Tag: journey

Treading the Threshold Softly

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Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
~William Butler Yeats from “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven“

I know for a while again,
the health of self-forgetfulness,
looking out at the sky through
a notch in the valley side,
the black woods wintry on
the hills, small clouds at sunset
passing across. And I know
that this is one of the thresholds
between Earth and Heaven,
from which I may even step
forth from myself and be free.
~ Wendell Berry, Sabbaths 2000

John O’Donohue gave voice to the connection between beauty and those edges of life — thresholds was the word he loved—
where the fullness of reality becomes more stark and more clear.

If you go back to the etymology of the word “threshold,” it comes from “threshing,” which is to separate the grain from the husk. So the threshold, in a way, is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness.

There are huge thresholds in every life.

You know that, for instance, if you are in the middle of your life in a busy evening, fifty things to do and you get a phone call that somebody you love is suddenly dying, it takes ten seconds to communicate that information.

But when you put the phone down, you are already standing in a different world. Suddenly everything that seems so important before is all gone and now you are thinking of this. So the given world that we think is there and the solid ground we are on is so tentative.

And a threshold is a line which separates two territories of spirit, and very often how we cross is the key thing.

When we cross a new threshold worthily, what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere.
~John O’Donohue from an “On Being” interview with Krista Tippett on “Becoming Wise”

Over a decade ago, someone told me that my writing reflected a “sacramental” life —  touching and tasting the holiness of everyday moments, as if they are the cup and bread of God’s eternal grace and gift.

I allow those words to sit warmly beside me during the hours I struggle to know what to share here.

It is all too tempting to focus on sacrament over the sacrifice it represents.  As much as I love the world and the beauty in the moments I share here, we should explore the “thin places” between heaven and earth, through forgetting self, stepping forth through a holy threshold into something far greater.

I feel so unworthy — in fact, threshed to pieces most days, incapable of thinking of anything but how I feel reduced to fragments. Perhaps those fragments are like the droplets coming from a farm sprinkler at sunset, sparkling and golden despite waning light, bringing something essential to someone feeling dry, parched and dusty.

I may even step
forth from myself and be free.

Then we can walk each other home.

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Led Into a New Land

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It is precisely because we are weary, and poor in spirit, that God can touch us with hope. This is not an easy truth. It means that we do accept our common lot, and take up our share of the cross. It means that we do not gloss over the evils we confront every day, both within ourselves and without. Our sacrifices may be great.

But as the martyred archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, once said, it is only the poor and hungry, those who know they need someone to come on their behalf, who can celebrate Christmas.
We can ask for courage, however, and trust that God has not led us into this new land only to abandon us there.
~Kathleen Norris from God With Us

photo by Joel DeWaard

On Epiphany day,
     we are still the people walking.
     We are still people in the dark,
          and the darkness looms large around us,
          beset as we are by fear,
                                        anxiety,
                                        brutality,
                                        violence,
                                        loss —
          a dozen alienations that we cannot manage.

We are — we could be — people of your light.
     So we pray for the light of your glorious presence
          as we wait for your appearing;
     we pray for the light of your wondrous grace
          as we exhaust our coping capacity;
     we pray for your gift of newness that
          will override our weariness;
     we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust
          in your good rule.

That we may have energy, courage, and freedom to enact
         your rule through the demands of this day.
         We submit our day to you and to your rule, with deep joy and high hope.
~Walter Brueggemann from  Prayers for a Privileged People 

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
~Howard Thurman from The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations

O God,
who am I now?
Once, I was secure

in familiar territory
in my sense of belonging

unquestioning of 

the norms of my culture
the assumptions built into my language
the values shared by my society.

But now you have called me out and away from home
and I do not know where you are leading.
I am empty, unsure, uncomfortable.
I have only a beckoning star to follow.

Journeying God,
pitch your tent with mine
so that I may not become deterred
by hardship, strangeness, doubt.
Show me the movement I must make

toward a wealth not dependent on possessions
toward a wisdom not based on books
toward a strength not bolstered by might
toward a God not confined to heaven

but scandalously earthed, poor, unrecognized…

Help me find myself
as I walk in others’ shoes.
~Kate Compston “A Poem for Epiphany” from Bread of Tomorrow: Prayers for the Church Year

All the Advent anticipation is over, Christmas and New Years are now past. Today is Epiphany, when I regret my energy and courage is waning just as the work of Christmas must begin.

