Walking Bronko this afternoon to the prayer bench, which looks on Levy Hradec across the westernmost tributary (Czech 'rostok') of our town, I enjoyed the chilly breeze--still unseasonably warm, but wintry and welcome all the same. Humming a line from Godspell--'O bless the Lord, my soul'--and thinking about that fluid verb 'to bless', I charted out the ways the winds bless us and, without a day's delay, wanted to post as such:
Bless the wind
that buoys up the plane
and shoulders into
landings, safe
and sound
again.
Bless the wind
that always we inspire
and sometimes use
to babble out
our inner
gyre.
Bless the wind
that knows not where
it blows, on whom
and what may
follow or
flare.
Bless the wind
that guides the ravens
here, to which we
can translate
their caws
amens.
Bless the wind
that taps Elijah’s cave
and tells us it’s all
right: futures
we must
brave.
Excellent, Dan!
ReplyDeleteWe have landed safely, at Heathrow and at O'Hare. The wind delivered us well. While in the air, I read two thirds of In The Heart Of The Sea, your Christmas gift to me about the windblown Essex and its three castaway whaleboats whose fate was not so fortunate, so I am especially thankful for where and how the wind can carry us.
Thankful, too, for the spirit-filled week we had with you: the wind blew through the Kostnice and rattled life into them bones; it wafted through the cow-milking prayers with Ema and Ben and Joe; it was there in the Christmas services in Praha and our own Christmas Day carol time in Rostoky; it was with the flow of the Vltava, over which we walked and along which we ran; it was at Vishehrad, where we admired the caged raven, at the O2, where Sparta breezed to victory, and even at the Cineplex, where the kids watched The Force Awaken --- twice!
Thank you and Katrina and Joe and Ema and Ben for a wonderful week, every part of it!
- Jon, Kirsten & Andrew