Light wakes us – there’s the sun climbing the mountains’ rim, spilling across the valley, finding our faces. It is July, between the hay and harvest, a time at arm’s length from all other time, the roads ragged with meadowsweet and mallow, with splays of seedheads, slubbed and coarse, rough linen. The fields above the house, clotted with sheep all spring, are empty now and froth with flowering grasses, still in the morning light. Birds move around the leafy fields, the leafy garden.
It is the time to set aside all vigil, good or ill, to loosen the fixed gaze of our attention as dandelions let seedlings to the wind. Wake with the light. Get up and go about the day and watch its surfaces that brighten with the sun.
And later, when the light is drowsed and heavy go find the burdened fruit trees where the shade lies splashed and opened-out across the ground. Spread over it a quilt worn soft by other bodies, then curl and fall down into sleep at light.
Awaken to a world of long, loose grass-stems, and leaves above, and birds, breaking out of the leaves. ~Kerry Hardie from “Sleep in Summer”
Saying good-bye to July last week meant admitting summer is already half-baked and so are we–
we who are still doughy, not nearly done enough.
The rush to autumn is breathless. We want to hold on tight to our longish days, fall asleep in the grasses, endure sweaty nights for just a little while longer…
Please, oh please grant us unending light and steady us for the task of getting ready for letting go.
A new series of summer photo notecards from our farm is now available as a thank you gift to you for your financial support of Barnstorming — details here
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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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Resurrection of the little apple tree outside my window, leaf- light of late in the April called her eyes, forget forget— but how How does one go about dying? Who on earth is going to teach me— The world is filled with people who have never died ~Franz Wright “On Earth”from Walking to Martha’s Vineyard
The year Dylan’s mother died I picked sprays of apple blossom, wound its pink, off-white shades in raffia for you to take to him.
Every year it’s out I think of us, the children, how apples bring the tree so low, until they thud to the lawn, drumming the end
of summer. The blossom was heavy when Dylan’s mother was dying – old wood doing its best again – and he, like you, was so young. ~Jackie Wills “Apple Blossom”
Is there anything in Spring so fair As apple blossoms falling through the air?
When from a hill there comes a sudden breeze That blows freshly through all the orchard trees.
The petals drop in clouds of pink and white, Noiseless like snow and shining in the light.
Making beautiful an old stone wall, Scattering a rich fragrance as they fall.
There is nothing I know of to compare With apple blossoms falling through the air. ~Henry Adams Parker “Apple Blossoms”
Jesus, Apple of God’s eye, dangling solitaire on leafless tree, bursting red.
As he drops New Eden dawns and once again we Adams choose: God’s first fruit or death. ~Christine F. Nordquist “Eden Inversed”
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:20-23
The rain eased enough to allow blades of grass to stand back up refreshed, yet unsuspecting, primed for the mower’s next cutting swath.
Clusters of pink tinged blossoms sway in response to my mower’s pass. Apple buds bulge on snagging branches, showering me from their hidden raindrop reservoirs collected within each blushing petal cup.
My face anointed by perfumed apple tears when I tend to forget – forget– this first fruit is offered, not forbidden, hanging from the tree, broken so our hearts will drop too, bursting open red with Him.
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My sorrow’s flower was so small a joy It took a winter seeing to see it as such. Numb, unsteady, stunned at all the evidence Of winter’s blind imperative to destroy, I looked up, and saw the bare abundance Of a tree whose every limb was lit and fraught with snow. What I was seeing then I did not quite know But knew that one mite more would have been too much. ~Christian Wiman “After a Storm” from Once in the West: Poems
A branch strains mightily to bear a summer’s bounty of fruit without breaking.
It sustains the load, but may drop some fruit early: the loss is meant to preserve the tree.
Then comes winter wind and ice storms when one more snowflake may become the mite too much.
What painful pruning is endured. Even the strongest branches may break, or the tree itself toppled.
At what cost do we endure the broken limbs of war?
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15: 1-2
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
Lyrics: White the sheep that gave the wool Green the pastures where they fed Blue and scarlet side by side Bless the warp and bless the thread
May the charm of lasting life Be upon your flocks in full From the hill where they rest May they rise both whole and well
Bless the man who wears this cloth May he wounded never be From the bitter cold and frost May this cloth protection be
Bless the children warmed within Three times three our love enfold Peace and plenty may they find May they grow both wise and bold
Now is waulked the web we’ve spun Winter storms may rage in vain Bless the work by which we won Comfort from the wind and rain
White the sheep that gave the wool Green the pastures where they fed Blue and scarlet side by side Bless the warp and bless the thread
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Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing. ~ Linda Hoganfrom Solar Storms
Wet stones from the middle path. A shard of green heartwood ripped by the big storm from the oak’s broken, heavy limb. And we all have scar stories.
