Origami Microchap

Selected Poem(s) 

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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’

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If I Only Know One Thing, Let Me Learn This

  “If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God
   who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it,
   for it was not shown to me. But this was shown:
   that in falling and rising again we are always
   kept in that same precious love.”  
 
I do not need to be on a boat to feel the waves 
rise and fall or calm 
like a chest while breathing, 
 
nor do I need to fall off a boat 
to know drowning or swimming, 
when I know love can feel this way. 
 
I do not have to be shipwrecked, 
stranded on an island  
to feel hopeless, abandoned, forgotten, 
 
nor do I need to be rescued  
to feel remembered, saved, treasured, 
because I am loved as much as a single drop of water. 
 
For I’ve seen the seasons turn this way and that, 
the geese leaving and heralding their return, 
leaves budding, turning color, falling, again, again. 

Delight in Love 

     “Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates
     God, and from these two comes a third, a holy
     and wonderful delight in God, who is love.” 

My bewildered mind sees reverence in the way  
grass moves in wind. 
How simple, that journey. 
How ripe the dark, like grapes in a bowl. 
Untouchable love. That is my name for this. 
This moment preempts all possible loss, all lies, 
contains the enduring merit  
of love as the confusion of swifts 
scattering out 
into the sky’s mouth. Pleasant surprise,  
my naming for my swooping reaction. 
Maybe, delight. 
My words for the unspoken response inside me, 
its floating trail of silence, 
its long, drawn-out afterthought 
that this must be 
absolute love. 

•

Martin Willitts Jr. © 2024

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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’

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“Two duties belong to our souls. One is to
reverently marvel. The other is humbly to
endure, always taking pleasure in God.
He wants us to remember that life is short
and it won’t be long until we clearly see,
within him, all that we desire.” –
Julian of Norwich

To marvel

When you consider a raindrop,
see it as a small world bringing relief.
How many may fall before they end?
No one knows.
I would have to run around the land counting.
I could never count them all in time.
Even if I caught the rain in hundreds of buckets,
I could not separate them to count each one.

I cannot see this as impossible;
rather, I must know
searching for answers begins
with the heart
wondering.

I must be amazed with wonderment,
and guess with incurable curiosity.
I am not meant to know every secret
Instead, I am encouraged to try.

I watched a snail in the garden,
but I was called away to do some other tasks.
When I returned after supper,
it seemed to be in the same place.
Hardly a budge.
Just a thin trail of slime, drying behind it.

But to the snail,
it must seem to have been a long journey

When I consider how seldom I walk very far,
I know I never moved any real distance.
The shadows travel more than me
to places I cannot see or imagine.

All my trivial concerns trail far behind me.

•

Martin Willitts Jr. © 2024

Click title to open microchap

Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’

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“We are in God and God whom we do not see is in us.”

We are all a part of God.
This explains why we are so precious;
therefore, we must see God in other people.

This lack of understanding,
that we all are a part of God, causes strife and war.
We cannot comprehend we are made in God’s image.

If we do not find this extraordinary truth,
then we risk losing connection
to the most essential part of our existence.

“God loved us before he made us; and his love has never diminished and never shall.”

Our birth comes with this life-long commitment:
we will be eternally loved.

Where else would you receive a promise this firm
with such conviction? No matter my mistakes,
I am loved.
I am not loved less.
Unconditionally,

I am equally appreciated as wildflowers
or sunsets, or a mockingbird’s song.
Why make else make me?
I am a jar of clay waiting to be filled.

Fill me.
Fill me with endless love.
I am bottomless, aching for such love
that never diminishes.

•

Martin WIllitts Jr. © 2024

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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’

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"The more the soul sees of God, the more
it desires Him."

I did not understand why I am wanting.
A piece of me always feels missing, absent,
always yearning for some more-ness.
Reaching and never arriving at a destination,
I see only distance but never how far I’ve been.
I never think to look back.
My heart only knowing wandering,
aiming for some place I belong,
longing, longing, longing for a restful place.

When I was not paying attention,
I arrived.
I was welcomed.
My wanderlust over.