I’ve swept up the last of the fir needles that dropped to the floor from a lovely Christmas tree that I watered faithfully in the house for over two weeks. But no amount of water could sustain what is rootless.

So it is with us.

I too am drying up, parts of me left behind for others to sweep up. I too must have roots of faith to survive in a troubled world.

The real work of Christmas is year-long — often very hard intensive work, not always the fun stuff of the last month, yet needed in the brokenness of hunger, disease, conflict, war and random violence, poverty, addictions, depression and pain.

We don’t need full stockings on the hearth, Christmas villages on the side table, or a blinking star on the top of the tree to reflect on the comfort of God’s care and the astounding beauty of His creation, all available to us without batteries, electrical plug ins, or the need of a ladder.

The real work of Christmas is God manifest on earth – “scandalously earthed” – in our own lives. We recognize Him in the homeless and forgotten. We are made alive to the possibility that we can make a difference in His name, to walk in others’ shoes, just as He walks in ours.

Every day. Twelve months. Life long.

Are we ready?

Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his Glory Manifest.
~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany”

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We Are No Longer Alone: Journeying Together

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God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy. 

This is the great mystery of Christmas that continues to give us comfort and consolation: we are not alone on our journey. The God of love who gave us life sent his only Son to be with us at all times and in all places, so that we never have to feel lost in our struggles but always can trust that he walks with us.

The challenge is to let God be who he wants to be. A part of us clings to our aloneness and does not allow God to touch us where we are most in pain. Often we hide from him precisely those places in ourselves where we feel guilty, ashamed, confused, and lost.  Thus we do not give him a chance to be with us where we feel most alone.

Christmas is the renewed invitation not to be afraid and to let him – whose love is greater than our own hearts and minds can comprehend – be our companion.
~Henri Nouwen from Gracias: A Latin American Journal

To journey for the sake of saving our own lives
is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters,
even to ourselves, because it is only by
journeying for the world’s sake –
even when the world bores and sickens
and scares you half to death –
that little by little we start to come alive.
~Frederick Buechner from The Sacred Journey

In journeyings often,
in perils of waters,
in perils of robbers,
in perils by mine own countrymen,
in perils by the heathen,
in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness,
in perils in the sea,
in perils among false brethren;
In weariness and painfulness,
in watchings often,
in hunger and thirst,
in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness.
~2 Corinthians 11:26-27

Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night
and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow,
it is something to find here and there a spray broken,
or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot
and the brush of His hand as He passed;
and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed,
and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength
in the remembrance of Him as “in all points tempted like as we are,” bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.
~Alexander MacLaren

We are called to journey in our lives;
some no further than the backyard,
some to the ends of the earth,
some to the moon and back.

The journey is not about the miles covered
but about the internal trek we all must make
on the crooked road of our hearts,
searching for that straight path back to God.

Much of the journey, inner or outer, is perilous,
yet reassured by the signs He has been
down that road before us, knowing the temptations,
and bearing the grief we will face.

There is but one map available and one map maker.
All roads lead to our eternal home
where He waits for us,
keeping the light on for us.

AI image created for this post

This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.

God comes.

He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons

There is a joy in the journey,
There’s a light we can love on the way.
There is a wonder and wildness to life,
And freedom for those who obey.
All those who seek it shall find it,
A pardon for all who believe.
Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind
To all who’ve been born of the Spirit

And who share incarnation with him;
Who belong to eternity, stranded in time,
And weary of struggling with sin.
Forget not the hope
That’s before you,
And never stop counting the cost.
Remember the hopelessness when you were lost?
~Michael Card

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Going Back and Forth

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We were very tired, we were very merry —
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable —
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry —
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “Recuerdo”

Over my eight decades, I’ve taken many ferry rides between the islands and mainland in the local Salish Sea, sailed through the inland passage from Vancouver Island almost to Alaska, taken a multi-level behemoth between Ireland and Scotland, and overnighted in a bunk bed on a Lake Victoria steamship between Kenya and Tanzania.

