oh walk me to a boulder
half-way up the mountain, covered with lichen
and damp with fog, where i can lean my back
and weep. oh my grandfathers, who walked
away from your farms and sailed west
from dark shores to save your sons from the finely-
gloved hands that would strip us of our rakes, our saws
and ploughs, that would lock swords into hands meant
to catch newborn foals and light peat fires in autumn.
oh grandfathers who made your way to these hills,
will you sit with me a moment and add your grief
to mine? i will take it. i will feel it burst from my heart
and flow into this great rock at my back, and sink
down and down into the all-remembering earth.
i was twenty one before the sight of blind injustice
knocked me to my knees and i came back to these mountains
to know my people. in the basement of the church i sat next to
my mother's father cecil at the love feast. we ate canned fruit
in paper bowls, the women on one side and the men on the other,
and then we passed a metal basin of warm water, and one
at a time, on the bench, we washed one another's feet - my father
galen washed mine, and the i washed cecil's, held in my hands
the heavy feet that had walked the peach orchards on the top
of tinker mountain for decades before slipping awkwardly into
leather shoes for the treasurer's office at the little college
in the valley. and as it was meant to be, from this gathering,
stubborn and shy like a herd of cattle that moves over the ridge
away from the road, the knowledge entered my heart that jesus
did walk this earth, and his hands knew how to touch.
and jesus went to the wilderness, and jesus rested his back
against a boulder and he wept, and jesus rose with fire
in his eyes and sent his shout into the center of the whirlwind,
and jesus felt love and compassion trickle into secret pools
and rivers under the crusted blind face of the world of men,
and jesus walked back down into the streets of the city
with his touching hands and his blazing eyes and his
grieving heart, and his shout came back around as torrents
of sweet rain, and each raindrop said, HERE I AM.
~chris weaver
i can do like jesus did,
pour love and compassion
into the deep wells of the world
so it can go deep down and water the roots of everything
and find its way up through the stalks
to the flowers opening out into the world,
and when lots of people do the same
we will again remember that
we are all part of creation
and need to take care of what we have
~eiwor
"open space in place"
long old roots
inching deep into the dark mineral body,
with each one's shallow feeder roots
intricately tangled with everyone else's,
all surging into the above-ground life,
the leafy top exchanging breath
with the clouds and the winged ones
~christy