I knew roots
attach to the soil, settle in.

I did, too.

"Everything that God inspires us to search for, is God's own eternal desire."

I cannot escape the inescapable: I am joined,
like bricks and mortar are joined,
fixed into place, measured by a plumb line,
stacked higher and higher by intention
to detail.

Yes, intentionally, like prayer
or tending to a garden or birds proclaiming joy.

Yes, inescapable, but I do not want to escape;

I want to be joined, measured by love,
fixed like the stars.

Like a calf knows need,
it finds the source that will fill it,
so, too, I seek and feed.

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2023

Click title to open microchap

Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’

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“Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it.”

We can enter prayer like opening a door,
never knowing what we will find.
We can place our hands on a prayer,
feeling the trembling of our words
we speak only to ourself
or speaking in a hushed whisper.
When I place my hand on a door handle,
I feel the presence of someone who entered.
If I am lucky, I will enjoy that company.
If I find the one that I seek,
I know I will have a great conversation
just by listening.
Opening and closing prayers can be this easy.
Seeking and finding can be this easy.
Today, I opened a door like it was a prayer
laying my finger on the right passage.

“Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance,
but laying hold of His willingness.”

Sunlight from my window finds me,
accepting me. I welcome the light back.
The breath of light tingles with expectation.
Willingly I enter into the light
chasing it as it moves across the room
like someone talking with good news
about the day, bringing psalms of joy.

I hold that music to never let it go,
when the light leaves my room reluctantly.
I hold onto that prayer fiercely.
Letting go never enters my mind.
Light can also be held that fiercely.

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2023

Poems written after quotations of Julian of Norwich

Julian of Norwich was a 14th-century English mystic
who wrote the first book in English by a woman,
Revelations of Divine Love,
about her visions of God's love

Click title to open microchap

Cover art: 'Desolation' by Thomas Cole

(1801-1848 American painter)

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The Course of Empire

Sometimes, I am afraid the empire will lead to decay
and gluttony. The way we ravage forests
to make life for small villages
is greed for greed’s sake: do we need to take away
one for the purpose of the other?

Oaks fall for the course of the empire,
making way for small, immaculate white churches
with fingers of bell towers
never ringing for mercy.

A few humble settlements grow
to edge away the pines and white spruce.
The pumpkin patches surrender to the store front
where flour is sold by white bagsful.
All this has happened slowly over time,
until next, a center green gazebo
is surrounded by other stores,
where wagons hitch long enough
to take in the view. Building accelerates
with excitement as the maples fall.

And, what, if anything,
does the large boulder
overlooking the progress of the valley
think of the swelling kingdom below?

Perhaps, it will have its say, someday.

1. The Savage State

Eden must have looked like this —
untamed by limitless trees, a dim light
filtering through the leaves with auras.
Adam had not appeared yet.

The forest was humming with small animals,
peepers and cicadas, wrens and cardinals.
An eagle perched on a boulder,
readying to unfurl into the infused light.

Adam was not there to witness,
to name everything he saw.
What was here was not meant for his eyes.
The world did not need him at this time.

Dawn was storming. It knew
Adam would arrive and ruin it all,
wrecking the landscape and peace,
not resting until it is civilized at last.

Through the wilderness of dismal light,
Adam came paddling upstream,
noticing all the woods he had to clear-cut
to make way for barns and factories.

Adam was a surveyor measuring boundaries.
Small changes were escalating into bigger ones.

2. The Arcadian or Pastoral State

Do not be deceived
by the pastoral, idyllic fields
sky clearing for a spring morning;

trouble is hiding in that calmness,
an undercurrent of impending danger
no one can see.

Up river,
using the forked peak of a boulder
as a guide,

someone is chopping trees,
someone plows land into submission.
Notice the trimmed, organized lawns.

This is not God’s plan.
People are building a boat. Someone herds
God’s sheep into the fulcrum of the fields.

What Greek God is worshipped?
At the megalithic white columned temple,
sacrificial pale smoke curls out.

