Month: April 2016

Distinguish Light from Dark

barnstormingblog4 Comments

sunset92horses2

grassmay20

morningmoon118151

Like animals moving daily
through the same open field,
it should be easier to distinguish
light from dark, fabrications

from memory, rain on a sliver
of grass from dew appearing
overnight. In these moments
of desperation, a sentence

serves as a halo, the moon
hidden so the stars eclipse
our daily becoming. You think
it should be easier to define

one’s path, but with the clouds
gathering around our feet,
there’s no sense in retracing
where we’ve been or where

your tired body will carry you.
Eventually the birds become
confused and inevitable. Even our
infinite knowledge of the forecast

might make us more vulnerable
than we would be in drawn-out
ignorance. To the sun
all weeds eventually rise up.
~Adam Clay “Our Daily Becoming”

 

geese1119154

dandysunset4

I walk among clouds
suspended above me and surrounding my feet,puff balls that blow and shatter,
scatter that covers the path,
if I knew where to step next.

And I don’t know.

All I know is to keep moving toward the light,
to leave darkness behind,
to rise up determined
to reach what just exceeds my grasp.

 

dylansnight7

lightdark

sundayevenin5

 

A Snail’s Huffle

barnstormingblog3 Comments

snail2

…who has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery,
whether it hides in a snail’s eye
or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ.
~Loren Eiseley

 

A gastropod brave enough
to cross a busy sidewalk
appeared in no particular rush,
no hurry toward the grassy expanse
on the other side.

The lawn will still be there
whether an hour from now
or tomorrow.
Its waving little snail eyes
see and smell the universal mystery
of the future.

To assure it will not be crushed underfoot
I decided to intervene in history
and gave it a lift
as Someone did for me.

I came, I saw a snail in danger
and barely heard it huffle.
I didn’t need to hear it~
I only needed to see
to do the right thing.

“James gave the huffle of a snail in danger. And nobody heard him at all.”
~A.A.Milne  “When We Were Very Young”

 

snail1

Breathless

barnstormingblog2 Comments

sunrise4316

morning32116

 

All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

 

dawn7253

Every time I open my eyes to a new day, I need to be reminded how precious is each moment, how wondrous each breath and each heartbeat.

We are created for this — to not forget.

To never forget.

 

bakertrail

White Flames of Trillium

barnstormingblog2 Comments

trilliumweeping

moss118162

I wished to wade in the trillium
and be warmed near the white flames.
I imagined the arch of my foot
massaged by the mosses.
This field immersed in gravity
defying growth.  Green and glorious.
It let me know that out of the
soil came I, and green I shall be.
Whether an unnamed weed or a
wild strawberry I will join in
the hymn.
~Luci Shaw from “Spring Song, Very Early Morning”

 

After a few days away from the farm, enriched by the contact with like-minded people of faith and words, I am longing to return to the land of moss and trillium, of green grass that overwhelms.

I am of the soil, dust to dust am I.   Created, celebrated, centered on the joy of returning where I belong.

trilliumheart

 

drizzlemoss

Tepid

barnstormingblog2 Comments

sunrisepond22115

I know what my heart is like
      Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
      Left there by the tide,
      A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “Ebb”
My mother was a few years younger than I am now when my father left her for another woman.  For months my mother withered, crying until there were no more tears left, drying inward from her edges.
It took ten years, but he came back like an overdue high tide.   She was sure her love had died but her tepid pool refilled, the water cool to the touch, yet overflowing with unimaginable grace and forgiveness.
rainypondpondshimmer

Blooming Recklessly

barnstormingblog4 Comments

skagitfields432516

skagit832516

skagitfields32516

skagitfields932516

skagitfields632516

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

Perhaps there are places where spring blooms are reckless and shrieking in the night but the tulip fields in Skagit County, just south of where we live, is not one of them.

