A Dream Come True
The Lake House In Connecticut
a story told in poems and pictures
THE HOPE OF LOVING
GRACE OF BEGINNING
Vincent heard him coming, the steady if slow step, still two cornerings and a rubbled incline away. The advance was but a herald – soon the assessment, the interrogation. Was there no place he could go, save his dark river, where he would be left alone with his thoughts? He flung a stone into the pool’s depths, counted the consequent ripples.
Father hesitated at the entrance to the falls. “Catherine told me I’d find you here.”
“I’m here,” Vincent said. As I will ever be. Behind him … the scuff of boots, a hand on his shoulder.
“She said she was going away for the week. Leaving for Connecticut to ready her lake house to sell.”
He nodded and flung another stone.
Father cleared his throat. “She and I had quite the talk. Quite the talk, indeed.”
Did you, now? He wanted to snarl the words, but sighed and closed his eyes instead. Already she was far away, too far away, soon to be farther, closing the doors to a cherished world. Until then, she’d vowed, we’ll keep on dreaming. There would be no then. Today, tomorrow, forevermore, a poem for a sunset.
“She offered me a few … suggestions,” Father continued. “I’ve seen the light, as they say.”
Another flung stone. The light? She takes it with her.
“There’s no one at the lake this time of year, Vincent. I’d say I’d been convinced, but I knew, I always knew, she’d never …”
He drew in a long breath, held it close. Fall, the schools in session, the summer families returned to their cities, the cabins’ windows shuttered against the still expanse of water reflective of branch and brilliant leaf, of cloud and cornflower sky. “And green and golden I was …” he muttered, not quite to himself. In the sun that is young once only, time let me play and be golden … The whisper of hope was but fantasy. Fantasy.
“I asked her to delay her departure. She’ll not leave until morning. She’s already rented a van, to accommodate the return of her belongings.” Father shuffled his retreat, his last words called softly from the entranceway. “Remember Meister Eckhart’s theory. What keeps us alive; what allows us to endure? I think it is the hope of loving or being loved. Go to her. Go … with her. This once.”
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
~ John O’Donohue ~
To Bless the Space Between Us
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
~ John O’Donohue ~
To Bless the Space Between Us
ONE DAY
And with that, he was, at last, alone again. No other footsteps, determined or halting, stirred the dust of the passage. He scooped smooth brown stones into a cairn of possibilities, prepared to hurl each pebble into the unsatisfied depths, and yet … his hand hovered over the heap.
Disorienting, his sense of her. She hoped and despaired, was restless, then calm. Beyond all other knowledge, he knew she waited.
Waited for him to risk. To trust. To fulfill his promise. One day, we will ...
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver ~
Dream Work
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver ~
Dream Work
STORY OF THE STORM
All the days passed; who knew the number yet to come. Each a gift. We can’t waste it. We can’t. We won’t.
He must hurry, the night already hours old, the dark his necessity. The work, the arrangements, would be hers alone to complete. Would he be too late?
* * *
Within, beyond the billowing curtains, she paced the floor of her apartment. A thump. A rustle of leaves. Before he could raise his fist to tap, she was in his arms. “You’re here.”
“I’m here, Catherine.”
He whispered his words against her cheek; his kiss was sun and air. At last.
“I’ll meet you at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the entrance there,” she said, as he took his leave. “We’ll take the Hudson to 95 to avoid the toll at the bridge, then 87 out of town. It’s not quite a two hour drive once we leave the city. We’ll see the sun rise, Vincent … the sun.”
The True Love
There’s a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand held
out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides
I remember an old man
who would walk every morning
on the gray stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the waters.
And I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them,
and how we are all
preparing for that abrupt waking
and that calling
and that moment
when we have to say yes,
except it will not come so grandly,
so biblically,
but more subtly,
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love,
so that when we finally step out of the boat
toward them we find
everything holds us,
and everything confirms our courage,
and if you wanted to drown, you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all the struggle
and all the years,
you don’t want to any more.
You’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory,
and any darkness,
however fluid and however
dangerous, to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.
~ David Whyte ~
The House of Belonging
The True Love
There’s a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand held
out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides
I remember an old man
who would walk every morning
on the gray stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the waters.
And I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them,
and how we are all
preparing for that abrupt waking
and that calling
and that moment
when we have to say yes,
except it will not come so grandly,
so biblically,
but more subtly,
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love,
so that when we finally step out of the boat
toward them we find
everything holds us,
and everything confirms our courage,
and if you wanted to drown, you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all the struggle
and all the years,
you don’t want to any more.
You’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory,
and any darkness,
however fluid and however
dangerous, to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.
~ David Whyte ~
The House of Belonging
THE WONDER OF THIS DAY
The miles receded; night waned. The bright lights of Danbury and the few of New Fairfield left behind, she turned onto Beaver Bog Road, crossed the bridge over Squantz Cove.
She made the final turn onto a narrow, graveled, winding drive and braked to a stop. Behind her, the cargo door opened and closed. Dry leaves crackled under his boots. She reached across to lift the passenger-side lock.
He was there, beside her. “We’re here,” she said. “Lake Candlewood.”
“Is the cottage far, Catherine?”
“Half a mile in,” she answered, and he took her hand, nuzzling his cheek to her palm.
In the dark, on the cabin’s porch, she fumbled the key, but he caught it mid-fall.
Down the sconce-lit hallway, she led him past one room, past another, to the last and largest. No pretense, she resolved. No hesitation.
He set his valise on the bedcovers, her suitcase on the floor nearby. None.