And, look,
that boat is a warship. A child idolizing a soldier
prepares for his first war. What God is this?

3. The Consummation of Empire

A summer day shines
off the colonnaded marble buildings
resembling the best architecture of Rome.

We have built this
to last a thousand centuries, a testament
to our control over the land.

Boats with lateen sails
take this news throughout the world.

Our scarlet-robed leader
is strutting like a male cardinal
over the promenade
between two marble towers
lighting the way to the future.

4. Destruction

A boat is sailing away from the tempest
as the enemy destroys the city.
Isn’t this
the way of all empires — someone else
destroys them?
Tidal waves rise
and fall; empires ebb. Smoke obliterates
skies, darkens all progress.
And for what?
The enemy is at the gate.
Survivors are fleeing the erasure of the city
like Troy.
The city is sacked, buildings are plundered,
women are raped. Any progress is undone.

All triumphs are being destroyed, turned
to ash, gutted,
columns tore to the ground.

The bridge is gone,
and a makeshift one sags
under the weight of conquest.

They have beheaded our statue to a hero
whose name escapes me. The dead fall
wherever they were
killed in the straining light,
in the affluence of death.

5. Desolation

This is the finale of all
powerful civilizations, this afterwards
when they collapse.
The world returns to primal state,
reclaiming what was taken away.

Remnants of former buildings lose out to nature.
Ivy covers them.
Broken light towers no longer search for visitors.
The ruins of the bridge are unsafe to cross.
A single column is used for nesting birds.
None of nature mourns for humanity.

The moon has risen over the ruined river.
The day reaches its crescendo,
glistening on one standing pillar.

Coda: 

The questions remain:
Was Thomas Cole a visionary when he painted these pictures?

Did he see the future?

You decide.

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2021

Click title to open/download microchap

Cover: Heaven is where you create it

by Lauri Burke

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Every Origami Microchap
may be printed, for free,
from this website.

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The Calling

the forest is summoning
with absolute urgency
inviting us into the thickest part
of the black olive darkness
tinged with a poignant green
it is a matter of longing
to be where we are meant to be
we will be welcomed
for exactly who we are
and we will belong

this is never what we expect 
but it does
we are intended to fit in
even though we are unique

the urging calls us

when we respond
stepping into that other world
we will have finally arrived
the way we were made to be

Bench of Reflected Moments

light reflects off water waves
dizzy and sharp
splashes of words

eons of light
peeled white birch bark
mirror on the lake

a loon cry dives into water
waves
of deep silence

birch leaves wave
hello
songs in the wind

this is the same light
I have always chased
never catching once

I am separated on a bench
by light and shadow
inside the listening quiet

one bird I cannot identify
sings into my reflections
pulling apart like clouds

I want to believe this moment
this handmade peace
this water softening a shore

water absorbs what is given
takes the unnecessary
happening with or without me

*

Martin Willitts Jr  © 2020

Click title to download PDF microchap

Cover collage: Jan Keough

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Every Origami Microchap
may be printed, for free,
from this website.

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1.

whenever I feel superior
God impresses me
with such awe
my mouth cannot speak

all I can do
is paint with my heart
the wordlessness
changing within me
as frequently as clouds

2.

whatever is in darkness
will surrender to Light

whatever is mysterious
will be revealed
to us some day

whatever saddens us
will be lifted
like clouds
from our eyes

what we hear
will be the unspoken
if we listen
within the silence

3.

whatever is lifted
out of the silence
has another hidden message
we need to decipher

the image is cloudy
unless we have patience
to discern

it shifts like clouds
we must be quick
to catch a glimpse
before it breaks apart

4.

we need to understand
we are loved

we may feel lonely
abandoned
forgotten

we are remembered

remember when we looked at clouds
naming their shapes
as they transformed

we are like that
changing all of the time

we may never see the change
happening
and we cannot prevent it

5.

all the reputation I might gain
that could fade away
is not something worth worrying us
during the Presence of God

we cannot worry about
the uncertainty of life
for it will form and fade
as often as clouds

this power of conceiving
within love
is within all of us
willing to be open
to receiving

6.

all things are possible
if we believe

small miracles inside us
a kind of resurrection

clouds smear with light
entering us

we are never the same
nor is a millennium of fallen rain

nor baby hawks opening yellow beaks
trusting their emptiness will be filled

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2019

Click title to download PDF microchap.

