Arjuna at Antietam

Posted on June 1, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

At Antietam,
Arjuna looked across the sunken road,
at his brothers and his teachers,
gathered for the slaughter.
And he turned to chariot driver, and asked,
“Great teacher, show me America.”

And Uncle Sam pulled down his beard,
and in the gun barrels of his eyes, Arjuna saw
the Vegas Strip and the pre-dawn hunt of the Lenni Lenape,
the shade of mountains on the Colorado River,
the thousand-and-one colors of the Kwik-E-Mart.
His lips shot off fireworks and wrote the blogosphere;
jewels of sweetgrass and petroleum,
gems of methamphetamines and glutamate hung from
skin as radiant as the fires beneath the space shuttle.
in her multiple arms, ze held the first flight of the airplane,
and a mournful trumpet in the French quarter,
and Harriet Tubman making her way North, and back South again,
and the atom bomb,
and beef brisket, and the first sight of Ellis Island,
and the steps Coyote made for the Salmon people,
and the runoff of Dow Chemical,
and a man, lynched under a tree,
and freedom,
and music,
and the local school board elections.

All this, and more, Arjuna saw, in a single muzzle flash.
Afterward, he sat upon the ground.
“Get up now,” said the charioteer,
“Enter the field, and find what glory you can.”

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Losing Faith

Posted on May 24, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

First, we lost our faith in the old man in the big chair,
and then we lost our faith in God.

We lost faith in the New York Yankees,
the military-industrial complex,
progress,
and the Electrolux microwave oven.

We lost faith in the absolution of the electric chair,
and the grace note of education.

We lost faith in Jimmy Swaggart and the Holy Ghost.
And Casper, the Friendly Ghost, went out the same door.

We lost our faith in Dr. Fauci, and the Bomb,
the Princeton Review,
and the milk of human kindness.

We lost faith in the earth’s ability
to be larger than we are.

We stopped reciting the Pledge of Allegiance,
stopped singing Staying Alive,
stopped believing there was really no business
like show business.

We lost faith in Captain Jack and Aquawoman,
and all their teams of lawyers.
We lost faith in men,
and then stopped believing her.
We don’t even believe us, anymore.

We lost faith in the historical record,
and tell no tales
without first consulting our lawyers.

We lost faith in clipping coupons,
and personal computers,
and redemption,
and cast all upon the heap.

We put aside childhood dreams,
at the appropriate time,
and grew too old, even, for wisdom.

We wandered out from once upon a time,
threw out the old unicorn bones,
and yet discovered no home
in the present moment.

We lost faith in conversation
as our opponents tore us to ribbons in the press;
we lost faith in conversion,
as we saw nothing in our opponents
worth turning to anything.

How very good we are
at scorching everything
that is no longer useful to us.

Still, I have heard it is in the desert
where faith is found.

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Your Monday blessing: At Least

Posted on May 16, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

At least
an elm tree
sitting amidst birdsong
under cloudy skies

At least
this much peace
right now

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Passover

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

Even today, Passover is a miracle.

Last night, there were houses not skipped by plague,
Bullets found their way through windows and bone,
And in so many guises, the horrible
moment – the long-feared moment – paid its visit.

This happens again and again,
to those who break down at the bedside,
and those who toss and turn within.

And you, who have woken to a so-called ordinary day,
you reckon all these things and curse God,
you wonder at the makeup of the stars,
when even now, the moon of your heart
is gazing at the world, waiting for your permission
to turn itself towards mercy.

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Friends of the Red Bird

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

There are a few creatures on this earth of ours,
that I like to imagine
know just about everything
there is to know:
cats, of course; and the cherry blossom fully illuminated;
and Mary Oliver. The cat rushes
to his square window and I to mine,
desperate for confirmation of some murky desire of the heart
that has not – in us, at least – blossomed into words.
Mary Oliver has read Socrates, and just the other day
Socrates saw a red bird:
and so he I think he will forgive me
for saying that the only true knowledge
is a sparrow flying under the wings of an American Sweetgum
whether or not I am there to see it.

