by Denise Levertov
Dedicated to the memory of Karen Silkwood and Eliot Gralla “From too much love of living,
Hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river
Winds somewhere to the sea--“
But we have only begun
To love the earth.
We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope?
-- so much is in bud.
How can desire fail?
-- we have only begun
to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision
how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.
Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?
Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?
Not yet, not yet--
there is too much broken
that must be mended,
too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.
(from Candles in Babylon by Denise Levertov, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1982)
The artist Robert Marsham had a lifelong calendrical project. For forty-eight years, he kept minutely detailed records of the natural world. He noted the exact dates of the leafing out of oak and ash trees, the dates snowdrops and lilies bloomed, the dates freezes made trees crack, and when different bird species began to sing or hatch. He recorded what he heard and saw, faithfully, daily, until he died at age 89.
A contemplative creative invitation arises for me:
What cyclical events catch your attention?
How do you measure years?
What do you chronicle, on paper or in your mind-body?
What are your essential indications of spring, or life returning?
How do you know when something good is going to happen?
What voices do you listen to daily?
Whose voice helps you to chart time?
Take half an hour to be in a natural area without technology, and listen to its sounds.
Art: from Robert Marsham’s “Indications of Spring” (1789), Public Domain
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