Month: July 2016

Gayety of Stride

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image
Photo by Joel DeWaard

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It’s the immemorial feelings
I like the best: hunger, thirst,
their satisfaction; work-weariness,
earned rest; the falling again
from loneliness to love;
the green growth the mind takes
from the pastures in March;
the gayety in the stride 
of a good team of Belgian mares
that seems to shudder from me
through all my ancestry.
~Wendell Berry “Goods”

No one can say I haven’t worked hard enough.

Pulling on the tugs, pushing into the yoke that I willingly allowed to weigh me down,

my ancestry birthed me for this hard work weariness.

But they might say I have lost the gayety in my stride, having hit too many rocks and run head-long into stumps.

They might say the joy lies deeper than my plow can reach.

 

 

The Slowest Beauty

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flamingobutterfly

birdofparadisebutterfly

As though I were nowhere around, the porcupine
              shuffles the edge of the road,
              in five minutes crosses
                            a distance I could have covered
                            in less than one

And disappears at last into cattails
              and rushes, sunset, a vespers
              of waterbirds, leaving me
                            still unwilling to move.

I am a sucker for scenes like this.
              The slowest beauty can rush me.
              And here I am,
                            all of my defenses down.
~Ingrid Wendt from “Porcupine at Dusk”

 

tropicalflower

butterfly1

A walk through enclosed tropical gardens
to witness the slow beauty of wading flamingos,
koi moving between their legs,
a lazy mist over exotic flowers,
butterflies testing their fragile wings.

I am overwhelmed,
my defenses down
over the rush of my life
outside this bubble.

Going back through the double doors,
re-entering the gray and cool of the northwest,
the bubble burst
and I’m released in a flutter of wings.

closeowleye

 

 

Your Unfolding Life

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sunflowerjuy

begoniawlc

pnp168

Beauty is about more rounded substantial becoming,
….an emerging fullness,
a greater sense of grace and elegance,
a deeper sense of depth,
and also a kind of homecoming
for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.
~John O’Donohue from an “On Being” interview

 

cornflower2016

Whenever we wander from home,
witnessing beauty in far flung places,
I find I yearn even more for the homecoming
of memories unfolding
from where they are so neatly stored,
so deep and so wide, so full and filling.

seeds

dahlialinda

petuniajuly

Inhabiting

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danpnp

pnp7161

“I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
and that necessary.”
~Margaret Atwood from “Variations on the Word Sleep”

pnp166

For Dan’s birthday:

In this journey together,
we inhabit each other,
however briefly;
you are the air I breathe,
though I may not know it every moment~~
you are as necessary,
and that loved.

pnp716

pnp7164

A Strong Enough Bridge

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Bridge2

The bridge of grace will bear your weight…
~Charles Spurgeon

 

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in His birth
of Himself.

Enough talk for the night.
He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent
for a while,

worlds are forming
in my heart.    
~Meister Eckhart from “Expands His Being”

 

What God would birth Himself into something as dark as this world?
Into this place of meanness, tribal conflicts and hatred?

This God would.

He labors in our dark hearts for good reason, becoming a bridge strong enough to bear us into the light and heal the cracks and fissures within.  We are unformed and unready to meet Him, clinging as we do to our dark ways and thoughts, afraid to walk the plank as our weight of sin is so heavy, our need so great.

We are silenced as He prepares us, as He prepares Himself for birth within us. The labor pains are His, not ours;  we become awed witnesses to His first and last breath when He makes all things, including us, new again, bearing us up, no matter how heavy the burden we bring to Him.

The world is reborn — even where dark reigned before, even where it is bleakest, even where we were sure we would break the bridge we tread. The broken heart is healed and sealed by grace for which no weight is too great.

sunsetbridge

Crowded With God

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nasturtium7816

gladjuly

We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God.
The world is crowded with Him.
He walks everywhere incognito.
And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate.
The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact to come awake. Still more to remain awake.
~C.S.Lewis

rainyblackberry

sumasmountain

The older I get, the more I recognize the need to be alert and awake to the presence of God in the crowded world around me.

It doesn’t come naturally.

We humans have an attention deficit, choosing to focus inwardly on self and ignoring the rest.  If it isn’t for me, or like me, or about me, it somehow is not worthy of my consideration.

We wear blinders, asleep.

