~

Psalm 120

Posted on by stephen t berg / 4 Comments

 

We are for peace, cry the mothers in Russia,
Cry the children in Ukraine,
Cry the women in Tehran,
Cries the prone journalist in the West Bank.

But when we cry, you are for war,
As though war has honour and glory,
As though war is redemptive and winnable,
As though war has meaning beyond title and profit.

Woe is me, that I live on the streets of Kyiv,
Woe is me that I starve in the dark in Moscow,
Woe is me that I march with the doomed in Iraq,
Woe is me that I’m killed taking pictures in Palestine.

In my distress, I cried unto the Lord,
But the Lord is busy weeping over our rush to extinction, or
The Lord has taken some time away, weary of being claimed, then praised, or
The Lord has a dark side, unimaginable, like the inside of a volcano.

I screamed, Deliver my soul, O Lord,
From treacherous lips,
From tongues of terror,
From exploding arrows.

We are on the run, O Lord,
From men that hate peace,
From shareholders that hold hostage the world,
From presidents that wrap themselves in priestly linens
And pray to the Lord.

We are on the run,
We race, breathless across open fields,
We hold each other’s hands, carry our babies, and run,
We tell our little ones
We are between homes.

 

~

Life in a Day

Posted on by stephen t berg / 12 Comments
Mt. Maxwell, Salt Spring Island

           

            To see a World in a Grain of Sand
            And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
            Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
            And Eternity in an hour.  -William Blake

I crawl out of bed to sit on the green banks of dawn.
The mist on my face, pure as water from struck rock.
Beyond awake, alert to connection,
I can see the soul of mycelium.
Every thread, held by another.
Every constituent, nutrient, filament: a fellowship of light.

By noon the clouds look like question marks.
By afternoon, I’m a treasure-forsaken vagrant.
A sole-being. Marked by self-preservation. Parked in preoccupation.
Grey with worry: A friend’s chemo. A son’s progress.
The swelling cancer of a distant war.
Agonies of our addled earth.
Even leaves of trees look like anvils, weary of fall,
with little hope of spring.

Shrouded, the evening. Dim, the sky. Dead, the wind.
I stir supper’s stew. Look for carrots. Find a stick.
I slip into sleep in the endless streams of popular shows.

Somewhere in the night, some flicker of moon shadow,
playing on the shell of my hollow soul,
my eyes open, I’m desperate for dawn:
            I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
            from whence cometh my help.

Praise the first glow fringing Mt. Maxwell,
praise owl, praise otter, praise the lions of the sea,
praise hawthorn, honeysuckle, hummingbird, bee,
praise honey and wine, praise confit of duck,
praise the whorled radiance of wild blue phlox,
praise coffee grounds, orange peels, egg shells, and earthworms,
praise compost, praise hope, praise the seedling of night,

like Blake’s wondrous geometry in a grain of sand,
so much like our hearts,
how everything on the inside is larger,
and awaiting discovery.

 

~

Climate Change

Posted on by stephen t berg / 12 Comments


Do you know there are more living organisms in a teaspoon of dirt
than there are people on earth?

Do you know that there’s more than one documented case
where a sea lion has saved someone from suicide?

And did you know that elephants wave branches at a waning moon,
and magpies lay wreaths of grass on gravestones,
and loons carry lost ducklings on their backs?

Imagine not paving over everything.
Imagine hearing microbes mourning.
Imagine kneeling.

Do you recall our brief shining moment?
Young enough to be ignorant of scorn.
Old enough to steer out of a skid.
Conscious of creation and bursting with vision.

All of us, like birds,
like we were running in mid-air,
dreaming like M.L. King,
many faces, yet a family,
pregnant with generosity,
building refuges for famished cats,
casseroles dropped off at neighbours’ doors,
(our very best casseroles, recipes included!)
carefully attending to our gardening tools,
no less our gardens, our gardenias,
hands held out to the poor,
healers that came to your door,
a mounting abhorrence of war,
an epigenetic thrust toward friendship,
a surging gentleness, as if holy was everywhere
pushing green shoots through crusts of indifference,
and O, those shades of green, too beautiful,
our knees giving out at the sight of it,
angel wings clasping our hearts;
and the swallows returning, the storms receding,
leaving us washed and standing,
owing nothing,
owing everything,
our shame blown away,
our hearts awake and walking
with a humility that doesn’t know it’s humble.

And did you know that sea otters hold each other when they sleep
so they don’t drift apart?

~

The Oak of Mamre (A Re-visioning of Genesis 18)

Posted on by stephen t berg / 6 Comments
Garry Oaks in Beacon Hill Park, Victoria BC

Considering that trees have excellent memories and that most are good storytellers — although the cypress can go on; and the sequoia, full of its own notoriety, can exasperate; and despite its more humble appearance (or because of it) the elm has been known to embellish to the point of incredulity — still, one tree I’d like to hear from is that ancient one, an oak by tradition, on the Plains of Mamre.

But not having access to the original, I’ve sought the counsel of a local oak, a Garry, leaning out on the north side of Beacon Hill Park. Oaks, as we know, are meticulous record keepers. So I asked what talk there’d been concerning that millennia-wizened relative.

It replied, as oaks do, nodding its canopy, rustling its branches with much affectation, twiggy tips stroking furrows of trunk, frowning as it scanned its inner rings, collecting details as though they weren’t immediately at its disposal.

Then, momentously clearing its throat of chips, splinters, and the odd beetle, it began: “Once upon a time (an opening, by the way, that is original with trees and a strict proof of a story’s veracity), under the dogged sun of a baked eastern plain, three angels of God appeared through the heat waves and approached Sarah and Abraham, who at the time were camped beneath an oak of Mamre.

“As the angels drew close, the oak began to tremble, from the deepest threads of its roots on up through the rising sap, the bark softening, almost splitting, new buds out of season broke forth like notes of song, while in its shade the angels reclined, cooled themselves.

“Abraham ran through the camp, casting orders, fetching water, veal, meal cakes, and curds. Then settled down to negotiate. Sarah watched, amused but inspired.

“Enlivened by the transformation of the oak, and the presence of the Three, Sarah’s 90-year-old body grew young again; her laugh rose like a lithe oak, like a new mother, like a woman who refused to be erased.

“It’s thought the tree of Mamre is charcoal now, a casualty of failed diplomacy and stray brimstone. But among us trees, as among many women, it is known that the Oak of Mamre survives, like a holy covenant: green shoots and scions springing up in places of need, throughout our wounded world.”