Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn. ~Leo Tolstoy from Reminiscences
I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow. ~Wendy Delsol
Let’s go I said, to find some light, but not just any light I said. Sure he said, let’s go.
He loves to drive winding roads to breathe chill alpine air.
We headed 90 minutes northeast to find what I needed. The highway empty going up. Gas tank nearing empty with no time to fill up. Only a few photographers there, searching too.
What we see from our backyard forty miles away overwhelms when standing awestruck in its own front yard.
Now my nearly empty tank slowly fills part-way. This dose of inner light will last me until next autumn. Overcome, overwhelmed, overpowered as though it’ll never be enough.
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What words or harder gift does the light require of me carving from the dark this difficult tree?
What place or farther peace do I almost see emerging from the night and heart of me?
The sky whitens, goes on and on. Fields wrinkle into rows of cotton, go on and on. Night like a fling of crows disperses and is gone.
What song, what home, what calm or one clarity can I not quite come to, never quite see: this field, this sky, this tree. ~Christian Wiman “Hard Night”
photo by Bob Tjoelker
Even the darkest night has a sliver of light left, if only in our memories of home. We remember how it was and how it can be — the promise of better to come.
While the ever-changing sky swirls as a backdrop, a tree on a hill becomes the focal point, as it must, like a black hole swallowing up all pain, all suffering, all evil threatening to consume our world.
What clarity, what calm, what peace can be found at the foot of that tree, where our hearts can rest in this knowledge: our sin died there, once and for all and our names carved in its roots for eternity.
In Sleeping Beauty’s castle the clock strikes one hundred years and the girl in the tower returns to the world. So do the servants in the kitchen, who don’t even rub their eyes. The cook’s right hand, lifted an exact century ago, completes its downward arc to the kitchen boy’s left ear; the boy’s tensed vocal cords finally let go the trapped, enduring whimper, and the fly, arrested mid-plunge above the strawberry pie, fulfills its abiding mission and dives into the sweet, red glaze.
As a child I had a book with a picture of that scene. I was too young to notice how fear persists, and how the anger that causes fear persists, that its trajectory can’t be changed or broken, only interrupted. My attention was on the fly; that this slight body with its transparent wings and lifespan of one human day still craved its particular share of sweetness, a century later. ~Lisel Mueller “Immortality” from Alive Together
Time’s fun when you’re having flies. ~Kermit the Frog
Time flies like the wind; fruit flies like a banana. ~attributed to Groucho Marx
…the tiny haunting eyes of the fruit flies, and the swooping melody of their Latin name: Drosophila melanogaster, which translates poetically as “dark-bellied dew sipper.” ~Diane Ackerman from “Fruit Flies and Love”
It’s not easy being green unless you also have a dorsal brown stripe and live in a box of ripe pears on the porch that has become a metropolis of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies).
Then you are in frog heaven with breakfast, lunch and dinner within reach of your tongue any time.
And Drosophila happily move in to the kitchen in the fall when pears, tomatoes, and apples are brought inside for preserving. Clouds of Drosophila are just part of my kitchen ambiance this time of year. Visitors are used to this; it’s like having a hundred little dark floaters in your vision.
At least these can be waved away.
The apple cider vinegar killing fields I’ve set up on the kitchen counter are capturing hundreds daily, but their robust reproducing (which I carefully studied in undergraduate biology lab) outstrips the effectiveness of my coffee filter funnel death trap lures.
Fruit fly season too shall pass. The New York Times had an amazing article today entitled “After a Decade, Scientists Unveil Fruit Fly Brain in Stunning Detail.” My goodness! Inside that little head with the big eyes is a brain of sheer beauty. I still don’t adore my bountiful greedy little Drosophila interlopers, but I can appreciate their Maker’s design. They are most effective little creatures with a sipping proboscis.
Time’s fun when you’re having flies. It must have been even more fun making the brains of flies like Drosophila.
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Again I resume the long lesson: how small a thing can be pleasing, how little in this hard world it takes to satisfy the mind and bring it to its rest.
Within the ongoing havoc the woods this morning is almost unnaturally still. Through stalled air, unshadowed light, a few leaves fall of their own weight.
The sky is gray. It begins in mist almost at the ground and rises forever. The trees rise in silence almost natural, but not quite, almost eternal, but not quite.
What more did I think I wanted? Here is what has always been. Here is what will always be. Even in me, the Maker of all this returns in rest, even to the slightest of His works, a yellow leaf slowly falling, and is pleased. ~Wendell Berry “VII” from This Day
What more did I think I wanted?
What always has been and always will be:
Until I’m not able to hold on in the wind and rain, may I be a slight spot of light in this dark and bleak world.
As I let go, when the time to finish comes, I know my Maker’s smile means it was all worthwhile…
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After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth… The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her… In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible. ~Elizabeth George Speare from The Witch of Blackbird Pond
On an early October morning, gray clouds lay heavy and unrelenting hovering low over the eastern hills, when a moment’s light snuck out from under the covers, throwing back the blankets to glow over the mountain.
Only a minute of unexpected light underneath the gray, gone in a heartbeat (as are we) yet O! the glory when we too are luminous.
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We walked downhill to the beach, her hand in mine, small step after small step. She said Hi to the doggie on the leash, Hi Mommy to a woman passing on the street, Hi Daddy to a bearded man. On the sand, she stared transfixed at the water, the slight waves, the tide not yet pulling out. She looked up toward a flap of wings. Bird, I said, pointing at the seagull, and she mimicked, Bird, then turned her gaze back to the waves’ slow slapping. Later I sat, looking at trees below me, a hint of haze burning off the far bay, the world busy working and sailing, waking, while I sat waiting as Evie napped that quiet Maine morning, the full tide of grandmotherhood lapping my shore. ~Laura Foley, “Full Tide” from It’s This
They each carried a balloon from a special event for kids and their families.
It had been a morning of our family being together, just because. Being a grandparent needs no other reason other than “just because.”
Big sister was saying how she planned to take her balloon to school on Monday to show her friends. She was enjoying the balloon’s bobbing and weaving in the air … until suddenly it popped, causing her to jump and then she had nothing left but tatters in her hand.
Her face crumpled and the tears began to flow.
Little brother gripped his balloon more tightly, looking at his sister’s tears and worrying the same thing might happen to his balloon. His face contorted, ready to cry right along with her. And then there was a moment of clarity and insight in his eyes.
He handed his balloon to her. He said, “here, you can have mine.” And though he was clearly sad at the thought of having no balloon himself, his eyes were shining with proud tears.
He had discovered what it meant to sacrifice, to comfort and care for someone he loved.
She was speechless. She held his balloon gently, struggling to know how to respond. If it was even possible, she loved him so much more in that moment.
So their parents said to her brother, “we think that gift deserves stopping for a hot chocolate on the way home.”
Big sister looked at her parents, looked again at her little brother, and handed the balloon back to him, saying “why don’t we share?”
Hot chocolate makes all things wonderful and cozy and better, when shared.
Especially for weeping, laughing, full-to-the-brim-with-love grandparents.
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Morning glories, pale as a mist drying, fade from the heat of the day, but already hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg hooks have found and are boarding them.
This could do for the sack of the imaginary fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they one by one vanish and leave still real only what has been snatched out of the spell.
I’ve never seen bees more purposeful except when the hive is threatened. They know the good of it must be grabbed and hauled before the whole feast wisps off.
They swarm in light and, fast, dive in, then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy with gold and sunlight. The line of them, like thin smoke, wafts over the hedge.
And back again to find the fleet gone. Well, they got this day’s good of it. Off they cruise to what stays open longer. Nothing green gives honey. And by now
Happiness is like a morning glory: yesterday’s won’t bloom again; tomorrow’s hasn’t opened yet. Only today’s flower can be enjoyed today. Be happy this very moment, and you’ll learn how to be happy always. ~ Goswami Kriyananda
I am alive — I guess — The Branches on my Hand Are full of Morning Glory — ~Emily Dickinson
Now I’m at seventy, no longer defined by ambition or career, I open up misty every morning with a new bloom, aware what I’ve left undone before wilting away.
A daily unfurling is a chance to: Start afresh. Welcome visitors. Hold hearts gently. Hum as I walk. Sometimes just sit in awed silence. Watch out the window. Feed those who look hungry.
Each new opening, each new day, so to leave a little less left undone.
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That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. ~William Shakespeare Sonnet 73
I used to think youth has it all – strength, beauty, energy- but now I know better.
There is deep treasure in slowing down, this leisurely leave-taking; the finite becoming infinite with limitless loving.
Without our aging we’d never change up who we are so as to become so much more:
enriched, vibrant, shining passionately until the very last moment of letting go.
To love well To love strong To love as if To love because nothing else matters.
