Heaven Down There

Here's a poem for a Sabbath Day and what if it's true? What if Heaven really is down, in the salt sway where all life originated and not up past the sky at all?The poem is called 'New Religion' and it was written by Bill Holm:

This morning no sound but the loud

breathing of the sea. Suppose that underall that salt water lived the godthat humans have spent ten thousand yearstrawling the heavens for.

We caught the wrong metaphor.

Real space is wet and underneath,the church of shark and whale and cod.

The noise of those vast lungsexhaling: the plain chanting of monkfish choirs.

Heaven's not up but down, and hellis to evaporate in air. Salvation,to drown and breatheforever with the sea.

 It reminds me of that scene from Terrance Malick’s 2011 film The  Tree of Life.  I could watch this trailer again and again. It's all in here, from the Creation to miracle of conception, from Cain and Abel to prodigal sons, from stern and yearning fathers to mothers who ache for the sight of their lost children - and under and around it all the waters, the waters, the waters.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0]

Let There Be Light... Again

I can never throw anything away, not even this front porch light of ours that got so repeatedly taken over by nesting birds that it finally shorted out the whole line, forcing us to spend $400 on a NEW light and an electrician to make repairs and install it.It was no small job: It took three hours of his time and several holes drilled in our front hall ceiling to run out a new line.In the meantime we had this square glass thing, stuffed entirely with grasses and bits of straw and other nesting materials thought useful by the various momma birds that made their home in it over time. (This imperfect blurred picture shows how it looked when David took it down the last time.)The birds did these every spring for three springs and it was awful for us. We couldn't use the front porch light without incinerating a whole family, or soon to be family if the babies were still in their egg stage, and we were we about to do that!So company was forever stumbling on our front steps.Finally this past month, we took it down for good. Old Dave was all for bringing its straight to the dump, but I asked him to wait.I studied its sides and thought candles would look nice shining through its pretty glass.I examined the screw posts sticking up out of its four corners and thought four 99¢ finials would cap those off and serve as ornamentation besides.I turned it over and glued that special felt onto its metal edges so it wouldn’t hurt the table I mean to set it on.Then I set it on that table, nestled this bunch of fall flowers in a short square vase in its center, dropped four tiny tea candles in and lit them with my lighting wand and voila! Once again there was light!  And no birds died to furnish it. :-)

The old light by day in its new life as a planter...

and the same light by night with the candles burning