Month: September 2021

Like a Passing Smile

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The morning glories
bloom, securing the gate
in the old fence
~Matsuo Basho Haiku

Was it worthwhile to paint so fair
The every leaf – to vein with faultless art
Each petal, taking the boon light and air
Of summer so to heart?

To bring thy beauty unto a perfect flower,
Then like a passing fragrance or a smile
Vanish away, beyond recovery’s power –
Was it, frail bloom, worthwhile?

Thy silence answers: “Life was mine!
And I, who pass without regret or grief,
Have cared the more to make my moment fine,
Because it was so brief.

In its first radiance I have seen
The sun! – Why tarry then till comes the night?
I go my way, content that I have been
Part of the morning light!”
~Florence Earle Coates “The Morning Glory”

I am alive — I guess —
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory —
~Emily Dickinson

Can I too unfurl with joy in the morning light, knowing I will wilt and wither at the end of the day? Will I live fully open to this day, unconcerned about tomorrow?

God intended for us to tend His garden yet He continually tends us. We mess up and are given a daily opportunity to make it right. I am alive – no question – to try to make this day better.

I blossom under His tending and like a passing smile, I leave without grief or regret.

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Yielding to Change

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I went out to cut a last batch of zinnias this
morning from the back fencerow and got my shanks
chilled for sure: furrowy dark gray clouds with
separating fringes of blue sky-grass: and the dew

beaded up heavier than the left-overs of the rain:
in the zinnias, in each of two, a bumblebee 
stirring in slow motion. Trying to unwind
the webbed drug of cold, buzzing occasionally but

with a dry rattle: bees die with the burnt honey 
at their mouths, at least: the fact’s established:
it is not summer now and the simmering buzz is out of 
heat: the zucchini blossoms falling show squash

overgreen with stunted growth: the snapdragons have
suckered down into a blossom or so: we passed
into dark last week the even mark of day and night
and what we hoped would stay we yield to change.
~A.R. Ammons  “Equinox”

We yield now
to the heaviness of the change;
a slowing of our walk
and the darkening of our days.

It is time:
day and night compete,
and neither wins.

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Held My Breath

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We drove across high prairie,
the Mississippi behind us,
nothing ahead for miles
but sky,

a loamy sky, thick enough
to put a trowel into,
but off to the south
clouds pulled

away from one another
as if to stand back
take a long look,
and in that

space what light was left
of the sun
already gone below
the horizon

flowed up and held there
and we did too hold
our breaths at the sudden
beauty.
~Athena Kildegaard “We drove across high prairie…” from Cloves & Honey.

We didn’t drive this time;
instead we boarded a plane
with other masked people,
holding our breath with the unfamiliarity
of being so close to strangers—
rather than a response
to the beauty of what we saw.

The vast landscape appeared below
rather than stretching out before us,
its emptiness stark and lonely from the air
as well as from the road.

We hold our breath,
awed by the reality
that we are truly here.
Really here, one way or the other.

In two hours, rather than two days.
Masked, but never blind to the beauty.

A book of beautiful words and photos available to order

Almost Forgot

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   I almost forgot
To hang up an autumn moon
      Over the mountain
~Richard Wright “Haiku”

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
       Ceaseless, insistent. 
  
The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,      
Tired with summer.   

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,      
Snow-hushed and heavy.   

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,      
Lest they forget them.
~Sara Teasdale, “September Midnight”

photo by Josh Scholten

I will not forget, dear harvest moon,
to tuck you away where I can find you months from now,
tangled up in the weary trees of autumn.
Once the leaves fall, modest branches will be illuminated
in their embarrassed nakedness.

When I too need your warm light
on some cold dark night,
I’ll know exactly where to find you
because I’ve memorized your round face
and where you are waiting for me.
I’ll not forget because you never forget.

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To Be Quiet in Heart

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Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
~Wendell Berry “Wild Geese” from Collected Poems 1957-1982

I hear them coming before I see them:
the wild geese flying overhead,
noisily honking their way across an autumn sky,
drawn to the harvested cornfields
to glean after the machinery has left.

Soon they will leave altogether,
pulled to be content somewhere else.

I remain as witness
rather than move on,
reminding myself,
my heart quiet, my eye clear,
what I need is here
until it is my turn to leave.

A book of beautiful words and photography, available to order here:

Nothing To Hold On To

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They were smooth ovals,   
and some the shade of potatoes—   
some had been moth-eaten   
or spotted, the maples   
were starched, and crackled   
like campfire.   

We put them under tracing paper   
and rubbed our crayons   
over them, X-raying   
the spread of their bones   
and black, veined catacombs.   

We colored them green and brown   
and orange, and   
cut them out along the edges,   
labeling them deciduous   
or evergreen.   

All day, in the stuffy air of the classroom,   
with its cockeyed globe,   
and nautical maps of ocean floors,   
I watched those leaves   

lost in their own worlds   
flap on the pins of the bulletin boards:   
without branches or roots,   
or even a sky to hold on to.
~Judith Harris “Gathering Leaves in Grade School”

They are more like us than we care to admit:
veined and ribbed,
some wide, some thin,
lots with sharp edges, others rounded,
a variety of colors and shapes,
twisting this way and that with the breeze,
over-eager to let go,
explore wide open spaces
yet finding themselves blown and broken
thrown far from home and roots
with nothing left to hold on to,
destined to dust,
longing to return to branch and connection.

