Category: solace

The Whole Shadowed Earth Reaching Up

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  the season quicker now
the darkening—

no longer the leaves
fluttering down

but the whole shadowed earth
reaching up, taking hold
~David Baker “Quicker”

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?
~Robert Browning from Andrea del Sarto

My branches are bared during this season of letting go.

As starkly revealed as I am, perhaps darkening days are a blessing: less spotlight on my complexity in silhouette – all knobby joints, awkward angles and curves.

One thing I know: in this season when I prefer the shadowland, I still reach up, trying to hold on to the promise beyond me. In fact, so many of us keep grasping at what we know is there but cannot see.

God has come down to grab on to each one of us — and is still hanging on.

We are not too plain or complex or awkward to be lifted, welcomed, cherished as we are, into heaven’s arms.

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A Wordless Song

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Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away. . . O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless;
the singing will never be done. 
~Siegried Sassoon “Everyone Sang”

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
~Emily Dickinson “Hope is the thing with feathers”

When it feels like the world is rent in two,
and the gulf into which we topple
too wide and dark to climb without help,
we can look to the sky
and see the birds’ stitching and hear their wordless singing,
the careful caring line of connection
pulling us out of a hopeless hole,
startled and grateful
to be made whole.
Hope borne on feathered wings:
may we fly threaded and knitted to one another, singing.

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To Be Remembered…

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My grandfather stands on the front porch
watching the dogs come back, reassembled

from hair and grit and eyeteeth. Now
the twin mares browse by the fence

in their coats of dust. Nobody asks
what they mean, appearing so suddenly

when nobody needed them, or called.
In the back yard, the buried people —

great-grandmothers in spectator pumps,
the great-grandfather who died of sneezing,

the first baby, never named —
stay buried. It’s not their overshoes

lost in the grass behind the smokehouse,
not their faces alive in anyone’s

memory. But my mother waits
in the pecan tree’s fingered shadow,

holding a broken milk jug full
of daylilies, waiting as if

she wanted someone to tell her again
it’s all right to be born now,

now is as good a time as any.
In a month we’ll find my grandfather’s glasses

in their case under the front seat
of his car. “Oh goodness,” my aunt will say,

as if it were a matter of his
forgetting them. As if we could

give them back. We’re all convinced
we’ve missed the moment. We forget

that pause while a soul undoes
its buttons, the world falls away,

and one by one we step out
into this death, to be remembered.
~Sally Thomas “Reunion”

The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still.
I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars…
I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there,
but I did…
I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences,
presences of absences,
the living and the dead.
The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come.
Wendell Berry in Jayber Crow

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
~Mary Oliver from “When Death Comes”

God is at home.
It is we who have gone out for a walk.
~Meister Eckhart

And He awaits for our return.
He keeps the light on,
so we can find our way back,
when we are weary, or fearful or hungry
or simply longing for reunion,
to be remembered.

I think of those who wait for me on the other side,
including our baby lost before birth over 42 years ago.

I know God watches over all these reunions;
He knows the moment when our fractured hearts
heal whole once again.

I will see you soon enough, sweet ones. Soon enough.

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Come and See: The Light Shines in the Darkness

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He was with God in the beginning.
 Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made. 
 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 
The light shines in the darkness, 
and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:2-5

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heav’n:
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,
but one equal light;
no noise nor silence,
but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes,
but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings,
but one equal eternity;
in the habitation of thy glory and dominion,
world without end.
Amen.
~John Donne – a prayer

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6

It seems impossible that God could be contained within the darkness of a womb.

The Creator, who made the heavens, went deep into His vast inner universe of atoms and sub-atomic particles. He hosted tiny cellular nuclei within His body, instead of the heaven-flung massive nebulae in distant galaxies.

And He chose to do this. Out of His love and goodness, He became Light in the darkest space of the human body, to be birthed to illuminate a world bent on destruction.

From radiance to ribosomes,
from cosmos to cytoplasm,
from galaxies to Golgi apparatus,
from moons to mitochondria,
from utter darkness to “let there be light.”

And there is Light.
God is there, coming from above and coming from within.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

Lyrics:
Through love to light!
Oh, wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o’er the sea.
Through love to light!
Through light, O God, to thee,
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!