We need help to recognize the presence of God, to peel the layers off the ordinary and find Him at the extraordinary core, incognito.  He reveals Himself to us, invisible, yet right in plain sight.

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gladjuly

 

Just Too Tired

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window2

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now I remember only the flavor –
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes –
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.
~Dorianne Laux “Dust”

crow

…I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel.
For that rare, random descent.
~Sylvia Plath from “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”

 

…it is no trick of radiance
nor is it random.
This descent to us,
planned and very real:
He seizes us and does not let go
even when we are too tired
to open to Him.
He makes it impossible to be neutral.
We wait,
this long wait of moving rocks;
tired of waiting,
seeking contentment while waiting
rapt,
aware,
weary,
awake.

A Hornet’s Nest in Your Lap

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TOSHIBA Exif JPEG

gnome4

Ever have one of those days when it doesn’t really matter what you do, what you don’t do, what you say, what you don’t say—you find yourself sitting on top of a hornet’s nest, and at the slightest provocation, you’ll get nailed, but good.

The hardest reality of all is that you may have actually invited and fostered the hornets that are now ready to attack you.  You offered them shelter, a safe haven, a place to come home to and what happens in return?  You’re stung because you happen to be there, perched in a precarious position.

What difficult lessons life tosses at us sometimes.  And this little drama is happening in my own backyard.

As I headed to the barn for chores and walked past our happy little gnome, I gave him my usual smile, wave and morning greeting, but something was different and I looked a little closer.  He looked suddenly anatomically correct.  And the look on his face had taken on a distinctly worried cast.  How had he gotten himself into this predicament of harboring a hornet’s nest in his lap?

He reminded me we should be worried too.  When we’re feeling very hospitable, welcoming and willing to share what we have with others, it can be the best feeling in the world.  There is a sense of graciousness and gratitude in being able to give something of one’s self, and a distinct “need to be needed” that is rewarded.  Yet it is often no selfless sacrifice, this “offering our lap”. We give because it feels good to give; share because we feel rewarded by gratitude, or because it is the “right thing to do”.  Perhaps we even expect something in return for our kindness. Indeed, that is the problem—often there is no acknowledgment or gratitude and that can hurt a lot.  I too occasionally share space with “hornets”, sometimes unwittingly, until I get stung and am sorely reminded of just what I’ve sat down in.  I’m rewarded, all right, and I get exactly what I deserve.

Yet what should worry us even more is that sometimes we’re the ones building a nest in an opportunistic place where we have been invited to take refuge.  In our most selfish moments, we’re looking for that lap to settle in where we can have the most control either by threat or worse.   We’re ready to sting at the slightest provocation, or perhaps for no reason at all.   How do we get ourselves into such a predicament that we sometimes hurt those that harbor us and who have been generous to us?

My little backyard friend is in a dilemma, pleading with his eyes to be saved from his agony.  I’m planning a stealth rescue mission.  Without warning, in the dark of night, I’ll turn a hose on that nest, sweep it to the ground and crush it, hornets and all.  A “take no prisoners” approach to a gnome held hornet-hostage.

We at least have been warned about our life’s precarious perch and to not sting the lap that holds us.  When we offer up ourselves, it must be without expectation, simply pure gift.  And every time I look at my gnome’s gracious cheerful face I will smile too, knowing that our rescue is at hand.

Postscript:

I didn’t execute the “save our gnome”  rescue mission soon enough.  While I was foolish enough to mow the grass under our swing set today, the offending hornet nailed me in the neck.  I walked right into it, forgetting there was a hornet hazard over my head.  One ice bag and benedryl later, I dispatched hornet and nest to the great beyond.

There are times when we need to be an active participant in our own rescue…

 

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photo by Tomomi Gibson

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Illuminated

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cowmorning

morning719158

Only six months ago
on a winter morning
waking dark to part
From your warm side,
leaving behind my soft imprint,
I wrapped up in robe
to walk the gravel drive
for the newspaper.

Our hilltop farm
lies silent amid fallow fields
moon shadows
broad across my path
star sparks overhead
tree lined yard shields
the house from road.

In ink of early morning
I walk noiseless;
step out to the mailbox
then turn~ startled~
a flashlight approaching on the road-
an early walker and his dog
illuminate me in dawn disarray
like a deer in headlights:
my ruffled hair,  my sleep-lined face
uncovered in the darkness:
exposed.

