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          title="Wordle: Love Letter from Roger">
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          alt="Wordle: Love Letter from Roger"
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The Secret

Stay very still.
What do you hear?
Don't listen with your ears.
Go deeper than that.

Once you push away all the sounds
      and the thoughts
      and the anxiety---
      even the grief---
You'll arrive at a quiet space.

Look around
(again, don't use your eyes,
this goes deeper than sight),
You won't see anything.
You won't hear anything.
But if you look and listen carefully,
you'll see something invisible,
hear something inaudible,
feel something intangible.

It is love.
It is reassurance
It is appreciation.
It is quiet companionship.
It is an interested listener.
It is the familiarity of music.
It is the awareness of beauty.
It is the one that you seek.

That is the secret.

Treasures at the Library

    I have been haunted most of my life by the memory of a book I read once when I was very young.  It was most likely a library book, because it certainly wasn’t part of my life for very long, but in spite of its short stay, it made a lasting impression on me. Of course I can’t remember the title or anything concrete about it. If I could recall even a word of the title I’m sure I would have tracked it down long ago. No, the impression I have of the book is much more vague. All I can recall is an image of lovebirds in a cage, of a pavilion in a garden with fountains and marble steps, and haunting, bittersweet strains of music I can’t quite hear. There also seems to have been something about olden times and rustling silk and patient love waiting in hope, even if that hope is in vain. The image of the birds is the most vivid of this watery memory. That, and the feeling of old times gone. Over the years I have tried again and again to recall more than this, but if I try too hard, the memory slips away and I don’t know if I am inventing details or if I am really remembering a snatch of phrase or fragment of a passage. Even as I think about it I seem to recall something about a window. I’ll leave it at that.
    Losing that book has colored my life somehow. In part it may have been the wispy memory of those lovebirds in a cage that led me to become a librarian in the first place. Or maybe not. Whatever the reason,  I seem to be always on the lookout for a treasure of one kind or another. Maybe it’s not really that particular book I’m seeking anymore but something less substantial, the purpose of my life, maybe. I do know that I always have the hope that a new book, a new person in my life, a new bend in the road may hold a clue or a key I can use to finally comprehend life’s elusive meaning.
    And then last week I found it. I really did! Just when I arrived at a spot where I felt maybe I didn’t need to ask the unanswerable question about the purpose of life anymore, I found it. Not the answer, no, the long-lost book! In December I was listening to the radio and heard Daniel Pinkwater talking about an old favorite book that had been reissued by the New York Review company. That book, The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber, is one I have loved for years and years. I grew up with its clever words and beautiful fairy tale, and I’ve read it more times than I can count—enough that the words resonate inside of me and I know when my favorite lines are coming. So I looked up the New York Review Children’s Collection and ordered one of almost all of the children’s books for the Marshall Public Library. Two were books we already had, but they were so dog-eared and well-used that I knew a brand new book with a clean cover and crisp pages would be much more tantalizing for children to choose. Then last week the stack of books arrived, and as usual I leafed through each of them and set aside a few to take home and read word by word.
    I remember it was early in the morning. I had a library conference to attend so I came extra early to make a head start on the day. I took the first book off the pile and opened it to a page a little past the middle. I looked, then looked again. The story I had turned to was short, only about three pages long, but it was MY STORY, the one about the lovebirds! As I read it, I didn’t find the marble steps or the fountains or the striped pavilions (those might be waiting in different stories), but as I reread the words the memories and enchantment came flooding back. I hadn’t really forgotten after all, the story had been in my heart all along. Only then did I look to see which book of the many on my desk I had picked up. It was Eleanor Farjeon’s The Little Bookroom, one of the books I had reordered because the library’s original copy had been loved almost to pieces.
    I’m still trying to figure out that experience. Was it just a coincidence? Or was there something deeper? All I know is that I thought the book was gone forever. But it was really not five steps from my desk these past years. Maybe many things are like that, waiting patiently until we stumble across them and realize they have been there all along. Is my life different now that I found the long-lost book? Probably not. But I hope I will have a little more faith that what I seek really does exist. If I look carefully enough I will find it, waiting patiently to be rediscovered. And maybe like the words of my story it will flow into me with the familiarity of an old friend’s voice or slip into my life like my feet into a comfortable pair of shoes. I do know I won’t stop looking, because after all, nothing is ever really lost.

