Every morning I walk through folds of fields searching.
Slants of sun sink through triangled bones of leaves: bold cold refuted.
Sparrows flutter warm in given nests, ungriefed, caught, sustained by common grace.
Faith is the tenderness of banked coals in a grate, Braeburn apples on a windowsill, winding crisp with possibility. The steadiness of conversations embered over decades; a fire that has never left off crackling – on this my soul has warmed her hands. Divine ardor: too strong and sweet for the many years I’ve walked on earth.
Love without hesitation has swept my floorboards for seasons. Deep and longing in and out of time the soul reaches out – and He, grasps entire. Hold – and tender. Incandescent. ~Claire Hellar “A Search in Autumn”
We are walking with the month To a quiet place. See, only here and there the gentians stand! Tonight the homing loon Will fly across the moon, Over the tired land. We were the idlers and the sowers, The watchers in the sun, The harvesters who laid away the grain. Now there’s a sign in every vacant tree, Now there’s a hint in every stubble field, Something we must not forget When the blossoms fly again. Give me your hand!
There were too many promises in June. Human-tinted buds of spring Told only half the truth. The withering leaf beneath our feet, That wrinkled apple overhead, Say more than vital boughs have said When we went walking In this growing place. There is something in this hour More honest than a flower Or laughter from a sunny face. ~Scudder Middleton “Song in the Key of Autumn”
I walk through the scant remainder of September wistful~~ a witness to the harvest of unfulfilled spring promises.
Watching sunlit days fade to blustery rain-filled nights.
I knew the growing season wouldn’t last. I knew the time to lie fallow would come.
Give me your hand. We’ll walk through this darkening time together, waiting, watching, for, once more, the promises of spring.
Winslow Homer – Veteran in a New Field, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
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Teach me to walk with tender feet, as the wild ones do. Let me be the cinder-glow of the fox in her burrow, wreathed around the honey-spark fur of her sleeping kits.
Let me be the shaded pools of the doe’s eyes in winter, when the snow falls, when the stars lean down to listen, when the world is darker and softer than rain.
Let me be the swallow after flight, when she is perched upon the branch where the petals of the lilacs used to be, and she is just still, and quiet, her downy head inclined, as though she is praying for their return. ~Kimberly Beck “Tender Feet”
As the weather changes, softening in the mists of autumn, I walk each step with careful feet, my tender heart singing songs in the rain. I pray for peace in this troubled land, for protection from harm until spring comes again.
May God grant a gentle night’s sleep for all His creatures.
video by Harry Rodenberger
Lyrics for Aragorn’s Sleepsong: Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay And I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll sing you tomorrow
Bless you with love for the road that you go May you sail far to the far fields of fortune With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet And may you need never to banish misfortune
May you find kindness in all that you meet May there always be angels to watch over you To guide you each step of the way To guard you and keep you safe from all harm Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay
May you bring love and may you bring happiness Be loved in return to the end of your days Now fall off to sleep, I’m not meaning to keep you I’ll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay
May there always be angels to watch over you To guide you each step of the way To guard you and keep you safe from all harm Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay
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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” from Complete Poems
I yield now to the heaviness of transition from summer to autumn – the soaking morning fog, with dew clinging like teardrops, a chill in the air means I sweater-wrap my days.
It is time for change, reluctant as I may be; both day and night now compete equally for my time and each will win.
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The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words. We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving, for in joining ourselves to one another we join ourselves to the unknown. ~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage” in Standing By Words
Our vows to one another forty-four years ago today:
Before God and this gathering, I vow from my heart and spirit that I will be your wife/husband for as long as we both shall live.
I will love you with faithfulness, knowing its importance in sustaining us through good times and bad.
I will love you with respect, serving your greatest good and supporting your continued growth.
I will love you with compassion, knowing the strength and power of forgiveness.
I will love you with hope, remembering our shared belief in the grace of God and His guidance of our marriage.
“And at home, by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be–and whenever I look up, there will be you.”
(our wedding vows for our September 19, 1981 wedding at First Seattle Christian Reformed Church — the last line adapted from Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd”)
Sometimes our life reminds me of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing and in that opening a house, an orchard and garden, comfortable shades, and flowers red and yellow in the sun, a pattern made in the light for the light to return to. The forest is mostly dark, its ways to be made anew day after day, the dark richer than the light and more blessed, provided we stay brave enough to keep on going in.
We enter, willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy. ~Wendell Berry from “A Country of Marriage”
…Marriage… joins two living souls as closely as, in this world, they can be joined. This joining of two who know, love, and trust one another brings them in the same breath into the freedom of sexual consent and into the fullest earthly realization of the image of God. From their joining, other living souls come into being, and with them great responsibilities that are unending, fearful, and joyful. The marriage of two lovers joins them to one another, to forebears, to descendants, to the community, to heaven and earth. It is the fundamental connection without which nothing holds, and trust is its necessity. ~Wendell Berry from Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community
We married forty-four years ago today in our Seattle church with Pastor Peter Holwerda officiating, with a small group of family and friends as witnesses.
