Month: April 2023

Blushing Cups of Rain

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I sit in the shadow of apple-boughs,
 In the fragrant orchard close,
And around me floats the scented air,
 With its wave-like tidal flows.
I close my eyes in a dreamy bliss,
 And call no king my peer;
For is not this the rare, sweet time,
 The blossoming time of the year?                        

I can see, through the rifts of the apple-boughs,
 The delicate blue of the sky,                              
And the changing clouds with their marvellous tints
 That drift so lazily by.
And strange, sweet thoughts sing through my brain,
 And Heaven, it seemeth near;
Oh, is it not a rare, sweet time,
 The blossoming time of the year?
~Horatio Alger from “Apple Blossoms”

The rain eases long enough
to allow blades of grass to stand back up
expectant, refreshed
yet unsuspecting,
primed for the mower’s cutting swath.

Clusters of pink tinged blossoms
sway in response to my mower’s pass,
apple buds bulge on ancient branches
in promise of fruit
stroked by the honeybees’ tickling legs.

Bowing low beneath the swollen blooms,
yet caught by snagging branches
that shower from hidden raindrop reservoirs
held inside blushing petal cups,
my face anointed in perfumed apple tears.

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Spring Pledge Drive

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Just before the green begins there is the hint of green
a blush of color, and the red buds thicken
the ends of the maple’s branches and everything
is poised before the start of a new world,
which is really the same world
just moving forward from bud
to flower to blossom to fruit
to harvest to sweet sleep, and the roots
await the next signal, every signal
every call a miracle and the switchboard
is lighting up and the operators are
standing by in the pledge drive we’ve
all been listening to: Go make the call.
~Stuart Kestenbaum “April Prayer”

The buds have been poised for weeks and then,
as if all responding to an identical summons to action,
let go of all their pent up potential,
exploding with harmonious energy
enough to make us want to donate all we have,
over and over again.

How much might I pledge to witness this miracle?

Nothing, nothing at all.
It’s delightfully free every April. Totally wonderfully free.

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Undivided Wonders

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One grief, all evening—: I’ve stumbled
upon another animal merely being
             itself and still cuffing me to grace.

             This time a bumblebee, black and staggered
above some wet sidewalk litter. When I stop
             at what I think is dying

             to deny loneliness one more triumph,
I see instead a thing drunk
           with discovery—the bee entangled

            with blossom after pale, rain-dropped blossom
gathered beneath a dogwood. And suddenly
             I receive the cold curves and severe angles

             from this morning’s difficult dreams
about faith:—certain as light, arriving; certain
            as light, dimming to another shadowed wait.

            How many strokes of undivided wonder
will have me cross the next border,
            my hands emptied of questions?
~Geffrey Davis “West Virginia Nocturne”

Faith steals upon you like dew:
some days you wake and it is there.
And like dew, it gets burned off 
in the rising sun of anxieties,
ambitions, distractions.
~Christian Wiman from My Bright Abyss

My faith,
refreshed in the light, through the moisture of morning,
evaporates in the drying stress of the day.
May I turn my face to the heavens
each night, ask to be washed
in the mist of God’s renewing dew,
my worries settling like dust,
my wrestle with questions soothed,
my wonder expansive as the skies.

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Glimpsing Gold Beneath the Rags

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April is like the raggedy, wandering gypsy lad of the fairy tale.
When he moves, streaks of gold show beneath his torn garments
and you suspect that this elfin creature is actually a prince in disguise.

April is just that.

There are raggedy, cold days, dark black ones,
but all through the month for a second, for an hour, or for three days at a stretch you glimpse pure gold.

The weeks pass and the rags slip away, a shred at a time.
Toward the end of the month his royal highness stands before you.
~Jean Hersey from The Shape of a Year

I avoid spending much time in front of mirrors now as I age. Clothed in rags, I’m thinning here, thickening there, sagging and stretching, wrinkled and patched up.

Still, if I look closely past the rags and sags, I see the same eyes as my younger self peering back at me. There are some things that age does not disguise.

The lightness and freshness of youth might be covered up with the trappings of aging, but I’m still delighted to be here, just as I am. Every once in awhile, I believe I glimpse a little gold under the surface. This farm girl isn’t a queen or a princess in disguise, but breathing in the scents of certain golden days of April can make me feel like one.

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Filling the Empty Spaces

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If I could peer far enough down
a robin’s pulsing throat, would I see
notes piled there waiting to be flung
into freshness of morning?
 
If I close my eyes and burrow
my face into peony’s petals,
would I discover the source 
of its scent, a sacred offering?
 
Can I plunge inside 
and find a lifetime of words
spooled tightly inside my heart
ready for a tug?
 
