​pondering by debgrant
 
I have been pondering.
pondering is a word that reminds me
always of Mary the Mother
who received life-changing news
by pondering. 
I have been pondering
Michelangelo's Pieta
Mary with a dead son
across her lap.
Mary loving because
love doesn't end at death
Mary suffering because
suffering is a part of life
as deeply as love.
It is just is.
I have been pondering
Wiesel's Night that
I reread the other day
because it just seemed
right. 
It just seemed right
to lean into the suffering
and embrace life with all
of its love and pain.
It just seemed right 
to ponder love and suffering
and, in doing so, enter 
more deeply into our
shared humanity. 
We are in our isolation
able to keep one another alive.
###

​This morning I recalled the impatience of my youth.  I self-medicated the ailment with the poetry. I particularly liked Piet Hein, a Danish writer/designer.  He wrote silly little poems called "grooks."  I loved them.  I collected his books.  I loved that he was a part of the Danish resistance during WWII and used his grooks to help the underground send coded messages. One grook in particular inspired a sign I put over my bedroom door where it remained for years. If I could write a poem with a vaccine embedded or could transform the pixels of this screen into the feeling of the touch of a human hand on a breaking or a fearful heart, I would not hesitate to hit send.  I am working on being less afraid and inventing new ways to love.  I hope you can too. In the meantime,  here is the grook that inspired the sign: 
 
T.T.T.
Put up in a place
where it's easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T.
 
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
 
by Piet Hein

Full Stop by debgrant

In the midst of the full stop
that the trajectory of our lives
has experienced 
in these corona days,

Do I have any body
soul
calendar 
memory of anything 
that feels like a full stop?

More recently,
the days after the end of
a career.
The routine of office days,
Sundays,
Holy Days
over.
The label of my profession
shelved 
leaving a vacuum of questions
mostly a reborn woman child 
asking Who am I?
Who am I now?

But these plague days feel more like
the time I was riding a friend's horse
alone through a pasture.
A gentle walk urged into
an easy lope,
urged into a gallop.
The ecstasy of wind created,
a powerful creature, warm
and thrumming percussion section
of human, horse, and earth.

And then the horse stopped.

I don't know why. 
He just stopped.
I did not.
I experienced the trite but true metaphor
of head over heals. 
It was an Olympic moment of movement
Speed and form.
And then I stuck the landing
or it stuck me. 
Not a breath left in my lungs
to make a noise. 
Shock, then pain, 
then feeling the leather rein still wrapped in my fingers.
Then seeing the rock my back missed 
when I landed. 
The rock that would have cracked me dead or lame.

Today it isn't a story of being grateful to be alive
or even getting back on the horse that threw me
which I did perhaps because I love a metaphor.

Today it is a story about how difficult it is to stop
when it wasn't our choice to stop. 
Learning how to stop may be 
how we survive. 

​###

​Sometimes, when lightning strikes, I can generate some lovely truth.  Most often, however, the best I can do is point to it when I hear it or see it.  
 
This is written by Mark Nepo entitled The Anthem of Our Day.  It probably violates copyright law, but I will risk it today for your sake. 
 
In the ocean of history, things build and then are worn away to what is most essential. This is an irrevocable and recurring tide of time. And while the storms, whatever their form, first push us away, it is only by coming together that we endure and emerge even stronger, clearer, and more loving. This seems to be where we are now. And the practice, so simple and so difficult, is how to move through the days with caution and care, without feeding our panic. For the other virus spreading now is fear. We all feel it, calling us with its hypnotic frenzy. But one thing I’ve learned from almost dying from cancer is that fear is to be moved through and not obeyed. And we need each other in order to see clearly so we can right-size what is before us—day after day. 
 
