Month: June 2018

To Find the Poem Itself

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In science we have been reading only the notes to a poem:
in Christianity we find the poem itself.
~C.S. Lewis from Miracles

 

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Science fails when we need a miracle:
it can’t
~love us always no matter what,
~give us reason to keep on living when we want to give up,
~grasp the hand of the dying who aren’t ready,
~provide hope to the weak and courage to the fearful,
~become sacrifice for all we’ve done wrong,
~redeem us through everlasting forgiveness and grace.

Science is merely the footnote
to a Word and Truth more vast:
a fermata allowing us just a long enough rest to admire Creation,
dwelling for a moment of silence
inside His ultimate symphonic Work.

 

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Running Over the Headed Grass

barnstormingblog3 Comments

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Light and wind are running
over the headed grass
as though the hill had 
melted and now flowed.
~Wendell Berry “June Wind”

 

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It is haying time now, as soon as another stretch of clear days appears on the horizon.  We missed a haying window last week, and now are staring at a week and a half of uncertain weather with forecast rain and clouds interspersed among sunny warmer days.

The headed grass is growing heavier, falling over, lodged before it can be cut, with the undulations of moist breezes flowing over the hill.   It has matured too fast, rising up too lush, too overcome with itself so that it can no longer stand.  It is melting and undulating like a lava flow, pulled back into the soil.

We must move fast to save it.

Light and wind work magic on our hill.  The blades of the mower will come soon to lay it to the ground in green streams that flow up and down the slopes.  It will lie comfortless in its stoneless cemetery rows, until tossed about by the tedder into random piles to dry, then raked back into a semblance of order in mounded lines flowing over the landscape.

It will be crushed and bound together for transport to the barn, no longer bending but bent, no longer flowing but flown, no longer growing but grown.

Salvaged.

It becomes fodder for the beasts of the farm during the cold nights when the wind beats at the doors.   It melts in their mouths, as it was meant to, just as we are meant to melt and flow ourselves, rescued by light and wind and spirit.

Saved.

 

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Dechaybarn

The Velvet of Sleep

barnstormingblog4 Comments

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The children have gone to bed.
We are so tired we could fold ourselves neatly
behind our eyes and sleep mid-word, sleep standing
warm among the creatures in the barn, lean together
and sleep, forgetting each other completely in the velvet,
the forgiveness of that sleep.

Then the one small cry:
one strike of the match-head of sound:
one child’s voice:
and the hundred names of love are lit
as we rise and walk down the hall.

One hundred nights we wake like this,
wake out of our nowhere
to kneel by small beds in darkness.
One hundred flowers open in our hands,
a name for love written in each one.
~Annie Lighthart “The Hundred Names of Love”

 

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Each of many nights of a child wakening,
each of many moments of rocking them in the dark,
lulling them back to that soft velvet of sleep,
I feel my budding love
unfurling in fragrance
of blossomed fullness,
unfurling until there is no inner spiral left,
and each petal, one by one, drops away,
grateful.

 

 

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Almost There

barnstormingblog3 Comments

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Take me as I drive alone
Through the dark countryside.
As the strong beams clear a path,
Picking out fences, weeds, late
Flowering trees, everything
That streams back into the past
Without sound. I smell the grass
And the rich chemical sleep
Of the fields. An open moon
Sails above, and a stalk
Of red lights blinks, miles away.

It is at such moments I
Am called, in a voice so pure
I have to close my eyes and enter
The breathing darkness just beyond
My headlights. I have come back.
I think, to something I had
Almost forgotten, a mouth
That waits patiently, sighs, speaks,
And falls silent. No one else
Is alive. The blossoms are
White, and I am almost there.
Robert Mezey “White Blossoms” from Collected Poems

 

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waterlilydan

 

So much of our lives, we travel in near darkness, barely discerning where we are headed, the beams of the headlights only reaching so far.  It is disconcerting not knowing the destination or when the journey will end.

Traveling blind, so to speak.

Yet there is much to see and hear and touch along the way, so we stay awake and pay attention.

We’re almost there.  Almost there.

 

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Their Eyes Shine, Reflecting Stars

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Two whistles, one for each,
and familiar sounds draw close in darkness—
cadence of hoof on hardened bottomland,
twinned blowing of air through nostrils curious, flared.
They come deepened and muscular movements
conjured out of sleep: each small noise and scent
heavy with earth, simple beyond communion…

…and in the night, their mares’ eyes shine, reflecting stars,
the entire, outer light of the world here. 
~Jane Hirschfield from “After Work”

 

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It’s tempting to fall into this fathomless well –
Their eyes are what I see first,
This retinal magnet drawing my own into
Such incalculable depths.

Yet I’m merely reflected like starlight;
Only dancing on a mirrored surface
When I long to dive in deeper~
To be so lost I must be found.