If I dig beneath the bedrock 
will I find love there, 
solid like iron or does it flow like magma
filling in all of the empty spaces?
~Christine Valters Paintner “Origins”

photo by Harry Rodenberger

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.
~Mary Oliver “What Gorgeous Thing” from Blue Horses 

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs–leaving you
(it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
~Rainer Maria Rilke  “Sunset” (Trans. by Robert Bly) from The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy

We are born with one hand still grasping tight to the star-studded heaven from which we came, still dusty from creation.  The other hand grabs hold of whatever it finds here on earth and won’t let go, whether the symphony of birds, the scents from the garden, the richness of relationship or the coldness of stone.

It can take decades, but our firm hold on heaven loosens so that we forget the dusty origins of our miraculous being.  We tend to forget Who made us and why.

We can’t decide, tangled up in the threads of this life:  dust of earth, stone heart?  Or dust of stars, child of Heaven?

We are daily reminded by the Light which clothes us in new colors – early in the morning as it crests the eastern hills and late as it descends in the west.  Heaven will still reach down once again to grasp our hand, making sure we know the way home.

photo by Josh Scholten
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Everything Will Be Okay

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Whisper to the workers
and they’ll bring the news to the queen.
When a beekeeper dies
someone is assigned to tell her
bees that she’s gone,
they shouldn’t expect
the scent of her skin,
the sound of her voice.
They need to know who
will look in on them.
Sometimes I do tell my ladies
about what will affect them:
it will be getting hotter
in the next few years.
I’ll give them water and sugar
to replace their losses,
but there will be new
parasites coming north.
I don’t know what I’ll do.
They don’t care, none of it
matters in a 3-week lifespan
in a world of nectar and pollen,
dearth and flow.
So mostly I keep it simple,
tell them everything
will be ok, you’re strong
and good; the cell walls are solid,
the queen will keep laying,
the magnet of the poles
will bring you home.
~Sara Eddy, from Tell the Bees

After the last ee
had uzzed its last uzz,

the irds and the utterflies
did what they could.

ut soon the fields lay are,
few flowers were left,

nature was roken,
and the planet ereft.
~Brian Bilston “The Last Bee”

This would be a bereft world indeed without bees…

I am awed and inspired by apiarists. Our niece Andrea has been bee-keeping for over a decade, keeping hives at home in nearby Skagit Valley as well as moving them during growing season to pollinate the blooms at Floret Flower Farm and other beautiful places.

A beekeeper must be a loving and patient person; the bees know who loves them, and who will always be there to care for them.

An old Celtic tradition necessitates sharing any news from the household with the farm’s bee hives, whether cheery like a new birth or a wedding celebration or sad like a family death.  This ensures the hives’ well-being and continued connection to home and community – the bees are kept in the loop, so to speak, so they stay at home, not swarm and move on to a more hospitable place.

So, sweet bees – I hope your short little life remains safe and predictable so you and your descendants can continue to pollinate the world.

Everything will be okay.

Otherwise, no more bees would ultimately mean – no more anything.

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A Secret Hallowing

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This fevers me, this sun on green,
On grass glowing, this young spring.
The secret hallowing is come,
Regenerate sudden incarnation,
Mystery made visible
In growth, yet subtly veiled in all,
Ununderstandable in grass,
In flowers, and in the human heart,
This lyric mortal loveliness,
The earth breathing, and the sun…
~Richard Eberhart from “This Fevers Me”

I go my way,
and my left foot says ‘Glory,’
and my right foot says ‘Amen’:
in and out of Shadow Creek,
upstream and down,
exultant,
in a daze, dancing,
to the twin silver trumpets of praise.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Every day should be a day of dancing
and loveliness and breathing deeply,
of celebrating the fact we woke afresh,
a new start of a secret hallowing.

If I’m honest, I don’t always feel like dancing,
my feet each going their own way
with my head barely attached to my neck.

As I stumble about in my morning daze,
readying myself for the onslaught to come,
I step out the back door, look at the mountain
and mumble “Glory”
and then blink a few times and murmur “Amen”
and breathe it out again a little louder
until I really feel it.

I believe the ununderstandable
and know it in my bones.

A little praise never hurt anyone.
A little worship goes a long way.
It’s the only way mystery becomes visible,
tangible, touchable, tastable and understandable.

Amen
and Amen again.

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Let April Rain

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Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.
~Langston Hughes “April Rain Song”

The hills are smothered in a fog,
The sky is somber-grey,
The rain is coming in a mist,
A cheerless rainy day.

To me the trees are weeping,
With their branches drooping low,
Their tears are steady falling,
With heavy drops, yet slow.

