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Essence: Poetry of the 2012 Conference, Part 1
June 16, 2012
One of the true joys of the Conference is the poetry spoken within the larger container that we create there. Their essence, like the environment we experience as we hear them, tends to seep into and become part of us, and afterwards frequently give rise to a longing to revisit those pieces of poetry that particularly spoke to us.
This posting is the first of a handful that will bring some of those wonderful poems back to be savored again (or newly introduce them), for which we thank the authors and the men who spoke them in that time and place.
The first post is from Brother Bill.
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From Bill Denham:
On the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend I was standing in a redwood grove a few miles East of the Mendocino coast line, not far from a beautifully rustic old hall with moss covered roof shingles and a giant stone fireplace and chimney, built by the strong hands and arms and shoulders of WPA and CCC workers in the 1930s and just a few yards away from a beautifully serene pebble beach on the North Fork of the Little Big River, across from which the river had carved away the earth, revealing the roots of a giant redwood tree which stretched to the heavens in the dappled sunlight of late afternoon. Everywhere was huckleberry and redwood sorrel and trilliums and moss and soft humus beneath our feet and giant old growth stumps lying half submerged in the earth or towering like cosmic alters above our heads.
I stood in awe with a friend. Into that space and into our reverent silence he spoke these words I share with you.
Twilight in Hendy Woods
This is the hour of magic
When this world and the other world
Touch in a lingering kiss
And a deep stillness settles over all things.
This is the hour of magic
When the Earth,
For one eternal moment, holds its breath
Before turning from the sun.
This is the hour of magic
When, if you listen
With an open heart and a quiet mind,
You can hear the Ancient Ones, the elders of the forest
Telling the old stories:
Of the chainsaw massacres and the fires;
Of the great ice ages and the birth of mountain ranges;
Of the times long past when they were many and covered the Earth.
They are leaving us now.
When they are gone,
Who will tell these stories?
Larry Robinson
