When at two a.m. I wake
by Prayer’s Invitatory call—

soft on my brow as a lover’s touch—
to honor the hour

of First Vigil. I rise, slip
into a hooded cloak, left on a hook

by the door, wander along a woodland
path into the grove of infant

tulip trees, self-seeded, random
in their pattern, but hinting at circle,

at gathering. As a breeze flutters
their buttery flowers—stems delicate

as moths’ antennae—beckon
solitary meditation. Night-watch,

recitation, response of noctums.
Glowing in the moon’s liquid light,

the tulip-shaped leaves appear
as hands raised in praise, and hearing

the faint, far music of Kyrie eleison, I drop
to my knees, finger a slender trunk,

allow a single leaf to brush
my cheek. Now to a sleep unbridled. 

I want to love the things
as no one has thought to love them… 

(I, 61)  

Rilke’s Book of Hours
All photograph captions from “The Book of Monastic Life” 

Refreshed, I wake again at five,
haste to the meadow—hints
of bright flicker through surrounding
trees’ canopy. I seek
the small, straight dawn redwood,
new to the garden, but reaching upward
toward the great height it will
achieve, but that I shall
not see for I am old. In mantra, I whisper,
All I have is now.
In the fragile heart of me. 

The young tree and I bonded—
in the planting, watering, weeding—
I ruffle its needles, soft
as a newborn’s hair. (Needles
that will turn golden in autumn, drop,
to bare its graceful frame for winter, then
appear as tiny jewel-buds in spring.)

This, the Office of Daybreak, is the hour
of renewal, of awe at the rising sun,
of a halting recitation
in childhood’s half-forgotten Latin,
Psalm,
Canticle,
Response,
Benedictus,
Antiphon.

To this Metasequoia, whose very name
plays on the tongue
as lyric, and in whose presence
in an unfamiliar, found-voice I borrow
phrases from St. Thomas Aquinas to sing:
Da robur, fer auxilium
Thine aid supply; thy strength bestow. 

The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it
I feel it now:
there’s a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world. 

Rilke (I, 1) 

…I am forest.   

(I, 45)  

Now six a.m. The last hour
as I roam from tree to tree,
speak to each, passes quickly.

Pausing at a 80-foot fir,
the meadow’s entrance guard,
I stroke its long, gray needles

on the lowest branch I can reach,
and that on my bare tiptoes.
It is the hour when the cock should crow,

I tell the tree, Though here we have
no cock. I must have startled
the red-tailed hawk nesting

high above, for it screeches,
swoops toward the lake shore,
riding a current of the west wind

that on its way had wound itself
around my waist. Rephrasing
the ancient hymn (newly confident

of voicing in melody) I trill,
To thee, Champion leader, invincible,
from foolish acts of this day deliver me. 

I was song…
Now I am still
and plain:
no more words. 

Rilke (I, 50)  

9:00 a.m. Having donned my daily habit
of cargo pants, work boots and hard hat,
the path to the grove mown, two fallen
trees sawn and chopped for winter fires.
Terce, the brief respite, reminder for deep
breathing and prayer for strength
in dealing with conflicts of the coming day.
I set down my saw, hard hat, gloves, walk,
minding where I place each step to avoid
a patch of yarrow, a splash of bluet,
a breeze-waving clump of ox-eyed daisies,
sit on an oak stump in a stand of birch.
A dozen bright white, strip-flaking trunks form
exclamation points at the verge of more dense
vegetation. Their shade dapples the grasses
beneath foot. Birches often signal where field
gives way to forest, a place of grace between
what is light and what is dark. What welcomes
and what challenges. Marking seems
their missions. Show me the way. I follow
the tradition of the Little Hours structure
quote parts of three Psalms, 16, 24, 50,
a capitulum, a versicle and give a spontaneous
response. A catkin falls upon my knee, winged seeds
milky on the indigo cloth. Several goldfinches
arrive as I have stilled during my stay.
They eat and chatter as though I am unseeable.
Again and again in peace.
Let us with thanksgiving pray. 

Then all the work I put my hand to
widens from turn to turn. 

Rilke (I, 45)

I’m still alive, I have time to build. 

(I, 35)       

You, the forest that always surrounds us…
spreading far and firmly planted. 

(i, 25)        

Noon is the hour when the sun
shows its full power: when the great oak,
seventeen feet around, and the sun’s heat meet.
To sit beneath it, lean against its knobby trunk
is to feel the transference of strength
for the afternoon to come.