Each ride might have been an exotic adventure, wonderfully escapist. Yet the point was always the destination. I needed to get there from here or return from there to here, rather than simply enjoying the back and forth.

I’ve been incapable of being carefree and merry, full of impulse and joy, especially when it costs me a night’s sleep.

Have I ever done anything just for the heck of it?

It’s true. Being born a stick-in-the-mud, a drudge, an “old soul” and a grind is a heavy burden to live with for seventy years.

Perhaps I’m overdue for simply cherishing the voyage without worrying about the details of how I’m getting there or whether it will be on time.

I’m not only thriving on the sweet nectar of apples and pears growing in our orchard, but must share what I don’t use with someone who needs it more than I do.

Then, at some point, having been back and forth and forth and back, I’ll be ready to head home, tired yet carefree and merry and sated, infinitely blissed and eternally blessed.

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A Finisterre Prayer

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What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?

What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?

The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.

What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree.
~Christian Wiman, “Hard Night”

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
~Carol Ann Duffy “Prayer”

photo by Bob Tjoelker

As a child falling asleep, I prayed to God with moans and groans echoing in my ears.

Growing up on a small farm located about two miles from a bay in Puget Sound, I found myself praying for safety on foggy nights as fog horns moaned in the distance. Scattered throughout the inlet, the horns called out mournful groans of warning to passing freighter ships. The resonant lowing of the horns carried miles over the surrounding landscape due to countless water particles in the fog transmitting sound waves so effectively. The louder the foghorn moan heard on our farm, the thicker and more hazardous the mist in the air. Those horns would make me unspeakably sad for reasons I could only articulate to God. Thus I prayed for the ships, and I prayed for my own shaky navigation through life.

Navigating blind in a fog necessitates taking unpredictable risks. The future can seem a murky mess. I cannot see what lies ahead: I navigate by my wits, by my best guess, but particularly by listening for the low-throated warnings coming from the rocky shores and shallows of those who have gone ahead of me.

I am easily lost in the fog of my fears – disconnected, afloat and circling aimlessly, searching for a touch point of purpose and direction. The isolation I sometimes feel may simply be my own self-absorbed state of mind, sucking me in deep until I’m soaked, dripping and shivering from the smothering gray. If only I trust the fog horn warnings and reassurances from the Word of God, I could charge into the future undaunted.

He is in the pea soup alongside me, awaiting the Sun’s dissipation of the fog. Now I know, nearly seventy years into this voyage, the fog eventually clears. The journey continues on beyond these shores.

Even so, I will keep praying with the resonant voices of wisdom and caution from shore, like the nightly tradition of the BBC radio shipping forecasts that calm so many to sleep to this day. Even a Finisterre (the end of the land) prayer holds us in safety as we find our way home.

Instead of echoing the anxious moans and groans of my childhood prayers, may my voice be heard singing an anthem of hope and promise.

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To God and to the Lamb: Taking a Few More Steps

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…the whole experience <of compline> is in some way a touching of the hem of Christ’s garment: something has been given, something disclosed. And the person holding a candle at compline may hear a call, and make a journey, as another stressed woman once did, from touching the hem of Christ’s garment to meeting him face to face.

… just occasionally, it opens into deeper things, on to more ultimate questions. Just occasionally, there is an opening of heart and soul, which in some sense the liturgy itself has made possible; and then it is that, just sometimes, someone takes a few more steps on that journey from the hem of his garment to the light of his countenance.
~Malcolm Guite from Poet’s Corner

Most of us are like that desperate woman hoping for healing by reaching out to touch the hem of His robe – ashamed to be so needy, hoping to go unnoticed, not actually wanting to bother anyone, but still helpless – so very helpless.

He knows when we reach out in desperation; He feels it.

So He lifts us up as we begin our journey to His light – from a touch of His hem to seeing His face.

It starts with reaching out. It starts with taking a few more steps.

And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?”  And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 3And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Mark 5: 30. 32-34

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

Before the ending of the day,
Creator of the world, we pray
That with Thy wonted favour Thou
Wouldst be our guard and keeper now.

From all ill dreams defend our eyes,
From nightly fears and fantasies;
Tread under foot our ghostly foe
That no pollution we may know.

