Writ in Water

every morning, who stitches the clouds together,

whether the sun rises or the dawn looks bleak,

long since bleached of color, dishwater blue,

draining down from the frothy soap heavens

and onto my journal, where I write, blurring the words

obscuring the lines between lines and lies

and who would lie to a diary, unless the skies

are liquid azure and the sun melted gold -

and even when

rivers from melted snow from falling water

lifted from the sea split from the streams

passed along the rivers - even in redundancy

water is never drudgery, but sometimes currents

submerge into waters cold and dark

or distant ponds of algae and forest swans

gather wings, lilies, and frogs in a silent, monastic

hymn of morning, and if no one is around to listen

I think the music streams into the seas of our souls

without a doubt, John, all life is writ in water

Words from Winnie the Pooh

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.

~ AA Milne - Winnie the Pooh

I'll admit a certain fascination with Winnie the Pooh as a child, though the Heffalumps and Woozels terrified me. There is something positively frightening about every ignoble character in every childhood movie I watched that forced me into watching from around corners. I couldn't watch the flying monkeys from wizard of oz, or stick around for the cheshire cat (still creeps me out, even in the book a bit), or numerous other baddies that rattled my bones with fright. Luckily, most childhood movies provide easy musical and visual cues (thunderstorms and minor chords) for indicating a scene wherein the villains are present: "time to hide behind mom" cues.

But I was looking through some Winnie the Pooh and stumbled across these gems. I love rivers, the snaking waters slithering down hillsides and mountains and stretching lazily across the plains on an adventure into the seas. Sometimes I remember these when playing Pooh-sticks on long hikes, or just when running along the riverbanks, or crossing the Columbia into Oregon or Washington, or when canoeing or kayaking, remember that I know everything needing knowing. It is like Keats said, though nature speaks fewer words:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all  

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

~Keats - Ode to a Grecian Urn

In those moments of beauty, watching the rivers and the mountains and the trees, all at peace, do I need know anything else? The Lord is near. 

And the second quote, which shames me sometimes in my busyness or impatience. It is like Abraham, when promised a son that is not forthcoming in many years, loses patience with God and goes in to his wife's maidservant. Sometimes that same quality of impatience is upon me, and I, without waiting on God's timing,  make a fool of myself and miss the mark. ...there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. Paulo Coehlo (author of the Alchemist and Veronika Decides to die - the latter is where this quote comes from) writes, "The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter." I'm forever leaping too early, or too late, and rarely listening to the whispering and shouting, beckoning and patient voice of Yeshua.  Wait. Listen. Leap into the arms of God.

I conceived a sunrise poem this morning, which I've temporarily named, "The dawn of day in beauty". In it, I discussed some of these ideas in verse, and I rather enjoy how it came out. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, a glad morning of fellowship and friends. I'm ready for the week, though patiently so. Let's go.