Morning walk with poets

At the Holy Cross Monastery in upstate New York, Episcopal monks have created a space of spirit & hospitality that draws people from all over. I met people from a wide variety of professions, many from “the City” (meaning NYC) wanting–no, needing, to get away. There were others from further south (like New Jersey) and one from Montreal. Multiple languages and colors and ages were present. Some took a train, others drove. Some came in groups, most seemed to have come alone desperate for the prayerful presence on the banks of the Hudson River since 1902. The brothers worship five times a day and visitors are welcome to join them–more people took them up on that for vespers (at 5p.m. or 9 a.m. communion) — very few made it up for the early morning or last of the day service.

Check out the ELUMC facebook page for photos. Here’s the poem I created after my morning walk down to the river.

A morning walk with poets

Who says a labyrinth has to spiral to the center?

When that one is snow covered and its path impossible to discern
the snowy walk to the water became my labyrinth meditation,

with each deliberate step, slowed by discipline and slippery conditions.

Feeling my way in the footsteps of others,
often finding ease in the careful placement of my own path.

The wind moans through the trees
sounds echo somewhere from a distance–human, maybe,
or perhaps a former generation of holy men who built this place in 1902.

Deer have been this way overnight
and a variety of woodland creatures too light to leave a mark
on the crunchy, icy surface sparkling
like the glitter of fairy dust catching the light
on what remains of winter
clinging to the ground after passing into spring.

Down, curve, over, down
choosing at times the safer path of sliding on my backside
despite its humiliations and appearances.

There is a bench but I do not need the rest
only the clarity of the journey,
the in and then out of the labyrinth.

Moving forward to that edge,
as David Whyte says poets do,
where rushing (water) meets (mountain) stillness
and another bench bids me pause,
reflect, consider, listen.
A seagull overhead does not call out harshly my place in the world
as Mary Oliver’s wild geese sometimes do.

An iron rose and mother’s symbolic presence
has spoken to others of the thinness of this place
and so I add my stone to theirs not because I must
but because the invitation is deep
Robert Francis proclaims it:

You who have meant to come, come now
With strangeness on the morning snow.
You who were meant to come, come now.
If you were meant to come, you’ll know.

The tidal river weaves by, one of two
the bishop’s widow said must be crossed to be here.
She named them sacred, blessing us in our travels.

The waves lick the land in endearing cadence
taking the place of Wagoner’s trees announcing “Here”
you are not lost.

Bells toll announcing the beginning of worship
the more formal, indoor variety
with words and voices–human–raised.

May the prayers of this natural cathedral,
my gratitude, mixed with cummings for this amazing day,
be woven into the generations of the faithful
whose witness names this place of holy cross.

Another trail beckons beyond, touching the edge
but I return the way I came,
choosing the way of the labyrinth, retracing my steps,
up, over, curve, up
to the place of retreat for three days
to the place within called home,
to know it again, with Eliot, for the first time.

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