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Another Year of Leaping Winds

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walnutoctober2017
walnuthull5
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My mother and I debate:
we could sell
the black walnut tree
to the lumberman,
and pay off the mortgage.
Likely some storm anyway
will churn down its dark boughs,
smashing the house. We talk
slowly, two women trying
in a difficult time to be wise.
Roots in the cellar drains,
I say, and she replies
that the leaves are getting heavier
every year, and the fruit
harder to gather away.
But something brighter than money
moves in our blood – an edge
sharp and quick as a trowel
that wants us to dig and sow.
So we talk, but we don’t do
anything.

What my mother and I both know
is that we’d crawl with shame
in the emptiness we’d made
in our own and our fathers’ backyard.
So the black walnut tree
swings through another year
of sun and leaping winds,
of leaves and bounding fruit,
and, month after month, the whip-
crack of the mortgage.
~Mary Oliver from “The Black Walnut Tree” from Twelve Moons

frontyard1
april2frontyard
photo by Dan Gibson
walnuthulls2

We bought this old farm thirty-five years ago:
the Lawrence family’s “Walnut Hill Farm” –
a front yard lined with several tall black walnut trees
brought as seedlings in a grandfather’s suitcase from Ohio
in the ought-1900’s.

These trees thrived for nearly a century on this hilltop farm
overlooking the Canadian mountains to the north,
the Nooksack River valley to the west,
the Cascade peaks to the east,
each prolific in leaves
and prodigious in fruit.

The first year we were here,
a windstorm took one tree down.
A neighbor offered
to mill the twisted trunk for shares.
The fallen tree became planks
of fine grained chocolate-hued lumber.

This old tree is the back facing of our oak door cupboards,
a daily reminder of a legacy left behind~
sturdy even if imperfect,
still beautiful to the eye and the heart.

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novtreehouse
blackwalnut

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The Wildness and Wet

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

octdandy3

In my anguish at the chaos in the world,
let me remember,
when I look closely,
through the rain,
even the weeds,
the unruly, unholy weeds
are connected
in this wilderness.

There is order here
even if I can’t feel it now.
Let us weeds be left.
We are meant to be.

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Landscape’s State of the Soul

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wwusouth

The wild November come at last
Beneath a veil of rain;
The night wind blows its folds aside –
Her face is full of pain.

The latest of her race, she takes
The Autumn’s vacant throne:
She has but one short moon to live,
And she must live alone.

A barren realm of withered fields,
Bleak woods, and falling leaves,
The palest morns that ever dawned;
The dreariest of eves.

It is no wonder that she comes,
Poor month! With tears of pain;
For what can one so hopeless do
But weep, and weep again?
~Richard Henry Stoddard “November”

rainymares

A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. 
The sky was hung with various shades of gray,
and mists hovered about the distant mountains
– a melancholy nature. 
Every landscape is,
as it were,
a state of the soul,
and whoever penetrates into both
is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.
~Henri Frederic Amiel

Leaves wait as the reversal of wind
comes to a stop. The stopped woods
are seized of quiet; waiting for rain
bird & bug conversations stutter to a
stop.

…the rain begins to fall. Rain-strands,
thin slips of vertical rivers, roll
the shredded waters out of the cloud
and dump them puddling to the ground.
Like sticks half-drowned the trees
lean so my eyes snap some into
lightning shapes, bent & bent.

Whatever crosses over
through the wall of rain
changes; old leaves are
now gold. The wall is
continuous, doorless. True,
to get past this wall
there’s no need for a door
since it closes around me
as I go through.
~Marie Ponsot from “End of October”

What is melancholy at first glance
glistens bejeweled
when studied up close.

It isn’t all sadness~
there is solace in knowing
the landscape and I share
an inner world of tears.

1031drops7
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Hushed October Morning

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O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
~Robert Frost from “October”

After yesterday’s travel through curtains of heavy rainfall,
we abandoned plans to meet with family across state
for today’s memorial service, so returned home,
defeated, weary with sadness.

October is enough reminder of mortality,
with winds stripping trees to bare bones,
birds flocking and vacating,
bright leaves reduced to rusting dust.

This morning, the rain suspended,
its gray curtain pulled back briefly
to view what awaits beyond the haze:
this luminous brilliance, radiance, promise.

Slow down to look. Slow down to live. Slow.

