~James Wright, “A Blessing”
Breaking into Blossom
~James Wright, “A Blessing”
The smell of that buttered toast simply spoke to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.
~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing…
– Edna St. Vincent Millay, from “Spring”
I know that we cannot depend on the return of Spring to heal us~
it is balm not cure.
I know that none of its beauty can bloom without it dying before~
it is a shroud thrown over to cover our decay.
I know I cannot be transformed by the warmth of the sun~
it is not enough for my skin to sweat when my heart lies still and cold.
I know I must dig deeper in holy ground for the truth~
it does not lie in perfumed blossoms and sweet blue skies.
I know what I know~
life in itself is nothing unless
death is overcome yet again
and our hearts, once broken,
begin to pulse red once more.
with prayers for the family of a ten year old Whidbey Island girl who died this week while out in the field with her beloved horses –of natural causes and no signs of trauma
…riding gave her more than a body. It released a gay and hardy soul. She was the happiest thing in the world. And she was happy because she was enlarging her horizon.
…A rift in the clouds in a gray day threw a shaft of sunlight upon her coffin as her nervous, energetic little body sank to its last sleep. But the soul of her, the glowing, gorgeous, fervent soul of her, surely was flaming in eager joy upon some other dawn.
~William Allen White from his famous eulogy for his daughter “Mary White” in 1921 written four days after she died in a riding accident
This is a week of very public sorrow for so many, though, not unlike any week, there are those who grieve in their own private agony of loss.
Any child dying is too young too soon. It defies our limited ability to understand or explain.
May we, as did William White over 90 years ago, search for the eloquence in telling the story of that one young life — how her soul lit the world for a brief shining moment and now continues to flame beyond our reach.
The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness and everyone must choose his side.
~G. K. Chesterton
…love has always sought to put back together that which hate has broken.
…our hands have always been able to heal as much as harm.
…since the dawn of humanity, each of us contains three people—
the angel, the demon, and the one who decides which we will obey.
~Billy Coffey
It should not require an act of evil for us to recognize the human capacity for love, caring and compassion. It should not take fearsome suffering and death of innocents to remind us all life is precious and worthy of our protection, when others would discard it.
We are created to choose sides. Our Creator chose to suffer to guarantee we are eternally worthy of His protection.
How then shall we choose?
(Eliot’s Wasteland echoes the brokenness of this day in Boston)
Burial of the Dead
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
~T.S. Eliot from “The Wasteland”
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Thank God
the earth remembers the meter and rhythm of spring
and annually recites it from memory:
the tease of sun
warming cheeks,
a lapse back
into rain storms,
bulbs bursting
through frost,
surprised by snowflakes
maybe ice,
then a rainbow
through slanted light,
a few hardy buds
swell to blossom,
bees buzz sleepy,
all the while more rain,
painting green, always green
growing burgeoning flourishing.
The poem of earth reciting spring
declines to force a rhyme,
its buried words watered warm
to blossom just in time.
Yesterday, we packed up the remnants of our sons’ childhood, boxing up their bedrooms to put away their school notebooks and artwork in garage storage next to the boxes containing their departed grandparents’ lives. The bedrooms are now pristine and less chaotic, ready for overnight visitors from faraway lands, but I lay awake troubled and tossing in the winds of my life’s changing.
What I know will be packed up in a box someday by my children, a simple portable box to be tucked away and reopened by some future generation who will puzzle over why this or that was saved. While time rushes forward, it is disorienting as everything else is unexplainable.
I can only stand and wait, breathless yet breathing, to know what is there beyond knowing.
It will come, I know. It is calling.
Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows