I love color. I love flaming reds, And vivid greens, And royal flaunting purples. I love the startled rose of the sun at dawning, And the blazing orange of it at twilight.
I love color. I love the drowsy blue of the fringed gentian, And the yellow of the goldenrod, And the rich russet of the leaves That turn at autumn-time…. I love rainbows, And prisms, And the tinsel glitter Of every shop-window.
I love color. And yet today, I saw a brown little bird Perched on the dull-gray fence Of a weed-filled city yard. And as I watched him The little bird Threw back his head Defiantly, almost, And sang a song That was full of gay ripples, And poignant sweetness, And half-hidden melody.
I love color…. I love crimson, and azure, And the glowing purity of white. And yet today, I saw a living bit of brown, A vague oasis on a streak of gray, That brought heaven Very near to me. ~Margaret E. Sangster “Colors”
photo by Harry Rodenberger
My eye always seeks out color because there is so much gray as background and foreground.
My ear listens for the singing of sweet melodies in the midst of mourning and sorrow.
My heart longs for hints of heaven in the daily ordinary because this sad world wants to believe in the promises.
photo by Harry Rodenberger
Andrew Wyeth – Wind from the Sea, 1947AI image created for this post
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Light burrows out of darkness. Our skin is covered with silvery sheen like cherries polished by spring rain. The terribly hard days flood by— gone to where they are not needed anymore.
Light finds us through layers of clothes, woolen blankets, cool sheets smelling of orange-sunshine. Light always finds the hidden and exposes it.
Our hair reminds light of damp earth when buds first break free in rapture—they cannot wait or cannot get enough of it.
God is no longer untouchable. We are cleansed. Our bones are transitory voices, flocking geese practicing for that long journey to an end they cannot imagine— but there it is, the end in sight, calling from the distance, Come here, come here, I am waiting for you.
We reach what we have been reaching for, and it is more than we expected it to be. ~Martin Willitts Jr., “Light” from Leave Nothing Behind
We reach through our darkness toward a Light we have been told about.
It seems untouchable and unknowable, like birds called together to fly away, without imagining where they might go.
Yet the Light is reachable, it is touchable and welcoming. God is waiting for our approach.
Once again, always again – darkness is overwhelmed.
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Through love to light! Oh, wonderful the way That leads from darkness to the perfect day! From darkness and from sorrow of the night To morning that comes singing o’er the sea. Through love to light! Through light, O God, to thee, Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!
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Let us not with one stone kill one bird, much less two. Let us never put a cat in a bag nor skin them, regardless of how many ways there are to do so. And let us never take the bull, especially by his gorgeous horns. What I mean is
we could watch our tongues or keep silent. What I mean is we could scrub the violence from our speech. And if we find truth in a horse’s mouth, let us bless her
ground-down molars, no matter how old she is, especially if she was given as a gift. Again, let’s open her mouth——that of the horse, I mean——let us touch that interdental space where no teeth grow, where the cold bit was made to grip. Touch her there, gently now, touch that gentle
empty between her incisors and molars, rub her aching, vulnerable gums. Don’t worry: doing so calms her. Besides, she’s old now; she’s what we call broken; she won’t bite. She’s lived through two thirteen-year emergences of cicadas
and thought their rising a god infestation, thought each insect roiling up an iteration of the many names of god, because god to her is the grasses so what comes up from grass is god. She would not say it that way. Nor would she
say the word cicada——words are hindrances to what can be spoken through the body, are what she tolerates when straddled, giddy-up on one side then whoa on the other. After, it’s all good girl, Mable, good girl, before the saddle sweat is rinsed cool with water from the hose and a carrot is offered flat from the palm. Yes, words being
generally useless she listens instead to the confused rooster stuttering when the sun burns overhead, when it’s warm enough for those time-keepers to tunnel up from the dark and fill their wings to make them stiff and capable of flight. To her, it is the sound
of winter-coming in her mane or the sound of winter-leaving in her mane—— yes, that sound——a liquid shushing like the blood-fill of stallion desire she knew once but crisper, a dry crinkle of fall leaves. Yes, that sound, as they fill their new wings then lumber to the canopy to demand come here, come here, come here, now come.
If this is a parable you don’t understand, then, dear human, stop listening for words. Listen instead for mane, wind, wings, wind, mane, wings, wings, wings. The lesson here is of the mare and of the insects, even of the rooster puffed and strutting past. Because now, now there is only one thing worth hearing, and it is the plea of every living being in that field we call ours, is the two-word commandment trilling from the trees: let live, let live, let live. Can you hear it? Please, they say. Please. Let us live. ~Nickole Brown “Parable”
When a governor writes about her decision to shoot her wayward dog and stinky goat, our reaction is about the injustice perpetrated on the dog more than her decision to play god with any animal she has responsibility for. I feel a twinge of guilt at the accusation. Who among us can throw stones?
