Category: peace

I’m Neither Here Nor There

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
~Seamus Heaney “Postscript”

We too have visited Ireland,
hoping to somehow capture enough
to bring home with us.

How impossible to bottle up wind and rain
blowing over an expanse of unending green.
We didn’t need to bring it home because it felt like home.

The sea, the fields, the farms, the people, the music,
the unexpected moment found over each rise
and around every tight turn of narrow roads.

How can I tell you? What words are adequate?
Let yourself be caught off guard,
let the wind buffet you and blow you wide open.

And when light
comes from nowhere I can see,
when my soul is clothed in
golden bandages, ribbons of grace,
how can I tell you? Or even tell myself
so I can write it down? No words
are bright enough to catch
those fingerprints of radiance
that flicker on my wall.
~Luci Shaw from “I Say Light, Thinking” in Harvesting Fog

AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Out of Sight

barnstormingblog1 Comment

A neighbourhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.

~Eavan Boland “This Moment” from In a Time of Violence

photo by Nate Gibson

This moment,
when I ordinarily pay no attention,
when I have so many things to worry about,
when I try to fuss the future into submission…

This moment,
is when I need to realize if not now, then when,

This moment
won’t return, so I must not waste it.

This moment,
is my chance to see and taste and feel and love
as if there is no next moment.

This moment,
suddenly so sweet,
suddenly is gone,
out of sight,
so I follow.

AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

This Tree…

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?

What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?

The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.

What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree.
~Christian Wiman “Hard Night”

photo by Bob Tjoelker

Even the darkest night has a sliver of light left,
if only in our memories of home.
We remember how it was and how it can be —
the promise of better to come.

While the ever-changing sky swirls as a backdrop,
a tree on a hill becomes the focal point, as it must,
like a black hole swallowing up all pain, all suffering,
all evil threatening to consume our world.

What clarity, what calm,
what peace can be found at the foot of that tree,
where our hearts can rest in this knowledge:
our sin died there, once and for all
and our names carved in its roots for eternity.

Like a Mist Drying

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,
fade from the heat of the day, but already
hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg
hooks have found and are boarding them.

This could do for the sack of the imaginary
fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they
one by one vanish and leave still real
only what has been snatched out of the spell.

I’ve never seen bees more purposeful except
when the hive is threatened. They know
the good of it must be grabbed and hauled
before the whole feast wisps off.

They swarm in light and, fast, dive in,
then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy
with gold and sunlight. The line of them,
like thin smoke, wafts over the hedge.

And back again to find the fleet gone.
Well, they got this day’s good of it. Off
they cruise to what stays open longer.
Nothing green gives honey. And by now

you’d have to look twice to see more than green
where all those white sails trembled
when the world was misty and open
and the prize was there to be taken.
~John Ciardi “Bees and Morning Glories” from The Collected Poems of John Ciardi.

Happiness is like a morning glory:
yesterday’s won’t bloom again;
tomorrow’s hasn’t opened yet.
Only today’s flower can be enjoyed today.
Be happy this very moment,
and you’ll learn how to be happy always.
~ Goswami Kriyananda

I am alive — I guess —
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory —
~Emily Dickinson

Now I’m at seventy,
no longer defined by ambition or career,
I open up misty every morning with a new bloom,
aware what I’ve left undone before wilting away.

A daily unfurling is a chance to:
Start afresh.
Welcome visitors.
Hold hearts gently.
Hum as I walk.
Sometimes just sit in awed silence.
Watch out the window.
Feed those who look hungry.

Each new opening, each new day,
so to leave a little less left undone.

AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

When Yellow Leaves, or None, or Few…

barnstormingblog1 Comment

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
~William Shakespeare Sonnet 73

I used to think youth has it all
– strength, beauty, energy-
but now I know better.

There is deep treasure in slowing down,
this leisurely leave-taking;
the finite becoming infinite
with limitless loving.

Without our aging
we’d never change up
who we are
so as to become so much more:

enriched, vibrant,
shining passionately
until the very last moment
of letting go.