Today this summer morning
wakes me early to streaming light
poured out on quilt and blankets.
I part from your warmth again
readied for this ritual walk.
Dew sparkling below
rich foliage above
road stretches empty
for miles east and west

Crossing the road
I reach for the paper
suddenly surrounded by
a bovine audience
appreciative and nodding
riveted by my bold approach
in broad daylight.
They abruptly scatter, tails in the air
when in rumpled robe and woolen slippers
I dance and twirl, illuminated
in hilltop celebration of such
an ordinary life
and extraordinary love
exposed.

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morning6615

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A Terrible One-Sided Accord

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johnshens

What did I love about killing the chickens? Let me start
with the drive to the farm as darkness
was sinking back into the earth.
The road damp and shining like the snail’s silver
ribbon and the orchard
with its bony branches.
All eighty-eight Cornish
hens huddled in their crates. Wrapping my palms around
their white wings, lowering them into the tapered urn.
Some seemed unwitting as the world narrowed;
some cackled and fluttered; some struggled.
I gathered each one, tucked her bright feet,
drew her head through the kill cone’s sharp collar,
her keratin beak and the rumpled red vascular comb
that once kept her cool as she pecked in her mansion of grass.
I didn’t look into those stone eyes. I didn’t ask forgiveness.
I slid the blade between the feathers
and made quick crescent cuts, severing
the arteries just under the jaw. Blood like liquor
pouring out of the bottle. When I see the nub of heart later,
it’s hard to believe such a small star could flare
like that. I lifted each body, bathing it in heated water
until the scaly membrane of the shanks
sloughed off under my thumb.
And after they were tossed in the large plucking drum
I loved the newly naked birds. Sundering
the heads and feet neatly at the joints, a poor
man’s riches for golden stock. Slitting a fissure
reaching into the chamber,
freeing the organs, the spill of intestines, blue-tinged gizzard,
the small purses of lungs, the royal hearts,
easing the floppy liver, carefully, from the green gall bladder,
its bitter bile. And the fascia unfurling
like a transparent fan. When I tug the esophagus
down through the neck, I love the suck and release
as it lets go.
I’m empty as I rinse each carcass,
and this is what I love most.
It’s like when the refrigerator turns off and you hear
the silence. Even in just this one thing:
looking straight at the terrible,
one-sided accord we make with the living of this world.
At the end, we scoured the tables, hosed the dried blood,
the stain blossoming through the water.
~Ellen Bass from “What Did I Love”

cedargrove

For a number of summers, we spent most of the morning and afternoon of Fourth of July with neighbors at a farm down the road doing that most American of activities: communally butchering chickens.

There is some risk to writing about killing living creatures.  Yet, I also pull carrots, radishes and onions from the ground, dig up potatoes and weed-whack thistles in the field.

It is what farmers do. Shopping at the local farmers’ market or grocery store, we are insulated from this harsh reality, this terrible one-sided accord humans have with the land and growing things.

It is how food ends up sustaining us, supporting the next generation and the next, and these living creatures deserve our blessing of gratitude.

I grew up on a farm where we raised our own meat and my parents, who also grew up knowing the animals that would eventually be on their plate, encouraged us kids to watch and participate in the process so we understood what it meant to sacrifice an animal or a plant for our benefit.  We knew that animal from birth, we named them, looked them in the eye, we petted and held them, we fed them, cleaned up after them, and when the time came, we watched them slump to the ground, their hide or feathers stripped and their steaming carcass prepared.

I cannot take this lightly.  These creatures, who I respected and cared for, were breathing heart-beating beings just minutes before.

It has been quite a few years since we raised our own meat as a family, since those summers our children growing up also learned this relationship with the food on the table.  As a group of neighbors, we would combine our chicken butchering together on Fourth of July so we had an efficient assembly line approach to the process of putting dozens of chickens in the freezer all within a few hours.  There were catchers, holders, choppers, boilers, pluckers, gutters, rinsers and baggers. We all took turns doing different aspects of the task. There was an irreverent reverence to the day, a bit more joking and laughing than was warranted when blood is intentionally spilled.

We had to acknowledge the tight intertwine of life and death though none of us could bear to eat chicken for dinner that night. We too bore the stains of the day.

 

cedargrove1

mayrose516