 

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brothers

Lost in the Clover

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cloverdrizzle

morningclover

Some sings of the lily, and daisy, and rose,
And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime throws
In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays
Blinkin’ up at the skyes through the sunshiney days;
But what is the lily and all of the rest
Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest
That was dipped brimmin’ full of the honey and dew
Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew?
I never set eyes on a clover-field now,
Er fool round a stable, er climb in the mow,
But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane
As the smell of the clover I’m sniffin’ again;
And I wunder away in a bare-footed dream,
Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam
With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love
Ere it wept ore the graves that I’m weepin’ above.

And so I love clover–it seems like a part
Of the sacredest sorrows and joys of my hart;
And wharever it blossoms, oh, thare let me bow
And thank the good God as I’m thankin’ Him now;
And I pray to Him still fer the stren’th when I die,
To go out in the clover and tell it good-bye,
And lovin’ly nestle my face in its bloom
While my soul slips away on a breth of purfume
~James Whitcomb Riley “The Clover Poem”

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cloverinnards

Lightly it flew to the pleasant home
Of the flower most truly fair,
On Clover’s breast he softly lit,
And folded his bright wings there.
‘Dear flower,’ the butterfly whispered low,
‘Long hast thou waited for me;
Now I am come, and my grateful love
Shall brighten thy home for thee;
Thou hast loved and cared for me, when alone,
Hast watched o’er me long and well;
And now will I strive to show the thanks
The poor worm could not tell.
Sunbeam and breeze shall come to thee,
And the coolest dews that fall;
Whate’er a flower can wish is thine,
For thou art worthy all.
~Louisa May Alcott from “Clover-Blossom”

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cloverbeauty

Can anything be as plain to the eye as one of a million clover blossoms?

Then you look up close.
There is nothing quite as lovely — each individual little bloom of the clover ball is a part of a greater whole.

Here is a place to tangle our toes and nestle our nose.
Here we roll over.
Here we find the sacredest sorrow and joy of our heart.
Here is a place to get lost and be found.

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One Tree – A Hundred Backdrops

barnstormingblog14 Comments

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If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.
~G.K. Chesterton

 

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Most evenings there is no sunset fanfare, no departing glowing orb on the horizon, no color spreading upward into the clouds.  The typical evening canvas is just grey and ordinary at dusk, transitioning to twilight, giving into nightfall.

Grey–>darkergrey–>black.

Yet there are times not at all ordinary.  On those evenings, the Master reaches deep for his palette and starts mixing.  As He begins His work,  grey gradually gives way to amber and orange, shifting to red and purple and yellow.   A daub here, a speckle there, then full out splash and streak.  The backdrop is never the same night after night.  He takes creative license with His creation.

We are invited to pick up a brush and apprentice for Him, learning the sweep of the hand, the grace of the wrist stroke, the fine work of the brush tip outlining the black of darkening shadows.

There can be no wrong color combination; anything goes.  It is a riveting gift of extraordinary artwork: it is meant to be shared, to be taught, to be cherished even if only for a few brief minutes.

When the sky glows like unfolding rose petals, all will see it; this work won’t be hidden away in a gallery or museum.

All too soon it moves on, the canvas plain and dark once again.  And we’re left holding the brush, eager and ready to try again when the timing is right.

 

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There is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset.
~G.K. Chesterton

 

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An Ordinary Decent Egg

barnstormingblog3 Comments

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brokenegg

 

 

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird:
it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. 
We are like eggs at present. 
And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. 
We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis from Mere Christianity

 

 

eggsbroken2

 

I reveled in being the good egg.
Smooth on the surface,
gooey inside, often a bit scrambled,
ordinary and decent,
indistinguishable from others,
blending in,
not making waves.

It’s not been bad staying just as I am.
Except I can no longer remain like this.

A dent or two appeared in my outer shell
from bumps along the way,
and a crack up one side
extending daily.

It has come time to change or face rot.

Nothing will be the same again:
the fragments of shell
left behind
abandoned
as useless confinement.

Newly hatched:
my home becomes
the wind beneath my wings
soaring an endless horizon
that stretches beyond eternity.

 

 

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geesev3

A Miracle of Shade and Light

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How often do we miss the fainter note
Or fail to see the more exquisite hue,
Blind to the tiny streamlet at our feet,
Eyes fixed upon some other, further view.
What chimes of harmonies escape our ears,
How many rainbows must elude our sight,
We see a field but do not see the grass,
Each blade a miracle of shade and light.
How then to keep the greater end in eye
And watch the sunlight on the distant peak,
And yet not tread on any leaf of love,
Nor miss a word the eager children speak?
Ah, what demand upon the narrow heart,
To seek the whole, yet not ignore the part.
~Philip Britts  “Sonnet 1”

 

 

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We are born nearly blinded with our sole focus on our hunger to be filled and held.  As we grow, our focus sharpens to marvel and fall in love with those who feed and nurture us.

