I think I grow tensions like flowers in a wood where nobody goes. Each wound is perfect, encloses itself in a tiny imperceptible blossom, making pain. Pain is a flower like that one, like this one, like that one, like this one. ~Robert Creeley “The Flower”
…forests giving way to open meadow where deep snow lingers and finally relents, uncovering acres of lily — glacier yellow, avalanche white — daylight restaking its earthly claim. Every season swallows someone — ~Kevin Craft from “For the Climbers”
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. ~William Blake from Auguries of Innocence
In early July, up in the alpine meadows of the Cascade mountains grow delicate avalanche lilies pushing through icy crust as the snow melt completes. Though brief in their blooming, they are harbingers of long summer daylight, a reminder the painful darkness of winter is behind us, as well as bound to come again too soon.
I am swallowed by each season.
The lilies, bursting through waning snow, become a bit of heaven on earth. Despite the bleak chill of winter, they fight to rise triumphant each year, an eternal promise of a some-day never-ending summer.
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The artichoke With a tender heart Dressed up like a warrior, Standing at attention, it built A small helmet Under its scales It remained Unshakeable,
She enters the kitchen And submerges it in a pot.
Thus ends In peace This career Of the armed vegetable Which is called an artichoke, Then Scale by scale, We strip off The delicacy And eat The peaceful mush Of its green heart. ~Pablo Neruda from “Ode to an Artichoke”
She bore only the heart, Worked at the stem with her Fingers, pulling it to her, And into her, like a cord. She would sustain him, Would cover his heart. The hairy needles And the bigger leaves, These she licked into shape, Tipping each with its point. He is the mud-flower, The thorny hugger. ~James McMichael “The Artichoke”
I peeled off a leaf like my father did, dipped it in melted butter, and with my teeth scraped and sucked the nut-flavored slimy stuff. We piled up the inedible parts, skeletons of leaves and purple prickles.
Piece by piece, the artichoke came apart, the way we would in 1959, the year the flowerbuds of the artichokes in my father’s garden bloomed without him, their blossoms seven inches wide and violet-blue as bruises.
But first we had that miracle on our table. We peeled and peeled, a vegetable striptease, and worked our way deeper and deeper, down to the small filet of delectable heart. ~Diane Lockwood from “The First Artichoke”
I first encountered a globe artichoke in my first week at college in California. I’d never seen one before, much less dismantled and actually eaten one. The California natives around me in the dining hall were astonished my worldview had never before included artichoke leaves and heart. After all, the University was only an hour away from the artichoke capital of the world, Watsonville, where the motto for the annual artichoke festival was “Thistle Be Fun!”
My frame of reference growing up on a farm was that thistle-looking plants were noxious weeds and needed to be chopped down before going to seed and reproducing even more noxious weeds. This spiny looking bud that was about to bloom a purple thistle flower looked highly suspicious to me and not to be trusted.
But then someone showed me how to peel off a leaf, dip the base in mayonnaise or lemon garlic butter and scrape off the soft part with my teeth.
Noxious? Not even close. Absolutely delicious! Prickly protects the tasty.
The circumferential peeling of leaves one by one leads deeper to softer petals and fewer prickles, with the flavor becoming less subtle and more distinct. Once the leaves are all off, there lies uncovered at the base a heart to be scooped out. The round meaty heart is the point of all this effort.
It is the gold in the buried treasure chest, the pot at the end of the rainbow. It takes work to reach it, but it never disappoints.
How to mentally get past the plainness and prickles? How to recognize what appears so undesirable as something to preserve and nurture?
There are so many times in my day I walk right past such people or opportunities as not worth the trouble. Sometimes I myself am the one with the prickles, protective as they seem to me yet announcing caution to others, not to be trusted.
How could anyone know the tender heart that dwells within unless we gently, graciously, gratefully peel the prickles away?
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Master, how serene Are all the hours We waste If, as we waste them, We place them in a vase Like flowers.