Just as you can only see stars at night, it is during times like this that our inherent light and kinship are most visible. And while the pandemic is traveling across the globe, we must remember and reach for the miracle of life, which is still everywhere. This is not just stubborn optimism but a declaration of our need to stay available to the undeniable resources of life. It is those resources that remind us of the truth that we continue to affect each other and need each other. When one of us does something or doesn’t, it affects all of us. As Dr. Sanjay Gupta has wisely put it, “When you care for yourself, you care for everyone.” So when you wash your hands, you are keeping everyone you meet healthy. As all the traditions affirm, the deepest self-care is, at once, caring for the human family. If humanity is a global body, every soul and life is a cell in that body. And we are being challenged, more than ever, to keep the global body healthy by keeping ourselves healthy.
 
In later life, the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, said, “I want to see what is necessary as beautiful, so I can be one of those who makes things beautiful.” I invoke this as an anthem of our day. If we can meet the outer uncertainty with an inner covenant of care, perhaps we can make what is necessary beautiful. Perhaps the washing of hands can become a modern sacrament, a holy ritual by which we hold ourselves and our global family in the deepest regard. Perhaps the slight bow of love and respect can replace the handshake as a holy ritual that will lessen our fear while sharing our love, so that we can bear the uncertainty together.
 
As we practice caution and social distancing, let us not distance each other in our hearts. As we are forced to slow down and stop our busyness, let us feed more than our fear. Let us strengthen our inner resolve, both physically and spiritually, so we can meet the necessities of the day in hopes of making things more beautiful. For we all are being called to outlast the siren of fear until we can touch upon the reliable truths that reside beneath all fear. Like a strong net that softens the carriage of weight, the strength of our connections, even while physically apart, will soften the sharpness of the uncertainty inherent in times like this. 
 
In the Chinese language, the ideogram for crisis also means opportunity. And I believe that if we can share our fears and help each other not obey them, we will take the first step to making what is necessary beautiful. By practicing being all of who we are, we can strengthen the net of connection that is the human family. Like the rest of us, I can only try to navigate between caution and fear while maintaining our deeper connection. And in my own struggle to be more than my fear, I will affirm our strength of heart and commit to staying connected in our care. When larger than our fear, the kinship of being we all share endures.###
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ELOGOS is written by Deb Grant, Houston, Texas. Replies to ELOGOS are read only by Deb.
Grant's Social Media: FACEBOOK pages: elogoswordfoodbydeb, debgrantjazzwater, personal page: facebook.com/jazzwater
www.jazzwater.com and www.wordfoodbydeb.com and her Etsy shop: Jazzwater
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​In the whirlwind by debgrant
 
Bluster against the
dark early morning
windows.
Wind chimes sound
more like warning buoys
clanging in this 
turbulence.
 
I was reminded by a friend
of Harvey-brain.
The inability after a storm,
or any crisis, to think clearly.
Leaving milk on a counter
that needs to in the fridge.
Forgetting my zip code.
This morning while I was
washing my hands, 
I looked up and my face
said to me, "What about me?
 
The bluster of wind
and foggy thinking
brings pebbles of the
past being tossed against
my pane. 
Recollections of other voices
that clang now with just
a little hope to get through 
another day.
 
Center to circumference
a poem, a prayer that
spoke of the way the
whirlwind, the hurricane, 
our lives are thrown. 
Turbulence all around
and an uneasy peace
at the center. 
But a peace nonetheless. 
 
Another,
Frost's invitation to choose a star....
"It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid."
 
Another,
T.S. Eliot's conviction
that love is "the stillpoint of the turning world."
 
We have not been so tossed
in a storm so together and so apart.
Yet there is a center, a star,
a stillpoint.
If there weren't,
I wouldn't bother to tell you.
I would keep it to myself.
But here I clang.
We are in this together
and love is impossible
to hoard. 
 
###
 

​The way I figure it.  I am alive - not of my own doing - it is a gift.  The coming in and going out happens.  It is the stuff in between.  The living of these days that matter, that can be influenced, savored, imbued with the flavors that we value.  We can choose to live to ourselves, for ourselves or not. Today, I choose you. If you are reading this and feeling alone and want to reach out in a delightfully germ-free way,  hit reply to this message.  I will read it.  I will take it to heart.  I will respond.  
 
