The evening comes slowly over us, over the cardinal and the wren still feeding, over the swallows suddenly swooping to snatch up mosquitoes
over the marsh where the green sedge lately has a tawny tinge over two yearlings bending long necks to nibble hillock bushes
finally separate from their doe mother. A late hawk is circling against the sky streaked lavender. The breeze has quieted, vanished
into leaves that still stir a bit like a cat turning round before sleep. Distantly a car passes and is gone. Night gradually
unrolls from the east where the ocean slides up and down the sand leaving seaweed tassels: a perfect world for moments. ~Marge Piercy “June 15th, 8pm”from Made in Detroit
So many fleeting moments pass by me, a shower of raindrops disappearing into a stream — I can’t capture and hold them. They run through my fingers like water, leaving behind a damp residue of remembrance.
Yet each a moment of perfection, even as I lose my grasp on it. Perhaps a written word or recorded photo, elusive as the relentless flow of time itself.
A moment gifted by God, a moment breathed, a moment observed, a moment vanished, lived fully, yet never to come again.
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My heart is like a little bird That sits and sings for very gladness. Sorrow is some forgotten word, And so, except in rhyme, is sadness.
The world is very fair to me— Such azure skies, such golden weather, I’m like a long caged bird set free, My heart is lighter than a feather.
I rise rejoicing in my life; I live with love for God and neighbor; My days flow on unmarred by strife, And sweetened by my pleasant labor.
Oh youth! oh spring! oh happy days, Ye are so passing sweet, and tender, And while the fleeting season stays, I’ll revel care-free, in its splendor. ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox “Joy”
Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. ~Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. ~C.S. Lewis from “Is Theology Poetry?” in The Weight of Glory
Tomorrow we’ll discover What our God in Heaven has in store One more dawn One more day One day more… ~from Les Miserable
I wasn’t the only one watching the light emerging over the foothills this morning. A bird sitting atop our barn’s weathervane greeted this morning’s dawn, a silent witness, along with me.
I thought we might face the new day together, both preparing ourselves for whatever might come our way.
Yet he flew away, leaving me behind to face it on my own.
Morning without you is a dwindled dawn. ~Emily Dickinsonin a letter to a friend April 1885
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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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The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms from around you, the birds take back their language, the cliffs fissure and collapse, the air moves back from you like a wave and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing. You were a visitor, time after time climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming. We never belonged to you. You never found us. It was always the other way round. ~Margaret Atwood “The Moment”from Eating Fire
The farm where we live has fields on a hill with woods. Evening walks are listening walks, with birdsong now identifiable thanks to our Merlin app on our phones.
There is always plenty to hear.
It is an immense relief to listen to something other than talking heads on TV or podcasts. The voices we hear in the woods remain unconcerned about politics, hantavirus outbreaks or the state of the economy.
I also listen to the sound of breezes rustling the tree branches, the crunch of sticks and dry leaves under my boots, and more often than not, woodpeckers tapping away at tree trunks, eagles chittering from the treetops, and unseen owls visiting back and forth from their hidey-holes.
So, like the outside world, our farm does have its own talking heads and drama, but I know who I will listen to and where I prefer to hang out if given a choice.
I know I’m only a visitor to their world – there is no owning this land, only temporary stewardship. We will be invited back as long as we tread softly.
Until next time then, until next time.
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Not much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there’s been a shower of rain And hedge-birds whistle gay, I know my lad that’s out in France With fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glance At our white hawthorn tree.
. . . .
