pasture – Page 18 – Barnstorming

Visitors to the Farm

April 3, 2018 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Fingers of twilight shadow
begin to reach over the hill
crawling down through the field
up unto the bank of blackberries
covering fences along the alder grove.

The horses chew their last
leaves of clover before
coming to the barn for night, eyelids heavy,
relaxed and full, drowsy with spring evening
peace at hand and hoof.

A sudden change in the air forces
their heads up and ears forward;
they form a line, staring at the hilltop
above them, riveted to the spot, alert
to an coming intruder, unfamiliar and foreign.

The roar is intermittent, like a warm wind
rattling a barn roof, but inconstant;
then peaking over the crest of the hill
a rounded top of technicolor glory:
The hot air balloon rises.

The horses silenced, baffled, fascinated;
no alpine instinct prepares their response
to this wizard’s act from Oz in their own backyard.
The basket riders wave and laugh at the equine audience below
in formation with golden noses in the air and white manes blowing in the breeze.

The balloon summits the hill, dipping low, almost touchable
before moving back up to race the sunset,
and search out other pastures, other valleys and hills.
The horses released from the spell
leap in response, snowy tails high, noses flared-

To race up the hill to catch impending darkness,
night mares cavort, float suspended
until their air is let out, gently, in softening snorts,
to settle down in a shavings bed in the barn
where night, blissful, becomes ordinary again.

Best of Barnstorming Photos Summer/Fall 2017

January 1, 2018May 28, 2018 barnstormingblog13 Comments

Morning In A New Land

In trees still dripping night some nameless birds
Woke, shook out their arrowy wings, and sang,
Slowly, like finches sifting through a dream.
The pink sun fell, like glass, into the fields.
Two chestnuts, and a dapple gray,
Their shoulders wet with light, their dark hair streaming,
Climbed the hill. The last mist fell away,

And under the trees, beyond time’s brittle drift,
I stood like Adam in his lonely garden
On that first morning, shaken out of sleep,
Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,
Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.
~Mary Oliver (New Year’s Day Poem shared today on Facebook)

All days are sacred days to wake
New gladness in the sunny air.
Only a night from old to new;
Only a sleep from night to morn.
The new is but the old come true;
Each sunrise sees a new year born.
~Helen Hunt Jackson from “New Year’s Morning”

We awake glad,
breathe deeply of the sacred around us
glistening in the light of a soft sunrise.
Each day is a fresh start,
a gift from beyond,
content to renew covenant
with God and one another.
~EPG

No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference.
~Charles Lamb, from the January 1821 London Magazine

The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.
– G.K. Chesterton

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible
~W.S. Merwin from “To the New Year”

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.
You certainly usually find something, if you look,
but it is not always quite the something you were after.
— J.R.R. Tolkien

And to you, the many faithful readers of the Barnstorming blog,

may you open to the extraordinary in the ordinary right outside your back door~

beauty may be found where you least expect it.

Blessings for a peaceful 2018!

Emily

For more “Best of Barnstorming” photos:

Seasons on the Farm:

BriarCroft in Summer, in Autumn, in Winter,
at Year’s End

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Between the Known and Unknown

November 14, 2017 barnstormingblog3 Comments

Though I have never caught the word

Of God from any calling bird,

I hear all that the ancients heard.

Though I have seen no deity

Enter or leave a twilit tree,

I see all that the seers see.

A common stone can still reveal

Something not stone, not seen, yet real.

What may a common stone conceal?

Nothing is far that once was near.

Nothing is hid that once was clear.

Nothing was God that is not here.

Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.

Here in the sun I sit alone

Between the known and the unknown.
~Robert Francis “Nothing is Far”

Heaven and earth are only three feet apart,
but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.
A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted
and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God.
~Celtic saying

A few times
in a few places
I have felt like I can almost reach out
and touch heaven
~His glory is that close~

but too soon I pull back,
put my hand back in my pocket,
rock back on my heels,
balancing barely
between the known
and the unknown.

All Seasons Sweet

November 5, 2017 barnstormingblog5 Comments

The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.

The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass

Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.

The misted early mornings will be cold;

The little puddles will be roofed with glass.

The sun, which burns from copper into brass,

Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold

Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold

Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones

There’s something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

There’s something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate

Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,

Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;

That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,

Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,

And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

~Elinor Wylie from “Wild Peaches”

Amber stretches from sky to ground.
The clouds key-holed in the chill
and below, the leaves suffer their own keyholes
as they slowly melt away.