On my facebook page, I started offering a question a day just for simple conversation - to use online are with your friends and family.  Today's question 
is What has been your best purchase under $100.?  Let me know if you want a question a day, I will email them to you via this ELOGOS list.
 
It seems like the best use of the time.....the scriptures speak of redeeming the time.....I value you.  I see you as best I can.  You are not alone.
 
God's Peace,
Deb

​Three Ducks by debgrant
 
I once knew a man
who hated 
the people
who lived 
homeless 
in fragile community
beneath the underpass.
I couldn't budge
him off 
his cliff
before he jumped
into a bunker
away from
concrete
and those people.
 
I failed at tempering
his hatred, easing his fear,
provoking compassion.
I wondered when 
I thought I could 
cure hatred by 
charm or brillant logic or
quoting sacred wisdom
or influencing a heart with
a wave of my words?
 
I tossed a handful
of oats to a duck last week.
Yesterday the duck came
back with two friends.
I fed three ducks 
this morning. 
 
One beggar telling 
another beggar where
to find food.
 
The people of 
the underpass know
how to do that.
It is not an elegant
or pretty compassion
and may not even
be compassion 
at all. 
Just survival.
Like ducks.
 
I think about 
the man 
hold up in
his hatred. 
I wonder if he
knows a
duck that 
walks like him
and talks like him.
It was never me.
I know that now.
 
Now I throw 
a handful of food
to three ducks. 
It feeds me more
than it feeds them.
I know that now.
 
### 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​Gestures Matter by debgrant
 
When the world seems
to be spinning 
out of control 
again,
something there is 
about gestures.
Small
human gestures
that nourishes,
that feels like 
a cup of water.
 
I know you know
what I mean
you have yours
I have mine.
The gestures 
are there to
be seen 
if we are
thirsty enough 
to see them.
 
My view from a pew
was of the backside
of a couple.
They stood separately
for the most part
until the Lord's Prayer
when the woman 
reached her arm 
around the man 
and hung her finger
on his back pocket
like she had done
it a thousand times. 
 
A text message 
in the middle of the
day for no other 
reason than to 
say
"I see you."
 
A thank you note
filled with 
splendor
and tenderness,
impossible to 
disregard. 
 
A cup of coffee
by itself 
is a heavenly thing.
A cup of coffee
with a friend
is communion.
 
Gestures.
Look for them.
They are there.
Gestures
are something
we can do 
to humanize the air
around us. 
 
###

Hidden Figure by debgrant
 
Katherine Johnson.
I see you.
Now.
I didn't see you when
I watched the space program
on a fuzzy black and white television.
I was my father's remote control
before there was such a thing.
I was the thing sent to change the channel
or wack the console to
jar it into clarity
or wiggle rabbit ears
to make it work.
 
We worked hard to see
the rocket launches and
the astronaut interviews.
We didn't see all there was to see.
We didn't see you, Katherine
and your coworkers
in office spaces at NASA
calculating figures 
so that the white men could 
shoot a rocket in the air
and know where it landed. 
 
Now decades and geography
away from where I watched
mission control and heard
the word trajectory,
I live across the street 
from NASA.
It is pretty cool. 
I driveby recalling
the days spent 
watching its activities 
on a black and white tv
that I am learning
showed more white
than black. 
That couldn't see,
that wouldn't see,
that refused to see
Katherine and her slide rule
doing her job.
"They needed information," Katherine
said, "and I gave it to them."
 
Katherine Johnson died today.
I live across the street 
from where she used to work
just doing her job
in a world that saw more white 
than black.
I see you, Katherine
Now when I drive by NASA
I say to myself,
that is where Katherine Johnson
worked. 
I see you
now. 
###
​

​Holding the Door by debgrant
 
I saw a man
shuffle by
inside his jeans
too big
for him.
 
Unshaved chin
tucked into
a chest 
concaved
somewhere
beneath 
an old dress
shirt. 
 
Out of the
coffee shop,
he stopped
at the door
to hold it
open 
for the person
walking with him.
There was 
No one there.
 
It was just
a muscle memory.
Even in a broken heart
love lingers in
a gesture
embedded
in our tissues.
 
###