Category: leaves

A Faint Tracing on the Surface of Mystery

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“Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.”
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

 

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loneleaf

 

We are meant to be more than mere blemish,
more than a sullied spot or gaping hole on the surface, imperfect and inconvenient.
We are created as air and water and flesh and bones,
from the covering of skin to our deeper darkened cavities that fill and empty.
We are created out of Word and Silence.

We are created to weep and praise, praise and weep.

We are meant to be mystery, perfect in our imperfection.
Blemish made beautiful.

 

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holyleaf1

A Time to Sleep

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octoberwalnut

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Season of ripening fruit and seeds, depart;
There is no harvest ripening in the heart.

Bring the frost that strikes the dahlias down
In one cruel night. The blackened buds, the brown
And wilted heads, the crippled stems, we crave –
All beauty withered, crumbling to the grave.
Wind, strip off the leaves, and harden, ground,
Till in your frozen crust no break is found.

Then only, when man’s inner world is one
With barren earth and branches bared to bone,
Then only can the heart begin to know
The seeds of hope asleep beneath the snow;
Then only can the chastened spirit tap
The hidden faith still pulsing in the sap.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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leafcarpet

Our farm has been changing dramatically over the past several weeks, each day moving a little closer to the reality of winter around the corner. Most of the fruit which is not residing in our freezer has fallen from the trees, and the walnut husks are hanging lonesome and bulbous as a windstorm pulled many leaves to the ground creating a multi-colored carpet everywhere I walk.
Readying for winter’s sleep is quite a glamorous affair for some trees on our farm–they are clothed in rich crimson and gold like the most alluring and ostentatious negligee. However the majority of tree leaves turn drab yellow or brown, as if donning a practical flannel nightgown or an oversized t-shirt without any pretense of grandeur. Even our Haflinger horses laze about, comfortable in their soft winter woolie coats and feathered slippers, happy with their gift of hay. I’m understand their contentment as I prefer fluffy flannel myself.This has not been a leisurely autumn for me, instead full of turbulence and fretfulness, too much work to do in too few hours,  rushing full force toward the hoped-for calm and quiet of winter. Like so many others, I’m ill at ease with this transition, as unready as a small child who resists the approach of bedtime, even when exhausted to the point of meltdown. It takes someone to quietly sit down with me to read a good bedtime story and to sing a soft hymn of lullaby. I keep leaping up, eyes propped open, pushing on, aware there are still too many “miles to go before I sleep”.

The time to sleep will come, sooner than I think. Just as a storm brings the leaves to the ground, so shall I be laid to rest, to be restored when the time is right.

Maybe I should think about wearing that bright red nightie.
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morning101516

Cares Drop Away

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fieldgold

octleaf1015161

octleaves101516

The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of autumn.
—John Muir

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The Pacific Northwest has been anticipating a “historic” windstorm for the past four days, comparable to the west coast “Columbus Day” storm of 1962.  I remember that storm vividly as an eight year old in Olympia, as the wind gusts were clocked at over 140 mph.  Large fir trees toppled over like toothpicks in the woods all around our house.  The root balls stood 15 feet tall, headstones over a mass of tree graves.  We lived without power for at least a week, losing all our stored food in our freezer and depending on canned goods, a camp stove and kerosene lights and hot dogs roasted over our fireplace.

When the predictions came for a similar strength storm last week, like millions of others in the region, I dutifully prepared by storing up water, getting a battery operated radio ready and counting up my canned goods.  We waited, en masse, for the monster to storm into our yards.

The lights flickered a few times, but the winds were meager in comparison to our usual storms.

Some people were disappointed, having geared up for “the big one.”

I’m among the relieved this morning,  having aged past the desire for an adventure without power, and today my cares have dropped away like the leaves that let go to settle silent for the winter.

octleaf10141

creeperwall

 

Never Far

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octobermushroom

fallleaves109162

Look for a lovely thing and you will find it,
It is not far —
It never will be far.
~Sara Teasdale
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pinkweed
Until I opened my eyes to see,
I walked by lovely things all the time,
grousing in the grayness of the day.
Oblivious and self-absorbed,
I missed seeing what was all around me.
All it takes is to open eyes and look,
and lovely is there,
not far, never far–
even right in our own back yard.
poppyball
pondfrog
samgrass

The Cold Days to Come

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haywagon

foggyfield
photo by Nate Gibson
All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon
with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting
chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.
Down the block we bend with the season:
shoes to polish for a big game,
storm windows to batten or patch.
And how like a field is the whole sky now
that the maples have shed their leaves, too.
It makes us believers—stationed in groups,
leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters
over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,
bagging gold for the cold days to come.
creepernorthwall

october111

There is a desperation to these October days:
the leaves torn from branches by unrelenting gusts
with no thought to where they may land~
upon which patch of grass or gravel will be their final resting place
to wilt and wither in the rain,
under frost,
buried by eventual peaceful snowbanks
until they return to dust.

Or in my need to hold on to what I can
of what was,
I preserve a few like precious treasure,
tucked between book pages
to remain forever neighbors
with the words they embrace.

wwuheartleaf

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octoberwalnut

A Harbinger of Something Harder

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autumn927147

How hard it is to take September
straight—not as a harbinger
of something harder.

Merely like suds in the air, cool scent
scrubbed clean of meaning—or innocent
of the cold thing coldly meant.

How hard the heart tugs at the end
of summer, and longs to haul it in
when it flies out of hand

at the prompting of the first mild breeze.
It leaves us by degrees
only, but for one who sees

summer as an absolute,
Pure State of Light and Heat, the height
to which one cannot raise a doubt,

as soon as one leaf’s off the tree
no day following can fall free
of the drift of melancholy.
~Mary Jo Salter “Absolute September”

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dillweb

I admit I’ve been clinging to summer, though the calendar says it is fall, the darker mornings say it is fall, and the coolness of the air necessitates turning on the furnace first thing to take the chill off. These last days of September bring on a drift of melancholy for time wasted during summer’s  pure state of light and heat and here we are again, reminded of our mortality and the shortness of our days.

And so the harder times are coming, there can be no doubt.  Wistful about whether I can weather it,  I am tugged, heart first, into October, ready or not.

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To See the Field and the Grass Blade

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rainygrasses

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How often do we miss the fainter note
Or fail to see the more exquisite hue,
Blind to the tiny streamlet at our feet,
Eyes fixed upon some other, further view.
What chimes of harmonies escape our ears,
How many rainbows must elude our sight,
We see a field but do not see the grass,
Each blade a miracle of shade and light.
How then to keep the greater end in eye
And watch the sunlight on the distant peak,
And yet not tread on any leaf of love,
Nor miss a word the eager children speak?
Ah, what demand upon the narrow heart,
To seek the whole, yet not ignore the part.
~Philip Britts “Sonnet 1”

grassmay15

О Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;
The eastern light our spires touch at morning,
The light that slants upon our western doors at evening.
The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,
Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,
Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.
О Light Invisible, we worship Thee!
~T.S. Eliot from “O Light Invisible”

rainbowfarm
photo by Nate Gibson

We are given the eyes to see the part in the whole
or not
We are given the ears to hear the note within the chord
or not
We are given voice to rejoice alone or in a chorus
or not
We are given a rain-bowed promise to witness it all
or not.

So why ever not?

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shuksan7

Wa-hoo and Ye-Hah

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barnyew

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry-
flowers wilting on the table,
the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,
the wind moans in the chimney,
and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin.

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets
would make of all this,
these shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,
my thoughts turn to the great
tenth-century celebrator of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things
could hardly be restrained,
and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,
Ye-Hah.
~Billy Collins “Despair”

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So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear… The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels… never concealed His tears. Yet He concealed something… He never restrained His anger… Yet He restrained something… There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or imperious isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.
G.K. Chesterton in his closing words of Orthodoxy

 

There is humor in the Bible –irony, puns, absurdities, parodies, paradox–yet we miss hearing the laughter of the heavens as we are simply too close to the joke to get it.  In fact, we are likely the punch line of the joke more often than not.  God shows remarkable restraint when it comes to observing the hilarious antics of His children.  We don’t see verses such as, “Jesus laughed” or “Jesus smiled” or “Jesus stifled a chuckle”  even though He surely had plenty of opportunity. He was too gracious to laugh at us so surely He laughed with us.

We often take ourselves too seriously.   A little joy can’t hurt.

A lot of joy is hearing the laughter of heaven itself.

Wa-Hoo and Ye-Hah!

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poplargold

noseys

Happiness is a Chewbacca Mask

Wax and Wane

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chestnutspring3

 

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chestnutspring5

 

Out in the rain a world is growing green,
   On half the trees quick buds are seen
       Where glued-up buds have been.
Out in the rain God’s Acre stretches green,
   Its harvest quick tho’ still unseen:
       For there the Life hath been.

If Christ hath died His brethren well may die,
   Sing in the gate of death, lay by
       This life without a sigh:
For Christ hath died and good it is to die;
   To sleep when so He lays us by,
       Then wake without a sigh.

Yea, Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again:
   Wherefore both life and death grow plain
       To us who wax and wane;
For Christ Who rose shall die no more again:
   Amen: till He makes all things plain
       Let us wax on and wane.
~Christina Rossetti “Easter Monday”

 

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On this day after Easter, this Easter Monday, we can too quickly settle back to routine as if nothing special happened. This was not the case when Jesus would appear in a room of people, joining others walking on a road, cooking breakfast for His friends by the lake.

So we look for Him to make things plain to us: we watch the waxing and waning of the seasons, of the living and dying around us, indeed, our own waxing and waning, living and dying. The transformation from death to life yesterday is everywhere we look, if we look.

The huge chestnut tree in our front yard is filled with such chrysalises of metamorphosis, from bud to green-winged butterfly leaf.

We are waxing on in Christ who shall die no more.

Amen and Amen.

 

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Exactly Right

barnstormingblog7 Comments
 mapleleaf2111415
fallentree
frostyrocks
I watch where I step and see
that the fallen leaf, old broken glass, an icy stone are placed in
exactly the right spot on the earth, carefully, royalty in their
own country.
~ Tom Hennen, “Looking For The Differences” from Darkness Sticks To Everything: Collected and New Poems.
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If the pebble, the leaf, the mushroom
are placed exactly right
where they belong,
then so am I~even when I would rather be elsewhere,
even when I could get stepped on,
even when I would rather hide in a hole,
even when exactly right feels exactly wrong.

I’m placed exactly here,
not as royalty,
but as peasant.
frostywalnuts
hobbithole
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