There are no sorrows In our lives Nor joys either. Let us learn then, Innocent sages, Not to live life,
But to pass through it, Tranquil, serene, Taking children As our teachers, Eyes full Of Nature . . .
Beside a river, Beside a road, Wherever we are, Living life With the same Light ease.
Let us gather flowers. Let us bathe our hands In the calm rivers, And from them Learn their calm.
[12 June, 1914] ~Fernando Pessoa from “Ode 1” translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari
How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shriveled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown, Where they together All the hard weather Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are thy wonders, Lord of power, Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell And up to heaven in an hour; Making a chiming of a passing-bell. We say amiss This or that is: Thy word is all, if we could spell.
Oh that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither; Nor doth my flower Want a spring shower, My sins and I joining together.
But while I grow in a straight line, Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline: What frost to that? what pole is not the zone Where all things burn, When thou dost turn, And the least frown of thine is shown?
And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing. Oh, my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night.
These are thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us see we are but flowers that glide; Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us where to bide; Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. ~George Herbert “The Flower”
There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. ~Li-Young Lee from “From Blossoms”
Our small church has a couple of gracious and kind gardeners who share the produce from their yards and fields each week to provide a fresh bouquet to sit on the table in front of our humble wooden pulpit.
It is a special treat to walk into church and see what they brought to the altar to share with us all on Sunday morning. I keep a photo album of these very unique Sunday “pulpit posies” our keepers of gardens share.
Why are these arrangements special? After all, almost every church displays a floral arrangement every Sunday.
These are special as many of these flowers are seeded, watered, fertilized and nurtured by one of our own, grown with love and caring, just as God cares for each of His children.
These are special as some are considered simple weeds, and are gleaned from ditches and hedges. They are part of God’s creation and have a wild beauty that can be as breathtaking as a hothouse orchid.
These are special because they often go home with a congregant or visitor who will enjoy their loveliness for many more days, as if they represent the manifestation of God’s Word itself.
Some of us are dahlias, zinnias and roses. Some of us are rare gardenias and orchids. Most of us are dandelions, sagebrush, Queen Anne’s lace, fireweed, burdock, and daisies thriving in the crevasses, ditches and hedgerows of life.
No matter which roots we sprout from, or where, we are the wonders of our loving gardening God. He created us to take care of His creation.
Each week, we bud afresh for Him.
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His long teeth on her withers, her rough-coated spots will grow damp and wild. Her long teeth on his withers, his oiled-teakwood smoothness will grow damp and wild. Their shadows’ chiasmus will fleck and fill with flies, the eight marks of their fortune stamp and then cancel the earth. From ear-flick to tail-switch, they stand in one body. No luck is as boundless as theirs. ~Jane Hirshfield “The Love of Aged Horses”
Two horses lean in the field clasped against each other as if in prayer, grooming each other’s manes the way my thumb strokes the back of my thumb.
Together, tall, conductive around them, fenced lightning, above, a promise of more rain to come, the force of faith condensing, cumulative—
A wave tries to return to the river what it has been given, futile.
Two swans, only ever as far apart as palms, a wingspan, float by shore, sucking up silt, throats rippling, taking in something as vast as the sea in small sips.
If, on cold nights, before bed, I pray for something as simple as the warmth of my hands— ~Ace Chu “Dear” from The Hopper
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”
May we easily find one another’s itches, just as we know our own. May we greet all visitors with a gentle and humble welcome. May we bow our heads together when in need of community. May we clasp hands in prayer to God, warming each other’s hands when the world is feeling far too cold.