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My Foggy and Fine Days

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~Lustravit lampade terras~
(He has illumined the world with a lamp)
The weather and my mood have little connection.
I have my foggy and my fine days within me;
my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
– Blaise Pascal from “Miscellaneous Writings”

And so you have a life that you are living only now,
now and now and now,
gone before you can speak of it,
and you must be thankful for living day by day,
moment by moment …
a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present…
~Wendell Berry from Hannah Coulter

Early morning, everything damp all through.
Cars go by. A ripping sound of tires through water.
For two days the air
Has smelled like salamanders.
The little lake on the edge of town hidden in fog,
Its cattails and island gone.
All through the gloom of the dark week
Bright leaves have been dropping
From black trees
Until heaps of color lie piled everywhere
In the falling rain.
~Tom Hennen “Wet Autumn” from Darkness Sticks to Everything.

An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
fog. The fog
slowly flows
uphill.
White
cobwebs, the grass
leaning where deer
have looked for apples.
The woods
from brook to where
the top of the hill looks
over the fog, send up
not one bird.
So absolute, it is
no other than
happiness itself, a breathing
too quiet to hear.
–  Denise Levertov “The Breathing“

Worry and anger and angst can be more contagious than the flu.

I want to mask up and wash my hands of it throughout the day.
There should be a vaccination against the fear of reading headlines.

I want to say to myself:
Stop now, this moment in time.
Stop and stop and stop.

Stop needing to be numb to all discomfort.
Stop resenting the gift of each breath.
Just stop.
Instead, simply be still, in this moment

I want to say to myself:
this moment, foggy or fine, is yours alone,
this moment of weeping and sharing
and breath and pulse and light.

Shout for joy in it.
Celebrate it.
I am alive in it, even in worry.

Be thankful for tears that flow over grateful lips
just as rain clears the fog.
Stop holding them back.

Just be–
be blessed in both the fine and the foggy days–
in the now and now and now.

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One Old Dog Has Gone Away

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Two old dogs out doing chores.
One on two legs, one on four.
Side by side, they water and feed.
Caring for others daily need.

Two old dogs make their rounds
Well worn paths on familiar ground.
To greet the day or say goodnight
Side by side, their friendship tight.

Two old dogs with dish and pail.
Singing songs and wagging tail.
Slower now, than in the past
But that just makes the good time last.

Two old dogs, both muzzles grey.
Aging joints sometimes curb play.
Companionship a simple joy.
His old dad; Dad’s old boy.

Two old dogs, and then one day
One old dog has gone away.
The other left to carry on
Two legs to barn and field and pond.

One old dog, eyes full of tears
Can still feel his old friend walking near
A reminder in the morning dew.
Just one path, instead of two.

When one old dog has no more chores
And walks through heaven’s golden doors
He’ll see that face he can’t forget.
A kindred spirit, not just a pet.

So many old dogs, made whole; anew
Reunion of a loyal crew.
Never again to be apart.
Many souls. But just one heart.
~Jeff Pillars “Two Old Dogs”

I knew this day was coming. Samwise Gamgee, approaching age 14, had been hinting that he was getting ready to leave for the past couple weeks. He was much slower following me for chores, his appetite wasn’t quite as robust as usual, and his hearing was fading.

Life had become an effort when it had been a lark for 13+ years.

But yesterday morning, he perked up enough to do his usual rounds on the farm, poke around the stalls in the barn, check the cat dishes for morsels, and bark when a strange car drove in the driveway.
Then last night he ignored his supper, laid down and closed his eyes, having used up all his reserves.

This morning, he was gone, leaving only a furry shell with big ears behind.

He had joined us on the farm as company for our aged Cardigan Corgi Dylan Thomas, who died two years after Samwise arrived. Then Sam himself needed company, so another Cardigan corgi, Homer, arrived.
They became a happy Corgi team on the farm.

Sam had a great dog life, with the exception of getting lost once and one overnight visit to the emergency vet hospital for treatment from poisoning from ivermectin, the horse worming medicine he somehow managed to lap up quickly off the barn floor when a horse dripped the paste from her mouth. After that he promised to never need a vet again.

His peaceful passing is a reminder of our temporary stay on his soil.
He’s smelling the flowers and watching the sunrises and sunsets from the other side now.

I honor Samwise’s long life with the photos I have compiled over the years.

Till we meet again, old friend.

photo by Nate Gibson
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