moon – Page 5 – Barnstorming

Grief Illuminated

November 17, 2015 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

fulmoon2

A waning November moon reluctantly rose,
dimming from the full globe of the night before.
I drive a darkening country road, white lines sweeping past,
aware of advancing frost in the evening haze,
anxious to return home to familiar warmth and light.

Nearing a county road corner, slowing to a stop,
I glanced aside where
a lonely rural cemetery sits expectant.
Through open iron gates and tenebrous headstones,
there in the middle path, incongruous,
car’s headlights beamed bright.
I puzzled, thinking:
lovers or vandals would seek inky cover of night.
Instead, these lights focused on one soul alone,
kneeling graveside,
a hand resting heavily on a stone, head bowed in prayer.
This stark moment of solitary sorrow,
a visible grieving of a heart
illuminated by twin beams.

This benediction of mourning
as light pierced the blackness;
gentle fingertips traced
the engraved letters of a beloved name.
Feeling touched
as uneasy witness, I pull away
to drive deeper into the night,
struggling to see despite
my eyes’ thickening mist.

a full moon in Ireland

fullmoon

Angel of Grief--Stanford University

Angel of Grief, Stanford University Mausoleum

The Boreal Fruit

September 28, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

The moon now rises to her absolute rule,

And the husbandman and hunter

Acknowledge her for their mistress.

Asters and golden reign in the fields

And the life everlasting withers not.

The fields are reaped and shorn of their pride

But an inward verdure still crowns them;

The thistle scatters its down on the pool

And yellow leaves clothe the river—

And nought disturbs the serious life of men.

But behind the sheaves and under the sod

There lurks a ripe fruit which the reapers have not gathered,

The true harvest of the year—the boreal fruit

Which it bears forever,

With fondness annually watering and maturing it.

But man never severs the stalk

Which bears this palatable fruit.
~Henry David Thoreau

So many eyes turned skyward last night
to witness the shadowing of the moon,
its large unblinking eye turned bloodshot.

The wonder is that we are mere witness
to something beyond our reach,
trying our best to harvest, record and keep it.

This morning the moon sets,
bright and cheerful,
as it always does,
and we go about our daily lives
oblivious that it will continue to do so
long after we ourselves are harvested.

Holding the Fall

October 8, 2014 barnstormingblog3 Comments

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,
like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
They fall with slow and lingering descent.

And in the night the heavy Earth, too, falls
from out the stars into the Solitude.

Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
And lo! the other one — it is the law.
But there is One who holds this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Autumn”

We got up at 3 AM to witness the total lunar eclipse,
to wonder at the simplicity of shadow and movement
on a scale too grand to fathom, the syzygy of connection of sun, earth, moon.

The moon was overshadowed, as if fallen from grace.
But the One who holds this falling, softly lifted it back in place.

I don’t know how ancient man reacted to something so radical
as a fading-to-blood-red moon,
but this modern woman was gob-smacked,
grateful for the miracle of moonshine.
~Emily

In the Way

August 14, 2014 barnstormingblog2 Comments

Dear God, I cannot love Thee the way I want to.
You are the slim crescent of a moon that I see
and my self is the earth’s shadow
that keeps me from seeing all the moon.
The crescent is very beautiful
and perhaps that is all one like I am should or could see;
but what I am afraid of, dear God,
is that my self shadow will grow so large
that it blocks the whole moon,
and that I will judge myself by the shadow that is nothing.

I do not know You God
because I am in the way.
Please help me to push myself aside.
~Flannery O’Connor

Putting It Off

July 29, 2014 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Sitting in windows at night
black cats and their masters
look out on summer; the moon
feeds their yellow visions,
the opened windows cool them…

…One wants nothing to happen
forever, and thinks of those
who perhaps are ready to die,
except that it is summer
and they are putting it off.
~Robley Wilson from “In Summer, Nothing Happens”

The Stillness

October 10, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

And the stillness is in the key, all of it is,The stillness is all in the key of that desolate sound.
~Wallace Stevens from “Autumn Refrain”

How to Pay Attention

August 21, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
– Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

Sometimes it is enough to kneel in the grass to capture the right light at the precise moment it is sent from above. It is prayer to be blessed so, prayer to pay attention, prayer to be grateful for that moment. I find myself on my knees often these days because it all will be gone too soon, much too soon.

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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