Lyrics: Warm summer sun, Shine kindly here, Warm southern wind, Blow softly here. Green sod above, Lie light, lie light. Good night, dear heart, Good night, good night. (Mark Twain left this poem on his daughter’s tombstone)
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Every child should know a hill, And the clean joy of running down its long slope With the wind in his hair. He should know a tree— The comfort of its cool lap of shade, And the supple strength of its arms Balancing him between earth and sky So he is a creature of both. He should know bits of singing water— The strange mysteries of its depths, And the long sweet grasses that border it. Every child should know some scrap Of uninterrupted sky, to shout against; And have one star, dependable and bright, For wishing on. ~Edna Casler Joll“Every Child Should Know a Hill”
photo of a windy day at Manna Farm by Danyale Tamminga
When I was younger the world was full of wonder. Forests were kingdoms. Following the wind was freedom. Children wielded branches like sharpened swords
There was no separation between dream and reality no border to defend, Blanket forts were impenetrable. The monsters in the closets could not reach us there.
We ruled from treetop towers. We danced in the rain. We needed no permission to believe in the sacred. It was simply everywhere. It was simply everything.
In those days we were of the living. ~Logan Holder“Of the Living”
How brief are our childhood days, when we can touch both earth and sky without knowing any limits, how we can fly downhill and climb impossible obstacles, how the ocean stretches to infinity as our imagination sails away.
I now watch these treasured young friends I’ve watched grow, held as babies, taught new songs and games, helped their faith grow, now getting married, ready to grow up children of their own.
This, the unending turn of the years, a stretching tether connecting one generation to another.
Everything sacred, held so close until one day it is time to let go – and once again run, climb, fly, touching the earth and sky at once.
Lyrics by Keane: I walked across an empty land I knew the pathway like the back of my hand I felt the earth beneath my feet Sat by the river and it made me complete
Chorus: Oh, simple thing, where have you gone? I’m getting old, and I need something to rely on So, tell me when you’re gonna let me in I’m getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin
I came across a fallen tree I felt the branches of it looking at me Is this the place we used to love? Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?
And if you have a minute, why don’t we go Talk about it somewhere only we know? This could be the end of everything So, why don’t we go somewhere only we know? Somewhere only we know
And if you have a minute, why don’t we go Talk about it somewhere only we know? This could be the end of everything So, why don’t we go? So, why don’t we go?
This could be the end of everything So, why don’t we go somewhere only we know? Somewhere only we know Somewhere only we know
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The wise old apple tree in spring, Though split and hollow, makes a crown Of such fantastic blossoming We cannot let them cut it down. It bears no fruit, but honey bees Prefer it to other trees.
The orchard man chalks his mark And says, “This empty shell must go.” We nod and rub it off the bark As soon as he goes down the row. Each spring he looks bewildered. “Queer, I thought I marked this thing las year.”
Ten orchard men have come and gone Since first I saw my grandfather Slyly erase it. I’m the one To do it now. As I defer The showy veteran’s removal My grandson nods his approval.
Like mine, my fellow ancient’s roots Are deep in the last century From which our memories send shoots For all our grandchildren to see How spring, inviting bloom and rhyme, Defeats the orchard men of time. ~Robert Hillyer “The Pastoral”
When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety.
When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken.
Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves.
And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed. ~ Maya Angelou “When Great Trees Fall”
When our ancient Spitzenberg apple tree came down in a November windstorm years ago, there was no time to provide any sort of memorial service, or otherwise dispose of the remains.
My husband started in on the job Thanksgiving morning and I watched through the kitchen window as I cooked for the family members soon to arrive. As he made several chain saw cuts through the trunk to make pieces easily moveable, the extent of the astonishing hole in this old tree became visible. It was suffering from an extreme equivalent of human osteoporosis with a brittle skeleton that somehow had lasted through innumerable windstorms over the years, even while still bearing apples, still trying its best to be fruitful.
The brittleness extended right down into the roots, and they too gave way so easily in the wind that the tree literally broke off at ground level and leaned over, propped up by much healthier and resilient upper branches that had so recently held apples.
When it fell, the trunk oriented itself so it provided a view right through to the barnyard down the hill, telescoping what the tree had surveyed for so many years of its life. Clearly this had been a holey trunk for some years; within the cavity at the base were piles of different size rocks stashed there by the Lawrence children three generations ago, followed by our Gibson children thirty years ago.