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Holiday

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

Climate change is bad, but
the all-expenses-paid trip you took
to Bermuda today
with everyone else in the Tri-state area
was not bad, really, but good.

How to account for it? Maybe
soak in the rays, extend joyful
islander vibes to the other souls
lucky enough to live here,
and, if you can manage it,
buy no plastic.
And if not, hold more to the heavy weight
of grace than that sin, already wafting away
on the breeze.

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Changes

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

He woke up one morning, from fitful sleep, to discover he was now an average-sized human. It all felt a bit unreal at first, and he wasn’t really interested in getting up. He was aware of the vast space around him, and a vague loneliness engulfed him. But then, seized by the energy of the day, he swung his legs over the bed and discovered they functioned quite well for the purpose: one quick shake and they were over the side of the bed, and then the feet provided an adequate base for his wobbly body on the floor.

Continue reading →
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The Meadow

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

Dedicated to UU Catskills’ New Members, 2022

Nature is always telling the story
of the individual and the collective

Every solitary blade of grass
in a field of ten billion
grows only to its own inner rhythm;
dances out, on its own terms,
its own relationship to the sun and the rain,
motion and time.

And also: each blade is the meadow
and the meadow is it.
And not just the grass, but all the wildflowers
and lichen and bugs and
clumps of dirt and everything else,
even the little purple flowers that
ought to be in some other field,
according to someone’s reckoning,
a reckoning of which the little purple flowers,
while dazzling with their beauty,
mind not one whit.

Nature is always telling us the story
that to live, alone and together,
is a glorious and chaotic adventure.

Here at the congregation, we live that story
according to our human nature.
We are not asking you to change who you are,
to sacrifice
one smidgen of your own peculiar glory.
We are saying: look to the meadow
of which your glory is an integral part.
Be aware of those around you,
nurture your awareness of the beauty of difference,
do not mistake your own worth
for a dogmatic stamp upon the world.
Look to the glory of the meadow.
Make room, sometimes, for the dance of your neighbor.
If the breeze calls you to it, dance along yourself.

Give of yourself: which is not to say
take away any part of who you really are,
but to live yourself out more expansively,
stretch to the heavens with a selfless joy,
letting go of all that clinging,
knowing that you are the meadow,
you are the earth,
you are the lover and the beloved in this
beloved community of all life,
you are fully and utterly yourself and beyond yourself,
and it is happening right now,
and it is glorious.

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Scheduled Attempts at Delight

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

In December, the people turn their attention
to joy.
We don’t do it well, of course:
the baubles are tacky, the sales crowded,
we line up in a fifty-minute queue
to see exactly what we already knew was going to happen,
happen just as we knew it would, only less so.

Across the land, our family gatherings miraculously combine
the natural ease of a middle school dance
with the gaiety of the Hundred Years War.

We aren’t stupid, we people.
we know just how bad we are at joy.
Exhibit A, your aunt, in her Christmas sweater
at the edge of the sofa,
fingers clasping her brandy snifter for dear life,
meeting only the old familiar terror in the eye.  

But still, be kind, you old cynic,
and note down
all the times we let a child, at long last,
rule the world.

Because it could be so, so much worse.
Once we devoted ourselves to efficiency,
and we invented the cell phone.

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Safecracker

Posted on May 12, 2022 by bobjanisdillon

happiness
can be cultivated
perhaps
boil the kettle for a cup of tea
or go for a walk
or write a twelve-part novel on the love life of the urban sasquatch
and happiness could easily grow
in fact
happiness is a little like crabgrass
it doesn’t take all that much to grow it really
when the sun is in the right quadrant of the sky
or the pertinacious stuff of the sidewalk cracks
is just going to do its thing
no matter
effing
what
ideally happiness can use a little watering
if you have the energy to tilt the can
today
and if not
remember
happiness is also an explosion out of nowhere
and the great safecracker in the sky
has no interest in locking down joy
in its customary places

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