk [source])