Which say more than wound stories. Wound stories tell how we were injured. Scar stories tell how we heal. ~Liza Hyatt,”What I Carry Home With Me” from Wayfaring
between the rosebuds and the thorns the pine tree branches with their needles and kitty claws
my hands are always bleeding
and turning up scars that cry, “I’m alive, I feel it. I feel it all” and then falling back into whispers while my body heals itself one more time ~Juniper Klatt, I was raised in a house of water
…see how the flesh grows back across a wound, with a great vehemence, more strong than the simple, untested surface before.
There’s a name for it on horses, when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh, as all flesh is proud of its wounds, wears them as honors given out after battle, small triumphs pinned to the chest –
And when two people have loved each other, see how it is like a scar between their bodies, stronger, darker, and proud; how the black cord makes of them a single fabric that nothing can tear or mend. ~Jane Hirshfield from “For What Binds Us”
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth, artist
photo by Nate Gibson
In winter, we are stripped naked as the bare trees right now; our skin and bones reveal the scars, broken branches, and healed fractures of previous winter windstorms. We no longer have anything to hide behind or among, as our defects are plain to see.
Our whole story is a mystery untold, impossible to conceal.
Scars come in various sizes and shapes, some hidden, some quite obvious to all. How they are inflicted also varies–some accidental, others therapeutic, and too many intentional.
The most insidious are the ones so internal, no one can see or know they are there. Sometimes we aren’t aware of them ourselves – only something unreachable is still hurting at times.
Most often, they are simply the scars of living in a hazardous world – on farm animals, healing into a tough scar of leathery “proud flesh”.
Yet, none of them are as deep and wide as scars accepted on our behalf, nor as wondrous as the Love that oozed from them, nor as amazing as the Grace that abounds to this day because of the promise they represent. These are scars from the Word made Flesh, a proud flesh that won’t give way, lasting forever.
Though I am abundantly flawed with pocks and scars, I am reminded each winter of my renewal. There are hints of new growth to come when the frost abates and the sap thaws.
Indeed, I am prepared to wait an eternity, if necessary, to understand the rest of the story.
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There’s a single tree at the fence line… When I cross the unfertile pasture strewn with rocks and the holes of gophers, badgers, coyotes, and the rattlesnake den (a thousand killed in a decade because they don’t mix well with dogs and children) in an hour’s walking and reach the tree, I find it oppressive. Likely it’s as old as I am, withstanding its isolation, all gnarled and twisted from its battle with weather. I sit against it until we merge, and when I return home in the cold, windy twilight I feel I’ve been gone for years. ~Jim Harrison, from “Fence Line Tree” from Saving Daylight.
Our fence line apple tree is considerably older than I am, and not a far walk away from the house. I visit it nearly every day, to be reminded that there is a wonder in gnarled limbs and blatant asymmetry.
What strikes me is the consistent presence of this tree though so much changes around it: the seasons, the birds that nest in it, the animals that graze under it and the ever-changing palette above and beyond.
This tree stands bent and misshapen, though not nearly as fruitful as in its younger years, yet still a constant in my life and in generations to come.
May I be that constant for those around me, to be steady when all around me changes in swirls and storms. Perhaps being bent and wrinkled and knobby can also be beautiful.
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A scent of ripeness from over a wall. And come to leave the routine road And look for what had made me stall, There sure enough was an apple tree That had eased itself of its summer load, And of all but its trivial foliage free, Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan. For there had been an apple fall As complete as the apple had given man. The ground was one circle of solid red.
May something go always unharvested! May much stay out of our stated plan, Apples or something forgotten and left, So smelling their sweetness would be no theft. ~Robert Frost “Unharvested” from The Collected Poems
Our trees are heavy-laden until the wind comes — the dropping fruit thuds to the ground with such finality, it wakes me in the night and reminds me how far I too have fallen.
“Fall” is just that: nothing remains as it was.
Autumn replays our desire for an apple which smells so sweet, tempts with shiny sheen lures with such color – we fell hard and fast for just one taste.
We ignored the worm hole.
And ended up in a hole ourselves, unharvested, hoping one day for sweetness to return.
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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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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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