Month: April 2023

A Blossom Blessing

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Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.   
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me   
And nuzzled my left hand.   
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
~James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems

for James Wright

There are more like us. All over the world
There are confused people, who can’t remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and people
Who love God but can’t remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It’s
All right. The world cleanses itself this way.
A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he’s lonely, and they talk, and the thief
Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor. And you find your soul,
And greatness has a defender, and even in death you’re safe.
~Robert Bly “People Like Us” from Stealing Sugar from the Castle

There are rare transcendent moments when I feel I could step outside my body, because something or someone moves me so profoundly, I no longer need to have my feet on the ground.

I’m thinking beyond myself. I’m thinking of another.

It is a sensation of floating while still connected; a circuit created as if electricity might flow, if only for an instant.

You too? Then think of me thinking of you. It brings us back again to the same music, the same poem, the same work of art, the same discovery that illuminates our souls.

Oh, think of me. And I of you.

And this is why we are safe in God’s hands, no matter what happens. We are meant to blossom together.

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Springing Out of the Rock

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Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts.
I have seen

the fountain springing out of the rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes

found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
That fountain is there among its scalloped
green and gray stones,

it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,

up and out through the rock.
~Denise Levertov from “The Fountain”

photo by Josh Scholten

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work and that
when we no longer know which way to go
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
The world, the truth, is more abounding,
more delightful, more demanding than we thought.
What appeared for a time perhaps to be mere dutifulness …
suddenly breaks open in sweetness —
and we are not where we thought we were,
nowhere that we could have expected to be.
~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms,” in Standing By Words

Who among us knows with certainty each morning
what we are meant to do that day
or where we will be asked to go?

Or do we make our best guess by
putting one foot ahead of the other as we were taught
until the day is done and it is time to rest?

For me, over four decades,
I woke baffled each day
that I was allowed
to eavesdrop on heartbeats,
touch tender bellies,
sew up broken skin,
set fractured bones,
listen to and through tears.

I woke humbled with commitment and duty
to keep going even when too tired,
my heart sometimes too dry,
though to offer care even when rejected
and keep striving even if impeded.

Doing that work, I learned that
obstacles will slow but cannot stop
the cascade of love and hope
spilling over and through the rocks of life.

My days still overflow with the uncertainty
of what comes next:
finding my real work in this time of life
is to wade in deep, tumbling over the barriers
and still keep singing.

Simply keep singing.

photo by Josh Scholten
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A World Where Much is Missing

barnstormingblog3 Comments

Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “Excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “Excuse me.”
Nor Einstein’s famous theorem.
Nor “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
In the dictionary of Cat, mercy is missing.
In this world where much is missing,
a cat fills only a cat-sized hole.
Yet your whole body turns toward it
again and again because it is there.
~Jane Hirshfield “A Small-Sized Mystery” from Come, Thief.

The first time I saw him, it was just a flash of gray ringed tail
disappearing into autumn night mist as I opened the back door
to pour kibble into the empty cat dish on the porch:
just another stray cat among many who visit the farm.

A few linger and stay.

So he did, keeping a distance in the shadows under the trees,
a gray tabby with white nose and bib, serious yet skittish,
watching me as I moved about feeding dogs, cats, birds, horses,
creeping to the cat dish only when the others drifted away.

There was something in the way he held his head,
an oddly forward ear; a stilted swivel of the neck.
I startled him one day as he ate his fill at the dish.

He ran, the back of his head flashing red, scalp completely gone.

Not oozing, nor something new, but recent. A nearly mortal scar
from an encounter with coyote, or eagle or bobcat.
This cat thrived despite trauma and pain, tissue still raw, trying to heal.

He had chosen to live; life had chosen him.

My first thought was to trap him, to put him humanely to sleep
to end his suffering mercifully, in truth to end my distress at seeing him every day,
envisioning florid flesh even as he hunkered invisible
in the shadowlands of the barnyard.

Yet the scar did not keep him from eating well or licking clean his pristine fur.

As much as I wanted to look away, to avoid confronting his mutilation,
I always greeted him from a distance, a nod to his maimed courage,
through wintry icy blasts and four foot snow,
through spring rains and summer heat with flies.

His wounds remained always visible,
a reminder of his inevitable fate.

I never did stroke that silky fur,
or feel his burly purr, assuming he still knew how,
but still fed his daily fill,
as he fed my need to know:
the value of a life so broken,
each breath taken is filled with sacred air.

