Summer Celebration!

Nothing says summer like watermelon and a poem of celebration!

Photo by Cody Chan on Unsplash

Despite the news; notwithstanding all the challenges of our world—summer brings a gift like nothing else! Summer is here! How we need this gift! Bring on the watermelon! Bring on the beauty!

These are days for me of being filled with gratitude of living in the midst of such outrageous beauty.  I sit on my porch in a black rocker and absorb all I can see—the sensuous buffet of an early summer morning. The colors of the flowers; the variety of birds preparing for another day of life along side the blue hydrangea that is pushing its blue hues forth any day now in blossom.

The Blue birds are feverishly feeding the fledglings  who will leave the their nest any moment now. We’re all eyes to watch this spectacle.

I am not the first to live on this land. I hope I am not the last. No wonder the tourists come here. It is intoxicating to live among the Blue Ridge and at the confluence of mountain rivers that have forged their way forth for millenniums through the curvature of the old peaks. Somehow, this land makes me happy and I am so very glad to be happy in the midst of such a perilous time. 

Does that sound selfish or privileged to say such a thing? It is a privilege to see the beautiful. It is a privilege to be baptized in such sights, smells and auditory worship songs. It does not feel selfish because of this one thing: I realize what I am doing in sitting here noticing this world. All of this awakens me and in this awakening there is the humble realization of how very small I really am right now at this time of my life.  But more than a privilege, I feel the greater weight of being a witness to tell you what I am now seeing—what I am now feeling—what I am not being invited to experience.  I want to do this for as long as I can and in a way that is easy for me to do it alone—without a team—without an assistant any longer and in a way I can for as long as I am healthy.

I often describe my life now using the word “diminished.”  I feel diminished in my role as a father of men children. I feel diminished in my voice with now, so, so many giving voice to the themes Gwen and I pioneered. I feel diminished in my influence. But, in all this diminishment comes a blessing that I am beginning to understand.

It is a not a diminishment but an invitation to take my place in the order of life now. To not seek a stage but a chair; to not use a microphone but a poem; to say less but mean more.

I feel small here in this rocking chair. I feel small because sitting here, I realize that I am but a witness to this wedding feast on an early morning in summer here. I feel small when I acknowledge that this land was not discovered but was the home of the Cherokee. And as I sat here this morning, I kept wondering if back in the past, there was a Cherokee warrior who sat right here as I am sitting. He, too, seeing the crest of the Blue Ridge and the green lush valley floor.

Here, I feel connected to both land and warrior; to both Creator and the Created. How is it that a Blue bird couple could now become my fine feathered friends? How is it that the Yellow Finches are my brothers and sisters? How is it that I sometimes feel a small part of something very, very big and I am but a small voice to offer my big words to this world.

But, I am compelled to offer these words. There simply are not enough adjectives to describe an early summer morning here.

Some of the readers here offer me gifts in their comments and texts. But the greatest gifts are when someone tells me how much they are inspired to start the poetry journey of reading—and some in writing their own poems.  They might send me their poem or they may just tell me that they have started the journey. That makes me feel like I’m hitting the bullseye. There’s much to be thankful for indeed!

I so well remember, years back, when I somehow felt invited to pick up my first few books of poetry—as if I was opening a map that would offer me the pathway to a place I had never been.  It is not escape to read and write a poem.  No, it is mapmaking.  If is drawing a line from here to there—a line that must be crossed to understand—a line of a beginning journey, that once begun, you jus know, you will not return.

Poetry has become a way to integrate my heart with my soul. It is a way of practicing curiosity by becoming still—more still than I have ever been in prayer.  My writing poems has made me often think of the young, middle age and old David who wrote many of our Psalms. His Psalms was his own Substack, I suppose. Generation after generation read his words; felt connected to what he unearthed and somehow felt he was inspired by Spirit to do such a thing.

It is this stilled curiosity of noticing and then inscribing down a few words— cobbling them together and lifting a few sentences up to the Wind to see if these words will catch flight that is my own fruit of this new work in me.

This particular poem,  “Summer’s Wedding Has Now Begun”  is a poem that took flight and I knew it the minute I wrote the last line. It’s the fruit of my workshop with Padraig O’Tuama as well as a convergence of my curiosity and longing to see a deeper way of seeing.  We’ll see if this poem lands softly on your heart while in your yard, garden, hike or patio, as you read it. We’ll see…

But as a writer and poet, I cannot write for any response but my own. There is a knowing deep inside that tells me after all my digging with my pen as a shovel and my keyboard as a spade, if I have hit water—water pure enough to drink from—water pure enough to invigorate and refresh.

When you choose to support my work here, you are investing in me as surely as the patrons of the old artist invested in them—believing that there is something raw here that simply must come forth and be birthed.

Sometimes, to be honest, I get tripped up with my age. I think: “Steve, you sure are late to the party to be doing this.” And such a thought is often wrapped in shame and doubt, if I could go a bit deeper with you.  Just a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me what I did for a living.  That question is the one question that puts someone in a box. That box offers its own walls and seals that I could stay in. But I will not stay in a box. When she asked me “What do you do?” I didn’t even flinch. I said, “I am a poet.” And as I said it, I felt a smile deep inside me that I have not felt for  along time—a smile of satisfaction—a smile of arrival—a smile of new beginning no matter how late the clock says it is.

Here are some options to explore what might fit best with your journeying with me on the Substack path forward: