Gitti Linhart rscj | Justine Lyons rscj

Two poems from Southwater Cay, Belize

Another dawn
although the moon still lingers full
reluctant to surrender to the rising sun.

The sea grapes clustered hang and catch
the morning light where spheres yet green
are not in shadow.

The wind, itself a silence, speaks still so loud to soul
and heart, that other sounds dissolve,
bends palm fronds straight
and carries high the Frigate ¹ resting in his search.

The tide is high; the breakers on the reef shine white on blue,
then greened they lose their force and gently
settle into shore.

What lies beneath? What does the water hide?
         from me,
         from those who look upon it from the shore
         or even from the pier?

It is another world. Is invitation offered? It seems intrusion.
Can one become a part of what one cannot claim as home?
Has stranger any rights?
Can traveler touch the heart of life in some one else's land?
Know reason why?
And how the spirit dwells?

Where do the crabs find homes?
An insulated igloo behind a fence, well lit and wired
to the world,
or hammock strung beneath the palms,
a darkness brightened by the moon, the stars, a lamp?
 

The Hermit Crab

Do you not like the day, the shinning sunlit sand?
Of what are you afraid?
What has the darkness that you come to life, to search, to feed?

Once evening comes, the cool of night, none knows where to look,
         the crabs are there,
each in its home, its borrowed home from whelk, from snail,
         from spiral rose.

This home he does not leave behind; it is a part of him,
         protection sure, until he finds that, being shell,
         it cannot stretch and grow.

Is it a loss to leave one's home behind, to claim another
         larger place?

Where does the crab find home? In sand? At water?s edge?
         In fire?s debris? Or scattering of wind?

And so, in truth the crab's without a home?
How can this be when earth and waves conspire to form
         a universe divine, and fire and wind burn,
         breathing life?

"Mine own and not mine own."²
The heart's full emptiness
that moves in love's direction full of longing;
the heart's surrender to what is and yet to be,
for it has touched the infinite beyond the time
         the mystery beyond the real
         the beauty of God's face.
Perhaps it's then, and only then, that in the darkness
         one can find a home.

1. Note: Frigate is a large fish eating bird. The igloos were the beginning of a hotel being built on
this wonderful empty island, each with a huge disk for TV.

2. Note: "Mine own and not mine own" from Love's Mind, by John S. Dunne, Professor at Notre Dame