Cover: Jungle Resurrection by Lauri Burke

1.

the life I have lived
is nothing more or less
than vapor from my lungs
on a cold-still day

I am aching to be more
but I tend to be less

2.

there is little time
to look ahead
into the transforming
light
to witness
the cumulative impact

all I can do
is prepare

3.

heartsickness
is caused by absence
when it touches us

I search for the source
of water
to see if this is fresh
and taste
the chill of joy

4.

the dreamer enters songs
like someone kissed
on cheeks
blushes

I enter the green waters
in filtered light

5.

when you enter silence
like wind turning
a mill’s blades
stirring shadows
you’ll have both feet
deep in the stillness
churning with it

6.

I’ve been reading the air
and accents of light
to find out what is being said

I’m listening
like low tide takes away
all loss
into the forever

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2019

Click on title to download PDF microchap.

Cover: Artwork by Lauri Burke w/collage jk

-

Every Origami Microchap
may be printed, for free,
from this website.

• 

What the Soundlessness is Telling Us 

The absence of sound
creates the presence of amplified noises
so miniscule, we cannot hear them—

a baby sighs in an upstairs bedroom,
and a first-time parent rushes in
to check to make certain the baby is alright;

or a bat, gliding after mosquitoes; or
maple sap sugaring into syrup; or chalk
scribbling on a blackboard.

Folding the laundry, I make the neat creases,
sighing a quiet memory into each piece,
the day after my first wife died.

*

When We Are in the Moment

The world is fuzzy,
but you can step into it

and step out of it,
never belonging to either place.

In that moment, a clatter of silence
is immense. Light pours in open bowls,

mysteries leaving and entering,
rehearsing migrations.

Light finds its way, trying to decide
if we are worth having.

How the World Pulses

A person could tune out distractions
to focus on meditative silence, merge
into land and sky, become elemental,
belonging to both nowhere
and everywhere, becoming light
and shadow.

Once a person is connected
to the whole universe,
they are no longer separated,
and cannot go back to Before —

they are undifferentiated
from bird-swirl, spring-melt,
spider swinging on web-thread,
leaf shuffling on a branch during wind.

A person is no longer scattered;
instead, they are united,
stirring the world into excitable
curing music.

*

Where to Find Love

We ignore the silverweed
growing in ditches, its troublesome
haired leaves and yellow flowers. - silky
s in the rose family, ’ ve forgotten it ’ We
so we love it less than we should.
We forget the silverweed is a healing
plant.
We should trust more
in what we can't see, can't touch. 

This morning, I touched my wife
to know she is still with me.

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2019

Click title to download PDF microchap. 

Cover collage: Jan Keough

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Before You Go

Notice this light
filling in the empty spaces.

Notice the tracks in fresh snow
are not human, but
they are heading towards home.

Notice, the quiet has stopped here,
facing the cloudless sky,
simple as a room without furniture.

Notice: no one answers when called.

Experiences like this happen
without even trying, and then,
night wakes up, opens a door,
trying to catch up with those tracks
before they disappear into new snow,
before the woods enter into us.

•

Leaving

hidden - half
by hundreds of pines
beyond bluish haze
is a deeper tone
rush - of river
raging against autumn
this far from home

no matter what we do
we cannot prevent
today from leaving

Nasturtiums

light is burning
and flashing
on the river
matching
orange nasturtiums in spring
before they close like eyes
in meditation

•

How Situations Develop

In driving rain, we are conscious
of the weight and density
of the rain on the windshield

then light halves
in flashes, rain
washing away all sight.

We pitch around in the car,
the tires not gripping, heading towards
a landscape no one can see.

— Another flash
revealing a sudden curve,
a narrow edge near a ditch.