There was also a large tarnished spoon, lost decades ago into the dark center of the apple tree and now retrieved at its death. At some point, a Gibson child playing a farm version of frisbee golf must have flung a plastic bucket lid at the hole in the tree, and it disappeared into the gap and settled at the bottom.
All this, like a treasure trove of history, was just waiting for the time when the tree would give up its secrets at its death. There were no gold or silver coins, no notes to the future like a glass bottle put out to sea. This well hidden time capsule held simply rocks and spoon and lid.
I realized as I stared into the gulf of empty trunk that I’m hollowing too, more hollow than I care to admit. Like so many of us, stuff is hidden deep inside that we’d just as soon not have discovered. Our outside scaffolding braces against the buffeting by the winds and storms of life, as we cling with mighty roots to this mortal soil.
It is clear we’d be much stronger if we were wholly solid throughout, filled with something stronger even than our outsides. Yet we tend to get filled up with a lot of nothing, or even worse than nothing, a lot of garbage. This is stuff that weakens us, furthers the rot, shortens our fruitful life, doing nothing to make us more whole and holy.
I’m looking more critically now at what fills my empty spots since staring down the barrel of that old apple tree trunk.
Even so, I realize my hollow shell has been saved and salvaged, year after year, by the grace and wisdom of our Divine Orchardist who loves us as we are, up to and after we finally topple over.
May our hollow be hallowed. Wholly hole-y holy…
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And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear, Myself I stood in the storm of the bird–cherry tree. It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self–shattering power, And it was all aimed at me.
What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth? What is being? What is truth?
Blossoms rupture and rapture the air, All hover and hammer, Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot. It is now. It is not. ~Osip Mandelstam “And I Was Alive” (translated by Christian Wiman) from Stolen Air
Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me. One Calvinist notion deeply implanted in me is that there are two sides to your encounter with the world. You don’t simply perceive something that is statically present, but in fact there is a visionary quality to all experience. It means something because it is addressed to YOU. ~Marilynne Robinson from The Paris Review 2008
We mostly live through routine and ordinary days, unconscious of many treasures and abundance laid before us.
In fact, these are addressed to us as pure gift – postmarked to our address, fully paid, no postage due.
Daily I search the soil of my life, this farm, this faith to find what in me still yearns to grow, to blossom, to fruit, in order to be harvested to share with others.
Such sweetness undoes our inevitable decay.
I am so grateful for the tie that binds me to those who visit this page, hoping what I share makes a difference in your ordinary, but still so precious, day.
The gift of ordinary time is now. Its numinosity is aimed at each one of us.
Poem by Dana Gioia
Echo of the clocktower, footstep in the alleyway, sweep of the wind sifting the leaves. Jeweller of the spiderweb, connoisseur of autumn’s opulence, blade of lightning harvesting the sky.
Keeper of the small gate, choreographer of entrances and exits, midnight whisper traveling the wires. Seducer, healer, deity or thief, I will see you soon enough— in the shadow of the rainfall, in the brief violet darkening a sunset—
but until then I pray watch over him as a mountain guards its covert ore and the harsh falcon its flightless young.
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…The world is flux, and light becomes what it touches, becomes water, lilies on water, above and below water, becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps, small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long, streaming hair inside my brush to catch it. To paint the speed of light! Our weighted shapes, these verticals, burn to mix with air and change our bones, skin, clothes to gases. Doctor, if only you could see how heaven pulls earth into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world, blue vapor without end. ~Lisel Mueller from “Monet Refuses the Operation” from Second Language
Monet’s corner of a lily pond (1918-1919)
“Heaven pulls earth into its arms…”
We all see things differently, don’t we? What seems ordinary to one is extraordinarily memorable to another.
How might I help others to see the world as I do? How might I learn to adjust my focus to see things as you do?
The world is in flux; my delight and dismay flows from moment to moment, from object to absence, from light to darkness, from color to muted.