The world is almost too much to take in — a miracle of shade and light.

With age, we scan for detail within the whole.  Time’s a wasting (and so are we) if we don’t capture it all with the lenses of our eyes.

Too soon the end of life, when once again our vision blurs and the world fades from view. We hunger again to be filled and held.

Heaven will be almost too much to take in – our hearts full to bursting.

 

 

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sunsetkids

Why I’m Running Late

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It may not be rabbit season or duck season but it definitely seems to be doctor season.  Physicians are lined up squarely in the gun sights of the media,  government agencies and legislators, our health care industry employers and coworkers, not to mention our own dissatisfied patients, all happily acquiring hunting licenses in order to trade off taking aim.   It’s not enough any more to wear a bullet proof white coat.  It’s driving doctors to hang up their stethoscope just to get out of the line of fire. Depending on who is expressing an opinion, doctors are seen as overcompensated, demanding, whiny, too uncommitted, too overcommitted, uncaring, egotistical, close minded,  inflexible, and especially– perpetually late.

One of the most frequent complaints expressed about doctors is their lack of sensitivity to the demands of their patients’ schedule.  Doctors do run late and patients wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  Patients get angry while waiting and this is reflected in patient (dis)satisfaction surveys which are becoming one of the tools the industry uses to judge the quality of a physician’s work and character.

I admit I’m one of those late doctors.  Perpetually 20-30 minutes behind.

I don’t share the reasons why I’m late with my patients as we sit down together in the exam room but I do apologize for my tardiness.  Taking time to explain why takes time away from the task at hand: taking care of the person sitting or lying in front of me.   At that moment, that is the most important person in the world to me.  More important than the six waiting to see me, more important than the dozens of emails, electronic portal messages and calls waiting to be returned, more important than the fact I missed lunch or need to go to the bathroom, more important even than the text message of concern from my daughter or the worry I have about a ill relative.

I’m a salaried doctor, just like more and more of my primary care colleagues these days, providing more patient care with fewer resources.  I don’t earn more by seeing more patients.  There is a work load that I’m expected to carry and my day doesn’t end until that work is done.  Some days are typically a four patient an hour schedule, but most days my colleagues and I must work in extra patients triaged to us by careful nurse screeners, and there are only so many minutes that can be squeezed out of an hour so patients end up feeling the pinch.  I really want to try to go over the list of concerns some patients bring in so they don’t need to return to clinic for another appointment, and I really do try to deal with the inevitable “oh, by the way” question when my hand is on the door knob. Anytime that happens, I run later in my schedule, but I see it as my mission to provide essential caring for the “most important person in the world” at that moment.

The patient who is angry about waiting for me to arrive in the exam room can’t know that three patients before them I saw a woman who found out that her upset stomach was caused by an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.   Perhaps they might be more understanding if they knew that an earlier patient came in with severe self injury so deep it required repair.   Or the woman with a week of cough and new rib pain with a deep breath that could be a simple viral infection, but is showing potential signs of a pulmonary embolism caused by oral contraceptives.  Or the man with blood on the toilet paper after a bowel movement finding out he has sexually transmitted anal warts when he’s never disclosed he has sex with other men,  or the woman with bloating whose examination reveals an ominous ovarian mass, or finding incidental needle tracks on arms during an evaluation for itchiness, which leads to suspected undiagnosed chronic hepatitis.

Doctors running late are not being inconsiderate, selfish or insensitive to their patients’ needs.  Quite the opposite.  We strive to make our patients feel respected, listened to and cared for.  Most days it is a challenge to do that well and stay on time.  For those who say we are being greedy, so we need to see fewer patients, I respond that health care reform and salaried employment demands we see more patients in less time, not fewer patients in more time.  The waiting will only get longer as more doctors hang up their stethoscopes rather than become a target of anger and resentment as every day becomes “doctor season.”  Patients need to bring a book, bring knitting, schedule for the first appointment of the day.  They also need to bring along a dose of charitable grace when they see how crowded the waiting room is.  It might help to know you are not alone in your worry and misery.

But your doctor is very alone, scrambling to do the very best healing he or she can in the time available.

I’m not yet hanging my stethoscope up though some days I’m so weary by the end, I’m not sure my brain between the ear buds is still functioning.  I don’t wear a bullet proof white coat since I refuse to be defensive.  If it really is doctor season, I’ll just continue on apologizing as I walk into each exam room, my focus directed for that moment to the needs of the “most important person in the whole world.”

And that human being deserves every minute I can give them.

 

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The Doctor’s Waiting Room Vladimir Makovsky 1870