Category: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Awash with Angels

barnstormingblog5 Comments

sunrise830

Today, in Bellingham, even the sidewalks gleam.
Small change glints from the creases
in the lady’s mantle and the hostas after
the rain that falls, like grace, unmerited.
My pockets are full, spilling over.
~Luci Shaw from “Small Change”

There were thunder storms and torrential rains to the north of us, to the east and to the south, but we had only a gentle constant showering during the night — a calm center.  This morning such undeserved grace is gleaming as if a spill over of twilight’s gloaming.

Today we are awash, cleansed,  with bright wings.

sunrise8302

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~ Gerard Manly Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”


sunrise8303

Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
~Richard Wilbur

Barbarous in Beauty

barnstormingblog2 Comments

sunrise914

dawn7251

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the
Stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what
lovely behavior
Of silk-sack clouds!  Has wilder, willful-waiver
Meal-drift molded ever and melted across the skies?
~Gerard Manly Hopkins, “Hurrahing in Harvest”

sunrise91

sunrise912

 

Let Them Be Left

barnstormingblog2 Comments

abouttobloom

 

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness?
Let them be left,O let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wildness yet.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Inversnaid”

 

Maybe I identify with weeds as I too have grown a bit “excessive” in mid-life, growing unnecessarily and a bit fluffier than I need be.  Maybe I admire their ability to thrive where they land, resilient through all sorts of trials and deprivation.  Certainly they deserve appreciation for their wildly unique characteristics and their perfect imperfections.  Once I get to know them,  their beauty brings me joy.

I can only hope I too can be left,  my over-proliferation shown grace, my greediness granted mercy.

gonetoseed

 

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.
~Alice Walker

 

lotsaweeds

 

…if the simple things in nature have a message you understand,
Rejoice, for your soul is alive.
~Eleanora Duse

 

weedybarn

Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.
~A. A. Milne

closedfist

 

…make no mistake:  the weeds will win; nature bats last.
~Robert M. Pyle

 

weedybarn2