Perhaps the blur from Monet’s cataracts also impedes my vision, creating a deeper understanding, as I use my imagination to fill in what I can’t quite discern.
My heart and mind expands exponentially to claim this world and all that beauty has to offer, while heaven – all this while – pulls me into its arms.
In heaven, my focus will be clear. All will be extraordinarily ordinary.
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A hundred thousand birds salute the day:– One solitary bird salutes the night: Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away, And tunes our weary watches to delight; It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say, To know and sing them, and to set them right; Until we feel once more that May is May, And hope some buds may bloom without a blight. This solitary bird outweighs, outvies, The hundred thousand merry-making birds Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise Would we but follow when they bid us rise, Would we but set their notes of praise to words And launch our hearts up with them to the skies. ~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”
Every day is perfect, if when you wake, you hear birds in the garden, in the yard. Birds
up and down, ushering in one more day in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds on telephone lines, light posts. Birds
twit, twittering on trees hailing fellow birds with a nod of beak—gray kingbird;
top-hatted, streamertail tuxedoed, doctor bird— busy-bodied hummingbird
tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras punch-drunk in love. Birds preening for, chatting up other birds—
the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song on the lawn, in a dance of birds an all-day-long conference of bird;
red-headed woodpecker —drummer boy, or girl bird in this daily symphony of birds
—an orchestra on Shaker Way in serenade of each perfect day with birds— from the very first mockingbird
heralding, in solo warble one more day, filled with birds— brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:
Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird. You lift me up bird. You sing the day beautiful, bird. ~Ann-Margaret Lim “Birdsong of Shaker Way”
Birds afloat in air’s current, sacred breath? No, not breath of God, it seems, but God the air enveloping the whole globe of being. It’s we who breathe, in, out, in, the sacred, leaves astir, our wings rising, ruffled—but only saints take flight… But storm or still, numb or poised in attention, we inhale, exhale, inhale, encompassed, encompassed. ~Denise Levertov from “In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being”from The Stream and the Sapphire
As if reluctant to let go the setting sun last night, one lone bird still sang a twilight song, long after the others fell asleep, their heads tucked neatly under their wings.
This lone bird had not yet finished the day, breathing in and out its plaintive melody, articulating what my own thoughts could not say.
And before a hint of light this June morning, I am swept from my dreams at 4:30 AM by a full chorus singing from the same tree, no longer a lone voice, but hundreds.
Although my day is launched early by warbling songs, I cannot forget twilight’s one reluctant bird who fought back the impending darkness using only its voice.
I too resist the darkness with what I write here, if only I can keep it at bay: inhaling, exhaling, encompassed in holy Breath.
I want to sing out light and love to Light: encompassed by no darkness here.
I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I see the river flowing water running by I’d like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything
I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins
I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light I know the silence as the world begins to wake I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks
He doesn’t know the world at all Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out. He doesn’t know what birds know best Nor what I sing about, Nor what I sing about, Nor what sing about: That the world is full of loveliness.
When dew-drops sparkle in the grass And earth is aflood with morning light. light A blackbird sings upon a bush To greet the dawning after night, the dawning after night, the dawning after night. Then I know how fine it is to live.
Hey, try to open your heart to beauty; Go to the woods someday And weave a wreath of memory there. Then if tears obscure your way You’ll know how wonderful it is To be alive. ~Paul Read
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O! my heart now feels so cheerful as I go with footsteps light In the daily toil of my dear home; And I’ll tell to you the secret that now makes my life so bright— There’s a flower at my window in full bloom.
It is radiant in the sunshine, and so cheerful after rain; And it wafts upon the air its sweet perfume. It is very, very lovely! May its beauties never wane— This dear flower at my window in full bloom.
Nature has so clothed it in such glorious array, And it does so cheer our home, and hearts illume; Its dear mem’ry I will cherish though the flower fade away— This dear flower at my window in full bloom.