To love well
To love strong
To love as if
To love because
nothing else matters.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Cold Water on a Tender Tooth

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Last evening,
As I drove into this small valley,
I saw a low-hanging cloud
Wandering through the trees.
It circled like a school of fish
Around the dun-colored hay bales.
Reaching out its foggy hands
To stroke the legs of a perfect doe
Quietly grazing in a neighbor’s mule pasture.

  I stopped the car
And stepping out into the blue twilight,
A wet mist brushed my face,
And then it was gone.
It was not unfriendly,
But it was not inclined to tell its secrets.

  I am in love with the untamed things,
The cloud, the doe,
Water, air and light.
I am filled with such tenderness
For ordinary things:
The practical mule, the pasture,
A perfect spiral of gathered hay.
And although I should not be,
Consistent as it is,
I am always surprised
By the way my heart will open
So completely and unexpectedly,
With a rush and an ache,
Like a sip of cold water
On a tender tooth.
~Carrie Newcomer “In the Hayfield” from A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays

deer running in the foreground

Cool water on a tender tooth describes it exactly:

a moment of absolute wonder
brings exquisite tears to my eyes.
I’m so opened and exposed as to be painful,
feeling a clarity of being both sharp and focused.

it’s gone as quickly as it came,
but knowing it was there – unforgettable –
and knowing it is forever
only a memory,
both hurts,
and comforts…

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Intended for Joy

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
~John Calvin as quoted in  John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (Oxford, 1988) by William J. Bouwsma

It is too easy to become blinded to the glory surrounding us if we allow it to seem routine and commonplace. 

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated a blade of grass, given how focused I am in mowing it into conformity and submission. 

During the summer months, I’m seldom up early enough to witness the pink sunrise. In the winter, I’m too busy making dinner to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets.

I miss opportunities to stop and notice what surrounds me innumerable times a day. It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel the joy, and for that moment time stands still.  So life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.  

If a blade of grass, if a palette of color,
if all this is made for joy,
then perhaps, so am I.
Even colorless, commonplace, sometimes stormy me.
Indeed, so am I.

AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

What If You Dreamed…

barnstormingblog2 Comments

What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?
~Samuel Coleridge  “What if you slept”

What do our dreams tell us of heaven?

Perhaps our dreams are lush with exotic flowers
never imagined growing in earthly soil.

We hold tightly to a vision
of divinely strange and beautiful,
to remind us of heaven in our waking hours.

My dream of heaven blooms plain and simple,
strangely beautiful in its familiarity,
held firmly in my hand each day.

The dreams welcome me home, asleep or awake.

Ah, what then?
What if heaven is the divine brought home in our hand?

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

A World Too Beautiful

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,– Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,– let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “God’s World”

Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. 
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?
– every, every minute? 
I’m ready to go back. I should have listened to you.
That’s all human beings are!
Just blind people.
~Thornton Wilder, from Emily’s monologue in Our Town

Let me not wear blinders through my days.
Let me see and hear and feel it all
even when it seems too much to bear.

Lord,  prepare me to be so whelmed at your world, that
Heaven itself will be familiar, and not that far,
Just round the corner.

AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

The Oldest Tree

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Lately, when I awake desolate
feeling half-swamped
by runaway currents I name—
dread, for my children, and theirs,
and this planet—I backstroke
through time to rest my palms
against the delicate skin
of the gingko tree, the one
and only, in my home town.
Rooted in siltish sand,
come autumn, it flaunted
10,000 golden fans:
a waving descendant my uncle said,
of the oldest tree
to inhabit the earth. Memory
replays three fluting sighs
of a mourning dove, high in the canopy,
that vast fretwork alive again
with rustling endearments—yet
ghostly, too, as his unseen hand
almost rocks my skiff of a self.
~Laurie Klein “Lately, when I awake desolate”

So many reasons to awake in the night,
eyes wide open, searching the dark seas of trouble
for some sign of hope
for calm and peace in this stormy world.

Rocked to sleep again, I float among abundant
golden gingko leaves, each waving like a sail in the breeze,
before it tumbles, swirling, to the ground, forming
deeply cushioned and comforting pools of yellow.

Navigating these brutal times, desperate to
anchor within some safer harbor – I treasure
the old ginkgo as it reaches over each cherished child
with its golden cloak of love and protection.

AI image created for this post
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$25.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly