This poem was written for a Peace Project organized by Judy Fisk Lucas. I wrote it thinking of the flooding along the Mississippi a few years back, but it seems relevant every time another place falls to waters, like Nashville, just recently.

I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river in my soul. ~ African American spiritual

After the storm,
hissing, roiling waters burst through
sandbag levees; the river
brings no peace at all.
Waters carry death and carnage,
waters carry stories and belongings,
waters carry worry and fear,
hope and need and new beginnings.

After the flood,
after waters recede, settling between
banks, whispering of dreams and desires,
even before debris can be cleared,
shoots spring up from sated earth
skyward; like hope, eternal.
New-washed land shows signs of life.
Et in terra pax.*

*And on earth, peace.

To learn more about Kelly, visit her website.

This week’s image ~ from the Cascading Water series of Lucie Grenier.
Thumbnail image ~ from the Cascading Water series of Lucie Grenier.

Poetry arises out of the unknown and speaks to what we do know. ~ W.S. Merwin

Contemporary American poet W.S. Merwin thus affirms what philosopher-poet Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi penned eight centuries ago in his poem “Two Kinds of Intelligence”:

There are two kinds of intelligence.
One is that acquired by a child at school
from books and teachers, new ideas and memorization.
Your intelligence may become superior to others,
but retaining all that knowledge is a burden.
You who are so busy searching for knowledge
must be a preserving tablet, but the preserved tablet
is the one who has gone beyond all this.

For the other kind of intelligence is the gift of God:
its fountain is deep within the soul.
When the water of God-given knowledge surges from the breast,
it never stagnates or becomes impure.
And if its way to the outside is blocked, what harm is there?
For it flows continually from the house of the heart.
The acquired intelligence is like the conduits
which run into the house from the streets:
if those pipes become blocked, the house is bereft of water.
Seek the fountain within yourself.

In an illuminative 2009 interview with journalist Bill Moyers, Merwin speaks about the importance of listening deeply to “the fountain within yourself” – the other kind of intelligence – so near to poets, yet present in all thinking human beings.

Wisdom, resounding through the ages.

English translation of “Two Kinds of Intelligence” by Camille and Kabir Helminski,  Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance.

Thumbnail image by Lucie Grenier.

Don’t go outside your house to see flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.

One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
Before gardens and after gardens.

~ Kabir, translation by Robert Bly

This week’s image ~ Many-Petalled Rose.
Thumbnail image ~ Coastal Victorian, Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz, California.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

This week’s image ~ above right ~ Gabilan Range, Monterey County, California.
Thumbnail image ~ Gabilan Dawn.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gavilan means “hawk” in Spanish (gabilan may be an older rendering or a misspelling). Hawks, especially re-tailed hawks, are common in these mountains. Author John Steinbeck referenced the Gabilan Range in his writing.

Don’t think for a blue minute
peace lies in dreamy eyes of smiling Buddha
blinking across fields of pink blossoms.

Peace is no quaint scene,
no warm aroma of homemade cookies.
Nor, sound of luggage placed on holy
ground.

Peace is constant motion,
careful balance,
endless vigil,
rush of a purposeful journey.

Peace is not the people
who sit quietly by
as civil injustice, office politics,
and environmental degradation
unfold before them.

Peace is the courage
to speak out,
shatter comfort,
demand justice.

Peace is not the people around you suddenly
linking arms and taking up song.
Peace is the cumbersome process of
controlling your own temper
so you can smile at ornery colleagues and
small children who contradict you.

That Buddha is not napping
in his field of delicate blossoms.
He’s resting from a conflict resolution
conference
with his roommate.
He is considering
the next move he will make
to stir petals into beauty.

Wake up to the people around you, he calls.
Steady yourself for a long life of
patience, sincere communication,
Bravery, love.

When you hear him,
you will notice the vital peace
of an artist’s hand working paint
onto huge canvases.

~ © Kimberly Wilder *. Reprinted by permission.

* The most important thing to Kimberly Wilder and to her husband Ian – both writers and and poets – is the end of all wars.  Kimberly’s poem, Painted Blossoms, was submitted to Valentine Peace Project and accompanied many of the flowers gifted to residents and visitors of Amsterdam on February 14, 2010.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In Ethics for a New Millennium (p. 203), the Dalai Lama writes:

Peace is not something which exists independently of us, nor is war. It is true that certain individuals – political leaders, policymakers, army generals – do have particularly grave responsibilities in respect to peace. However, these people do not come from nowhere. They are not born and brought up in outer space. Like us, they are nourished by their mother’s milk and affection. They are members of our human family and have been nurtured within the society which we as individuals have helped create. Peace in the world thus depends on peace in the hearts of individuals. This in turn depends on us all practicing ethics by disciplining our response to negative thoughts and emotions and developing basic spiritual qualities.

This week’s image ~ above right ~ Serenade (artistic rendition).
Thumbnail image ~ September Roses (artistic rendition).

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
-it’s april(yes,april;my darling)it’s spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving-
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
-alive;we’re alive,dear:it’s(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living-
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
-it’s spring(all our night becomes day)o,it’s spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

~ e.e. cummings

This week’s image ~ above right ~ Felicity.
Thumbnail image ~ Pansy Violet.

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread. ~ Pablo Neruda

Sorting quickly through my stack of mail, among generic-looking bills, color flyers, and slick magazines, I stop at a plain white envelope – addressed in blue ink, in neat, medium-sized, left-leaning hand-printing – and open it first: a sweet Thank You note from my 15-year-old niece.

Do you remember the last personal letter you received or sent?

Americans exchange loads of text messages, emails, and a whopping 7 billion greeting cards every year. Despite this, the number of us who hand write messages is diminishing.

And none will hear the postman’s knock
Without a quickening of the heart.
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
~W.H. Auden

And yet when we announce meaningful events in our lives or share our deepest thoughts, most of us don’t opt for practicality – read computer printed text. Adding our personal touch is worth the extra time and effort (How did I used to write those fancy capital letters in cursive, anyway?) because we instinctively know that in communications hand-written with care, we give more of ourselves. Hand-written correspondence is not only more human, but has greater power to convey its message. Children sense this at an early age. They often make cards, especially Valentines, or small gifts as a way of showing their affection. These precious mementos find lasting homes in our family albums.

Allison Joseph captures the beauty of a handwritten message in her poem, Elegy for the Personal Letter:*

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges
ragged as their scribbled messages—
can’t much write now—thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at—
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far—
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

* From My Father’s Kites. © Steel Toe Books, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

Video above right ~ Comedian Kevin James, parodying a woman searching for the “perfect” greeting card.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like: Near To Heart And Hand.

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

This week’s image: Geraniums of Old Pescadero.
Thumbnail image: Red Camellia.

Ref. International Geranium Society and American Camellia Society.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand,
and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

~ Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (Stanza 31).

This week’s image and thumbnail ~ Olema Valley, California.