Oft I gaze upon this flower with its blossoms pure and white. And I think as I behold its gay costume, While through life we all are passing may our lives be always bright Like this flower at my window in full bloom. ~Lucian Watkins“The Flower at My Window”from Voices of Solitude
Details of the life of poet Lucian Watkins are few: a black man born in 1879 in Virginia, educated as a teacher, a writer and poet, then served as a U.S. Army Sergeant during WWI in the Philippines and France, dying of an unknown illness in Fort McHenry hospital in 1921.
He leaves behind only a handful of poems, including the one above.
Among the sparse information available about Lucian are three letters written by him. This was a young man who earnestly wanted to have both a writing career and a “bread-winning vocation.” He describes feeling compelled to compose poetry, no matter what else he accomplishes.
The obvious challenges he faced – –as a black man looking for a suitable place to live in Illinois so he can attend a college where there are no other people of color nearby, –as a veteran of a most horrific war, –as a creative mind trying to find a way to make a living.
He writes passionately about the aspirational purity of a white flower outside his window. Its bright radiance represents what he longs for in his own life.
From his letter to President Bissell of Bissell Colleges in Effingham, Illinois in 1919 after President Bissell is unable to assist in finding him a place to live, having suggested that the war veteran might consider “doing light housekeeping” – essentially live as a servant in a white household:
“About this matter of a boarding place. While I had hoped to obtain board with a member of my own race in Effingham, I had not thought it imperative that I should do so. I feel sure that there is enough Christianity in Effingham to provide that a brother-stranger in their midst shall not die of hunger.
What would Jesus do?
It seems that some places in the south they rise more readily to our American ideal of democracy than in the North and Middle-West. ‘The Richmond Planet’ of Richmond, Va., states that ‘right here in Richmond, the capital of the late Confederacy, colored soldiers are welcomed to aristocratic Westhampton, and with no sigh of racial discrimination or antipathy to their being there.’
What is the matter with Illinois?
I am not sure as to what your question involves. We shall talk it over when I arrive. There must be a way that is just and that will be good for all concerned. Very respectfully, signed Lucian B. Watkins“
**This man was not only a poet. He was a statesman.**
And a few months later, to the Editor of Crisis Magazine, the publication for the NAACP:
I have tried my best to forget poetry since being here – this with the hope I could the better prepare for a sure-enough bread-winning vocation. But the spell is on me again. With me, this thing is a madness. I hope you understand me, as it is really a painful matter that I have never expressed to anyone before. I have always felt that people can never know as to what this fever means.
Had I the world to give, I would give it freely for my ability to concentrate my mental and physical forces on real money-earning work as I seem compelled to do in the making of a quatrain. Now unless I can get away from this verse-making obsession, I must fail in everything, because success as a poet means very little, in a material way, even for those who are called masters in the art.
I hope you will pardon me for this much of your time I have taken.
Though Lucian Watkins’ life was cut short by an unknown illness, and his portfolio of poetry is small, he is nonetheless a gift to generations of future poets and readers.
This black artist did not let the inevitable rainfall in his life discourage his world view; he himself is radiant with illumination, showing a budding cheerfulness. His work reminds us:
Something as simple as observing a resilient flower outside our window can help heal painful hurts and fulfill our deepest longing.
Something as basic as seeing life through different perspectives or lenses can make all the difference in how we feel about our existence.
In his writing, Lucian Watkins draws a thin line between joy and sorrow, embracing joy in a simple white flower in full bloom — before it, as will we all, fades away.
From this low-lying valley; Oh, how sweet And cool and calm and great is life, I ween, There on yon mountain-throne—that sun-gold crest!
From this uplifted, mighty mountain-seat: How bright and still and warm and soft and green Seems yon low lily-vale of peace and rest! ~Lucian Watkins “Two Points of View”
Flower gleam and glow let your power shine make the Clock reverse bring back what once was mine What once was mine Heal what has been hurt change the fate’s design Save what has been lost bring back what once was mine what once was mine ~Healing Song from Tangled