O Father, that we ask be done
Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son,
Who with the Holy Ghost and Thee
Dost live and reign eternally.

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When to That Bright World We Arise: Listen, Watch, Wait

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Rain. An excuse to stand at the window
And listen, watch, wait. Listen: to the hush
Of the house as still as a dark burrow
Where an animal hides. Listen: the rush
Of occasional gusts, then the stillness.

Watch: the wrens hopping from stem to wet stem
Their happy bearing in contrast to titmice
Who always seem afraid. Watch: the mayhem
That strikes when the grumpy bluejay, twice
As big as the rest, frumps onto a branch.

Wait: for what? For the steady rain to cease.
Wait: for the fair sunlight to avalanche
Down from space and remake the world again.
Then let my steps be fearless, like the wren.
~Andrew Peterson “Lenten Sonnet”

bluejay photo by Josh Scholten

I’m the child of rainy Sundays.
I watched time crawl
Like an injured fly
Over the wet windowpane.
Or waited for a branch
On a tree to stop shaking,
While Grandmother knitted
Making a ball of yarn
Roll over like a kitten at her feet.
I knew every clock in the house
Had stopped ticking
And that this day will last forever.
~Charles Simic “To Boredom”

I’m never bored on a quiet rainy Sunday.

My list of to-do’s
and want-to-do’s
and hope-to-do’s
and someday-maybe-if-I’m-lucky-to-do’s
is longer than the days still left to me.

I cherish these Sabbaths
when the clock stops, and “to-do’s” will wait.
Time suspends itself above me,
~dangling~
and the day lasts forever.

Sunday evening scaries in anticipation of Monday
are prayed away.

On a drizzly day of rest and gratitude, the world is remade,
eternity moves a little closer, my steps become more fearless
and the new week is yet another part of the journey.

Does the rain have a father?
    Who fathers the drops of dew?
Job 38:28

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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Journeying

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All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

I should be glad of another death.
~T.S. Eliot from “Journey of the Magi”

O God,
who am I now?
Once, I was secure

in familiar territory
in my sense of belonging

unquestioning of 

the norms of my culture
the assumptions built into my language
the values shared by my society.

But now you have called me out and away from home
and I do not know where you are leading.
I am empty, unsure, uncomfortable.
I have only a beckoning star to follow.

Journeying God,
pitch your tent with mine
so that I may not become deterred
by hardship, strangeness, doubt.
Show me the movement I must make

toward a wealth not dependent on possessions
toward a wisdom not based on books
toward a strength not bolstered by might
toward a God not confined to heaven

but scandalously earthed, poor, unrecognized…

Help me find myself
as I walk in others’ shoes.
~Kate Compston “A Poem for Epiphany”

Deep midwinter, the dark center of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake,
Out of the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.

Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoning fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.
~Judith Bingham “Epiphany”

Unclench your fists

Hold out your hands.

Take mine.

Let us hold each other.

Thus is his Glory Manifest.
~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany”

…the scent of frankincense
and myrrh
arrives on the wind,
and I long
to breathe deeply,
to divine its trail.
But I know their uses
and cannot bring myself
to breathe deeply enough
to know
whether what comes
is the fragrant welcoming
of birth
or simply covers the stench of death.
These hands
coming toward me,
is it swaddling they carry
or shroud?
~Jan Richardson from Night Visions –searching the shadows of Advent and Christmas

Our troubles and concerns go on after Christmastide;
our frailty becomes daily reality.
We can be distracted by holidays for a few weeks,
but our time here slips away even more quickly.

The Christmas story is not just about
light and birth and joy to the world.
It is about how swaddling clothes became a shroud
that wrapped Him tight.

There is not one without the other.

God journeyed to be with us;
planted on and in the earth,
born so He could die in our place
leaving the shroud behind, neatly folded.

Christmas:  unwrapping that frees us forever.
Epiphany: journeying to find the Seed has taken root in our hearts

January 6, the traditional day of celebrating “Epiphany” as the manifestation of God on earth in the form of His incarnate Son, calls us to deeper scrutiny of our earthly journey —
away from our anger, our shame and our resultant homelessness,
to the restoration of our souls, resting in the sacrifice of Christ Himself.
He is the Seed growing within us.

