This is a good place to be born ...

This is a good place to be born.

The damp of the soil breathes out a cool welcome.

The hill, seeking the river below,

at this point cleaves itself,

        willed or not, to make a nest.

In the cleft, the water slows, swerves,

digs deeper, seeking only after the scent of gravity.

Slowed, the water falls prey to waiting seeds who, in growing,

slow it further, harnessing it to their leafy offspring.

The gift of earth-mother is the gift of permanence.

She waits coolly for us to come to her.

Receiving no promise of gentleness, we come

and find a place to rest.

She moves where she moves. 

Sometimes, in fits she awakens and throws aside her covering of people.

She brings mountains down and waters up - driven by personal fires within that even her lithic calm sometimes lets slip.

When she rests, we come back to her folds, mistaking her dormancy for sanctuary; her inattention for peace.

I wait. My waiting is not for you, but yours to use while it is here.

I love the warmth of your presence and the coolness of your absence.

My dance is the same, come or go.

You must live your unquiet.

For reasons I cannot see, you were born to heat and noise.

I will hold my quiet until the need of it

fills your ears.

You will try to touch the sun.

I will wait in the shade of my own making for you to slip down again.

Upon your singed fall I await. You will have need of coolness.

I am first-mother.

I am first-lover.

Your qualities make you long for me beyond your reach.

You hunger to find all, and to bring all with you.

Wisdom is in knowing what to leave behind,

what to trust to remain.

Find the stars - I will be here.

"... but then he was abruptly halted ..." - Kent Haruf, d. 11/30/14

excerpt from Benediction, Kent Haruf
“And so we know the satisfaction of hate. We know the sweet joy of revenge. How it feels good to get even. Oh, that was a nice idea Jesus had. That was a pretty notion, but you can't love people who do evil. It's neither sensible or practical. It's not wise to the world to love people who do such terrible wrong. There is no way on earth we can love our enemies. They'll only do wickedness and hatefulness again. And worse, they'll think they can get away with this wickedness and evil, because they'll think we're weak and afraid. What would the world come to?

But I want to say to you here on this hot July morning in Holt, what if Jesus wasn't kidding? What if he wasn't talking about some never-never land? What if he really did mean what he said two thousand years ago? What if he was thoroughly wise to the world and knew firsthand cruelty and wickedness and evil and hate? Knew it all so well from personal firsthand experience? And what if in spite of all that he knew, he still said love your enemies? Turn your cheek. Pray for those who misuse you. What if he meant every word of what he said? What then would the world come to?

And what if we tried it? What if we said to our enemies: We are the most powerful nation on earth. We can destroy you. We can kill your children. We can make ruins of your cities and villages and when we're finished you won't even know how to look for the places where they used to be. We have the power to take away your water and to scorch your earth, to rob you of the very fundamentals of life. We can change the actual day into actual night. We can do these things to you. And more.

But what if we say, Listen: Instead of any of these, we are going to give willingly and generously to you. We are going to spend the great American national treasure and the will and the human lives that we would have spent on destruction, and instead we are going to turn them all toward creation. We'll mend your roads and highways, expand your schools, modernize your wells and water supplies, save your ancient artifacts and art and culture, preserve your temples and mosques. In fact, we are going to love you. And again we say, no matter what has gone before, no matter what you've done: We are going to love you. We have set our hearts to it. We will treat you like brothers and sisters. We are going to turn our collective national cheek and present it to be stricken a second time, if need be, and offer it to you. Listen, we--

But then he was abruptly halted.”