This is the home of carefully blended choral floral voices, harmonious and joyful, singing together to create a symphony of unforgettable visual grandeur

In the heart of the night, there is only the contented hum of rows and rows of purring color stirring in the valley breezes, waiting for the dawn.

skagitfields532516

skagitfields232516

skagit932516

IMG_6094

skagitfields732516

Particles of Life

barnstormingblog5 Comments

maplebuds216

blossoms4416

cherrysunrise

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.
~Gustav Flaubert
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

~Abraham Kuyper

Christ, the Word, is the poet of our hearts, to whom we belong, body and soul.  Every branch, every bud, every reach to the heavens is His.

birdandhorse

drizzleplum

catkincolony

cherrypoplar

Care and Feeding of a Writer

barnstormingblog8 Comments

driffledils

dilly5

Be a good steward of your gifts.
Protect your time.
Feed your inner life.
Avoid too much noise.
Read good books,
have good sentences in your ears.
Be by yourself as often as you can.
Walk.
Take the phone off the hook.
Work regular hours.
~Jane Kenyon from A Hundred White Daffodils

daffodil21316

dilly10

There’s nothing “regular” about the hours I work and I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to obsessive commitment of my time.  My phone is attached to me day and night for good reason.  I don’t read enough, don’t particularly enjoy being alone, don’t spend enough time walking nowhere in particular and am immersed in the noise of life.

Since I have flunked care and feeding of a writer, I am taking a remedial course this week at the Festival of Faith and Writing @Calvin.   Maybe I’ll see you there.

In the meantime,  I cleave to good sentences in my heart and the cadence of good phrases in my ears.  It’s what a good steward of words must do.

dilly3

dilly1

Making Scents

barnstormingblog5 Comments

fullbloom2

appleblossom316

appleblossom416

I admit it.  Right this minute, I should be doing our taxes.  We’re down to the last minute and I have all the paperwork stacked on the desk beside me, but I’m not doing it.  It is too miserable a task to even contemplate.  Instead I go outside to capture spring.

The last few mornings, when I have risen just before dawn, I have gone outside to breathe deeply of the scents that hang heavy in the cool moist air.  The perfume from thousands of orchard blossoms on our farm is heady and intoxicating.  There is nothing quite like these two weeks each year when our farm becomes a mass of snow white and pink scented flowers, busy with honey bees and eventually showering petals to the ground as the fruit starts to form.

Unfortunately, I’m allergic to tree pollen.  I breathe deeply and… sneeze and wheeze.  Even the best medicine can’t stop my reaction. So much loveliness causes so much misery.  So I retreat back to the house and look out the window and enjoy the view from afar, dabbing my dripping nose.

Ironically, this is the same time of year our dairy farm neighbors start to empty their manure lagoons and begin to spread their thousands of gallons of liquid manure on the surrounding fields, readying the ground for the hay or corn crop to come later on this summer. That scent hangs heavy in the cool moist air as well, pungent and unforgettable, penetrating even into our clothing so we carry the smell back into the house with us.  Of course I’m not allergic to manure.  After all, it’s only grass and water transformed.  In fact, as nasty a smell as it is, it’s invigorating in a perverse sort of way.  I know where it comes from, I know what its potential is, and I know the crop it yields.  It is, in itself, as treasured as the blossoms that yield fruit on our farm.

Taxes are the manure in our lives.  They are pretty stinky too, just like manure, an inevitable part of our daily existence, yet even more onerous.  However, spread out where needed, those collective taxes fertilize and grow our communities, our schools, our roads, our health care (and a few other things we may wish would not be funded).

So I must get to work spreading numbers across my desktop in the hope they may make sense and yield fruit of their own, sometime, somewhere.

The Cents of Spring.

pearblossom2416

appleblossom2416

fullbloom

Heart, Round Me Right

barnstormingblog1 Comment

sunset1224145

sunset329166
Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ‘ vaulty, voluminous, . . . stupendous
Evening strains to be time’s vást, ‘ womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.
Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ‘ her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height
Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ‘ stárs principal, overbend us,
Fíre-féaturing heaven.
Heart, you round me right
With: Óur évening is over us; óur night ‘ whélms, whélms, ánd will end us.
Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, ‘ thóughts agaínst thoughts ín groans grínd.
 ~Gerard Manley Hopkins — stanzas from “Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves”

northmorning121115

sunset26161

A descent into night is overwhelming relief from the stress of the day, an all-encompassing comfort as the fire of the sun warms and then extinguishes, leaving only moon, stars and the infinite heavens we bend backwards to see.

A descent into night is overwhelming loss, an emptying of all that is familiar, as we are overtaken by darkness that is not only outside us, but within us.

Heart, oh dear Heart, please round me right so my thoughts reflect Your thoughts, your Light to illuminate me from within.

aprileveningnorth
sunset329165