Category: Tenneson Woolf Poetry

I had one of those nights that wasn’t all sleep. The sleep was good, when I slept. And about 4:00 I woke with lots of ideas and dreams coming to call on me.

It’s regular practice for me to journal. To catch some of those ideas and dreams. And over the last five years, the form of that journalling has become quite prosed. Truth is, it just helps me to see it better. Not that different than the seeing better that many of us find in images. Or pause. Or sound. Or…

For inspiration.

This is a time 
when I’m called 
to live more deeply 
into the values that I so espouse for and with others.

A season,
of courageous listening and practice,
of aspirations and clarity that lift
life and love.

It’s not too surprising 
that I, or anyone seeking to live alive and awake,
would feel such times of change and challenge.

Kindness seeks kindness.
Consciousness organizes with consciousness.
Mystery wants to play with mystery.

Perhaps Life is working me and us,
or playing me and us, 
or inviting me and us.

Or just doing what Life does,  
what it can’t not do,
like the sun does what the sun does,
and like the river does what the river does.

What a delightful miracle
to feel aliveness,
alone and with others,
in this continued unfolding
of deep invitation.

Fun to see the Crocus arriving,
as it is every year.

They are the first of the flowering bulbs in my garden
that find their way to blossom.

They hold my attention,
inviting a bit of wonder,
and beauty.

They invite my commitment,
to a day of wonder
and beauty,

in the things on my calendar,
and to the unplanned spaces between.

My offering today is another expression of relationship between “quiet” and “loud.” It is true for me that the world often feels loud. That it overlooks a contemplative way that I so love, and that it overlooks an “emptied” experience.

I doubt that this will change much. So, I return myself to how I orient myself, my sometimes denied inner loudness, to live as a kind human being, contributing in what I hope are mostly good ways. I don’t like the competitiveness that can live in loudness. The way that loudness hijacks the game, or the life path.

And so I keep noticing, sometimes through poetic form.

What of the Loudness?

I suppose it is true
that an inherent quietness lives within me.
That I seek to enjoy the slow turns
that honor transitions, blending one soft now to the next.

What of the loudness?

But then it is also true
that there is a normed loudness in the world that defaults to provocation.
That persists with volume,
that aligns with amplification, 

There is the loudness of circumstance.
It is world’s news of this and of that, real things,
that exceed a human capacity to attend,
and thus is so often elevated to categorical extremes.

What of the loudness?

There is the loudness of people doing what people do.
It is the passion for this and of that, real things,
people in varied causes,
shouting over needed distinctions of yours and ours.

What of the loudness?

And then there is the loudness that is deeply and personally within me.
It is the hope of this and that, real things,
that brings forward long buried fears,
silenced voice that lives under old hurts.

What of the loudness?

I suppose it is true that like many others,
I am coming to terms with the loudness in me
that wishes witness,
and companionship with that sweet beautiful quietness.