Let me remember you, voices of little insects, Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters, Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us, Snow-hushed and heavy.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction, While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest, As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to, Lest they forget them. ~Sara Teasdale from “September Midnight”
The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! ~Rudyard Kipling from “Recessional”
If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn from his 1983 acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize
Lest I forget…
I look long in the eyes I lean to…
whether a loved one, or the mountains, or summer-weary fields, or the face of God Himself.
I cannot risk forgetting Who must be remembered — He is encased in my heart like a treasured photograph, like a precious gem, like a benediction soothing me quiet when anxious.
It is His ultimate promise: Neither will He forget me – looking long in my eyes that lean in to Him.
[And the Lord answered] Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you. Isaiah 49:15
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Cork, Ireland Poetry in small language is like a church bell in some remote village tolling mutely in the evening through the musty provincial air self-obliviously and quite self-sufficiently —one might add— if it weren’t for the pair of those ragged sheep huddled before the rain on the empty lot in front of a stone barn bobbing their whitish little heads here and there just to let you know that regardless of medium the message will always arrive at the destination. ~Damir Šodan“Poetry in Small Language” translated from the Croatian by James Meetze
Sometimes poetry needs no words. It might be bells ringing from a church belfry, or raindrops streaming like tears on my face. It is how the light plays across the clouds, or watching new lambs leap together. Unless I’m watching or listening for it, I might miss the poetry in the air altogether. Yet somewhere, someone does, sometime. It finds just the person who needs it at that moment.
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Once only when the summer was nearly over and my own hair had been white as the day’s clouds for more years than I was counting I looked across the garden at evening Paula was still weeding around flowers that open after dark and I looked up to the clear sky and saw the new moon and at that moment from behind me a band of dark birds and then another after it flying in silence long curving wings hardly moving the plovers just in from the sea and the flight clear from Alaska half their weight gone to get them home but home now arriving without a sound as it rose to meet them ~W.S. Merwin “Homecoming” from The Moon Before Morning
In late summer, the movement of birds above me has begun, like a prayer of promise among the clouds.
There are the noisy ones: geese, ducks, swans who can’t seem to travel without announcing it everywhere, like the booming basses from teenage vehicles speeding by.
Then there are the starlings and others who murmurate with wing wooshes, forming and unforming as a choreographed larger organism.
The quietest and most earnest are the gulls and plovers, some traveling only a few miles from shore to cornfields, and others traveling half a continent without resting. They direct their energy to their wings to silently carry them home.
Some of our prayers for a safe return home are bold and loud. Others are expressed through feathered wings and forward progress. Most are prayed without a sound being made, becoming a constant through the rhythms of the heart, a quiet recognition that our true home will rise to meet us when we arrive.
I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly. ~Madeleine L’Engle
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It’s not like losing a child where you just sit there and the child just sits there but you’re the only one doing the talking. It’s more like a placenta out of sticks and mud in the driveway, a former home where something was born and left, or maybe was born and never got to leave or was swept away by the wind that came through here last night, maybe more like having a house burn to the ground, no big deal if you have wings to take you somewhere else. ~Casey Killingsworth “A Nest Blew Down” from Freak Show
Every one of us knows loss. At times, lost things are replaceable; most are not.
When what we love is swept away, so are we. Who we were is no longer who we become in that instant of loss.
All things change; we become strangers in a new land, toppled over, empty, and gasping.
Wings won’t carry us away from ourselves. No matter where our wings take us, we depend on a God who refills our hollowed-out hearts.
AI image created for this post
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How much better it is to carry wood to the fire than to moan about your life. How much better to throw the garbage onto the compost, or to pin the clean sheet on the line, With a gray-brown wooden clothes pin. ~Jane Kenyon “The Clothespin”
Queen of my tub, I merrily sing, While the white foam rises high, And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring, And fasten the clothes to dry; Then out in the free fresh air they swing, Under the sunny sky.