The Empty Space

Oh the futility of reaching out
to take another's hand.
How vast the open sky!

The yawning gap between us isn't space,
or time,
or distance.
It's something else entirely.
Something huge,
and invisible,
impenetrable.

(Though sometimes a strain of music
or a remembered word
trickles through.
Or is that just an echo
bouncing off the bleakness?)

What is out beyond the edge?
The action is completed.
Those beyond need rest,
not perpetual prodding.
They've had their day, their say.

Bach's notes fit together like a complex puzzle.
Don't add pieces or take any away.
What is there is complete.

Write your own music,
speak your own unuttered words.
Then when you spring into the familiar,
forgotten ether,
You'll have something to talk about
in your own voice.
Grow into your words.
Even now there are those who strain to hear.

Part of the Answer

What is success?
Grasping at icicles,
Harvesting the drips,
Eating gold.

Aren’t beans more substantial?

You look at each others' store of
chocolate, with envy.
Who could possibly eat so much?
There aren’t enough days in the
year to wear all those clothes even once.

Don’t you have anything to love?
Nothing to treasure?
Nothing to hold in your hands, or your arms,
Or even stroke with your fingertips?
Nothing so comfortable to wear that it molds
to your body from long use?

Poverty!

Come sit down here on this box.
I’ll give you some thoughts,
and my attention.
I’ll stay up late and write a letter,
one you can hold in your hands
and feel the paper crinkle
against your fingers.
It’s the attention that really matters.

To how many people in your life did you really pay attention?
Did you really never see that golden light
streaming onto the concrete
through the turning leaves?
How do you think you’ll recognize it now?
When the shell is gone, you’ll be hollow inside.

So sit outside in the sun or the rain.
Then at least you’ll be filled with
light and water.
And something planted in your soil
can grow.

Meditation

Open a door into a quiet, changing room.

Sometimes it has no roof, no walls.

Sometimes it is dark and still, dusky light with a comfortable couch.

Still other times it is simply a window with a raindrop trailing down, following almost but not quite the tracks of countless other drops,

And the quiet of the room behind the window.

Who is there, sharing that vast, enclosing, freeing space?

There is a presence, benign.

Malignancy can’t find the door, doesn’t even know to look. But if he did, the way would be indistinguishable in his dark corridor.

But for you, the outline shines with a silver light.

Step inside. Everything is waiting for you.

Lining the walls are the placidly smiling Buddhas, their eyes twinkling with delight and welcome.

But don’t be shy. They’re in their own rooms, after all.

This is the in-between space where everyone and no one is.

One is waiting, ready to let you see through his eyes.

You can feel it, can’t you---

The acceptance, the peace, the air like breathable music?

Veiled though you are, and shrouded in blind mortality,

Here is the space between.

Come, wander and rest,

There's a door on this side, too.

Creativity

What is it?
Longing mixed with involuntary music,
Upwelling from the heart of things,
Unfinished, hidden, partially obscured.

Why is there no resolution?
It takes a kind of perseverance
Beyond just the regular flitting from thing to thing.

Stop.
Dig deep into the recesses.
Find the glittering prize and bring it out into the light.
It's worth showing to the world.
Things shouldn't remain hidden.
That smacks of ingratitude.

It doesn't matter if you can't do it all.
At least do some,
And do it well.
Don't leave one treasure covered in muck
Because you're so anxious to find the next.
These things take time.

And in the end there will be jewels enough,

Sparkling in starlight.