God is clear we are meant to be caretakers of His Creation. Yet I still swat flies and trap mice – there is no pleasure in doing so, so I still ask for forgiveness for my lack of charity and decision to make my own existence more comfortable at the expense of another living thing.
I admit I fail Creation in myriad ways.
I have owned animals whose behavior brought me to my knees, sometimes literally with my face in the muck. I have wept over the loss of a deformed stillbirth foal and a pond of koi frozen in a bitter winter storm. The stories abound of my helplessness in the face of sadness and loss and frustration but I never wanted to become executioner.
I don’t live with cycles of cicada population booms but have experienced their overwhelming din and understood we are mere witnesses and not in control. We are not “little g” gods on this earth. We are its stewards.
Here in the time between snow and the bud of the rhododendron, we watch the robins, look into
the gray, and narrow our view to the patches of wild grasses coming green. The pile of ashes
in the fireplace, haphazard sticks on the paths and gardens, leaves tangled in the ivy and periwinkle
lie in wait against our will. This drawing near of renewal, of stems and blossoms, the hesitant return
of the anarchy of mud and seed says not yet to the blood’s crawl. When the deer along the stream
look back at us, we know again we have left them. We pull a blanket over us when we sleep.
As if living in a prayer, we say amen to the late arrival of red, the stun of green, the muted yellow
at the end of every twig. We will lift up our eyes unto the trees hoping to discover a gnarled nest within
the branches’ negative space. And we will watch for a fox sparrow rustling in the dead leaves underneath. ~Jack Ridl “Here in the Time Between” from Practicing to Walk Like a Heron
We live in an in-between time: we see the coming glory of spring and rebirth yet winter’s mud and ice still grasps at us.
We want to crawl back under the blankets, hoping to wake again on a brighter day.
Praying to emerge from the mud of in-between and not-yet, we are ready to bud and blossom and wholly bloom.
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The simple words no longer work. Neither do the grand ones. Something about The hanging bits of dark Mixed with your hair. The everlasting quietness Attached to the deserted barn Made me think I’d discovered you But you already knew all about yourself As we stood on the edge of a forest With your dress as languid as the air, The day made of spring wind and daffodils. Then the sky appeared in blue patches Among slow clouds, Oak leaves came out on the trees, Grass suddenly became green, Filled with small animals that sing. All the parts of spring were gathering, The earth was being created all over again One piece at a time Just for you. ~Tom Hennen “Found on the Earth” From Darkness Sticks To Everything
I’m waking from wintry doldrums, to earlier mornings, longer evenings, healing from weeks of cold and weariness.
It is as if all has been rebirthed, vivid with light and songs and color and smells – I cannot imagine not sharing it all.
This renewal feels so personal, as if just for me – yet I know others are waking too.
I face the morning sun in silence, my eyelids closed and glowing, warming in the light.
So I offer up this blessed cup of quiet, steeped and ready to pour out, just for you.
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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”
When I stand at the window watching the flickers, sparrows, finches, 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. 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; it would be too overwhelming to absorb it all.
I understand: I fear being captured too, my wrinkles and crinkles on full display.
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 are, and I am, so much more than one moment.
Only God sees me fully in every moment that I exist, witness to my freedom and captivity, my loneliness and grief, my joy and tears, knowing my very best and my very worst.
And He is not overwhelmed by what He sees of me. He knows me so well, in Him I must trust.
photo by Tomomi Gibson
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Between the March and April line — That magical frontier Beyond which summer hesitates, Almost too heavenly near. The saddest noise, the sweetest noise, The maddest noise that grows, — The birds, they make it in the spring, At night’s delicious close. It makes us think of all the dead That sauntered with us here, By separation’s sorcery Made cruelly more dear. It makes us think of what we had, And what we now deplore. We almost wish those siren throats Would go and sing no more. An ear can break a human heart As quickly as a spear, We wish the ear had not a heart So dangerously near. ~Emily Dickinson“The Saddest Noise”
Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he’s gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone. ~Mary Oliver “In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music ” from “A Thousand Mornings”
What does it say about me that a only a few months ago, in the inky darkness of December mornings, I was yearning for the earlier sunrises of spring. Once we’re well into April, the birdsong symphony alarm clock each morning is no longer so compelling.
This confirms my suspicion that I’m incapable of reveling in the moment at hand, something that would likely take years of therapy to undo. I’m sure there is some deep seated issue here, but I’m too sleep deprived to pursue it.
