Tis a Gift to be Simple, Shaker hymn

‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free;
‘Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be;
And when we find ourselves in the place that's right,
We will be in the valley of Love and Delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shall not be ashamed;
To turn, turn shall be a delight,
Till by turning, turning we come around right.

***

This song was on a CD of lullabys we had when the kids were babies.

I learned it and sang it to them when I was rocking them to sleep.

It was later replaced by Summertime. 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

***

This was the first one. I memorized this in the summer of 2016 (is that right?) when I started working at AIT. I took the kids to Camp Snoopy every day before work, drop them off, work 8 hours, pick them up, make the trek home. What a treasure that summer was - the kids saw Gma and Gpa every day. Pool time, adventures, chores. 

I tasked the kids with memorizing a poem. Some were more serious than others about the assignment. Something clicked for me and I wanted more, so I've been on this little journey since then.

Nothing is Far, Robert Francis

Though I have never caught the word
Of God from any calling bird,
I hear all that the ancients heard.

Though I have seen no deity
Enter or leave a twilit tree,
I see all that the seers see.

A common stone can still reveal
Something not stone, not seen, yet real.
What may a common stone conceal?

Nothing is far that once was near.
Nothing is hid that once was clear.
Nothing was God that is not here.

Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.
Here in the sun I sit alone
Between the known and the unknown.

***

I've spent so much time in religion, out of religion, trying to find a spirituality that sits right with me.

Right now, an invisible "father" that I talk to in my brain doesn't feel right. Seeing the earth and all she does for us and everything she's provided for time longer than I can imagine, that's a miraculous thing. Some people believe in Mother Earth. Maybe I do. I'd like to believe that the people who are gone from us are content in another place. 

Maybe there's a god. Or gods. Or a spirit world. Or maybe not. Before people knew about viruses, they believed that bad spirits caused sickness. Before people knew about molecules and atoms and the way light behaved, they explained the world in a way that made sense to them. And I'm willing to accept that there are things we can't know or see that are out there. Sometimes in my heart, I speak to a spirit world. 

Here in the sun I sit alone

Between the known and the unknown.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


***

I used to recite poetry out loud when Eli and I were going for walks together. He surprised me by reciting them with me sometimes. He's listening after all. :) 

Whenever I recite a poem back to myself, this is the first one that pops into my head. Maybe it's the imagery? I picture it so clearly. Sometimes I think of Hidden Valley.

Maybe it's the dissonance. "The passing there had worn them really about the same... I took the one less traveled..." 

And so it's the story we tell ourselves in hindsight. "I shall be telling this with a sigh." I made the right choice after all.

One Art, Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

***

This is another one that I was learning while pacing the sidewalk in front of AIT. I left it for awhile but when Nana passed I came back to it. It was somehow a comfort. But also the opposite. It's true, and lyrical, and catchy. And then too true, and sad, and it's gone.

The Moment, by Marie Howe

Oh, the coming out of nowhere moment

when, nothing happens

no what-have-I-to-do-today-list

maybe half a moment

the rush of traffic stops.

The whir of I should be I should be I should be

slows to silence,

The white cotton curtains hanging still.

***

Not as much anymore, with the crazy schedules.

Or maybe just as crazy but in a completely different way. 

We've gone from driving the kids all around and volunteering when we're supposed to, donating stuff when we're supposed to, buying popcorn and wreaths and ballet slippers to what it is today.

My car has been donated to my daughter. My "work in the office" time depends on my kids' schedules and when they can drop me off or pick me up. We still rush around, in our way, I guess. Sometimes I remind myself it's ok to feel stress right now. Step aside and read a book. Silence is a luxury.

The Best, William Wordsworth

 The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.

~ William Wordsworth

***

Thank you. To all my people.