A bowl of cherries

and some northern lights

I heard author Kate Bowler say, at the beginning of a commencement address, that hard things will happen, and that in the middle of a hard moment, it’s still possible to see truth and beauty, and that allowing yourself to see those things will carry you.

So I wonder about what truth and beauty really look like, about how they find a way to carry us through hard things, about all the people in the world who feel lost in forests of hopelessness.

Then I think about what Rumi wrote so long ago, the words, “When I go toward you | it is with my whole life” and I think about what’s worth going toward with a whole life, and I think about sentences written down in a notebook after reading those words, lines that haven’t made it into any poems, those that have been cut or set aside:

The road is winding, and I take it anyway. Winding roads give texture enough to enhance the hours. Listen to the war within yourself—what does it have to say about what it means to be peace? Sunburst, find a way to bleed light through darkness. Every moment is the end of something and the beginning of something else. What ends now? And what begins?

I wonder about truth and beauty and questions that don’t seem to have answers, and how those unanswerable questions matter.

What happens when you ask a forest what's important
and it doesn't respond? You could take the silence 
as an invitation to find your own answer on the forgotten path 
uncovered only by walking the edges of unanswerable questions, 
the path leading deep into the heart of wildness, wildness
that exists outside the questions and answers just by existing.

I think about the advice to live the questions, and how even though there is nothing but mystery inside such an invitation, there is also comfort in allowing all things to be possible.

The living mountain
catches lightning with hands 
reaching toward the sky, no matter
how weathered those hands are, 
speaks in snow melt creeks
making a path through
every sort of terrain
holds stories old
and stories just becoming
a pulse felt deep enough
to animate ancient earth
an invitation to live the questions
that allow all things to become possible
when trees are sentient and rocks whisper wonderments.

A Bowl of Cherries

I buy myself the bag of expensive cherries
[on impulse or maybe on instinct, sometimes it's hard to tell which]
the day before a third interview for a job that could pay all the bills
bills that continue demanding attention despite a suddenly inadequate income, 
despite a job market that doesn't seem life-giving enough for a human worker, 
despite all the unpaid labor that continues to be necessary— 
a job that would be good to have, but also a job that will demand keeping 
a schedule not mine, a job providing tasks to fill the empty space 
created by other tasks that vanished months ago, empty space 
that seemed so bleak for awhile but has allowed for moving more slowly, 
with reason to consider what it is I really do want—
anyway, I bought the expensive cherries and washed them in cold water, 
and then I dropped them into a wooden bowl; a small act of rebellion maybe, 
or a nod toward confidence, or maybe just so I can have an edible talisman, 
a way to ingest possibility, a way to claim agency in a world that feels like too much
a way of allowing truth and beauty to carry a beacon through dark woods.

Speaking of light in the darkness, I would be remiss not to mention the northern lights of last weekend, a collective moment of awe that spread across the globe connecting us to each other, at least for a little while.

Northern lights as seen from our hayfield in Minnesota on May 10th, about 10pm

How to see Northern Lights
First, if possible, ensure home
is a place where such viewing happens,
at least sometimes, or visit often where it does.
Second, pay attention to the horizon at night
while practicing patience—it could take awhile.
Years, in fact, but don’t let the elusiveness
of aurora borealis stop you from venturing out
on clear nights when the conditions are right
to lay on a blanket with those you love,
gazing at the heavens as light dances
rivers of color across the sky.

This was a really random post, so if you made it all the way to the end, I salute you.