I’m feeling holey myself,
punched and transparent,
pondering where holiness is found
when life wholly shows its holes.

All the Airy Words We Summon

October 29, 2017October 17, 2019 barnstormingblog4 Comments

The world does not need words.
It articulates itself in sunlight, leaves, and shadows.
The stones on the path are no less real
for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only
the dialect of pure being.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always–
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
~Dana Giola from “Words”

The words the world needs is the Word itself;
we are
because He breathed breath into us
and said that it was good.

Whatever we have to say about His Creation
pales compared to His
it is good

But we try
over and over again
to use words of wonder and praise
to express our awe and gratitude and amazement
while painted golden by His breath of Light.

To Thank the Light

October 25, 2017October 25, 2017 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim
Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,
And the kind, simple country shines revealed
In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.
The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,
Then stretches down his head to crop the green.
All things that he has loved are in his sight;
The places where his happiness has been
Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.
~Siegfried Sassoon from “Break of Day”

I am growing older along with my horses. I think of them out to pasture throughout my workday as I continue to climb in the harness to pull the load as fast and hard as I can muster, returning home in the evening sore and weary.

I think of them with the morning sun on their withers, the green blades under their feet, as they search for the sweetest tender patch to munch.

They remind me to bring the calm of the pasture inside to balance the noise and bustle and troubles found in the clinic. There still is peace and light to be found; I have only to look for it.

“To practice medicine with good spirit does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to bring your calm and loving heart right into the midst of it.” from www.theheartofmedicine.org

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A Relinquishing Light

October 19, 2017 barnstormingblog2 Comments

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on,
and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial;
and in sheltered places, as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house,
one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine.
It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature.
And the green grass strewn with a few withered leaves looks the more green and beautiful for them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne

If I were a month, I would prefer to be October…

A kindly and homely nature, with comfortable temperatures and just a hint of fogginess,
with flashes of burnt umber flashing misty gold in a relinquishing light.

Wading a Fall Meadow

October 16, 2017October 16, 2017 barnstormingblog1 Comment

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed

By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves

Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes

In such kind ways,

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

~Richard Wilbur from “The Beautiful Changes” Collected Poems 1943-2004

(Richard Wilbur, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning poet, passed Saturday at age 96)

Wading through an autumn field
where gradual change breaks up the beautiful once again:
to wonder at the throes of dying,
to know the kindness of a glistening dawn
when all before seemed darkness,
when all to come seems ephemeral;
brokenness in a moment
made whole.

Kiss the Light

October 11, 2017 barnstormingblog3 Comments

…I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows…

my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun
~W. S. Merwin from “The Love of October” from Migration

A wind gusts through shedding branches
stripping them bare
and carrying the leaves to yards
far away, to a diverse gathering
they have never known:
chestnut, cherry, birch, walnut, apple,
maple, parrotia, pear, oak, poplar
suddenly sharing the same fate and grave,
each wearing a color of its own,
soon to blend with the others
as all slowly melt to brown.

There is lightness in letting go,
for reasons none of us knows.

We’ve Seen Nothing Yet

September 26, 2017September 29, 2017 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud,
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.
~Emily Dickinson in “Summer Begins to Have the Look”

Last week summer appeared waning and wistful; it had the look of packing up, and moving on without bidding adieu or looking back over its shoulder.

Cooling breezes now have carried in darkening clouds with a hint of spit from the sky as I gaze upward to see and smell the change. Rain has been long overdue yet there is now temptation to bargain for a little more time. Though we badly needed a good drenching, there are still onions and potatoes to pull from the ground, berries to pick before they mold on the vine, tomatoes not yet ripened, corn cobs just too skinny to pick.

I’m just not ready to wave goodbye to sun-soaked clear skies.

The overhead overcast is heavily burdened with clues of what is coming: earlier dusk, the feel of moisture, the deepening graying hues, the briskness of breezes. There is no negotiation possible. I need to steel myself and get ready, wrapping myself in the soft shawl of inevitability.

So autumn advances with the clouds, taking up residence where summer has left off. Though there is still clean up of the overabundance left behind, autumn will bring its own unique plans for display of a delicious palette of hues.

The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.

September’s Baccalaureate
A combination is Of Crickets — Crows — and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze
That hints without assuming —
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher.
~Emily Dickinson

Financial Support for the Barnstorming Blog from our Readers

Your financial support helps to keep this blog an ad-free daily offering. Your contribution of any amount is encouragement to me and deeply appreciated.

$10.00

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God 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

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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