To look into the eye of a horse is to see a reflection of yourself that you might’ve forgotten. No grief was big enough not to be washed clean in your horse’s eye. ~Gillian Mears from Foal’s Bread
(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands
…whenever you mark a horse, or a dog, with a peculiarly mild, calm, deep-seated eye, be sure he is an Aristotle or a Kant, tranquilly speculating upon the mysteries in man. No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses. They see through us at a glance. But there is a touch of divinity …. and a special halo about a horse… ~Herman Melville from Redburn: His First Voyage
Two whistles, one for each, and familiar sounds draw close in darkness— cadence of hoof on hardened bottomland, twinned blowing of air through nostrils curious, flared. They come deepened and muscular movements conjured out of sleep: each small noise and scent heavy with earth, simple beyond communion…
…and in the night, their mares’ eyes shine, reflecting stars, the entire, outer light of the world here. ~Jane Hirschfield from “After Work”
There is a moment after you move your eye away when you forget where you are because you’ve been living, it seems, somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.
You’ve stopped being here in the world. You’re in a different place, a place where human life has no meaning.
You’re not a creature in a body. You exist as the stars exist, participating in their stillness, their immensity. ~Louise Glück from “Telescope” in Averno
It’s tempting to fall headfirst into each eye’s fathomless well – These eyes rivet me as they search my own: a retinal magnet drawing me into such incalculable depths.
Yet I am merely reflected like starlight; only dancing on this shining mirrored surface when I long to dive deep to understand what they see in me: so lost I long to be found.
How did I come to be this particular version of me, and not some other, this morning of purple delphiniums blooming like royalty, destined to meet these three dogs asleep at my feet, and not others— this soft summer morning, sitting on her screened porch become ours, our wind chime singing of wind and time, yellow-white digitalis feeding bees and filling me— and more abundance to come: basil, tomatoes, zucchini. What luck or fate, instinct, or grace brought me here— in shade, beneath hidden stars, a soft, summer morning, seeing with my whole being, love made visible. ~Laura Foley “The Once Invisible Garden” from Sledding in the Valley of the Shadow
Suddenly it is August again, so hot, breathless heat. I sit on the ground in the garden of Carmel, picking ripe cherry tomatoes and eating them. They are so ripe that the skin is split, so warm and sweet from the attentions of the sun, the juice bursts in my mouth, an ecstatic taste, and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer, sloshing in the saliva of August. Hummingbirds halo me there, in the great green silence, and my own bursting heart splits me with life. ~Anne Higgins “Cherry Tomatoes” from At the Year’s Elbow
Such still air. Soon the mid-morning breeze will float in like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day, I who am unsure of how my life has happened or how to proceed amid this warm and steady sweetness? ~Albert Garcia from “August Morning” from Skunk Talk
Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year. Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, breathe the wild air. Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson from Collected Poems and Translations
She has done what she could… ~Mark 14:8
How do I start this gift of a new August summer day?
When sleep is elusive, the air too still and warm at midnight When even a cloud-strewn sky looks dry When wildfire smoke drifts in on waves from north and east, obscuring, rounding out the sharp edges
Yet I taste the sweetness offered this tepid summer morning, unencumbered by my old over-thinking nonsense.
I’m here, present and accounted for, blessed by all I see. I am doing what I can. Let the day begin.
Even After All this time The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the Whole Sky. ~Daniel Ladinsky, from “The Gift”
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The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.
The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.
It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. ~Natalie Babbitt from Tuck Everlasting
After an early summer of moderate temperatures and occasional rains, we’re adjusting to temperatures in the nineties. No one asked me if enduring heat, humidity, and smoky skies was a reasonable way to conclude the first week of August.
So I sit silently rocking and sweating in the highest vantage point of this summer’s ferris wheel ride so far, hanging breathlessly mid-air, a brief pause in the endless cycle of sunny days.
Having just arrived at the top, I venture to look down, knowing I am simply along for the ride, and Someone else is at the controls. I might as well enjoy the view of all that is behind, alongside and in front of me, but especially what is below, holding me up in thin air.
All too quickly will come the rapid descent into autumn, my stomach leaping into my chest with the lurch forward into the unknown. As the climb to get here took so long, I am not quite ready for this inevitable drop back into the chill.
Hot or not, it’s best to celebrate August for all it’s splashiness and shining illumination necessitating sunglasses. At least I’m swinging in what little breeze there is, endeavoring to capture this moment, and every moment, forever.
Lyrics from poem by James Agee: Sure on this shining night Of starmade shadows round Kindness must watch for me This side the ground On this shining night This shining night
Sure on this shining night Of starmade shadows round Kindness must watch for me This side the ground On this shining night This shining night
The late year lies down the north All is healed, all is health High summer holds the earth Hearts all whole
The late year lies down the north All is healed, all is health High summer holds the earth Hearts all whole
Sure on this shining night Sure on this shining night
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder Wandering far alone Of shadows on the stars
Sure on this shining night Of starmade shadows round Kindness must watch for me This side the ground
Oh, this shining night This shining night The shining night Sure on this shining night
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I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna or on any river for that matter to be perfectly honest.
Not in July or any month have I had the pleasure — if it is a pleasure — of fishing on the Susquehanna.
I am more likely to be found in a quiet room like this one — a painting of a woman on the wall, a bowl of tangerines on the table — trying to manufacture the sensation of fishing on the Susquehanna.
There is little doubt that others have been fishing on the Susquehanna,
rowing upstream in a wooden boat, sliding the oars under the water then raising them to drip in the light. But the nearest I have ever come to fishing on the Susquehanna was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,
when I balanced a little egg of time in front of a painting in which that river curled around a bend
under a blue cloud-ruffled sky, dense trees along the banks, and a fellow with a red bandana
sitting in a small, green flat-bottom boat holding the thin whip of a pole.
That is something I am unlikely ever to do, I remember saying to myself and the person next to me.
Then I blinked and moved on to other American scenes of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,
even one of a brown hare who seemed so wired with alertness I imagined him springing right out of the frame. ~Billy Collins Fishing On The Susquehanna In July
The difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur—
….and August the most peaceful month.
To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time, And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light In which everything is meant for you And nothing need be explained;
I live a quiet life in a quiet place. There are many experiences not on my bucket list that I’m simply content to just imagine others doing.
I’m not a rock climber or a zip liner nor willing to jump out of an airplane. I won’t ride a horse over a four foot jump nor race one around a track. Not for me waterskis or unicycles or motorcycles.
I’m grateful there are adventurers who seek out the extremes of life so the rest of us can admire their courage and applaud their explorations.
My imagination is powerful enough, thanks to the words and pictures of others – sometimes too vivid.
I contentedly explore the corners of my quiet places, both inside and outside, to see what I can build from what’s here.
When the light is just right, what I see in my mind seems ready to spring right out of the frame.
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At dusk, everything blurs and softens. From here out over the long valley, the fields and hills pull up the first slight sheets of evening, as, over the next hour, heavier, darker ones will follow.
Quieted roads, predictable deer browsing in a neighbor’s field, another’s herd of heifers, the kitchen lights starting in many windows. On horseback I take it in, neither visitor nor intruder, but kin passing, closer and closer to night, its cold streams rising in the sugarbush and hollow.
Half-aloud, I say to the horse, or myself, or whoever: let fire not come to this house, nor that barn, nor lightning strike the cattle. Let dogs not gain the gravid doe, let the lights of the rooms convey what they seem to.
And who is to say it is useless or foolish to ride out in the falling light alone, wishing, or praying, for particular good to particular beings, on one small road in a huge world?
The horse bears me along, like grace, making me better than what I am, and what I think or say or see is whole in these moments, is neither small nor broken. For up, out of the inscrutable earth, have come my body and the separate body of the mare: flawed and aching and wronged. Who then is better made to say be well, be glad,
or who to long that we, as one, might course over the entire valley, over all valleys, as a bird in a great embrace of flight, who presses against her breast, in grief and tenderness, the whole weeping body of the world? ~ Linda McCarriston, “Riding Out at Evening” fromTalking Soft Dutch
photo by Emily Vander Haak
On this, my 72nd birthday, I pray for this troubled world, reminding myself: be well, be glad…
I’m still here by the grace of God who carries not just me on His back through each day, but all earthly burdens.
I pray like a bird embracing the air which lifts its wings, tenderly holding to its breast a soaring freedom to transcend the weeping world.
I have seen so much goodness over 72 years, sometimes through tears of sorrow. I know there will be more joy and sadness before I’m done.
I am grateful, so very grateful to have lived all these years seeing tears shed, then dried, learning how love heals, knowing the only thing to last forever is God’s covenant promise to always carry us home.
photo by Brandon Dielemanphoto by Brandon Dieleman
video by Peter Tamminga
Whilst the world is weeping, let us do our bit. We have the time to sympathise, to listen and to sit. No needless thoughts, of the things we cannot do. But appreciate all the good bits and look at them anew.
The warmth and comfort of our homes, the food we have to eat. The family and friends we have, although we cannot meet. The village that we live in, and the community we share. So precious to us right now, so sit and think and care.
Whilst the world is full of sadness, anxiety and pain, It’s hard to imagine our lives ever carefree again. But nothing lasts forever, the clouds will always clear. Let’s heal the world with love, so the sunshine can appear. ~Sandra Rickman
Lyrics: Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet, which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace. Cease not, wet eyes, his mercies to entreat; to cry for vengeance sin doth never cease. In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears; nor let his eye see sin, but through my tears.
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In truth I am puzzled most in life by nine horses.
Two are on one side of the fence and seven on the other side.
They stare at one another from the same places hours and hours each day.
This is another unanswerable question to haunt us with the ordinary.
We live far out in the country where I hear creature voices night and day.
Like us they are talking about their lives on this brief visit to earth.
In truth each day is a universe in which we are tangled in the light of stars.
Stop a moment. Think about these horses in their sweet-smelling silence. ~Jim Harrison from “Horses”
What is this life is, full of care We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty’s glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. ~William Henry Davies “Leisure”
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.
Our horses chew their last clover leafs before coming to the barn for night, eyelids heavy, relaxed and full, drowsy with summer evening peace at hand and hoof.
A sudden change in the air forces their heads up and ears forward; they form a line, standing and staring at the hilltop above them, riveted to the spot, alert to an incoming 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 riveted, baffled, fascinated; no wild 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 standing 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 of “stand and stare” leap in response, snowy tails high, noses flared-
To race up the hill to capture impending darkness, our night-mares cavort, float suspended until their air is let out, gently, in softening snorts, to settle down in a straw bed in the barn where night, becomes blissfully ordinary again.
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Master, how serene Are all the hours We waste If, as we waste them, We place them in a vase Like flowers.
There are no sorrows In our lives Nor joys either. Let us learn then, Innocent sages, Not to live life,
But to pass through it, Tranquil, serene, Taking children As our teachers, Eyes full Of Nature . . .
Beside a river, Beside a road, Wherever we are, Living life With the same Light ease.
Let us gather flowers. Let us bathe our hands In the calm rivers, And from them Learn their calm.
[12 June, 1914] ~Fernando Pessoa from “Ode 1” translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari
How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shriveled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown, Where they together All the hard weather Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are thy wonders, Lord of power, Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell And up to heaven in an hour; Making a chiming of a passing-bell. We say amiss This or that is: Thy word is all, if we could spell.
Oh that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither; Nor doth my flower Want a spring shower, My sins and I joining together.
But while I grow in a straight line, Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline: What frost to that? what pole is not the zone Where all things burn, When thou dost turn, And the least frown of thine is shown?
And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing. Oh, my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night.
These are thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us see we are but flowers that glide; Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us where to bide; Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. ~George Herbert “The Flower”
There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. ~Li-Young Lee from “From Blossoms”
Our small church has a couple of gracious and kind gardeners who share the produce from their yards and fields each week to provide a fresh bouquet to sit on the table in front of our humble wooden pulpit.
It is a special treat to walk into church and see what they brought to the altar to share with us all on Sunday morning. I keep a photo album of these very unique Sunday “pulpit posies” our keepers of gardens share.
Why are these arrangements special? After all, almost every church displays a floral arrangement every Sunday.
These are special as many of these flowers are seeded, watered, fertilized and nurtured by one of our own, grown with love and caring, just as God cares for each of His children.
