House of Light

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled— to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing— that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.

The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

There is only one question: how to love this world.

how could there be a day in your whole life that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?

What happens to the leaves after they turn red and golden and fall away? What happens to the singing birds when they can’t sing any longer? What happens to their quick wings? Do you think there is any personal heaven for any of us? Do you think anyone, the other side of that darkness, will call to us, meaning us? Beyond the trees the foxes keep teaching their children to live in the valley. so they never seem to vanish, they are always there in the blossom of light that stands up every morning in the dark sky. And over one more set of hills, along the sea, the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness and are giving it back to the world. If I had another life I would want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness. I would be a fox, or a tree full of waving branches. I wouldn’t mind being a rose in a field full of roses. Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition. Reason they have not yet thought of. Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what. Or any other foolish question.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done?

A poem should always have birds in it.

SPRING Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question: how to love this world. I think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities, it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting; all day I think of her— her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.

Is the soul solid, like iron? Or is it tender and breakable, like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl.

It does no good to bark at the television, I said. I’ve tried it too. So he stopped.

The salamanders, like tiny birds, locked into formation, fly down into the endless mysteries of the transforming water, and how could anyone believe that anything in this world is only what it appears to be— that anything is ever final— that anything, in spite of its absence, ever dies a perfect death? (from the poem 'What Is It?')

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it? Of course, it isn’t. Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only the light that can shine out of a life.

to leap into it and hold on, connecting everything,

maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us-- as soft as feathers-- that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes, not without amazement, and let ourselves be carried, as through the translucence of mica, to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow-- that is nothing but light--scalding, aortal light-- in which we are washed and washed out of our bones.

This is the earnest work. Each of us is given only so many mornings to do it— to look around and love the oily fur of our lives, the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.

This is a poem about death, about the heart blanching in its fold of shadows because it knows someday it will be the fish and the wave and no longer itself— it will be those white wings, flying in and out of the darkness but not knowing it— this is a poem about loving the world and everything in it: the self, the perpetual muscle, the passage in and out, the bristling swing of the sea.

so long as you don’t mind a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?

But all my life—so far— I have loved best how the flowers rise and open, how the pink lungs of their bodies enter the fire of the world and stand there shining and willing—the one thing they can do before they shuffle forward into the floor of darkness, they become the trees.

But what in this world is perfect? I bend closer and see how this one is clearly lopsided— and that one wears an orange blight— and this one is a glossy cheek half nibbled away— and that one is a slumped purse full of its own unstoppable decay. Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled— to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing— that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

I think this is the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?

Of course! the path to heaven doesn’t lie down in flat miles. It’s in the imagination with which you perceive this world, and the gestures with which you honor it.

I have been thinking about living like the lilies that blow in the fields. They rise and fall in the wedge of the wind, and have no shelter from the tongues of the cattle, and have no closets or cupboards, and have no legs. Still I would like to be as wonderful as that old idea. But if I were a lily I think I would wait all day for the green face of the hummingbird to touch me. What I mean is, could I forget myself even in those feathery fields?

Whatever else my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities, it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting;

Maybe death isn’t darkness at all, but so much light wrapping itself around us — as soft as feathers — that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes, not without amazement, and let ourselves be carried, as through the translucence of mica to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow — that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light — in which we are washed and washed out of our bones. “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field,” House of Light (1990)

But all my life--sofar-- I have loved best how the flowers rise and open, how the pink lungs of their bodies enter the fore of the world and stand there shining

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

as soft as feathers— that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes, not without amazement, and let ourselves be carried, as through the translucence of mica, to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow— that is nothing but light—scalding, aortal light— in which we are washed and washed out of our bones.

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?