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The Sunrise Shall Visit Us: We Don’t Journey Alone

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God came to us because he wanted to join us on the road, to listen to our story, and to help us realize that we are not walking in circles but moving towards the house of peace and joy.  This is the great mystery of Christmas that continues to give us comfort and consolation: we are not alone on our journey.  The God of love who gave us life sent his only Son to be with us at all times and in all places, so that we never have to feel lost in our struggles but always can trust that he walks with us.

The challenge is to let God be who he wants to be.  A part of us clings to our aloneness and does not allow God to touch us where we are most in pain.  Often we hide from him precisely those places in ourselves where we feel guilty, ashamed, confused, and lost.  Thus we do not give him a chance to be with us where we feel most alone.

Christmas is the renewed invitation not to be afraid and to let him – whose love is greater than our own hearts and minds can comprehend – be our companion.
~Henri Nouwen from Gracias: A Latin American Journal

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them;
 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Luke 24: 13-15, 31-32

I tend to walk through life blinded to what is really important, essential and necessary.  Self-absorbed,  immersed in my own troubles and concerns, I stare down at my own feet as I take each step, rather than looking forward at the road ahead.

Instead, I could be enrapt and listening to the Companion who has always walked beside me.

This living breathing walking God on the road to Emmaus feeds us from His word. I hunger for even more, my heart burning within me.  

Jesus makes plain how He Himself addresses my most basic needs:
He is the bread of life so I am fed.
He is the living water so I no longer thirst.
He is the light of dawn so I am never left in darkness.
He shares my yoke so my burden is easier.
He clothes me with righteousness so I am never naked.
He cleanses me when I am at my most soiled and repugnant.
He is the open door–always welcoming, with a room prepared for me.

So when I encounter Him along the road of my life — even if I don’t seem to be making progress, staying frozen in the same place —  I need to be ready to recognize him, listen, invite Him in to stay, share whatever I have with Him. When He breaks bread and hands me my piece, I want to accept it with open eyes of gratitude, knowing the gift He hands me is nothing less than Himself and I’ll never be the same again. I hunger for even more, my heart burning within me.  

Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on’ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God’s Angels in heaven to sing
He surely could have it, ’cause he was the King

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on’ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
~Appalachian Carol

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These Things We Depend On

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This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds’ night migrations.

It grieves me to think
the dead won’t see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.

What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won’t need
these pleasures anymore;
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.
~Louise Glück “The Night Migrations”

(Louise Glück died yesterday at age 80; she was both a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry)

All through August and September
            thousands, maybe
tens of thousands, of feathered
            creatures pass through
this place and I almost never see
            a single one. The fall
wood warbler migration goes by here
            every year, all of them,
myriad species, all looking sort of like
            each other, yellow, brown, gray,
all muted versions of their summer selves,
            almost indistinguishable
from each other, at least to me, although
            definitely not to each other,
all flying by, mostly at night, calling to each
            other as they go to keep
the flock together, saying: chip, zeet,
            buzz, smack, zip, squeak—
            those
sounds reassuring that we are
            all here together and
heading south, all of us just passing
            through, just passing
through, just passing through, just
            passing through.
~David Budbill “Invisible Visitors” from Tumbling Toward the End

Some feathered travelers slip past us unseen and unheard. 
They may stop for a drink in the pond
or a bite to eat in the field and woods,
but we never know they are there – simply passing through.

Others are compelled to announce their journey
with great fanfare, usually heard before seen. 
The drama of migration becomes bantering conversation
from bird to bird, bird to earth, bird to sun, moon and stars,
with unseen magnetic forces pointing the way.

When not using voices, their wings sing the air
with rhythmic beat and whoosh.

We’re all together here — altogether —
even when our voices are raised sharply,
our silences brooding, our hurts magnified, our sorrows deep.
Our route and mode of travel become a matter of intense debate.

The ultimate destination is not in dispute however. 
It isn’t simply enough to just be,
but to be heading to where we belong,
to that which we depend upon.
We are migrating souls finding a way back home
where all is solace, all is meaning,
all is grace, all is peace.

We’re just passing through,
just passing through, just passing through.

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