What’s incomplete in me seeks refuge in blackberry bramble and beech trees, where creatures live without dogma and water moves in patterns more ancient than philosophy. I stand still, child eavesdropping on her elders. I don’t speak the language but my body translates best it can, wakening skin and gut, summoning the long kinship we share with everything. ~Laura Grace Weldon, “Common Ground” from Blackbird
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ~Wendell Berry “The Peace of Wild Things”
Nearly thirty months of pandemic separation and I long to share our farm with our far-flung grandchildren who live across the ocean, to watch them discover the joys and sorrows of this place we inhabit. I will tell them there is light beyond this darkness, there is refuge amid the brambles, there is kinship with what surrounds us, there is peace amid the chaos, there is a smile behind the tears, there is stillness within the noisiness, there is rescue when all seems hopeless, there is grace as the old gives way to new.
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Two horses were put together in the same paddock. Night and day. In the night and in the day wet from heat and the chill of the wind on it. Muzzle to water, snorting, head swinging and the taste of bay in the shadowed air. The dignity of being. They slept that way, knowing each other always. Withers quivering for a moment, fetlock and the proud rise at the base of the tail, width of back. The volume of them, and each other’s weight. Fences were nothing compared to that. People were nothing. They slept standing, their throats curved against the other’s rump. They breathed against each other, whinnied and stomped. There are things they did that I do not know. The privacy of them had a river in it. Had our universe in it. And the way its border looks back at us with its light. This was finally their freedom. The freedom an oak tree knows. That is built at night by stars. ~Linda Gregg, “The Weight” from All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems
When the pasture gate opens after a long winter, they are let out on grass to a world vast and green and lush beyond their wildest imaginings.
They run leaping and bounding, hair flying in the wind, heels kicked up in a new freedom to re-form together their binding trust of companionship.
They share feasting and grooming with one another, as grace grows like grass stretching to eternity yet bounded safely within fence rows.
When cold rains come, as miserable times will, and this spring day feels far removed, when covered in the mud or frost or drought of life, they still have warm memories of one another.
Even though fences lean and break, as they will, the ponies are reminded where home is, whistled back to the barn if they lose your way, pointing them back to the gate to night’s rest and quiet.
Once there they long again for the gift of pasture freedom: how blessed is this opened gate, these fences, and most of all their dignity of being together as they feast with joy on the richness of spring.
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Before the ordinary realities, ordinary failures: hunger, coldness, anger, longing, heat. Yet one day, a thought as small as a vetch flower opens. ~Jane Hirschfield from “Flowering Vetch”
Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn’t room for any other thought? ~ Sophie Scholl
Little flower, but if I could understand what you are, root and all in all, I should know what God and man is. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson from “Flower in the Crannied Wall”
If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars? —G.K. Chesterton
Am I root, or am I bud? Am I stem or am I leaf? All in all, I am but the merest image and tiniest thought of God’s fruiting glory destined for the heavens.
I am His tears shed when seed is strewn as He is broken apart and scattered, spreading the Word to yearning hearts everywhere.
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What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it… For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? ~Kazuo Ishiguro from The Remains of the Day
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it. ~Danny Kaye
Every moment is a fresh beginning. ~T.S. Eliot
I am ashamed to admit I squander time looking back, yearning for a day that has long since passed, tossing off these present precious hours as somehow not measuring up to what came before.
Even when I believe things will never change, they will, and I will.
There have been over thirty-six years of such days in this farm country, one flowing gently after another, and every single one have been exactly what I’m looking for.
I shall toss my heart ahead and set out after it, each moment a fresh beginning and blank canvas, making the best of what remains of my day.
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You won’t remember it—the apple orchard We wandered through one April afternoon, Climbing the hill behind the empty farm.
A city boy, I’d never seen a grove Burst in full flower or breathed the bittersweet Perfume of blossoms mingled with the dust.
A quarter mile of trees in fragrant rows Arching above us. We walked the aisle, Alone in spring’s ephemeral cathedral.
We had the luck, if you can call it that, Of having been in love but never lovers— The bright flame burning, fed by pure desire.
Nothing consumed, such secrets brought to light! There was a moment when I stood behind you, Reached out to spin you toward me…but I stopped.
