Morning Mass on Mothers’ Day

A Morning Mass on Mothers’ Day

I arose Sunday morn in the misting,
Half hooded, I pulled back the shroud,
From the bed to the bath faintly listing,
With the canopy covered in cloud.

I pulled on my pants in the darkness,
I slipped on the soft cotton shirt,
I left the back door slightly open,
And trekked down the moist narrow dirt.

It was morning, all misty the meadow,
The river was smooth as a glass,
I bent by the edge of a hedgerow,
And peered through the door to the mass.

Spring beauties sat straight in the narthex,
The lily lamps towered anew,
The bleeding hearts hung by the windows,
Each one held a tear drop of dew.

And there in the front at the altar
Of a moss-covered log and a stone,
Stood the Lincoln green lad in the pulpit,
Silent and straight and alone.

I paused, turned an ear to his sermon,
Though he spoke not a word to the air,
So telling I couldn’t work a word in,
As I knelt in the silence right there.

A Mothers’ Day sermon on Sunday,
In the midst of the flowering wood,
Near the bend of the silent still water,
Where a Jack-in-the-Pulpit stood.

5/12/2013

“Jack-int-the-Pulpit” 2013 © Brian T. Maurer

Spring migration

Like streptococcal chains
Against a microscopic backdrop
Of white circular sky
Gaggles of geese dot the far horizon,
Frozen in flight.

Streptococcus pyogenes

Three Crows

Sunday was cold,
Still in the air a chill
From last week’s snow,
But enough sun to melt
The deep white patches down.

I stood in the back yard
Studying the leaf-strewn beds
By the high wooden fence.
There in the slanted sunlight
Clusters of snowdrops
Had reappeared,
Hearty white pearls
Suspended on green stalks,
Bright against the receding snow.

A squirrel descended,
Dancing down the fence cap
In leaps and bounds,
His mouth stuffed with
Late autumn leaves.
I watched him disappear
Into the neighbor’s tree,
Then up the side of his house
Into the eaves.

Suddenly the silence ended,
Broken by three crows
Alighting high up
On wispy budding branches
Of the tall silver maple
Beyond the weathered fence.

There they perched and squawked,
Black against the blue sky:
Winter intruders,
Unwilling to acknowledge
The sure coming of spring.

“Snowdrops” by Brian T. Maurer

Text and photo copyright 2013 by Brian T. Maurer

The new norm

I’ve known this mother for a long time. Far from wet behind the ears, she’s raised four other children, mostly on her own after her divorce several years ago. She’s never been one to run to the office for every sneeze and sniffle. If she brings one of her children in to be evaluated, it’s usually for a good reason. more»

Interested readers can peruse my latest JAAPA Musings blog post, newly published in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

Forgive me, Johann

Forgive me, Johann.
You were so quiet, uncomplaining
Your father seemingly so calm
Matter-of-fact in the way
He explained the course
Of your illness.
This can’t be anything serious,
I thought, as I surveyed the scene.
But then—
You cried out in pain
When I squeezed your calves,
You grimaced as you stood
Clutching the exam table,
Unable to take more than
Two halting steps toward
Your father’s outstretched arms.
I lifted you back up,
Tapped your knees with a rubber hammer
No response, no reflexive recoil
The Achilles were the same:
Absent.
Graciously, your father accepted
A copy of my note
The directions to the hospital
He lifted you into his arms
And carried you out through the door
As though you were a newborn babe
Wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Forgive me, Johann;
I neglected to say good-bye—
My next patient anxiously waited
In the wings.

2013 © Brian T. Maurer

Moon rise over snow-capped mountains

“Moon Rise” 2013 © Brian T. Maurer

The mid-day sun shone over the mounds of snow piled beside the driveway, throwing an irregular blue shadow across the thin blanket of snow on the tarmac.

As the sun climbed higher, the edge of the snow blanket melted away, leaving a narrow residue of white in the sunlight.

I snapped the photograph, turned it on its end and voilà— “Moon Rise over Snow-capped Mountains.”

Lost sonatas

Had we been writ three-quarter time
I could’ve waltzed you round the floor;
We might have made the perfect rhyme—
A couplet in three-quarter time,
Perhaps a score, or more.

Were we composed allegro pace
Our eighth notes would have danced!
We might have rushed up tempo, faced,
And held the note, entranced—
A coda of romance!

Across the sky time cast our stars
Yours rose, while mine had set;
Sonatas hold so many bars,
And strings possess no fret;
Still—no performance, no regret.

2013 © Brian T. Maurer

N.O.Y.G.D.B.

As a country, we have always struggled with where our loyalties lie on the spectrum of individual rights versus government regulation. Somewhere sandwiched between the two extremes is the concept of community, where members share responsibility for the safety and welfare of those least able to protect themselves. more»

Interested readers can examine my thoughts on this issue in my latest JAAPA Musings blog post newly published in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.

Snow shakes down

Snow shakes down from shrouded sky,
And blankets fields indifferently:
Snow obeys no “No Trespassing” sign,
Hops every fence, wall and hedgerow,
Observes no civil boundaries.
Snow, the universal carte blanche,
Covers all without lament.

Man, on the other hand, curses
And kicks back at the counterpane
With shovel, plow and blower;
Mechanically redistributes it
In mounds on streets and sidewalks.

Today I donned my snowshoes
Broke trail, crossed unbounded fields;
I paused, looked back to see—
My shallow silent tracks
Soon filled with wind-whisked snow.

“Breaking Trail” © Brian T. Maurer

The iCloud of Unknowing

Whenever I access my iPad, a small window appears, informing me that my iPad cannot back up to the iCloud without a valid e-mail address. I am then given two options: either proceed to “Setttings,” or address the issue “Later.” Invariably, I select “Later,” because time is of the essence; and I can’t be bothered with such a distraction at that moment.

Truth be told, I really don’t understand just what the iCloud is, or why I would need to access it. For me, you might call it the “iCloud of Unknowing.”

Of course, I understand that at core the iCloud (or at least my iCloud) is supposed to be a convenient way of synchronizing the data on all of my wireless devices: my iPad, iPod, iPhone, and perhaps my iMac, if I’ve got one. But the burning question on my lips is this: who else has access to all of that data?

Presumably, my data, like everyone else’s data, is password protected, and therefore secure. Over the years we have all learned what that means — any data set is only as secure as the complexity of the password. With time and persistence any hacker worth his salt can theoretically crack the code and gain access.

Jung coined the notion of the collective unconscious, that nebulous zone where all human thought and dreams are housed. In the Jungian economy, the collective unconscious is synonymous with the mind of God.

The early Christian mystics referred to the Cloud of Unknowing, likewise a zone, or perhaps a state of being, in which the presence of God dwelt. The only way to access it was through contemplation, meditation or prayer. Many mystics felt (and feel) that all three are really manifestations of the same thing.

Modern man has little time for such pursuits. The best he can do, the most he can hope for, is to synchronize his data in the iCloud, even if it too turns out to be a virtual iCloud of Unknowing.

Every thought captured and cataloged in the digital realm might one day be part of the iCloud. If so, we would be no closer to ultimate knowledge, no closer to ultimate wisdom, then when we’d first begun; because ultimate wisdom is not housed in the iCloud of facts and figures.

It is housed in the Cloud of Unknowing.