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Searching for pillowcases trimmed with lace that my mother-in-law once made, I open the chest of drawers upstairs to find that mice have chewed the blue and white linen dishtowels to make their nest, and bedded themselves among embroidered dresser scarves and fingertip towels.
Tufts of fibers, droppings like black caraway seeds, and the stains of birth and afterbirth give off the strong unforgettable attar of mouse that permeates an old farmhouse on humid summer days.
A couple of hickory nuts roll around as I lift out the linens, while a hail of black sunflower shells falls on the pillowcases, yellow with age, but intact.
I’ll bleach them and hang them in the sun to dry. There’s almost no one left who knows how to crochet lace….
The bright-eyed squatters are not here. They’ve scuttled out to the fields for summer, as they scuttled in for winter—along the wall, from chair to skirted chair, making themselves flat and scarce while the cat dozed with her paws in the air, and we read the mail or evening paper, unaware. ~Jane Kenyon, “Not Here” from Collected Poems
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In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow, Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in, Cradled in my hand, A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling, His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse, His feet like small leaves, Little lizard-feet, Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away, Wriggling like a minuscule puppy. Now he’s eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his bottle-cap watering-trough— So much he just lies in one corner, His tail curled under him, his belly big As his head; his bat-like ears Twitching, tilting toward the least sound. Do I imagine he no longer trembles When I come close to him? He seems no longer to tremble.
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But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty. Where has he gone, my meadow mouse, My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm? — To run under the hawk’s wing, Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree, To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat. I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass, The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway, The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,— All things innocent, hapless, forsaken. ~Theodore Roethke “The Meadow Mouse”
Let us walk in the woods, says the cat. I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents, to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt. Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat. ~Marge Piercy from “The Cat’s Song”
Our autumn house guests returned this week. They don’t tend to announce themselves; they prefer to creep in silently when we’re unaware, usually in the dark of the night, using whatever portal I haven’t plugged thoroughly enough with steel wool.
They leave for the summer, happier camping outside. Once the nights start feeling chilly, we might spot them out of the corner of our eye, scooting across the kitchen floor searching for any crumbs from dinner. I open the cupboard under the sink and see the evidence they surreptitiously have been back in residence for some time.
I’ve found their indoor camps in closets, and in storage boxes. They like to bring their outdoor treasures with them.
Our farm cats have been asleep at the wheel – they are supposed to be guarding all potential entry points. Yet these wee scuttlers got past them.
So I resort to primitive rodent control, traps baited with peanut butter and wait to hear the tell-tale snap of the spring. Instead, the bait is gone the next morning, with no furry body and no evidence of bloodshed. These are clever little scuttlers.
It is hard to outwit a smart mouse, and of course if one mouse is caught, there are at least thirty of its buddies yet to be caught.
Between the cats and the mice, the farm cats prove most wily. They pick their hapless victims at random, knowing they have job security as long as they allow only a few mice access to the house. Every few days, they leave scattered dissected mouse parts on the front porch to make a grisly impression, just to prove they, better than me, still know how to catch a mouse.
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Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree. I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow; I shall sing when night’s decay Ushers in a drearier day. ~Emily Brontë “Fall, Leaves, Fall”
It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. ~Emily Brontë from Wuthering Heights
The loudest crows cawing over the tops of the oaks call me to autumn already, and though my back is to the window,
I know the sky must be a gray wuthering, and the curlews are crying. The wind must be moaning as it goes sweeping across heath and moors and the spikes of purple heather thousands of miles away from where my body sits; yet
I avoid watching sad movies and will close a book that is clearly heading for a weepy ending.
I don’t need to wrap myself around things that hurt when there is enough sadness and pain in the world already. Deep emotion sticks to me like velcro, even when I know the tragedy is not my own. I take it on as if it is.
As a result, the Brontë novel Wuthering Heights is not my cup of tea. I suffered through the book as well as the movie versions. It is grim with wild, destructive passions that only lead to more sorrow. I become immersed in those desperately gray “wuthering” scenes feeling the sharp thorns of the words I read that end up drawing blood from me.
But most suffering is not at all fictional. When I become aware of tragedy happening far away, when the hurricane leaves behind terrible devastation or bombs and bullets rip communities to shreds, even though there is little I can physically do to help, I can’t turn away and not look. I can’t close the book that makes me sad and uncomfortable.
I too must feel the hurt, embracing the thorns rather than avoiding them.
Jesus did just that, taking it all upon Himself. He never turned away and still, now, today, He is pierced, bloodied for our sake.
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