Times like these, we regret all our words,
and the ones we never said.
The heart knows wrenching when it happens

•

Martin Willitts Jr. © 2017

What would I do

if you did not wait for me?

Click title to download PDF microchap 

Cover: Mind in the Waters

by Lauri Burke

• 

Untitled

What would I do
if you did not wait for me?
What would I do if
you became so bored
from waiting, you moved on
and now I had to search for you
among a crowd?

I found you, once.
I cannot let you get out of my sight.
I would be lost without you.

•

At the End of the Day

At the end of the day, Grandfather Moon
is wearing his long johns,
lighting the stars with a single match.
Grandmother Stories, picks up her knitting
of bright colors, saving remnants for
another day

•

After Service

Autumn leaves congregate in a rain gutter
peace in the valley, — singing psalms
but a preacher — contagiously swells out
doubts anyone is listening.

•

Spooning

At night, spoons stir dreams with a dab
of local honey the color of night,
whispering like men saying good night.

Constantly

air is motionless over the hills late
into the green day
churning hay in a combine

this chore needed to be completed
before the rains came in
with their dark grey words

rain clouds seemed to be coming silently
traveling distances too tired from work
asking if it all makes sense

this is the same face in the mirror
the same river pushing nowhere fast
the air is exhausted from bundling hay

•

Untouchable Light

The sky barely touches land for miles —
what was night has broken
into a flurry of crows disturbed
like drunks cursing.

In this morning rush, where the sun
is a scorpion ready to sting with heat,
eaten. - I find a carcass, half
What was a living thing is unrecognizable.

Crows are silhouetted in piercing light,
their shadows scattered darkly.
I stare at the remains, wondering what to do
next.

•

Martin Willitts Jr © 2017

The Restlessness of the Gardener

Click title to download PDF microchap

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Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis)

Canyon Gooseberry (Ribes menziescii)

we found these in the open forest, violet-white,
their leaves tend to be smaller, less resinous
or sticky

the stems have three spines per node;
often the fruits are covered with glandular hairs
and/or spines

unremarkable for their edibility,
jewel-like flowers in early spring
particularly lovely at close range

their maroon eyes study us
the redwood forest moves in closer
dwarfing us, making us as small as the berry

Observations

There is an overcast of stickiness.
You can see it shimmer in waves
like the Aurora Borealis.
It is the return of sorrow and meanness.
What was given is returned tenfold.

Next time, try some other technique.

-

In every short breeze

All leaves are different:
the top from the bottom —
but they are always the same leaf
with the same intention
to fulfill their lasting promise —
never to last.

-

What touches you
like a pussy willow against your skin —
a chill? God?

What was present
. was never really there

-

When the sacred watches over you
while you are sleeping,
you have excuses:

you were not awake!
However, when you are awake,
what’s your excuse then?

Even the blind and deaf notice
the Presence and the absence.
It is always like rain without thunder.

•

Farming in Late Summer

             1.

              3.
While the crickets were penetrating silence
a whole village was being built overnight.

                 4.
The night was ripe for a light jacket
but the amount of sweat
from yanking fieldstones
using only a lever all day
had taken its toll, and now
I stunk so bad,
the mosquitoes were driven miles away.

            5.
off singed the skin off - The fog burn
layers of earth on the shores
where the soybeans were clinging low
for dear life, but the snow peas
liked this weather just fine
and stood up to try to grab more of it
before it fluttered away
like exhausted, wounded birds
nabbed by the barn cat.

            6.
Today, at school,
the little fish learned
never to trust worms.

            7.
A boy, a dusty day,
a clear pond,
do not mix.

A switch and a boy
do.

            8.
A cardinal perched on a white fence
and a cautious barn cat.
What could go wrong?
A boy could interfere.

            9.
A robin building its nest
on the huge tractor wheel
realizes his error
when the tractor takes off,

and when the tractor settles down
for the night, the robin forgets
his lesson and returns
to start erecting his nest again.

*

Martin Willitts Jr. © 2016

Letters to Sappho

1.

4.