What more could I have wanted from that day? Everything, of course. Perhaps that was the point— To learn that what we will not grasp is lost. ~Dana Gioia “The Apple Orchard”
Love, we are in God’s hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? ~Robert Browning from Andrea Del Sarto
As I walk down the blooming aisleways of Spring’s ephemeral cathedral, it doesn’t help to regret what could have been – if only – long ago I had reached out to hold what remained free of my grasp. Perhaps it is forever lost to me…
I am overwhelmed by all the potential surrounding me – the trees are literally bursting with blossom and leaf, an undulating green carpeting covering every rolling hill, exuberant new life bouncing and bucking in the pastures.
I wonder, at this age and stage of my life, whatever potential is left to me?
If I give up my dreams if I don’t try to hold on to what seems out of reach if I don’t remember what it feels like to want everything from life, I would wilt and wither without forming fruit.
Ah Love – I am in God’s Hand. Or what’s a heaven for?
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All day I try to say nothing but thank you, breathe the syllables in and out with every step I take through the rooms of my house and outside into a profusion of shaggy-headed dandelions in the garden where the tulips’ black stamens shake in their crimson cups.
I am saying thank you, yes, to this burgeoning spring and to the cold wind of its changes. Gratitude comes easy after a hot shower, when loosened muscles work, when eyes and mind begin to clear and even unruly hair combs into place.
Dialogue with the invisible can go on every minute, and with surprising gaiety I am saying thank you as I remember who I am, a woman learning to praise something as small as dandelion petals floating on the steaming surface of this bowl of vegetable soup, my happy savoring tongue. ~Jeanne Lohmann “To Say Nothing But Thank You”
It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. ~Mary Oliver “Praying”
As this long winter has finally given way to spring, I am grateful to pay attention to the small things around me, to breathe my silent thanks for this privilege of being witness to the soil of this life, this farm, this faith. More days than not, I savor it as someone who is hungry and thirsty for beauty and meaning.
In my thankfulness, I must pay attention to who I am: I still yearn to grow, to bloom and fruit, harvesting what I can to share with others.
It often feels like a dialogue with the invisible.
With deep gratitude to all who come here daily to read these words and enjoy my pictures and who let me know how it makes a difference in your day.
You and I may never meet in this life yet your generous comments always make a difference to me!
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The old church leans awry and looks quite odd, But it is beautiful to us, and God. ~Stephen Paulus “The Old Church”
A little aside from the main road, becalmed in a last-century greyness, there is the chapel, ugly, without the appeal to the tourist to stop his car and visit it. The traffic goes by, and the river goes by, and quick shadows of clouds, too, and the chapel settles a little deeper into the grass.
But here once on an evening like this, in the darkness that was about his hearers, a preacher caught fire and burned steadily before them with a strange light, so that they saw the splendour of the barren mountains about them and sang their amens fiercely, narrow but saved in a way that men are not now. ~R.S. Thomas “The Chapel”
It’s just a boarded-up shack with a tower Under the blazing summer sky On a back road seldom traveled Where the shadows of tall trees Graze peacefully like a row of gallows…
The congregation may still be at prayer. Farm folk from flyspecked photos Standing in rows with their heads bowed As if listening to your approaching steps. So slow they are, you must be asking yourself How come we are here one minute And in the very next gone forever? Try the locked door, then knock once.
High above you, there is the leaning spire Still feeling the blow of the last storm. And then the silence of the afternoon . . . Even the unbeliever must feel its force. ~Charles Simic, from “Wooden Church” from The Voice at 3:00 A.M.
The church knelt heavy above us as we attended Sunday School, circled by age group and hunkered on little wood folding chairs where we gave our nickels, said our verses, heard the stories, sang the solid, swinging songs.
It could have been God above in the pews, His restless love sifting with dust from the joists. We little seeds swelled in the stone cellar, bursting to grow toward the light.
Maybe it was that I liked how, upstairs, outside, an avid sun stormed down, burning the sharp- edged shadows back to their buildings, or how the winter air knifed after the dreamy basement.
