A New Field for the Lilies

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Never, not Ever, Boring

I woke up singing ‘Galileo’ by the Indigo Girls.  This was followed by eating my breakfast alongside our seemingly despairing cat (read: SNOW JOB...) and brushing her into into peace once again.  I dressed, cleaned up after a family staying downstairs, and went out to go for a walk through the Public Gardens.  Passing the bus stop, I greeted Anna who attends many of the same poetry events I do.  I looped an outer block around the fence line of the Gardens first and encountered a man who is also a regular around-town walker.  I’ve only ever seen him in the company of a decorated wooden staff and wondered about what he did with it,  I wonder no longer.  He was using the end and flipping up litter with the grace and practice of a drum major...one who marches to music I suspect not many others may notice.  “Thank you!” I called to him... receiving the most beautiful smile in return.  While doing a circuit of the dahlia beds,  I met a woman from nearby Sackville who was following nearly exactly in my footsteps.  She and I ended up in a fairly lengthy rich conversation about the multi-layered joy of the dahlias and the Gardens in general.  We spoke of mathematics and colour, of photography and seasons and history, of urban design and the peace found in nature.  My mind was clearly on as much of a wander as my feet because I proceeded to leave the Gardens and follow a couple right on into Thumpers...which would have been fine if I too wanted to get my haircut.  I didn’t.  Down I went a couple of doors and into Humani-T to work for a bit on correspondence that included looking at a document about a podcast I have begun hosting.  I ordered my flat white and went to the washroom.  When I came out, the barista—one of two that I’d taught to juggle with apples a couple of weeks ago—had brought my drink to what he thought was my table.  There were keys on the table...which weren’t mine.  The woman at the next table over said—I don’t know...a guy was there, he left, and he hasn’t been back.  I brought the keys up to the counter.  The man attached to the keys was at a different table.  I came back and chatted with the woman at the next table over...she works in a local children’s bookstore and we see one another around the downtown area.

It continues to fill me with gratitude that a day can begin this way... Colourful, peopled, productive, unexpected...Each aspect highlighting or making manifest an aspect of God... God who is never, ever, boring.

Another Galaxy in the Universe...RIP Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison 

18 February, 1931-5 August, 2019

We die. That may be the meaning of life. 

But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. 

—Toni Morrison—

Thank you for your language.  The measure you shared is an everlasting gift.

There is another star added to the galaxy, or perhaps even more so, another galaxy added to the universe.  The Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison has died.  The above quotation of hers is a favourite and it sparked this reflection...

And whether that measure be short or long, I pray it may it be dense with language...with languages.

The language of inclusion...sweeping vistas of hope and broad benches of welcome at tables laden with enough...if we share. 

The language of freedom that speaks of the right to leave that person, place, or situation which is unsafe and settle in a new place to begin anew; Syllables of freedom that write the poetry of reality’s expression—whether hip hop, slam, or sonnet, novel, short story, or tweet. The language of each being made in the image and likeness of God.

The language of dignity that honours the questions and curiosities, the asymmetrical, the quirky, the different, and the not understood; The language of patience and of peaceable disagreement.

The language of beauty, of art and creativity. The language that knows the value of silence, study, space, and contemplation. The language of the inside and of insight...of science and music, sculpture, dance, archeology, math, the language that knows the saving power of a story well-told.

The language of love. Of love, of love, of love. Love that is a difficult honour and the language that is glazed in strength and fired in the light no darkness can overcome. The language that speaks of the good for those in love; that describes the good for the community because they are in love; The language of love that recognizes joy and can sit the night with unfathomable mystery because it never forgets how to imagine sunrise.

Let my language be dense, let it be rich, and let me share the wealth of my Word while I still have my breath...spending it all with as much elegant simplicity as possible.

Tea with Nina Simone

There is a sound...a sound that opens my being and inhabits my bones for a while...and when that sound...meets a mood...and that mood meets a way to write...the lines fall out a certain way...like a picture of what I feel.  

“Nina Simone” by Stanley Chow

Tea with Nina Simone

Singer woman with a lived-in voice,

how I ache to climb the steps of those piano keys,

bending into the curve of your voice and

riding upside on the slide of your top note wail.

Mm. From there, that view, 

oh I’d throw my arms open and 

dive in dancing, I would...

Confident that air would catch 

beneath the canopy of my soul.

I will sigh when the song

is done, I will. Sigh

and sip my tea steaming

on the coaster beside me.

Me, in a wingback chair,

eyes closed and heart still swaying 

inside that waterfall 

of sound and liquid soul.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

What Others Notice

A couple from Ireland stopped in front of where I was seated on a bench, having lunch in the shade at the Public Gardens.

“That looks absolutely amazing…,” they said to me of my meal.

I looked up at them.

“Honestly, it is…Every single thing about it is divine. The juice, the colour, the taste, the texture, the context…(I laughed) I am so enjoying the pleasure of my lunch…”

“It’s why we felt like we could stop,” said the wife.

“?”

“You looked like you were so happy, simply eating a beautiful plum.”

Vacation in my Backpack

I Carry Vacation with Me

My brain needs space to rest and roam; my heart needs room to feel. 

A book in hand is a key to a place where ‘away’ becomes the real.

Wizards, mansions, and moors and trains; detectives, urchins and spies,

this and that and now and then and here and there, all fly.

With a turn of the page, the tuck of a chin, a settling into the chair,

I am elsewhere for a while, I am breathing different air.

So should you see me gazing off and not quite where I appear,

I’ve gone inside this elsewhere place…I’ll be back in a bit, right here.

When you find me, wherever you find me, may it seem when you cast a look

that I am refreshed for the journey I’ve taken with the passport of a book.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

The Gardens

Halifax Public Gardens

It’s textures that captivate me, and colours.

And nature’s infinite compassion 

for me still having this idea

that not so secretly pleases my spirit: 

if I look long enough, could let go

just so, I’d be on the inside and know

the interiority of a stone, the expansiveness

of blue, and the shiny tingle of perfection

when light and shape and Beingness align.

People 

tend to mind if the eye dwells too long 

on a line or a curve,

on a sway or on a softness.

Other wild elements invite me to stillness,

to a looseness of mind and grandeur of heart

that sees the tracery holding panes of divinity 

in the molecules that call to me 

in the raw spectacle of a garden.

Beauty in the simplest; radiant complexity.

Harmonies to make me weep and contrasts

that leave me breathless and believing still

that being caught-up in wonder is 

an ache of the senses and accessible glory.

It is good for the soul

to have a place to wander free,

to behold and be permitted

the revelation of awe.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