I stack stones
upon round smooth stones
to see how many
before they topple

this is how men build
before wars
when stones fall
empires fall

I tried building water
upon water
like a woman
but it becomes water

5.

I hear rumors
a place where women rule
naked as seaweed
no men allowed

surely
no man could allow this

men spoil dreams
thundering even in sleep
after running through us
naked as seaweed

6.

I woke up
when everyone slept
even the dust

it was quiet

I heard a hermit crab
turning inside its shell
trying to be comfortable
on the other side
of this island

we are all restless
when some wrong happened

then dust is unsettled
dogs chase their nightmares
lovers growl
like stags
horns caught in brambles

I sing as a cricket
everything settles

this is what it is like
to be moonlight

Opening Lines

Silent Work

•

     1.

There is patience in the rush of irises across the fields
like planting of love between two people —
It is deep work — like roots for plants,
like a barn’s loose nail needing hammering,
or a fence sags from neglect.

Silence need not be a sullen work.
A deep well always replenishes,
drawing up a full bucket with a rope that never frays.
But just like pulling the rope
on a hot and thirsty day can seem to take forever,
you need patience to bring love that long distance.

Love is always yearning—
sometimes, the silence tells me
to find my lover and tell her how much I care,
like sunlight to a dark room.
I feel like I have been away twenty years,
and the world has changed.

Just that reminder of what I missed,
and suddenly I am back. The door opens —
and she is there, patching my tapestry of loss
and my body sighs
like packages dropped to the floor.

      2

.
This is the silent work of love. The hard work
is made easy, and the easy work is made hard.

Like after a tornado, there is the aftermath
when everything calms; or,
when distance between towns makes a long journey,
the absence of love can make a relationship
seem forever.

After the settling of stars are no longer in the sky,
what could possibly be more intense than love?
What could possibly be more drenching than hate?

Someone said, we can love all you want,
we can forgive with all our heart, and still,
love might not come to us.
When we believe we have given all we can give,
give more. Give until the silence of love is an overture
and the heart is a swelling of tides.
fall rising and settling.

        3.

        4.

There is an obsolete word, “jointure”,
meant “to join”; now it is a provision in estates.
What was joined let nothing separate.

A man visited his wife in a nursing home.
She had Alzheimer’s. She did not know him,
or who she was, or where she was.

Everything he had loved was gone.
It was like she was a vacant room.
He could have left her; she would not have known.

Instead, he visited every day.
Every day he reintroduced himself;
every evening she would forget.

If he missed a day, she would not know it.
He came on her good days and her bad days.
She never knew the difference.

Some days, she would say,
bring back the other guy, the one that’s nice to me.
She knew that difference.

Inside the box of the mind, there is another box,
you never know what’s inside; — a Pandora’s box
each has a fragment of what is love and what is not.

She had the inheritance of someone loved,
but she also had the pain that goes along,
assembling love and letting go of what hurts.

What hurts is inside needing to get out.
There was a deed to her heart
and it was fully paid.

        5.

We keep coming back to love
like it was a magnet.
Like two opposite magnets, it keeps us away.

Some treat love as if it was a trail
leading to some special place
they have not come to yet.

When building the brick and mortar of love,
use the right materials
of care and understanding.

When on a bad trail, clear the way of brush,
and when in love remove bad feelings.
Be like prophets dreaming.

        6.

Love is quiet
within the concentration of a single focus.
It is like sanding wood, going with the grain.
When threading a needle, we narrow our eye
on the needle and thread, until they blend.
almost invisible. If the thread misses, we try again.
We become intense and quiet when we narrow in.

        7.

If you work hard at love
do not be surprised
if you develop calluses on your hands.

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There is a Weight to Love

Opening Lines

Dedication

•

Love is Breathing

Improvisations in Darkness

Opening Lines

The Coming and Going of Belonging

Click title to download PDF microchap 

Outward Creation

13 Ways to Digest a Purple Coneflower

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Martin Willitts, Jr. © 2013

Haiku Irises

No. 13-16

Martin Willitts, Jr. © 2012