The depth of his wounds show how much he bleeds.

my wounded friend, as close as he would allow

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Comings and Goings

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If I look down, a ferry is always
docking or pulling away from the shore.
I am not always aware of these goings on
anymore than I am my own breathing,
but, when I do take note,
the sense of overseeing this step
in a process that’s both
open-ended and fixed
fills me with a vague dread

while passengers,
whether boarding or landing,
may feel they are finally
getting somewhere
~Rae Armantrout “Somewhere” from Wobble

photo of the ferry Walla Walla run aground by Mike Reicher of the Seattle Times

We live in a state that depends on ferry travel to get across Puget Sound/Salish Sea from the mainland to the islands and peninsulas. Other than the occasional bumpy crossing in windy weather, it is usually a quiet interlude on our way to get somewhere, time to take a brief nap or a few deep breaths. No one thinks about the possibility of trouble when riding the ferry to work or back to home.

This past week, trouble happened. A generator failure aboard the ferry Walla Walla took out power mid-voyage, including ability to run the engine, so the ferry drifted to shore and ran aground. Over 500 passengers and crew were stuck on board with nowhere to go; certainly no routine coming or going except by rescue transport via smaller boats.

A vague dread indeed – I’ll be thinking of ferry rides a bit differently now. I’m relieved no one was hurt, but only inconvenienced. Thankfully I wasn’t on board this particular ferry run, stymied in my effort to try to get somewhere.

I have never been promised my journey to somewhere would be full of puppies and rainbows. In fact, I’ve run aground and had equipment failure aplenty. So when things do go smoothly, I need to acknowledge it for the blessing it is — just like breathing is a blessing of comings and goings.

Take a deep breath and bon voyage.

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Home Once More

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Is it true that after this life of ours we shall one day be awakened
by a terrifying clamour of trumpets?
Forgive me God, but I console myself
that the beginning and resurrection of all of us dead
will simply be announced by the crowing of the cock.

After that we’ll remain lying down a while…
The first to get up
will be Mother…We’ll hear her
quietly laying the fire,
quietly putting the kettle on the stove
and cosily taking the teapot out of the cupboard.
We’ll be home once more.
~Vladimir Holan “Resurrection”

from Getty Images
photo from Mother Earth News

I acknowledge the anachronism of my early childhood years living in a two-story farm house with my Mom cooking on a wood-burning stove in a large kitchen. I look back on it with a nostalgic fondness, yet knowing it was early morning work for my parents to get up to light the fire to warm up the center of the house while we kids lay cozy in our comfy beds. My Dad would head out to the barn to hand milk our three dairy cows and feed the chickens, while Mom started Dad’s coffee percolator and her tea, prepared the milk pasteurizer for the stove while the oatmeal simmered, awaiting the cream poured on top.

It took plenty of effort to transform that big drafty house into a home – a warm and welcoming place for those who lived there and anyone who came to visit. I grew up immersed in the security of family and farm and faith. I realize how rare that is in this world now, 65 years later.

Finding and returning home is what we each long for – where one is loved and accepted, and simply belongs. It may not look like a farm kitchen for everyone, but it is for me. I’ve tried over the years to make our own small farmhouse a foretaste of what home might feel like for eternity though as I wipe countertops and mop the floor, I know what is coming is so much better than the blessings I hold dear now.

When that day of resurrection comes, whether I hear trumpets blow or a rooster crow, I hope I’ll remember I’m being called back home – a place of love and beauty.

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So Soft

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the hard mountains,
and the spears of the trees-
from a distance,
look so soft
~L.L. Barkat

photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for — 
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
~Mary Oliver from “Mindful” from Why I Wake Early

Some days I’m the sharp needle
and other days I’m the pin cushion

Some days I may be both,
probing others’ lives and feelings,
moving beyond sharp edges
to find the source of pain.

I wince too,
remembering how it feels.

I notice the gentle light
that floats close to the ground,
that reaches out with cloudy grasp.

This is what I was born for:
destined to be lost
in the softness of each morning,
and still be found before the end of day.

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The Secret of Life

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Two girls discover   
the secret of life   
in a sudden line of   
poetry.

I who don’t know the   
secret wrote   
the line. They   
told me

(through a third person)   
they had found it
but not what it was   
not even

what line it was. No doubt   
by now, more than a week   
later, they have forgotten   
the secret,

the line, the name of   
the poem. I love them   
for finding what   
I can’t find,

and for loving me   
for the line I wrote,   
and for forgetting it   
so that

a thousand times, till death   
finds them, they may   
discover it again, in other   
lines

in other   
happenings. And for   
wanting to know it,   
for

assuming there is   
such a secret, yes,   
for that   
most of all.
~Denise Levertov “The Secret”

The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price.
If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever
I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all.
But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought.

