Eyes first opened, covers pushed back, up in
bed
Chaucer’s words sleeping all the night with open
ee-ye,
so pricks them nature in their
`corages,’
`than longen folk’ to go on
`pilgirmmages’
from every shire’s end of ‘Engelond,
to Caunterbury they wende’… Empty bladder. Start the
fires.
Pull on coveralls, downstairs to my
calefactory,
laundry with a large wood stove, still
warm,
red coals, fragments of cedar added, split
wood
providing a desired-hot office for
Raymonde.
Coals smoldering, fire rekindled up
above
providing warmth for the living room
temperature still falling already -10 F -23
C
world still whirled here and so I am
awaking
warm inside my quiet-friendly rectory.
It was not only cool that greeted me on
rising;
the lovely humble Christmas tree
luminous
standing silently in the living room,
shining
brightly seen or unseen, saying nothing,
speaking silently by silence to silence.
Drinking coffee comes right to mind—wake up
juice—
Instant should suffice early building and tending
fires
after letting Moses out business-like
before
he finds relief atop a snow drift in the kennel
yard
under a sliver moon set in frigid-black
heaven-sea.
Fragments of dreams return to
consciousness:
again in a monastery, this time with Sr.
Marielle,
dear friend and sister in Christ, welcoming
pilgrims
seeking spiritual refreshment with
Benedictines
gathering them in their warmly lit
calefactory.
Today January 3rd, Voegelin’s birthday,
and first day of trading for the year—
Fox Business: market futures up, green
letters,
and I wonder what I might buy for my
Roth-IRA,
freshly stocked with New Year’s
contribution.
0320 when I first saw a clock,
now 0426 on my Apple Watch,
sipping Taster’s Choice, jotting down these
notes,
not listening to market analysts’ banter
but striving to find and build a little
consciousness.