Maybe the day we learned whatever would have kept me believing I was just watching light poke from the high, small window and tilt to the floor where I could make it a gold strap on my shoe, wrap my ankle, embrace any part of me. ~Maureen Ash “Church Basement”
Mom, You raised your hands while we sang this morning like I’ve never known you to, but I guess until recently I’ve never really known you in a church that let you feel alive.
There is so much wrong with churches overall, comprised as they are of fallen people with broken wings and fractured faith, we who look odd and lean awry, so keen to find flaws in one another when we are cracked open and spilling with our own.
Yet what is right with the church is who we pray to, why we sing and absorb the Word- we are visible people joined together as a body so bloodied, bruised, being healed despite our thoroughly motley messiness.
Our Lord of Heaven and Earth rains down His restless love upon our heads no matter how humble a building we worship in, or how we look or feel today.
We are simply grateful to be alive, to raise our hands, to kneel and bow in a house God calls His own.
The old church leans nearby a well-worn road, Upon a hill that has no grass or tree, The winds from off the prairie now unload The dust they bring around it fitfully.
The path that leads up to the open door Is worn and grayed by many toiling feet Of us who listen to the Bible lore And once again the old-time hymns repeat.
And ev’ry Sabbath morning we are still Returning to the altar waiting there. A hush, a prayer, a pause, and voices fill The Master’s House with a triumphant air.
The old church leans awry and looks quite odd, But it is beautiful to us and God. ~Stephen Paulus
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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 spring 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 coming 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 catch impending darkness, our night mares cavort, float suspended until their air is let out, gently, in softening snorts, to settle down in a shavings bed in the barn where night, blissful, becomes ordinary again.
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The woodpecker keeps returning to drill the house wall. Put a pie plate over one place, he chooses another. There is nothing good to eat there: he has found in the house a resonant billboard to post his intentions, his voluble strength as provider. But where is the female he drums for? Where? I ask this, who am myself the ruined siding, the handsome red-capped bird, the missing mate. ~Jane Hirshfield “The Woodpecker Keeps Returning”
Piliated woodpeckerFlicker
One would think the bold rat-a-tats heard emanating from trees and buildings all over our farm would be due to very bold and fearless birds. Yet woodpeckers tend to be our most timid and seldom-seen though most-audible visitors. They project a loud and noisy presence to the ear but prefer to be invisible to the eye. I guess they don’t want us witnessing their repetitive self-induced head trauma…
That’s not so different than some people I know, especially when they hammer away on social media, even when it hurts. I know that tendency: I want to be heard and want my voice acknowledged. I want my opinions to resonate and reverberate for all to hear, but hey, since I’m basically a shy and self-protective person, I prefer to remain in the background.
Whenever I hear an insistent pecking echoing from on high, I look to see if I can spot that busy woodpecker, admiring their dominance of the airwaves and persistence despite woody obstacles. Although most often I can’t see them in the branches, there is no question they have succeeded in getting my attention. I look forward to a day when they’ll allow me to see them as well as hear them.
They are worth the wait and the listen.
Downy woodpecker
“If only, if only, ” the woodpecker sighs The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies… ~from the story “Holes”
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Every morning, cup of coffee in hand, I look out at the mountain. Ordinarily, it’s blue, but today it’s the color of an eggplant. And the sky turns from gray to pale apricot as the sun rolls up…
I study the cat’s face and find a trace of white around each eye, as if he made himself up today for a part in the opera. ~Jane Kenyon, from “In Several Colors” from Collected Poems.
If you notice anything it leads you to notice more and more.
And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking at this and that.
If I stopped the pain was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe the world can’t be saved, the pain was unbearable. ~Mary Oliver from “The Moths” from Dream Work
I try to see things in a new way as I wander about my day, my eyes scanning for how to transform all my mundane, dusty corners exposed by a penetrating sunbeam when its angle is just right.
My attempts to describe plain ordinary as extraordinary feels futile in a messed-up upside-down world.
Such efforts can be painful: it means getting tired and muddy in the muck, falling down again and again and being willing to get back up.
If I stop getting dirty, if I by-pass every day grunginess, if I give up the work of salvage and renewal, I then abandon God’s promise to see the world changed.
He’s still here, ready and waiting, handing me a broom, a shovel and cleaning rags, so I can keep at it – mopping up my messy ordinary.
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