Remembrance – Page 16

The World Seen Through A Walnut

May 8, 2014 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Old friend now there is no one alive
who remembers when you were young
it was high summer when I first saw you
in the blaze of day most of my life ago
with the dry grass whispering in your shade
and already you had lived through wars
and echoes of wars around your silence
through days of parting and seasons of absence
with the house emptying as the years went their way
until it was home to bats and swallows
and still when spring climbed toward summer
you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers
of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened
you and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world
~W.S. Merwin from “Elegy for a Walnut”

When Flowers Were Suns

May 6, 2014 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

The world slipped bright over the glassy round of his eyeballs like images sparked in a crystal sphere. Flowers were suns and fiery spots of sky strewn throughout the woodland. Birds flickered like skipped stones across the cast inverted pond of heaven. His breath raked over his teeth, going in ice, coming out fire.
~Ray Bradbury from Dandelion Wine

Only a Passer-by

November 26, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

No more walks in the wood:
The trees have all been cut
Down, and where once they stood
Not even a wagon rut
Appears along the path
Low brush is taking over.

No more walks in the wood;
This is the aftermath
Of afternoons in the clover
Fields where we once made love
Then wandered home together
Where the trees arched above,
Where we made our own weather
When branches were the sky.

Now they are gone for good,
And you, for ill, and I
Am only a passer-by.

We and the trees and the way
Back from the fields of play
Lasted as long as we could.
No more walks in the wood.
~John Hollander “An Old Fashioned Song”

The Rhythm of Remembrance

November 11, 2013November 11, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

My father, a WWII Lieutenant Colonel Marine and commanding officer who served for almost three years straight in the South Pacific, would never talk about his life during the war. Despite not knowing what he saw and endured, I will remember his and others’ service with gratitude.

Barnstorming

“For in self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm not only of all creation but of all being.”
C.S. Lewis

I’m unsure why the United States does not call November 11 Remembrance Day as the rest of the Commonwealth nations did after WWI. This is a day that demands much more than the more passive name Veterans’ Day represents.

This day calls all citizens who appreciate their freedoms to stop what they are doing and disrupt the routine rhythm of their lives. We are to remember in humble thankfulness the generations of military veterans who sacrificed time, resources, sometimes health and well being, and too often their lives in answering the call to defend their countries.

Remembrance means never forgetting what it costs to defend freedom. It means acknowledging the millions who have given of themselves and continue to do so on our behalf. It means never ceasing to care…

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A Wider Horizon

November 1, 2013 barnstormingblog3 Comments

October is the fallen leaf,
but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen.
It is the distant hills once more in sight,
and the enduring constellations above them once again.
~ Hal Borland

I bid October good-bye reluctantly
to face forward into the November darkening .
Morning and evening chores with flashlight in hand,
I follow its bouncing beam down slick farm paths,
merging with surrounding shadow.

Summer is mere memory now;
all color drained from
leaves fallen, dissolving
in frost and rain.

When the light rises on the hills,
I feel a veil lift enough
that I am able to see
so far beyond my reach.
The horizon extends on and on forever
and I will endure another winter.

Warm Milk of Light

October 27, 2013October 27, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

portrait of Dan's mom, Emma Gibson, praying, by granddaughter Sara Lenssen — portrait of Emma Gibson, Dan’s mom in her later years, photo taken by granddaughter Sara Lenssen

I sit with braided fingers

and closed eyes

in a span of late sunlight.

The spokes are closing.

It is fall: warm milk of light,

though from an aging breast.

I do not mean to pray.

The posture for thanks or

supplication is the same

as for weariness or relief.

But I am glad for the luck

of light. Surely it is godly,

that it makes all things

begin, and appear, and become

actual to each other.

Light that’s sucked into

the eye, warming the brain

with wires of color.

Light that hatched life

out of the cold egg of earth.
~May Swenson from “October”

At the Heart of the World

October 21, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

My green, graceful bones fill the air

With sleeping birds. Alone, alone

And with them I move gently.

I move at the heart of the world.
~James Dickey from “In the Tree House at Night”

Late September Sun

September 22, 2013September 22, 2013 barnstormingblog1 Comment

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.
~Peter Pereira from “A Pot of Red Lentils”

Color of Steep Sun

September 11, 2013September 11, 2013 barnstormingblog2 Comments


Red is the color of blood, and I will seek it:
I have sought it in the grass.
It is the color of steep sun seen through eyelids…
This is the time of day for recollections
~Conrad Aiken


Twelve years ago it was a day that started with bright sun above and ended in bloodshed below. It is a day for recollections;
we seek remembrance, with eyes open, and through closed eyelids steeped in the red that flowed that day.

The Land of Tears

August 30, 2013August 30, 2013 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

It is such a secret place,
the land of tears.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sometimes not so secret.

Sometimes the landscape of tears is right there for all the world to see, hiding in plain sight, camouflaged by transparency.
Sometimes they glisten jewel-like under the sun, appearing more like fire than water.
May these teardrop sparks dry in place without a trace, self-extinguishing in forgiveness.

Gems remembered, lost in time, and let go.Nobody deserves your tears,
but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.
~Gabriel Garcia MarquezI always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter,
but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.
~Cat Stevens

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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