I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls The stains of the week away, And let water and air by their magic make Ourselves as pure as they; Then on the earth there would be indeed A glorious washing-day!
Along the path of a useful life Will heart’s-ease ever bloom; The busy mind has no time to think Of sorrow, or care, or gloom; And anxious thoughts may be swept away As we busily wield a broom.
I am glad a task to me is given To labor at day by day; For it brings me health, and strength, and hope, And I cheerfully learn to say,— “Head, you may think; heart, you may feel; But hand, you shall work alway!” ~Louisa May Alcott “A Song from the Suds”
Silken web undulates, a lady’s private wash upon the wind. ~L.L. Barkat
All day the blanket snapped and swelled on the line, roused by a hot spring wind…. From there it witnessed the first sparrow, early flies lifting their sticky feet, and a green haze on the south-sloping hills. Clouds rose over the mountain….At dusk I took the blanket in, and we slept, restless, under its fragrant weight. ~Jane Kenyon “Wash”
We have a clothesline that I use several times a week to take advantage of sunlight, breezes, fresh air fragrance – all at no cost but the time it takes to carry laundry outside, hang it up with my ancient clothespins, and then pull it back down at the end of the day.
It is well worth the effort; I have been fortunate to always live where there is a line and clothespins.
This morning, I found someone had been very busy during the night, securing the clothespins to the line to make sure the pins could not escape. Each pin and hinge were laced to the line with silken threads clinging tightly, just in case a pin might consider escaping.
I looked for this industrious spider, as it had trekked down a long line, working its webby magic through numerous clothespins, yet it had descended and snuck away on this foggy Labor Day, not even waiting to see what might happen to all its work.
The old and weathered clothespins patiently wait for their next job, to pinch together what I give them to hold on to tomorrow while blowing in the wind. In the meantime, they cling to fresh life, gaily festooned with gossamer silk.
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Sometimes it’s not about seeking, but of receiving, the way a plum takes in light, an inner ripening that cracks its perfect purple skin, and sweetness, an amber rivulet, crusts along the gash. ~Lois Parker Edstrom from “The Lesson of Plums”
And somehow <she> thrived anyway–the blossom of our family, like one of those miraculous fruit trees that taps into an invisible vein of nurture and bears radiant bushels of plums while the trees around it merely go on living. ~Barbara Kingsolver in Animal Dreams
There is a plum tree on our farm that is so plain and unassuming much of the year that I nearly forget that it is there. It is a bit off by itself away from the other fruit trees; I have to make a point of paying attention to it, otherwise it just blends into the background.
Despite not being noticed or having any special care, this tree thrives. In the spring it is one of the first to bud out into a cloud of white blossoms with a faint sweet scent. Every summer it is a coin toss whether it will decide to bear fruit or not. Some years–not at all, not a single plum. Other years, like this one, it is positively glowing with plum harvest– each a golden oval with a pink blush.
Some years, these plums might be extraordinarily honey-flavored and juicy, a pleasure to eat right off the tree if you don’t mind getting past a bitter skin and an even more bitter pit inside. Other years, like this one, the plums are so beautiful and appear so mouth-watering, but have extraordinarily sour, mouth-puckering flesh. Not even the birds are bothering with them.
This is beauty with a bite — bitterness posing as a gift of sweetness. This tree seems to grin when it sees puckering taking place all around it, as if a commentary on the state of political reality in our country right now.
So if the old term “tucker” is a word describing a great down-home meal, then being “plum-tuckered” describes this paradox of bitter-sweet. We can only pray: when there is so much bitter in this life, may the sweet overwhelm and overcome.
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And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives– Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser Wherein all plunged and perished! ~Robert Browning from “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”
photo by Nate Gibson
It was 27 years ago in the middle of a hot August much like this one. With no air conditioning then, as now, we used fans and at night hoped for comfort from any cooling breeze drifting through the window curtains.
Sleep can be elusive when one is busy sweating all night.
I remember waking suddenly from a fitful sleep in the dark of night, startled by a sound I could not readily identify. I lay still, my eyes wide open staring into the black space of our bedroom, discerning the sound of intermittent splashing in the adjacent bathroom.
What the heck?
Our five year old daughter’s bedroom was the next room in the hallway on the other side of the bathroom. I called out her name, wondering what she could possibly be doing in the middle of the night, making splashing noises in the bathroom.
No answer. More splashing.
Now I was worried. I got up, walked into the hallway, peered into the dark bathroom, unable to see anything amiss. I flipped on the light switch. As my eyes tried to adjust to the sudden illumination, I was able to see one thing that most definitely did not belong in this picture: a rat’s hind end and long tail disappearing back down into the toilet. I gasped, shut the bathroom door quickly and gathered my wits.
There is nothing that will turn one’s stomach quite like seeing a rat in a place it absolutely should not be.
I checked my daughter’s room, flipped the light on quickly to scan the floor and her bed, and she was soundly sleeping and all seemed fine. I shut off her light and shut her door quietly.
Then I woke the man of the house, the only reasonable thing to do in such a situation.
I’m not sure he believed me. Maybe I had only imagined I’d seen a rat? Maybe it was all a dream? Maybe the heat was getting to me?
I went and got a broom and handed it to him. He opened the door to the bathroom a crack, and saw little puddles on the bathroom floor and dirty wet marks on the toilet seat. He quickly closed the door again and looked at me.
There definitely had been a grimy little something in that bathroom. But where was it now??
He opened the door again and went in, getting the broom handle ready to clobber the varmint. He peeked into the toilet and there was nothing to be found except some scummy debris floating in the water and scattered on the seat. He flushed. He flushed again. Nothing.
It was really hard to believe that a rat would voluntarily dive back into a toilet bowl and swim into the pipes …. unless it was headed for another toilet bowl. We quickly closed the toilet lid, piled books on top and went to check the two other bathrooms–no signs of disturbance, wet paw prints or other ratty evidence of invasion.
There is little rational thinking that goes on in the middle of the night when a rat has swum up your pipes into a toilet. I admit to being a little emotional. That’s when we went for the bleach and poured a gallon down each toilet bowl, flushing a dozen times each, thoroughly disrupting all the healthy bacterial flora in our septic drain field. It did make me feel better momentarily. We closed all the toilet lids, closed all the bathroom doors and didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night. When we inspected the toilets in the morning, one of the other toilets had been “visited” as well, but with the lid shut, the rat had disappeared back down the pipe.
In the morning, we coolly told lies to our three children. We told them two of our toilets were plugged up and they had to use one only, and always put the lid down afterward. We decided if we told them about a rat in the bowl, they would never feel safe about sitting on the toilet again. There is the potential of a real psychological PTSD (post-toileting stress disorder) entity. I certainly didn’t feel safe about sitting on the toilet and kept furtively looking down, which doesn’t make for a very relaxed bathroom visit. It can be positively constipating.
We did a search under the house, around the house, trying to figure out where rats could have found access to our septic system. Finally, we discovered that a pipe previously connecting the septic drain field to our temporary single-wide trailer living quarters during our major farm house remodel the previous year had not been completely sealed off when the trailer was removed. It was an open invitation to rodents seeking a cool dark (and wet) place to hide during a hot summer.
It wasn’t the end of our rat woes, but it was the last time they breached our plumbing. We later had a major invasion of our barns, requiring the ongoing services of expert exterminators as well as super duper barn cat defense. I’m proud to say we’ve not seen evidence of rats or their homely furry selves for nearly three decades now. I wish I could say the same for their field mouse cousins, but that’s another story for another time…
We never told anyone about this little middle-of-the-night episode. In fact, our children thought for years we had sudden massive toilet failure at our house.
…until I blogged about it a few years ago because it is a good tale (tail??) to tell…
Sorry, kids. We lied to you – sort of.
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You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. ~ Dr. Seuss
You give the appearance of listening To my thoughts, O trees, Bent over the road I am walking On a late summer evening When every one of you is a steep staircase The night is slowly descending.
The high leaves like my mother’s lips Forever trembling, unable to decide, For there’s a bit of wind, And it’s like hearing voices, Or a mouth full of muffled laughter, A huge dark mouth we can all fit in Suddenly covered by a hand.
Everything quiet.
The sky at the road’s end cloudless and blue. The night birds like children Who won’t come to dinner. Lost children in the darkening woods. ~Charles Simic from “Evening Walk” in The Voice at 3 A.M.”
I wonder about the trees.
My feet tug at the floor And my head sways to my shoulder Sometimes when I watch trees sway, From the window or the door. I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some day when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on. I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone. ~Robert Frost from “The Sound of Trees”
The voice of the trees urges me to move my feet while they stay rooted in place.
I am propelled forward by winds that strip away leaves, bend branches.
Tempted to simply stand and watch their motion, instead I walk among the rooted ones, grateful for my legs.
They clap their hands and wave as I pass by.
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…today, the unseen was everything. The unknown, the only real fact of life. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. ~Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Purposefully lost in the willow stillness of a late summer meadow in the deer-filled dusk—a silver evening following a blue and amber day. ~Tim Hawkins “Purposefully Lost” from West of the Backstory
I search for the unseen, purposely lost, hoping to find meaning in the unknown.
I am bewildered by this life much of the time. Anyone looking at what I share here sees my struggle each day to discern how to make this sad and suffering world a little bit better place.
I have little to offer you other than my own wrestling match with the mysteries we all face.
Then, when a light does shine out through darkness, when a deer steps out of the woods into the meadow, I am not surprised.
I simply need to pay attention. Illumination was there all the time, but I needed the eyes to see its beauty laid bare, brave enough to show itself even brighter in the light of day.
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It takes a peculiar vision to be able to detect Precisely where
The field grasses brushed by blowing Stars and the odor of spring In the breath of sweet clover buds And the star-mingled calls of the toads In the threading grasses and the paws Of the clover brushing through the field Of stars and the star-shaped crickets In the ears of the sweet grasses And the tail of the night flicking Through the calls of the clover and the spring Stars slinking past the eyes of midnight And the hour of the field mouse passing Through the claws of the stars and the brushing Haunches of the weeds and starry grasses Threading through the eyes of the mouse And the buds of the stars calling With the sweet breath of the field
Six years ago, our calico cat Nala had an unexpected adventure.
The knock on the door seemed urgent: – “did we know we have an injured cat?” – the pest control serviceman was spraying the perimeter of our house for carpenter ants and saw our young calico farm cat crawling along the ground in the bushes, dragging her hind legs.
I grabbed my jacket and a towel to wrap her in, preparing for a quick trip to the vet clinic, but she had vanished by the time I got outside. I searched for an hour in all the likely places Nala typically hangs out but she was no where. I kept an eye out for her every day, calling her, but I never saw her or heard her distinctive voice.
Nine days later, there she was on the front porch, thin and weak and hungry, meowing for a meal. She was walking but with still-weakened hind legs and two healing wounds on either side of her lower spine. Something very traumatic had certainly happened, but she had survived, using up several of her nine lives.
As I inspected the wounds, I began to surmise what may have happened: We have nesting bald eagles who spend time in the high trees around our farm house, watching for wild rabbits or other small prey. This cat is smallish, with plenty of white fur to be easily seen in the tall grass with sharp eagle vision. I suspect she was picked up by eagle talons as a tempting meal, pierced on either side of her spine to carry her away up to a treetop, but feisty as she is, she would have been more trouble than she was worth, so dropped from a significant height, causing a spinal cord contusion and temporary lower leg paralysis.
Little Nala has since recovered completely except for the bald patch scars on either side of her spine. She is a noisy communicator, insistent and bold. I think her loud voice and attitude saved her from becoming a raptor’s lunch.
Not many more lives to go, dear feisty Nala. Spend them well.
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