Not much to me is yonder lane Where he so longs to tread: But when there’s been a shower of rain I think I’ll never weep again Until I’ve heard he’s dead. ~Siegfried Sassoon“The Hawthorn Tree”
Trust that there is a tiger, muscular Tasmanian, and sly, which has never been seen and never will be seen by any human eye. Trust that thirty thousand sword- fish will never near a ship, that far from cameras or cars elephant herds live long elephant lives. Believe that bees by the billions find unidentified flowers on unmapped marshes and mountains. Safe in caves of contentment, bears sleep. Through vast canyons, horses run while slowly snakes stretch beyond their skins in the sun. I must trust all this to be true, though the few birds at my feeder watch the window with small flutters of fear, so like my own. ~Susan Kinsolving “Trust”
It’s like so many other things in life to which you must say no or yes. So you take your car to the new mechanic. Sometimes the best thing to do is trust. The package left with the disreputable-looking clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit, the envelope passed by dozens of strangers— all show up at their intended destinations. The theft that could have happened doesn’t. Wind finally gets where it was going through the snowy trees, and the river, even when frozen, arrives at the right place. And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life is delivered, even though you can’t read the address. ~Thomas Smith “Trust”
When I stand at the window watching the flickers, sparrows, finches, juncos, grosbeaks, chickadees, and red-winged blackbirds come and go from the feeders, I wonder who is watching who.
They remain wary of me, fluttering away quickly if I approach with lens in hand. They fear capture, even within a camera. They have a life to be lived without my witness or participation. So much happens that I never see or know about.
I understand: I fear being captured too. I prefer to remain an enigma.
Even if only for a moment as an image preserved forever, I know it doesn’t represent all I am, all I’ve done, all I feel, all my moments put together. The birds and bees and snakes and horses are, and I am, so much more than one moment.
Only God sees us fully in every moment, witness to our freedom and captivity, our loneliness and grief, our joy and tears, our sleeping and waking, knowing our best and our worst.
And because He knows us so well and knows the address to which we will be delivered – in Him we must trust.
photo by Tomomi Gibson
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As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is — Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “As kingfishers catch fire”
These first few days of spring are a reawakening of nature’s rebirthing rhythms, with increased activity of all the wild creatures and birds around us, and most importantly, God’s renewal of our weary wintery hearts.
Some late winter and early spring mornings still are pitch black with blustering winds and rain, even hail – looking and feeling like the bleakest of December mornings about to plunge into the death spiral of winter all over again.
What self-respecting God would birth Himself into recalcitrant hearts as dark as night?
This God would.
He labors in our bleakest of hearts for good reason. We are unformed and unready to meet Him in the light, clinging as we do to our dark ways and thoughts. Though we soon celebrate the rebirth of springtime, it is just so much talk until we accept the change of being transformed ourselves.
Though the woodpeckers are already noisily hammering on the bark, the birds singing their hearts out and the frogs chorusing in the warming ponds, we, His people, are silenced as He prepares for birth within us. The labor pains are His, not ours; we are awed witnesses to His first and last breath when He makes all things, including us, new again.
The world with its creatures, including us, is reborn — even where dark reigned before, even where it is bleakest, especially inside our healing wintery hearts.
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…
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Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. ~Mary Oliver, “The Uses of Sorrow”from Thirst
Someone spoke to me last night, told me the truth. Just a few words, but I recognized it. I knew I should make myself get up, write it down, but it was late, and I was exhausted from working all day in the garden, moving rocks. Now I remember only the flavor – not like food, sweet or sharp. More like a fine powder, like dust. And I wasn’t elated or frightened, but simply rapt, aware. That’s how it is sometimes – God comes to your window, all bright light and black wings, and you’re just too tired to open it. ~Dorianne Laux “Dust”
On the stiff twig up there Hunches a wet black rook Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain- I do not expect a miracle Or an accident
To set the sight on fire In my eye, nor seek Any more in the desultory weather some design, But let spotted leaves fall as they fall Without ceremony, or portent.
Although, I admit, I desire, Occasionally, some backtalk From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain: A certain minor light may still Lean incandescent
Out of kitchen table or chair As if a celestial burning took Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then — Thus hallowing an interval Otherwise inconsequent
By bestowing largesse, honor One might say love. At any rate, I now walk Wary (for it could happen Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical Yet politic, ignorant
Of whatever angel any choose to flare Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook Ordering its black feathers can so shine As to seize my senses, haul My eyelids up, and grant
A brief respite from fear Of total neutrality. With luck, Trekking stubborn through this season Of fatigue, I shall Patch together a content
Of sorts. Miracles occur, If you care to call those spasmodic Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again, The long wait for the angel. For that rare, random descent. ~Sylvia Plath “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”
Even when we open up an unwanted box of darkness, it too can be an unexpected gift:
it is no trick of radiance nor is it random when He comes to our window, waiting patiently for us to let Him in.
