…then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being.

The sensitive executing of judgement, the nose,
Olfaction, chemoreception transducing, discerning good from bad,
Nostrils portending the putrid distinctly,
The stench of rottenness cannot be denied,
Intolerable, disgusting odors create an upheaval,
The stomach retorts, reviling to the point of upchucking,
The wretched body obedient to the distancing away from foul smells,
To the snout: death is death, truth not open to debate,
Instinctive, natural, reactionary proper without reason or rhyme,
Pleasant aromas bring forth peace, alertness, positive dreams,
Lavender and sage, herbs and spices, perfumes and bouquets,
Attar of roses, lily-of-the-valley, sweet alyssum, jasmin in bloom,
Wafting, cooking a fine meal, baking, hunger arising, children gathering,
The divine fragrance of an infant!
Oh if all sensations could be so direct,
The sensual aright and alighted as it is with the nose,
Sin unable to tempt, sin never rendered a chance.

A poem by Marjorie Meeker

I said, ‘It is your voice I hear,”
But it was the clear
Curving Of bells at twilight.
I said, “It is you who breathe, who stir,”
But it was the whir
Of beating wings,

It was the stir
Of dazzled shadowy things
That come before night.

Sweet as the thinned
Light silver of flutes,
Swift as the edge of wind,
You come who sheathe
Yourself in brightness,
Who wreathe
Your sharp whiteness
In curving lines of gold.
The stunned light
Recedes to let you pass:
The hard
Clear day is marred,
Like a Cracked glass.

Let it be you
After the gold ebbing of hours
And the hot noon sweetness;
After the languor
And the bright dropped flowers.

One goes inward, following into prayer,
Another goes wandering, tendering, discovering,
Falling down a rabbit hole, into a real land,
Alone amongst the many, tiny minds loving the gain,
The body grows in remembering, the Holy Spirit a living plan,
The creek we once drank from, became a nurturing span,
The sea colliding with the sky, an uproar silent in demand,
All above, all below, blind and dumbfounded,
Leave it be,
Peace be quiet,
Peace be still,
Peace lay us down unkowing within God’s hand,

…those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. If you just recognize this and manage, out of yourself, out of your own talent and nature, out of your own experience and childhood and strength, to achieve a wholly individual relation…then you will no longer have to be afraid of losing yourself and becoming unworthy of your dearest possession.

Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or the pure feeling with, which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fulness and the splendor of all knowledge. And it is not our acceptance of it that is bad; what is bad is that most people misuse this learning and squander it and apply it as a stimulant on the tired places of their lives and as a distraction rather than as a way of gathering themselves for their highest moments. People have even made eating into something else; necessity on the one hand, excess on the other; they have muddied the clarity of this need, and all the deep, simple needs in which life renews itself have become just as muddy. But the individual can make them clear for himself and live them clearly (not the individual who is dependent, but the solitary man). He can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see the animal, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and multiplying and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive the mystery which the world is filled with, even the smallest Things, could bear it, endure it, more solemnly, feel how terribly heavy it is, instead of taking it lightly. –‘Letters to a Young Poet’ Rainer Maria Rilke

Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn’t resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin’s bow,
which draws *one* voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song

Acceptance

Content within my mediocrity,
Contrite aspirations pronounce properly,
Worldly grandiose desiring not,
Nor the slightest aggrandizement,
Despairing not for the lesser,
Rejecting unjust reduction of Divine intent,
Nor unfit settling into degradation,
Ostentatious standards negated,
Lunatic fringe austerity refined away,
Not asking too much,
Not accepting too little,
Feasting upon that which is placed upon the plate,
All things worth doing are worth doing ordinary,
Normality in stout nature,
Little in hidden disguise,
A face lovingly blending into the crowd,
A toiling man working to be fed,
A gentle man patient and kind,
Satisfied, able to delight quiet in a crowd,
Affirmed, enough is enough,

I dug and dug, toiling through roots, bursting bloody hands upon rocks,
Shoveling, ripping, tearing through an exhausting excavation,
Mounds of dirt piling about the cavity I stood within,
The sun setting, I fell asleep, vivid dreams nowhere to be found,
A rain came washing, thunder unheard, lightning unseen,
Water filled the pit, a damn bursting, asleep I remained,
A stream created, cleansing away, rivulets branching,
Purging, emptying, I awoke to the sun baking,
Drying the remnants of the unknown storm,
Eyes bleary, understanding ceasing from acts,
Suspended, I remained astonished and occupied:
A mountain appeared sitting,
An ocean appeared breathing,
A tiger lily blossomed,
An eagle soared,
All this and more within,
Time passed, I turned noticing a treasure chest unearthed within the pit,
Opening the chest, the bones of fish spilled out, entirely I removed the remaining,
There upon the bottom a shimmering pearl waited to be found.
I closed the chest, patience and gratefulness,
Knowing it was not the time,