The literature of illumination reveals this above all:
although it comes to those who wait for it,
it is always, even to the most practiced and adept,
a gift and a total surprise.

I return from one walk
knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms.
I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name.

Litanies hum in my ears;
my tongue flaps in my mouth.
Ailinon, alleluia!
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand?  
For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest;
nor is anything secret except to come to light…
Mark 4: 21-22

We all want to know it: learning the elusive secret that would resolve the mystery of our existence. Why are we here at all and for what purpose do we live and breathe?

Some are untroubled by not knowing. They live out each day one step at a time, not looking back and not too worried about what is coming up around the bend while others are always looking for meaning, evaluating the significance of each moment.

Some of us seek middle ground. I am eager to have life’s mysteries cleared up, but content to give the unknown the time it demands. Each day I search for something that asks for my complete attention, whether a line of poetry or a slant of light in the sky, or my grandchild’s arms around my neck. That is enough for me to settle in with gratitude for simply being here. And it feels right to share what I see and read and hear and experience.

So here is one person’s secret of life: don’t give up the search and share what you find along the way…

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To Be Seen Through With a Glance

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…whenever you mark a horse, or a dog,
with a peculiarly mild, calm, deep-seated eye,
be sure he is an Aristotle or a Kant,
tranquilly speculating upon the mysteries in man. 
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
They see through us at a glance.
But there is a touch of divinity ….
and a special halo about a horse…
~Herman Melville from Redburn: His First Voyage

There are some animals (and people) who will not look you in the eye.  It may be a reluctance to appear too bold (as direct eye contact can imply), or it may be a reluctance to expose too much of their own inner world and feelings.

Because eyes don’t lie.

When you empty yourself into another being’s eyes and feel both understanding and understood, that is a touch of divinity at work. 

The eye is a mirror, a gazing ball and a collecting pool to reveal,  reflect and absorb. May we take the time and gather the courage to look deeply for the holy within one another.

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It’s Happening to All of Us

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There is weather on the day you are born
and weather on the day you die. There is
the year of drought, and the year of floods,
when everything rises and swells,
the year when winter will not stop falling,
and the year when summer lightning
burns the prairie, makes it disappear.
There are the weathervanes, dizzy
on top of farmhouses, hurricanes
curled like cats on a map of sky:
there are cows under the trees outlined
in flies. There is the weather that blows
a stranger into town and the weather
that changes suddenly: an argument,
a sickness, a baby born
too soon. Crops fail and a field becomes
a study in hunger; storm clouds
billow over the sea;
tornadoes appear like the drunk
trunks of elephants. People talking about
weather are people who don’t know what to say
and yet the weather is what happens to all of us:
the blizzard that makes our neighborhoods
strange, the flood that carries away
our plans. We are getting ready for the weather,
or cleaning up after the weather, or enduring
the weather. We are drenched in rain
or sweat: we are looking for an umbrella,
a second mitten; we are gathering
wood to build a fire.
~Faith Shearin “Weather” from Orpheus, Turning.

On the planet the winds are blowing: the polar easterlies, the westerlies, the northeast and southeast trades…
Lick a finger, feel the now.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I’m still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from The Cost of Discipleship

Never before in the history of humanity have we had the ability to pull the weather forecast out of our pocket and know not only what to anticipate in the next 24 hours, but what is happening right now. Prior to phone apps, we scanned the skies, checked the barometer, monitored the thermometer, and put a licked finger up to test the wind direction. As obsolete as those measures seem now, I confess they still make sense to me.

It’s surreal if my phone says it is raining at “my location” and I can’t find a single cloud.

I want to know what is happening around me from my own observation, trust my own eyes, feel my own physical response to the heat, the cold, the dry, the wet. I want to know we’re all in this together, right now.

I want to live completely in this world, living now, finger held to the wind. Then, having the information I need, I throw myself completely into the arms of God.

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A Better Steward of Holiness

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Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2

We live in an imperfect world, with imperfect characters to match.
Our imperfections should not keep us from dreaming of better things,
or even from trying, within our limits, to be better stewards of the soil,
and more ardent strivers after beauty and a responsible serenity.
~Jane Kenyon from “A Garden of My Dreams”

Holy is right outside my back door, whether it is growing in the soil, unfurling in a misty dawn moment or settling beneath an early twilight rainbow serenade. 

As a steward for serenity, I want to find beauty in all things and people, aiding its growth and helping it flourish.

I’m not giving up the search. 

Even when things get ugly,
I’m determined to keep trying,
searching out holiness wherever I look
and in whoever I meet.

Perhaps that might change my little part of this world.

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