My eyes pop open earlier than I wish, aided and abetted by vigorous birdsong in the trees surrounding our farm house. Daylight sneaks through the venetian blinds. Once the bird chorus starts, with one lone chirpy voice in the apple tree by our bedroom window, it rapidly becomes a full frontal onslaught orchestra from all manner of avian life-forms, singing from the plum, cherry, walnut, fir and chestnut. Sleep is irretrievable.
Yet it would be such a poor life without the birdsong. Even so, too much is … a bit too much.
I already need a nap.
photo by Harry Rodenberger
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The roofs are shining from the rain, The sparrows twitter as they fly, And with a windy April grace The little clouds go by.
Yet the back yards are bare and brown With only one unchanging tree– I could not be so sure of Spring Save that it sings in me. – Sara Teasdale, “April”
The snow piles in dark places are gone. Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear. The gravel of all shallow places shines. A white pigeon reels and somersaults.
Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody. Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers past a blue pool; they celebrate an old festival. A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug sits on my hand washing his forelegs. I might ask: Who are these people? ~Carl Sandburg from “Just Before April Came”
And so Spring asks:
Who are these people?
Here we are, closing in on mid-April and our weather continues to be unpredictable. I am not so sure of Spring.
Yet it sings in me. Yes it sings.
The calendar does not lie, nor does my nose. The pollen counts are rising despite the rains and as I step outside in early dawn, I can catch the slightest fragrance of just-opening cherry and apple blossoms in the orchard. Within a week there will be sweet perfume in the air everywhere and the fruit trees become clothed in white puffy clouds of blossom before bursting full into green.
In defiance of the calendar, our oak trees cling stubbornly to their brown bedraggled fall leaves as if ashamed to ever appear naked, even for a week. In May they will go straight from brown to green without a moment of bare knobby branches.
Even so, it sings in me. Yes it sings.
A morning bird symphony tunes up ever earlier including the “scree” and chatter from bald eagles high up in the fir trees surrounding our house. Nesting has begun despite the wet and cold and wind because their nest is the secure home that calls them back, again and again, year after year.
Like them, it sings in me. Yes it sings.
I rise opening like a bud, I dress my nakedness to cover up my knobbiness, I wander about outside exulting in the free concert, I manage to do chores despite the distractions — this routine of mine which is so unchanging through the calendar days becomes glorious gift and privilege.
Hopefulness sings in me in Spring. Yes it sings.
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I wonder if the sap is stirring yet, If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate, If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun And crocus fires are kindling one by one: Sing, robin, sing; I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.
I wonder if the springtide of this year Will bring another Spring both lost and dear; If heart and spirit will find out their Spring, Or if the world alone will bud and sing: Sing, hope, to me; Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.
The sap will surely quicken soon or late, The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate; So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom, Or in this world, or in the world to come: Sing, voice of Spring, Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing. ~Christina Rossetti “The First Spring Day”
A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period — When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step Or Noons report away Without the Formula of sound It passes and we stay —
A quality of loss Affecting our Content As Trade had suddenly encroached Upon a Sacrament. ~ Emily Dickinson“A Light exists in Spring”
Maybe it is the particular tilt of our globe on its axis, or the suffusion of clouds damp with moisture or perhaps only the winter darkness can no longer overwhelm…
The light of spring as it melts from March into April is immersive with sweet-scented dawn and twilight moments
Surrounded in sacrament without and within, a renewed life lived in the Lord: gently glowing.
Lux, Calida gravisque pura velut aurum Et canunt angeli molliter modo natum.
Light Warm and heavy, pure as gold And the angels sing softly to The just born
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Spring comes quickly: overnight the plum tree blossoms, the warm air fills with bird calls.
In the plowed dirt, someone has drawn a picture of the sun with rays coming out all around but because the background is dirt, the sun is black. There is no signature.
Alas, very soon everything will disappear: the bird calls, the delicate blossoms. In the end, even the earth itself will follow the artist’s name into oblivion.
Nevertheless, the artist intends a mood of celebration.
How beautiful the blossoms are — emblems of the resilience of life. The birds approach eagerly. ~Louise Glück “Primavera”
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy, Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning, Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy, Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Spring”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. ” Revelation 21:5
Given a choice, humanity chose sour over the sweetness we were created for ~ giving up walks together in the cool of the day to feed an appetite that could never be sated.
God made a choice to bring us back with His own blood as if we are worthy of Him.
He says we are. He dies to prove it.
Every day I choose to believe earth can be sweet and beautiful again. Each spring becomes a celebration of our resilience.
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