The birds they all are silent,
And not one sweet silvery note,
Re-echoes through the forest,
From our feathered songster’s throat.

Not one thing to break the silence,
Save the rain-drops as they fall,
As I watch the clouds roll onward,
Or climb the mountain wall.

And somehow I feel so happy,
Though the world seems full of pain,
So I let my gaze go farther,
When the sun will shine again.

The trees and flowers and grasses,
They will all the fresher seem,
And the laughter will be louder
From the rippling mountain stream.

The birds will sing far sweeter
Than they did in days gone by,
The air will be the fresher,
And of bluer tint the sky.

We all do love the sunshine,
We love the moonlight, too,
We also love the twilight,
And the falling of the dew;

But I never growl or grumble,
Only this I wish to say;—
That this world would be a desert
Without you, oh! Rainy Day!
~James Whilt “The Rainy Day”

Spring is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…
~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Some days in April, the skies start out gray with indecision and it doesn’t really rain nor does the sun really ever shine —  a truly lukewarm day.  The days that are most interesting, however, are those that declare themselves “clear” or “soaking wet” and then switch somewhere in the middle in a stormy transition.

A day can start with pouring rain — no half-hearted drizzle, this — with no hope of clearing, no peek of blue sky, no mountains on the horizon as if everything is covered in gray cotton wool.

Then in a mighty switch near sunset, a wind blows in and takes the gray away with a sweep of the hand.  The skies clear, the mountains reappear with even more snow cover than the day before, and everything around shines with the glistening wash that has taken place.

It is spring, it is April – all things are reborn wet and shimmering.  Let the rain drench with irresistible light.

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To Clean Up Our Messes

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It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work.
Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall,
driving horses, sweeping, scouring,
everything gives God some glory if being in his grace
you do it as your duty.

To go to communion worthily gives God great glory,
but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives him glory too.
To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory,
but a man with a dung fork in his hand,
a woman with a slop pail,
give him glory too.

He is so great that all things give him glory
if you mean they should.
So then, my brethren, live.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from Seeking Peace

On Earth Day, I am reminded that thanks in large part to how messily we humans live, this world is grimy.  

So it is an act of worship as well as respect for our nest to work at cleaning up after ourselves.  Hands that clean toilets, scrub floors, carry bedpans, pick up garbage might as well be clasped in prayer – within such everyday necessary tasks, God is glorified.

I spend time every day carrying buckets and wielding a pitchfork because it is my way of restoring order to the disorder inherent in my little corner of the planet.  It is with gratitude that I’m able to put things to rights, making stall beds tidier for our farm animals by mucking up their messes and in so doing, I’m cleaning up a piece of me at the same time.

I never want to forget the mess I’m in and the mess I am.  I never want to forget to clean up after myself.  I never want to feel it is a mere and mundane chore to worship with dungfork and slop pail.

It is my privilege in winter, spring, summer or fall, not just on Earth Day.  This is His gift to me. It is His Grace that comes alongside me, to help pitch the muck and carry the slop when I think I am too weary to do it myself.

In so doing, I live and breathe in a place made a little cleaner.

photo from Emily Vander Haak
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Broken, But Not Shattered

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Under a cherry tree
I found a robin’s egg,
broken, but not shattered.

I had been thinking of you,
and was kneeling in the grass
among fallen blossoms

when I saw it: a blue scrap,
a delicate toy, as light
as confetti

It didn’t seem real,
but nature will do such things
from time to time.

I looked inside:
it was glistening, hollow,
a perfect shell

except for the missing crown,
which made it possible
to look inside.

What had been there
is gone now
and lives in my heart

where, periodically,
it opens up its wings,
tearing me apart.
~Phyllis Levin “End of April”

photo by Josh Scholten

The great mystery of God’s love is that we are not asked to live as if we are not hurting, as if we are not broken. In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness as a brokenness in which we can come in touch with the unique way that God loves us. The great call of Jesus is to put your brokenness under the blessing.
~Henri Nouwen from a Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center

Some say you’re lucky
If nothing shatters it.

But then you wouldn’t
Understand poems or songs.
You’d never know
Beauty comes from loss.

It’s deep inside every person:
A tear tinier
Than a pearl or thorn.

It’s one of the places
Where the beloved is born.
~Gregory Orr from Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved

Every day, as the sun goes down,
I pause, feeling a bit or a lot broken, remembering how often
I messed up that day, in big and small ways.

I’ve been cracked open, my mistakes leaking and illuminated,
weighing down my heart, impossible to forget,
ready to take wings as I pray for mercy.

With forgiveness, there follows peacefulness.
Broken, but not shattered.
Cracked, but glistening clean.

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