It was a wedding of two frugal people with little to spend – I sewed my dress and Dan’s shirt from muslin, we grew our own flowers, our families helped potluck the lunch afterward and our tiered carrot cake was made by a friend.
Yet our vows to one another were not frugal and held nothing back. They were extravagant and comprehensive, coming from our hearts and spirits. The music we asked our amazing organist to play (versions below) inspired us by its simplicity and complexity – very much like the families that raised us and the God we worship.
Our vows have taken us from the city to the countryside, to the raising and rejoicing in three amazing children and now six grandchildren. We both served more than forty years as a public-employed attorney and physician. We have laid down those responsibilities, and picked up the tools of farm and garden along with church and community service for as long as we are able.
We treasure each day of living together in faithfulness, respect, compassion and hope – knowing that how we love and find joy in one another mirrors how God loves and revels in His people.
We pray for many more days to fill us with what endures.
A pot of red lentils simmers on the kitchen stove. All afternoon dense kernels surrender to the fertile juices, their tender bellies swelling with delight.
In the yard we plant rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes, cupping wet earth over tubers, our labor the germ of later sustenance and renewal.
Across the field the sound of a baby crying as we carry in the last carrots, whorls of butter lettuce, a basket of red potatoes.
I want to remember us this way— late September sun streaming through the window, bread loaves and golden bunches of grapes on the table, spoonfuls of hot soup rising to our lips, filling us with what endures. ~Peter Pereira from “A Pot of Red Lentils”
Here are versions of the organ music we selected for prelude, processional, recessional and postlude
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Summer is over, the old cow said, And they’ll shut me up in a draughty shed To milk me by lamplight in the cold, But I won’t give much for I am old. It’s long ago that I came here Gay and slim as a woodland deer; It’s long ago that I heard the roar Of Smith’s white bull by the sycamore. And now there are bones where my flesh should be; My backbone sags like an old roof tree, And an apple snatched in a moment’s frolic Is just so many days of colic.
I’m neither a Jersey nor Holstein now But only a faded sort of cow. My calves are veal and I had as lief That I could lay me down as beef; Somehow, they always kill by halves, — Why not take me when they take my calves? Birch turns yellow and sumac red, I’ve seen this all before, she said, I’m tired of the field and tired of the shed. There’s no more grass, there’s no more clover; Summer is over, summer is over. ~Robert Hillyer “Moo!”
Something inspires the only cow of late To make no more of a wall than an open gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools. Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit, She scorns a pasture withering to the root. She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten. She leaves them bitten when she has to fly. She bellows on a knoll against the sky. Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry. ~Robert Frost “The Cow in Apple Time”
I have lived among cows, our own and our neighbors’, dairy and beef, most of my life. Given their status as a food source, cows aren’t always granted a long life, but I do envy those who spend much of the year chewing cud outside in pastoral settings.
We’ve owned some aged cows. They can be set in their ways and don’t particularly like a change in routine. They prefer a communal life, bearing calves, surrendering their milk, and ensuring the herd hierarchy is maintained with a minimum of fuss.
I remember my dad curing a cow’s habit of eating apples directly from a tree branch. She had the apple lodged in her esophagus as it had slipped down her throat unchewed, but too large to pass through to her rumen. She was foaming at the mouth, breathing fine, but the apple was a visible lump palpable mid-way down her neck. My dad grabbed a short two by four board and a hammer, placed the board on one side of her neck lump, and with the hammer, hit her neck precisely over the apple, crushing it. She was immediately cured and sauntered over to grab more apples, off the ground rather than the branch.
Cows can experience various health issues, sometimes relating to infections in their udders, but not infrequently, trouble with their hooves. They can get abscesses which are quite painful until emptied, as well as sharp rocks or gravel wedged into their foot. This sometimes necessitates hoof work done by a specialist who visits dairy farms on a regular basis.
I confess I (along with a million or so other folks) spend an inordinate amount of time watching YouTube channels of cow hoof trimming. I have no desire to do the job myself, but restoring a limping cow to a comfortably walking cow is a skill that must be very gratifying.
As an aging female myself, I know all about aches and pains. I too feel the sadness of summer coming to an end, when the grass and clover grows sparse in the field, and when chilly nights are best spent in the shelter of the barn.
But I’m not yet ready to give up on this sweet pastoral life. There are still some days left, and apples to pick up off the ground, for this fading old cow…
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A butterfly dancing in the sunlight, A bird singing to his mate, The whispering pines, The restless sea, The gigantic mountains, A stately tree, The rain upon the roof, The sun at early dawn, A boy with rod and hook, The babble of a shady brook, A woman with her smiling babe, A man whose eyes are kind and wise, Youth that is eager and unafraid— When all is said, I do love best A little home where love abides, And where there’s kindness, peace, and rest. ~Scottie McKenzie Frasier “The Things I Love”
When all is said and done, I love best the people who bring kindness, peace and rest to the little house we call home.
It is enough and everything.
