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Tell a child she is composed of parts (her Ojibway quarters, her German half-heart) she'll find the existence of harpies easy to swallow. Storybook children never come close to her mix, but manticores make great uncles, Sphinx a cousin she'll allow, centaurs better to love than boys—the horse part, at least, she can ride. With a bestiary for a family album she's proud. Her heap of blankets, her garbage grin, prove she's descended of bears, her totem, it's true. And that German witch with the candy roof, that was her ancestor too. If swans can rain white rape from heaven, then what is a girl to do? Believe her Indian eyes, her sly French smile, her breast with its veins skim milk blue— She is the myth that is true.

I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns, Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song. And who hoarded from the Spring branches The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms. What is precious, is never to forget The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light Nor its grave evening demand for love. Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit. Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields, See how these names are fêted by the waving grass And by the streamers of white cloud And whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Lately, the weather aches; the air is short of breath, and morning stumbles in, stiff-jointed. Day by day, the sun bores the sky, until the moon begins its tiresome disappearing act, making the oceans yawn. Even the seasons change with a throb of weariness— bud, bloom, leaf, fall. If it would help, I would paint my house silver or sell it or buy a red convertible. I would, but who am I to try to cheer up the self-indulgent universe.

If   I would be walking down the road you told me to imagine and I would and find a diner kind of   teacup sitting on its saucer in the middle then I would feel so good in my life that is just like mine I would walk right up and look into my face eclipsing the sky in the tea in the cup and say, “Thank you, I have enjoyed imagining all this.”

Trust that there is a tiger, muscular Tasmanian, and sly, which has never been seen and never will be seen by any human eye. Trust that thirty thousand sword- fish will never near a ship, that far from cameras or cars elephant herds live long elephant lives. Believe that bees by the billions find unidentified flowers on unmapped marshes and mountains. Safe in caves of contentment, bears sleep. Through vast canyons, horses run while slowly snakes stretch beyond their skins in the sun. I must trust all this to be true, though the few birds at my feeder watch the window with small flutters of fear, so like my own.

I am thy grass, O Lord! I grow up sweet and tall But for a day; beneath Thy sword To lie at evenfall. Yet have I not enough In that brief day of mine? The wind, the bees, the wholesome stuff The sun pours out like wine. Behold, this is my crown; Love will not let me be; Love holds me here; Love cuts me down; And it is well with me. Lord, Love, keep it but so; Thy purpose is full plain; I die that after I may grow As tall, as sweet again.

It’s like so many other things in life to which you must say no or yes. So you take your car to the new mechanic. Sometimes the best thing to do is trust. The package left with the disreputable-looking clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit, the envelope passed by dozens of strangers— all show up at their intended destinations. The theft that could have happened doesn’t. Wind finally gets where it was going through the snowy trees, and the river, even when frozen, arrives at the right place. And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can’t read the address.

And if sun comes How shall we greet him? Shall we not dread him, Shall we not fear him After so lengthy a Session with shade? Though we have wept for him, Though we have prayed All through the night-years— What if we wake one shimmering morning to Hear the fierce hammering Of his firm knuckles Hard on the door? Shall we not shudder?— Shall we not flee Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter Of the familiar Propitious haze? Sweet is it, sweet is it To sleep in the coolness Of snug unawareness. The dark hangs heavily Over the eyes.

It was as hot as what stars must feel like so far away, certainly there, inside me. I took it in my hands, put it where it should be in the wet softness where my heart sits. Ugly things came to threaten me, to say I had lost the last lock holding me to truth. That was not true, because old truths were now lies, I saw families as human. I found the goodness in what is not perfect, and a new perfection in what is not good. This happened in a new home twelve time zones away, as the world collapsed. in a clitter clatter like a busy kitchen, the universe forming now inside all of me.

Fle fro the pres, and dwelle with sothefastnesse, Suffise thin owen thing, thei it be smal; For hord hath hate, and clymbyng tykelnesse, Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal. Savour no more thanne the byhove schal; Reule weel thiself, that other folk canst reede; And trouthe schal delyvere, it is no drede. Tempest the nought al croked to redresse, In trust of hire that tourneth as a bal. Myche wele stant in litel besynesse; Bywar therfore to spurne ayeyns an al; Stryve not as doth the crokke with the wal. Daunte thiself, that dauntest otheres dede; And trouthe shal delyvere, it is no drede. That the is sent, receyve in buxumnesse; The wrestlyng for the worlde axeth a fal. Here is non home, here nys but wyldernesse. Forth, pylgryme, forth! forth, beste, out of thi stal! Know thi contré! loke up! thonk God of al! Hold the heye weye, and lat thi gost the lede; And trouthe shal delyvere, it is no drede. Therfore, thou Vache, leve thine olde wrechednesse; Unto the world leve now to be thral. Crie hym mercy, that of hys hie godnesse Made the of nought, and in espec{.i}al Draw unto hym, and pray in general For the, and eke for other, hevenelyche mede; And trouthe schal delyvere, it is no drede.