This descent to us is planned and very real: He seizes us and does not let go even when we are too tired to open to Him.
We wait, this long wait while moving rocks uphill; longing to feel His Light again. Rapt, aware, weary, yet awake and ready.
photo by Nate Gibsonphoto by Nate Gibson
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…
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Yesterday, running slowly in the gravel I saw a tiny bird feathered pulsating globe of white and gray on its back black pinprick eyes pointing up to the sky. I stooped down closely to peer. We stared at one another— creature to creature— for a small eternity. I scooped him into my hands and placed him gently an offering upright onto the grass whispering a prayer to the One who sees and knows each one every sparrow and every sorrow. ~Karen Swallow Prior “Creature to Creature”
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7
God of the sparrow, care for us, Speak in our sorrow, Lord of grief. Sing us Your music, lift our hearts, Pour out Your mercy, send relief. ~Craig Courtney (link to song below)
A little bird, with plumage brown, Beside my window flutters down, A moment chirps its little strain, Then taps upon my window-pane, And chirps again, and hops along, To call my notice to its song; But I work on, nor heed its lay, Till, in neglect, it flies away.
So birds of peace and hope and love Come fluttering earthward from above, To settle on life’s window-sills, And ease our load of earthly ills; But we, in traffic’s rush and din Too deep engaged to let them in, With deadened heart and sense plod on, Nor know our loss till they are gone. ~Paul Laurence Dunbar “The Sparrow”
The first thing I heard this morning was a soft, insistent rustle, the rapid flapping of wings against glass as it turned out,
a small bird rioting in the frame of a high window, trying to hurl itself through the enigma of transparency into the spacious light.
A noise in the throat of the cat hunkered on the rug told me how the bird had gotten inside, carried in the cold night through the flap in a basement door, and later released from the soft clench of teeth.
Up on a chair, I trapped its pulsations in a small towel and carried it to the door, so weightless it seemed to have vanished into the nest of cloth.
But outside, it burst from my uncupped hands into its element, dipping over the dormant garden in a spasm of wingbeats and disappearing over a tall row of hemlocks.
Still, for the rest of the day, I could feel its wild thrumming against my palms whenever I thought about the hours the bird must have spent pent in the shadows of that room, hidden in the spiky branches of our decorated tree, breathing there among metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes open, like mine as I lie here tonight picturing this rare, lucky sparrow tucked into a holly bush now, a light snow tumbling through the windless dark. ~Billy Collins “The Christmas Sparrow”from Aimless Love
Through the winter, I feed the sparrows, the woodpeckers and chickadees, the juncos and finches and towhees, and yes — even the starlings.
They all would be fine without my daily contribution to their well-being, but in return for my provision of seeds, I am able to enjoy their spirited liveliness and their gracious ability to share the bounty with one another.
These birds give back to me simply by showing up, without ever realizing what their presence means to me.
How much more does God lay out for me on a daily basis to sustain me even if I fail to show up for Him?
How oblivious am I to His gracious and profound gifts?
How willingly do I share these gifts with others?
Unlike the birds, I could never survive on my own without His watchful care.
When life feels overwhelming, when I am filled with worries, sorrow, regrets and pain, I seek out this God who cares even for sparrows. He knows how to quiet my troubles and strengthen my faith and perseverance, a comfort that extends far beyond sunflower seeds.
photo by Harry Rodenberger
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…
God of the sparrow, sing through us Songs of deliv’rance, songs of peace. Helpless we seek You, God our joy, Quiet our troubles, bid them cease, Quiet our troubles, bid them cease. Alleluia.
God of the sparrow, God of hope, Tenderly guide us, be our song, God of affliction, pain and hurt, Comfort Your children, make us strong, Comfort Your children, make us strong. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
God of the sparrow, care for us, Speak in our sorrow, Lord of grief. Sing us Your music, lift our hearts, Pour out Your mercy, send relief.
God, like the sparrow, we abide In Your protection, love and grace. Just as the sparrow in Your care, May Your love keep us all our days, May Your love keep us all our days. Amen. ~Craig Courtney
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