The World As It Is

Artsparker has a gift for connections: verbal, visual, artistic, personal. She pointed me toward a startlingly lovely poem at the Larabee and Liza site a couple days back to read Carolyn Miller's poem, copied below. There are "no ladders, no descending angels" in my worldview, so it had some resonance with me, in particular the comfort found in sideways Orion, trembling Venus, firefly Jupiter. Or, to use John Prine's more plain language, "to believe in this living is just a hard way to go."

The World as It is

No ladders, no descending angels, no voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only
water rising and falling in breathing springs
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie grass
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans. Only
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion rising sideways,
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a great firefly,
Venus trembling and faceted in the west—and the moon,
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, brimming
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly, deliberately,
wobbling slightly, while far below, the faithful sea
rises up and follows.

-Carolyn Miller

Thank you Susan. Thank you Laura. Thank you Carolyn.