These are special as some are considered simple weeds, and are gleaned from ditches and hedges. They are part of God’s creation and have a wild beauty that can be as breathtaking as a hothouse orchid.
These are special because they often go home with a congregant or visitor who will enjoy their loveliness for many more days, as if they represent the manifestation of God’s Word itself.
Some of us are dahlias, zinnias and roses. Some of us are rare gardenias and orchids. Most of us are dandelions, sagebrush, Queen Anne’s lace, fireweed, burdock, and daisies thriving in the crevasses, ditches and hedgerows of life.
No matter which roots we sprout from, or where, we are the wonders of our loving gardening God. He created us to take care of His creation.
Each week, we bud afresh for Him.
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His long teeth on her withers, her rough-coated spots will grow damp and wild. Her long teeth on his withers, his oiled-teakwood smoothness will grow damp and wild. Their shadows’ chiasmus will fleck and fill with flies, the eight marks of their fortune stamp and then cancel the earth. From ear-flick to tail-switch, they stand in one body. No luck is as boundless as theirs. ~Jane Hirshfield “The Love of Aged Horses”
Two horses lean in the field clasped against each other as if in prayer, grooming each other’s manes the way my thumb strokes the back of my thumb.
Together, tall, conductive around them, fenced lightning, above, a promise of more rain to come, the force of faith condensing, cumulative—
A wave tries to return to the river what it has been given, futile.
Two swans, only ever as far apart as palms, a wingspan, float by shore, sucking up silt, throats rippling, taking in something as vast as the sea in small sips.
If, on cold nights, before bed, I pray for something as simple as the warmth of my hands— ~Ace Chu “Dear” from The Hopper
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness That we have come. They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs. At home once more, They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness. I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms, For she has walked over to me And nuzzled my left hand. She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead, And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist. Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break Into blossom. ~James Wright “A Blessing”
May we easily find one another’s itches, just as we know our own. May we greet all visitors with a gentle and humble welcome. May we bow our heads together when in need of community. May we clasp hands in prayer to God, warming each other’s hands when the world is feeling far too cold.
Lyrics: Warm summer sun, Shine kindly here, Warm southern wind, Blow softly here. Green sod above, Lie light, lie light. Good night, dear heart, Good night, good night. (Mark Twain left this poem on his daughter’s tombstone)
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Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing. For no reason, you accept the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and electing a world where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder that a steady center is holding all else. If you listen, that sound will tell you where it is and you can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters always bar the path—but that’s when you get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is here on earth, again and again. ~William Stafford “Cutting Loose” from Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems
Before my fever broke, And the pains lessened, I could actually see Myself, in the exact center of that square. How still it had become in my absence, & how Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree, See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than I had seen anything before in my whole life: Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk, The leaves were becoming only what they had to be— Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing More—& frankly they were nothing in themselves, Nothing except their little reassurance Of persisting for a few more days, or returning The year after, & the year after that, & every Year following—estranged from us by now—& clear, So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed And always coming back—steadfast, orderly, Taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time. ~Larry Levis from The Widening Spell of the Leaves
I did not sleep well last night — my mind would not stop turning over and over, my blankets twisted in turmoil, my muscles too tense and tight.
The worries of the day needed serious wrestling in the dark rather than settling forgotten under my pillow.
Yet this morning dawns anew.
I’m comforted by the rhythm of hours starting fresh, like leaves on the trees steadfast, orderly, taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time…
So today, I’ll get my hands dirty digging a hole deep enough to hold my worries; tomorrow I’ll forget where exactly I buried them.
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A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and…. hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself.
There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.
The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot, and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. ~C.S. Lewis from The Magician’s Nephew
And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth. ~Raymond Carver “Late Fragment”
Beautiful things and varied shapes appeal to [the eyes], vivid and well-matched colors attract; but let not these captivate my soul. Rather let God ravish it; he made these things exceedingly good, to be sure, but he is my good, not they. ~St. Augustine
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
Every time I open my eyes and listen for the voices of the morning, I am reminded how precious is this moment, how intense is each breath and each heartbeat.
We are created for this. We are, everyone of us, beloved. We are meant to wonder breathless at this, without ceasing.
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