Splintered Vision

 

It's a week of hard reality for me. My oldest brother, 92, has been admitted to hospice. 

I feel such sadness while facing the end of a relationship I've known all my years. I feel distracted and forget common steps in my routine. I'm #9 in a family of 10, and my younger brother and I have talked about the likelihood of watching our siblings go, one by one. There are six of us now, and as Emil approaches the end of his days, I lament that soon we will be five. It doesn't get easier.

We called him "Brother" in our home. After the first two girls, when Emil came along it must have seemed a natural nickname. I think he was about to get married before someone said to me, "You know... his named isn't actually Brother. It's Emil." Seriously... I remember being shocked! "What??? We all call him Brother!" I was too young to question the name "Brother." Seems funny now... and sweet. 

Emil had taken to calling me recently. We talked about poetry, among other things, and he would give me advice about my writing. One time I read him a poem that I liked... it fell flat... it was hard for him to "get it" over the phone. He listened and then asked, "Is that it?"  Haha. Yeah... that was it. "Well, let me read you a poem I like." So I listened, and he read me one of my own poems. (See it here.) What a sweetie.

When I saw this close-up of a dragonfly's wing with such beauty, transparency, and complex shapes, it spoke to me of sadness, beauty, mystery and hope, and it led to this ekphrastic poem:

Grief

splinters my vision

I look

but can't see, and

what I do see

is out of focus

the veil...

luminous panes

of organic shapes

pangs of beauty

in utter confusion

Where are you?

I can't find you

in this maze

despite this soft light

these colors seeping through

Still... I sense 

respite

buoyancy

beauty

glory

How I will miss you...

I can only go on

praying

remembering

grateful for shared time

reliving laughter

seeking the light beyond.

© Karen Eastlund

Thanks for visiting today. Come along with the rest of the Poetry Friday gang to the gathering at Christie's Wondering and Wondering. You'll find some wonderful thoughts on poetry there.

When Stars Sing

The world around us goes it's way ...blithely...confidently...blooming in season and then letting go, each in turn...rising and falling... with little regard for us. Summer turns to fall, and fall to winter, in spite of our messes, our dishonesties, our foul ups, our inequities. That is something to ponder. Sometimes I need to look outside of the human sphere for wisdom or hope. Consider the lilies of the field... or the stars above...

Image by Pexels of Pixabay

A verse from Job caught my imagination this week:  The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.  Job 38:7

Recently I saw a Great Performances PBS show, one in a series called "Now Hear This" with Scott Yoo. In his discussion of Schubert, he mentioned the ephemeral quality of music, how invisible threads of harmony ... or sometimes dissonance...come together to create something of great beauty. But those same threads seem to wander off, or maybe dance off, into the universe once the piece is over. There's something so beautiful and ephemeral and mysterious about that idea, and for me it connects with the idea of the stars singing. Think of the universe in concert: twirling, revolving, dancing, humming, singing... sometimes even twanging away. Day in and day out, the stars sing and twirl without one worry about us. The glory and the majesty of it is overwhelming. I want to be part of that choir!

The best and perhaps only way I can expand on this idea is to share a favorite piece of music. I hope you will enjoy it, and perhaps even shout for joy!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcYzO8Y4PH0

October is my favorite month of the year; the cool air, the beauty of the leaves, several personal celebrations. It is also a time of grief for me. It was in October that I lost a child to bacterial meningitis, many years ago. In one way or another, we all carry grief with us, especially this year... and so I hope that in sharing and honoring our memories we might all know we are not alone, that our separateness will dissolve as quoted below, and that we might grow in understanding and empathy. If you wish, feel free to share the names of your loved ones in the comments below. God bless you all.

Andrew Owen Eastlund, 1982

These musing are in response to this quote from Enneathought which arrived via Margaret Simon:
"Consider the Holy Ideas today: No matter what type you are, in Holy Love, our sense of separateness dissolves, and we know ourselves as arising from the brilliant light of Divine Love that creates and sustains the universe."

Margaret hosts our Spiritual Journey group today at Reflections on the Teche. Thanks, Margaret!