Splendoore mane illuminas
With splendor you illuminate.

Thoughts linger on morning’s work:
brambles, curly dock, fallen branches,
debris dragged, a brush pile risen
in the meadow’s corner. When burned,
the ash covered ground is ripe-rich
for new growth.
Sowing seeds, naming
of native wildflowers: blazing star,
goat’s beard, milkweed, baptisia,
monarda, penstemon, scarlet catchfly.

Hour of repast and prayer.
Cheese, peach, icy spring water.
Siesta comes from
Sext, though no monk, I follow example,
close my eyes, body pressed
against the oak’s bark, invite it to mark
my tired back—as in a reverent prostration.

Extingue flammas litium,
Aufer valorem noxium,
Confer salutem corporum
veramque pacem cordium

Extinguish the flames of argument,
Take away the harmful heat,
Grant health of body
And true-peace of heart. 

I want, then, simply
to say the names of things.  

Rilke (I, 60) 

I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace.  

(I, 5)       

To reach the willow rooted in the runoff creek,
I slide down a brambled embankment,
reach high to clip a twig. For the tree’s association
with weeping, with grief, seems timely
as the day begins its wane. 3:00 p.m. (I have conquered
my task list. Logs stacked, Bell Garden weeded.)

Willow foliage shimmers as the sun
turns the other way, heads toward Canada.
As the body tires, the mind lists toward want.
Toward losses of loves, homes, aspirations, hopes:
this the temptation of the static past. Speak, I tell Self,
a Psalm in the spirit of prayer. I spread the leafy twig

on a painted sheet, as one might lay out a thing dead.

My heart is heavy,
my spirit is crushed.
Be my strength in times of weakness,
Be my shelter from the storm. 

You, my own deep soul, trust me.
I will not betray you. 

Rilke (I. 39) 

A narrow path leads east into the forest,
past the teepees built of debris, dead trees.
In the silence the place begins to open
itself to its secrets. Reveal details passed
over in other walks. A maple twig, in front
of the toe of my boot. I drop to my knees,
lift it onto the paper, an ant scurries
off a leaf. I watch the tiny creature turn, confused,
for a moment then head for the paper’s
brink. What does the ant know of the world
as it drops from that deckle edge?
A single ant, an old woman, a chance encounter
that could not be planned.

Sicut erat in princiio, et nunc et semper,
et in saecula saeculorum
As it was in the beginning,
is now and will be forever.

From the kneeling position, I lift
my head to look up into the great canopy
of green aloft. It is summer still, sun setting
in the west makes the maple leaves glow
golden in the falling light of evening. 

Suddenly, terrifyingly four Blue Angels
in black apocalyptic-looking pointed planes fly
in formation overhead,
streams of black smoke in their wake,
screaming, screaming, screaming,
breaking the forest still into a crazed reality.
And they are gone.
But their echo remains in the air.
A jarring serendipitous confluence one cannot untangle.
Birds, petrified, fly in circles, crows, jays, grackles,
a cacophony agitated, disoriented calls. 

An ant, a woman, a silence broken
and we find the stillness again,
I on my knees, weeping,
the ant in the elsewhere of the forest,
the maple glowing. 

You see, I am one who likes to look for things. 

Rilke, (I, 55)  

Before heading to the off-grid cabin
for the Great Silence of the night,
I lean agains the hillside beech,
its elephantine roots spread forth
beneath my planted feet. I feel solidarity,
permanence, shelter—-as only comes
to me in a forest. Running my hands
up and down the smooth gray bark,
while I don’t agree, I see why lovers
and children wish to chisel their initials
into its silver-gray surface. I smile,
perhaps for the first time this fine day
for I have worked and prayed the Hours.
It seems to those who gouge
the magnificent tree’s skin with blade
or nail their history would be forever
visible. For some believe
where the name remains,
thus does the life. Yet what the Great Beech
actually performs over time is absorption—
not erasure—of the symbols
an assimilation of the man’s records,
a making of the all into one within itself.

I turn away to climb
the remainder of the hill,
pause to savor
petrocor, the loamy scent
of the humus laden earth, hum
from Psalm Four:

When you are on your beds
search your hearts and be silent. 

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness. 

Rilke, (I, 59) 

When I go toward you,
it is with my whole life.  

(I, 51)