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Who loves the rain And loves his home, And looks on life with quiet eyes, Him will I follow through the storm; And at his hearth-fire keep me warm; Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise, Who loves the rain, And loves his home, And looks on life with quiet eyes. ~Frances Shaw, “Who loves the rain” from Look To the Rainbow of Grace
Now more than ever you can be generous toward each day that comes, young, to disappear forever, and yet remain unaging in the mind. Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away. ~Wendell Berry from “There is no going back”
What a wonder I was when I was young, as I learn by the stern privilege of being old: how regardlessly I stepped the rough pathways of the hillside woods, treaded hardly thinking the tumbled stairways of the steep streams, and worked unaching hard days thoughtful only of the work, the passing light, the heat, the cool water I gladly drank. ~Wendell Berry “VII” 2015 from Another Day
Love is a universe beyond The daylight spending zone: As one we more abound Than two alone. ~Wendell Berry “VIII” 2015 from Another Day
Thinking out loud on this day you were born, I thank God each day for bringing you to earth so we could meet, raise three amazing children, now six wonderful grandchildren, and walk this journey together with pulse and breath and dreams.
The boy you were became the man you are: so blessed by God, so needed by your family, church and community.
You give yourself away every day with such grace.
It was your quiet brown eyes I trusted first and just knew I’d follow you anywhere and I have.
In this journey together, we inhabit each other, however long may be the road we travel; you have become the air I breathe, refreshing, renewing, restoring~~ you are that necessary to me, and that beloved.
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Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim Of twilight stares along the quiet weald, And the kind, simple country shines revealed In solitudes of peace, no longer dim. The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light, Then stretches down his head to crop the green. All things that he has loved are in his sight; The places where his happiness has been Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good. ~Siegfried Sassoon from “Break of Day”
My husband and I grow old along with our horses – we are now past 70, just as a couple of our horses in “horse” years.
None of us, horses or humans, need to climb in the harness or put on the saddle to pull or carry the heavy loads of our former work lives.
It is a good life – each day treasured for its ordinariness.
Our retired horses feel the morning sun on their withers and the green blades under their feet, they scan the pasture for the sweetest tender patch to munch in the fields they know and love so well. They nap more now than in their younger years, taking breaks to let their heads hang relaxed and nodding, their tails slowly swishing at flies.
This morning was not so ordinary.
Waldheer van de Wortel (Wally), imported from Holland as a foal 27 years ago to be our herd stallion, let me know he wasn’t feeling well. He repeatedly pawed at the ground and the pasture gates, biting at his flank, trying to lie down and then get back up, not eating – clearly experiencing colicky belly pain that was getting worse.
I wondered if Wally’s time had come to bid him farewell. I had made a promise to my geriatric horses that I would not allow them to live in pain just because I didn’t want to let them go.
The vet came quickly and we talked about Wally’s options. She remarked about how he didn’t look his age, was holding weight well, his coat so sleek and shiny, his long-lashed eyes still bright and curious. But she said an older horse could often have repeated bouts of colic before the end, even if they temporarily improve with medical treatment.
I decided it was the right time to let him go to Haflinger heaven on a sunny summer morning, nibbling a mouthful of clover I offered him.
He was laid to sleep where he had lived nearly three decades.
He leaves behind two sons who were his pasture buddies, a couple dozen offspring scattered around the country, and people who loved his ambassadorship for the Haflinger breed. In his younger days, he was an enthusiastic eventer in the northwest region, ridden by his trainer Jessica Heidemann. They both had an enthusiastic fan-following.
In his later years, Wally was patient and loving with our grandchildren and with us. He lived a good life in his place of happiness. I wanted him to die peacefully at home, without a worry.
It just doesn’t get much better than that.
Waldheer van de Wortel, 1998 foal in Holland27 year old WallyArt work made by a fan of Waldheer
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What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. ~W.H.Davies “Leisure”
…I believe there are certain habits that, if practiced, will stimulate the growth of humble roots in our lives. One of those is a habit of awe and wonder.
By awe and wonder, I mean the regular practice of paying careful attention to the world around us. Not merely seeing but observing. Perceiving. Considering. Asking thoughtful questions about what we see, smell, hear, touch, taste. In other words, attending with love and curiosity to what our senses sense. (How often do we eat without tasting? How often do we look without seeing? Hear without listening?) Admiring, imagining, receiving the beauty of the world around us in a regular, intentional way: this is the habit of a wonder-filled person. And it leads to humility.
A regular habit of awe and wonder de-centers us. It opens a window in our imaginations, beckoning us to climb out of our own opinions and experiences and to consider things greater and beyond our own lives. It strengthens our curiosity, which in turn lowers the volume on our anxieties and grows our ability to empathize. Over time, we become less self-focused and can admit without embarrassment what we don’t know. In short, we grow more humble. ~Kelly Givens from “Teaching Children to See” from Mere Orthodoxy
This would be a poor life indeed if I didn’t take time to stand and stare at all that is displayed before me.
The golden cast at the beginning and endings of the days, the light dancing in streams like stars, simply staring at God’s creatures who stare back at me, each wondering what the other is thinking.
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