Even so-
even so, when we are let go,
we are thinking:
oh, what a life!

A book of beauty in words and photography available to order here:

The Fallen Works of Light

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The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way. Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth’s green fountains dried,
And fallen all the works of light.
You do not speak, and I regret
This downfall of the good we sought
As though the fault were mine. I bring
The plow to turn the shattering
Leaves and bent stems into the dark,
From which they may return. At work,
I see you leaving our bright land,
The last cut flowers in your hand.
~Wendell Berry “The Summer Ends” from A Timbered Choir.

I want to memorize it all before it changes
as the light weakens from
the sun shifting from north to south,
balancing on the fulcrum of our country road at equinox.

The dying back of the garden leaves and vines reveals
what lies unharvested beneath,
so I gather in urgency, not wanting it to go to waste.

We part again from you, Summer –
your gifts seemed endless
until you ended –
a reminder that someday, so must I.

I sit silenced and brooding, waiting for what comes next.

A book of beautiful words and photography, available to order here:

And It Was Autumn…

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it rained in my sleep
and in the morning the fields were wet
I dreamed of artillery
of the thunder of horses
in the morning the fields were strewn
with twigs and leaves
as if after a battle
or a sudden journey
I went to sleep in the summer
I dreamed of rain
in the morning the fields were wet
and it was autumn
~Linda Pastan “September” from Carnival Evening

photo by Harry Rodenberger

The dogs eat hoof slivers and lie under the porch.
A strand of human hair hangs strangely from a fruit tree
like a cry in the throat. The sky is clay for the child who is past
being tired, who wanders in waist-deep
grasses. Gnats rise in a vapor,
in a long mounting whine around her forehead and ears.

The sun is an indistinct moon. Frail sticks
of grass poke her ankles,
and a wet froth of spiders touches her legs
like wet fingers. The musk and smell
of air are as hot as the savory
terrible exhales from a tired horse.

At evening a breeze dries and crumbles
the sky and the clouds float like undershirts
and cotton dresses on a clothesline. Horses
rock to their feet and race or graze.
Parents open their shutters and call
the lonely, happy child home.
The child who hates silences talks and talks
of cicadas and the manes of horses.
~Carol Frost – lines from “All Summer Long” from Love and Scorn: New and Collected Poems.

I was one of those lonely but happy youngsters who dreamt of horses all summer long, immersed in my own made-up stories of forest rides on hidden trails, of spending hours decorating long manes and tails of golden horses, of performing daring rescues and races, of battles and bravery I didn’t experience in real life. The imaginings took me beyond the mundane into the fanciful where I could be completely lost until I was called to come in for dinner or return to the confines of a school classroom.

Some dreams do come true when you want them badly enough: I’ve now had decades gazing out at fields of grass with those thundering hooves, back-dropped by endless skies of ever-changing clouds. I’ve also found that fairy tales can have broken fences and growing manure piles.

It has been worth it for a kid whose own story bloomed when I became a wife, a mother, a physician and a horse farmer. As this summer yet again has transitioned to autumn, so does my story: it is full of aging horses and tired fields, yet still I find myself dreaming like a kid as I comb out those long flowing manes.

Consider this book of beautiful words and photography, available to order here:

Unanswerable Questions

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Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~Carl Sandburg, “Under the Harvest Moon”

As we enter the season
of all that is lush and lovely
which starts to wither and decay before our eyes,
we know the flowers and trees aren’t alone.
Death, whispering within its gray night’s cloak,
has been stealing the young and old since time began,
but never as boldly as during a pandemic.
Millions of family members are left
with nothing but bittersweet memories
of their loved ones now buried deep.

The harvest moon – not nearly bright enough,
as a poor reflection of the sun –
mocks us who covet light
during a rampage of contagious illness and death.

As we endure the searing beauty of yet another dying season,
let us treasure those we protect through our care and concern.
Let us cherish the memories of those we’ve lost.
There can be only one answer to the unanswerable questions:
Love itself died to become Salvation,
an ever-sufficient Light that leads us home.

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We’ve Seen Nothing Yet
	


	
					

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Enter autumn as you would 
a closing door. Quickly, 
cautiously. Look for something inside 
that promises color, but be wary 
of its cast — a desolate reflection, 
an indelible tint.
~Pamela Steed Hill  “September Pitch”






























Summer begins to have the look
Peruser of enchanting Book
Reluctantly but sure perceives–
A gain upon the backward leaves





Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.





The eye begins its avarice
A meditation chastens speech
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.





Conclusion is the course of All
Almost to be perennial
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality.
~Emily Dickinson, Poem 65



































This hot summer now wanes, wistful;
it has the look of packing up,
and moving on
without bidding adieu
or looking back over its shoulder.





I wave goodbye without regret; it leaves behind a hot mess
of burned landscape and drought. 





Blustery winds have carried in darkening clouds
spread green leaves, chestnuts and walnuts everywhere,
loosened before their time.
Long overdue rain
gave us a good drenching
worth celebrating.





Overhead skies are heavily burdened
with clues of what more is coming:
earlier dusk,
the cool feel of moisture,
the deepening graying purplish hues,
the briskness of breezes.





There is no negotiation possible.
I steel myself and get ready,
wrapping myself in my perennial soft shawl of inevitability.





So autumn advances forth with its clouds,
taking up residence as summer moves out, 
bringing its own unique plans for redecorating
using an array of hues and textures.





The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.



































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