Window to window, she stepped along, raising the wood-slat blinds, releasing each latch. Outside the navy sky blushed rose-wine; the air sparkled with birdsong; the lake lapped at the shore.
“Could we walk out?” he murmured. “I’d like to share the dawn.”
A Morning Offering
I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.
All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.
I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
~ John O’Donohue ~
To Bless the Space Between Us
A Morning Offering
I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.
All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.
I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
~ John O’Donohue ~
To Bless the Space Between Us
THRESHOLD
Watching the daylight take him, ignite him … she could say nothing. There were no words.
To-morrow to Fresh Woods and Pastures New
As for a moment he stands, in hardy masculine beauty,
Poised on the fir-crested rock, over the pool which below him
Gleams in the wavering sunlight, waiting the shock of his plunging.
So for a moment I stand, my feet planted firm in the present,
Eagerly scanning the future which is so soon to possess me.
~ Amy Lowell ~
To-morrow to Fresh Woods and Pastures New
As for a moment he stands, in hardy masculine beauty,
Poised on the fir-crested rock, over the pool which below him
Gleams in the wavering sunlight, waiting the shock of his plunging.
So for a moment I stand, my feet planted firm in the present,
Eagerly scanning the future which is so soon to possess me.
~ Amy Lowell ~
THEIR HAPPINESS
The afternoon sun glides in, keen rays through jeweled leaves. They wake together. Together.
Happiness
A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.
I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth–
At the window ledge,
once, twice
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
fills with his breath.
I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.
~ Louise Glück ~
***
The Infinite One
Do you see these hands?
They have measured Earth,
they have separated mineral from mineral,
cereal from cereal,
They have made peace and war,
they have conquered the distances
of all seas and all rivers
And still,
when they roam
over you, little one,
grain of wheat, swallow,
they cannot encompass you.
They embrace until exhaustion
the twin doves
that rest or fly upon your breast,
they travel the distance of your legs,
they coil in the light of your waist.
To me you are a treasure, greater
and more costly than the sea and its branches
and you are white and blue and vast
as Earth at Harvest Time.
In this territory,
from your feet to your brow,
I want to spend life,
wandering, always wandering.
~ Pablo Neruda ~
Happiness
A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.
I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth–
At the window ledge,
once, twice
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
fills with his breath.
I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.
~ Louise Glück ~
***
The Infinite One
Do you see these hands?
They have measured Earth,
they have separated mineral from mineral,
cereal from cereal,
They have made peace and war,
they have conquered the distances
of all seas and all rivers
And still,
when they roam
over you, little one,
grain of wheat, swallow,
they cannot encompass you.
They embrace until exhaustion
the twin doves
that rest or fly upon your breast,
they travel the distance of your legs,
they coil in the light of your waist.
To me you are a treasure, greater
and more costly than the sea and its branches
and you are white and blue and vast
as Earth at Harvest Time.
In this territory,
from your feet to your brow,
I want to spend life,
wandering, always wandering.
~ Pablo Neruda ~
THE TWO OF US … IN THE SUNSHINE
“If only it could last forever.”
The breeze teased his hair. His eyes mirrored the blue sky, his smile the joy in her heart. “It can. It will. We’ll come back. I’ll never let this place go, Vincent. It’s ours now. I knew, all along. It would take only an instant.”
“It took you, Catherine. Only you.” He sighed and tipped his face to the sun.
Of Being
I know this happiness
is provisional:
the looming presences–
great suffering, great fear–
withdraw only
into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:
this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:
this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
this mystery.
~ Denise Levertov ~
Of Being
I know this happiness
is provisional:
the looming presences–
great suffering, great fear–
withdraw only
into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:
this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:
this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
this mystery.
~ Denise Levertov ~
LEAVETAKING
“I don’t want to go back,” he said. His valise was packed – each shirt folded reluctantly and laid within, a tattered, leather-bound book closed on a glowing goldfinch feather and tucked inside.
He turned to the window. The evening mist was rising from the water. “There’s time yet, surely. And Catherine … there are swans.”
You Will Remember
You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.
You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.
You’ll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.
That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.
~ Pablo Neruda ~
You Will Remember
You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.
You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.
You’ll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.
That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.
~ Pablo Neruda ~
HOMECOMING
He frowned and read through his effort one more time. It wasn’t perfect. Mere words were too … pale. But the pipe tapping was riotous with end-of-day messages. It was nearly five o’clock, the long day without her blessedly over. He should hurry.
“I’m here,” she said, alighting from the ladder. The pearly ray nearly blinded him, stunned him, yet it wasn’t the high ocular shining from above. The brilliance was hers and he was lost in it.
Their walk to his chamber was a blurred memory – her hand in his, her shoulder brushing his arm …
“You haven’t said a word the whole way home, Vincent.” She teased him with her slow smile. Alas, it said, I’m used to waiting … but no more.”
He lifted her chin and kissed her. “I have something for you, something I want you to read. My vow, Catherine. I love you so.”
The Country of Marriage
I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth’s empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.
III.
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.
IV.
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.
V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are–
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen time and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.
VI.
What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.
VII.
I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy–and this poem,
no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.
~ Wendell Berry ~
The Country of Marriage
I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth’s empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.
III.
Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.
IV.
How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.
V.
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don’t know what its limits are–
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen time and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.
VI.
What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.
VII.
I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy–and this poem,
no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.
~ Wendell Berry ~
Author’s Note: The selected poems were read aloud by several of our fandom family members. To see the original project and to hear the readings, visit WFOL 2012 Poem of the Day.
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