Insha’Allah by Danusha Laméris

I don’t know when it slipped into my speech
that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”
Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.
The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.

So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled
easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.

Every language must have a word for this. A word
our grandmothers uttered under their breath
as they pinned the whites, soaked in lemon,
hung them to dry in the sun, or peeled potatoes,
dropping the discarded skins into a bowl.

Our sons will return next month, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this war will end, soon. Insha’Allah
the rice will be enough to last through winter.

How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand. And still we carry it
the way a mother would, carefully,
from one day to the next.

Insha’Allah

Though ‘God’s will’ is not in my vocabulary, I have always like the sound of insha’Allah, the soft music of it as well as the meaning I make that there is something beyond me that allows babies and rain and all those things not in my control. Already, I am thinking to myself Insha’Allah I will see you next summer as I wonder about the possibility of going east to my brother’s family and to walk my favourite beach. As Lamérus says, so many plans unraveled, easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers, never more so than in these past many months.

Every language must have a word for this, she tells us. This feels true to me, especially when she invokes the grandmothers hanging the whites on a line in the sun or peeling potatoes as grandmothers have done for millennium. The steady prayers for the safety of sons, for war to end, for there to be enough food for the winter, waiting without knowing.

How lightly we learn to hold hope, with a cautious care that it may turn and bite us, disappoint us. And yet we do hold it, carry it the way a mother would, and we do it from one day to the next. May you be reminded to carry your own hopes lightly, carefully, trusting in possibilities even without certainty.

(My apologies for being so late in the day. I wish I could have found a poem about losing track of the days; I thought today is Tuesday but apparently not.)

Dandelion by Ted Kooser

The first of a year’s abundance of dandelions

is this single kernel of bright yellow

dropped on our path by the sun, sensing

that we might need some marker to help us

find our way through life, to find a path

over the snow-flattened grass that was

blade by blade unbending into green,

on a morning early in April, this happening

just at the moment I thought we were lost

and I’d stopped to look around, hoping

to see something I recognized. And there

it was, a commonplace dandelion, right

at my feet, the first to bloom, especially

yellow, as if pleased to have been the one,

chosen from all the others, to show us the way.

Dandelion

I got a new book of poetry this week! How to Love the World, edited by James Crews, a collection of poetry about gratitude and hope and love and beauty in the world. I’m excited to have a new source of poems to share with you, to shine a light on the good that exists in small but important ways.

One of the first to catch my eye is this one by Ted Kooser, a wonderful poet and the curator of the online American Life in Poetry for many years. I have always appreciated his taste in concise poems that speak volumes and this is one of his own that meets that criteria.

I haven’t yet seen many dandelions though before long they will be everywhere, that first one a single kernel of bright yellow / dropped on our path by the sun. The poet considers that we might need some marker to help us / find our way through life, after the long winter to find our way over grass blade by blade unbending into green.

Thinking we were lost and looking around, there it is, a commonplace dandelion, the first yellow bloom, as if pleased to have been the one, / chosen from all the others, to show us the way. And there it is, that common flower/weed pointing us to the renewal of life in April, reminding us that spring always arrives and that we will find our way. And yes, I know it is snowing this morning but still… it is spring!

Packing for the Future: Instructions by Lorna Crozier

Take the thickest socks.
Wherever you’re going
you’ll have to walk.

There may be water.
There may be stones.
There may be high places
you cannot go without
the hope socks bring you,
the way they hold you
to the earth.

At least one pair must be new,
must be blue as a wish
hand-knit by your mother
in her sleep.

*

Take a leather satchel,
a velvet bag an old tin box —
a salamander painted on the lid.

That is to carry that small thing
you cannot leave. Perhaps the key
you’ve kept though it doesn’t fit
any lock you know,
the photograph that keeps you sane,
a ball of string to lead you out
though you can’t walk back
into that light.

In your bag leave room for sadness,
leave room for another language.

There may be doors nailed shut.
There may be painted windows.
There may be signs that warn you
to be gone. Take the dream
you’ve been having since
you were a child, the one
with open fields and the wind
sounding.

*

Mistrust no one who offers you
water from a well, a songbird’s feather,
something that’s been mended twice.
Always travel lighter
than the heart.

Packing for the Future: Instructions

Listening to Lorna Crozier, whom I greatly admire, on CBC Sunday morning, I was reminded of this poem of hers which I’ve loved since I first read it. Haven’t you wished, at least once in your life, that someone would give you instructions for your unknown future? Some directions to help you navigate this life you find yourself in?

She has us begin with thick socks, the hope socks bring you, / the way they hold you / to the earth, ground you wherever you are. Bring a pair blue as a wish /hand-knit by your mother / in her sleep, an enchanting possibility. Even if your mother never knit, you could wish for that because you know that Wherever you’re going / you’ll have to walk.

You will need a satchel, a bag, an old tin box – / a salamander painted on the lid, something to hold that small thing you cannot leave – a key, a photograph, a ball of string to lead you out / though you can’t walk back / into that light. For myself it was a purple Crown Royal drawstring bag in which I kept my inexplicable treasures. And though I neglected the ball of string, I did leave room for sadness because that is the other language we must learn in order to move through this world. Perhaps most important is to take the dream / you’ve been having since / you were a child, that one where you were connected to the real world and its aliveness in a way that we seem to lose as we grow older.

Finally, the instruction to always trust offerings of water from a well (that icy-clear taste), a songbird’s feather (a Jay’s impossible blue), something that’s been mended twice (my first pair of leather gloves). That last line: always travel lighter / than the heart, catches my breath each time, a gentle reminder not to let heart-heaviness weigh me down too long. I return to these instructions from time to time, when I feel I’m losing my way, pull on those sky blue socks and start walking.

Questions to Ask When Waking by Bernadette Miller

What would you do if you really knew
that life was wanting to sing through you?

What would you say if your words could convey
prayers that the world was waiting to pray?

What would you be if your being could free
some piece of the world’s un-whispered beauty?

What would you stop to bless and caress
if you believed that blessing could address
our painful illusions of brokenness?

What would you harvest from heartache and pain
if you understood loss as a way to regain
the never-forsaken terrain of belonging?

What would you love if your love could ignite
a sea full of stars on the darkest night?

Questions to Ask When Waking

Well, you probably know by now how much I love poems that ask important questions that I can’t really answer but which awaken my whole being. And of course the best time to hear such questions is in those early moments of waking before we are stolidly in our everyday routines, that liminal space where we are neither here nor there.

Each question begins with What would you do… or say or be or stop or harvest or love. Honestly, each one of these exquisitely crafted questions is enough to fill me up with wonder and carry me through my day. I especially love some piece of the world’s un-whispered beauty. There is so much beauty that is self-evident, reliable, traditional, but what of the unspoken beauties that are more hidden?

Can you believe that blessing could address / our painful illusions of brokenness? If we stopped to bless with our attention what we believe to be broken, would we find that it was whole? And then loss, that universal heartache, if we could understand it as a doorway into the never-forsaken terrain of belonging, understanding that we are not abandoned in our grief.

What would you love if it could ignite / a sea full of stars on the darkest night, if loving this world would bring more light (for how could it not), if your words could convey prayers? Is there a question here for you to wrestle with, to awaken you to some new understanding so that you know that life was wanting to sing through you?