Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. ~David Wagoner “Lost”
Our grandchildren — born in Tokyo, adapting to a rural life here — bring within them the serenity of the gardens they visited there, finding respite from worldly worries and sorrows.
We remind them to love such stillness: there is rest after busyness, there is light beyond darkness, there is peace amid chaos, there are smiles after tears, there is quiet within noisiness, there is grace and mercy forever…
…as we who are older give way to the new.
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Autumn begins to be inferred By millinery of the cloud, Or deeper color in the shawl That wraps the everlasting hill. ~Emily Dickinson from “Summer Begins to Have the Look”
The passing of the summer fills again my heart with strange sweet sorrow, and I find the very moments precious in my palm. Each dawn I did not see, each night the stars in spangled pattern shone, unknown to me, are counted out against me by my God, who charges me to see all lovely things… ~Jane Tyson Clement from “The Passing of Summer”
September’s Baccalaureate A combination is Of Crickets — Crows — and Retrospects And a dissembling Breeze That hints without assuming — An Innuendo sear That makes the Heart put up its Fun And turn Philosopher. ~Emily Dickinson“September’s Baccalaureate”
There’s something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones. ~Elinor Wylie from “Wild Peaches”
Summer now is waning and wistful; it has the look of packing up, and moving on without bidding adieu or looking back over its shoulder.
Cooling winds have carried in darkening clouds with a hint of spit from the sky as I gaze upward to see (and smell) the change.
A decent rain is long overdue yet there is temptation to bargain for a little more time. Though we are in need of a good drenching there are still onions and potatoes to pull from the ground, berries to pick before they mold on the vine, tomatoes not yet ripened, corn cobs just too skinny to pick.
I’m not quite ready to wave goodbye to sun-soaked clear skies.
The overhead overcast is heavily burdened with clues of what is coming: earlier dusk, the feel of moisture, the deepening graying hues, the briskness of breezes.
There is no negotiation possible. I need to steel myself and get ready, wrapping myself in the soft shawl of inevitability.
So autumn advances with the clouds, taking up residence where summer has left off. Though there is still clean up of the overabundance left behind, autumn will bring its own unique plans for display of a delicious palette of hues.
The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.
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Day after day, day after still day, The summer has begun to pass away. Starlings at twilight fly clustered and call, And branches bend, and leaves begin to fall. The meadow and the orchard grass are mown, And the meadowlark’s house is cut down.
The little lantern bugs have doused their fires, The swallows sit in rows along the wires. Berry and grape appear among the flowers Tangled against the wall in secret bowers, And cricket now begins to hum the hours Remaining to the passion’s slow procession Down from the high place and the golden session Wherein the sun was sacrificed for us. A failing light, no longer numinous, Now frames the long and solemn afternoons Where butterflies regret their closed cocoons. We reach the place unripe, and made to know As with a sudden knowledge that we go Away forever, all hope of return Cut off, hearing the crackle of the burn- ing blade behind us, and the terminal sound Of apples dropping on the dry ground. ~Howard Nemerov “Summer’s Elegy” from Collected Poems
As far as I can see this autumn haze That spreading in the evening air both ways, Makes the new moon look anything but new, And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, Is all the smoke from one poor house alone With but one chimney it can call its own; So close it will not light an early light, Keeping its life so close and out of sight No one for hours has set a foot outdoors So much as to take care of evening chores. The inmates may be lonely women-folk. I want to tell them that with all this smoke They prudently are spinning their cocoon And anchoring it to an earth and moon From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,— Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it. ~Robert Frost “The Cocoon”
The summer ends, and it is time To face another way. Our theme Reversed, we harvest the last row To store against the cold, undo The garden that will be undone. We grieve under the weakened sun To see all earth’s green fountains dried, And fallen all the works of light. You do not speak, and I regret This downfall of the good we sought As though the fault were mine. I bring The plow to turn the shattering Leaves and bent stems into the dark, From which they may return. At work, I see you leaving our bright land, The last cut flowers in your hand. ~Wendell Berry “The Summer Ends” from A Timbered Choir.
I too regret the closed cocoon, so seemingly safe at the time — once launched before being ready, there is no returning.
In this fading, failing light, I feel undone, weepy at harvest, gathering urgently, not wanting anything to go to waste, trying to memorialize it all as it changes.
I part again from you, Summer – your gifts seemed endless until you yourself ended – a reminder that someday, so must I.
photo by Bob Tjoelker
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I will wait here in the fields to see how well the rain brings on the grass. In the labor of the fields longer than a man’s life I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.
I will be standing in the woods where the old trees move only with the wind then with the gravity. In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too. ~Wendell Berry “Stay Home” from Collected Poems
A steady silver rain pours out over the gray world on an ordinary morning. Drenching for hours the field, wild flowers, soil and all the birds off somewhere dry in hidden nests, keeping quiet.
And you, too: keep quiet for a few hours, let your thoughts fizz like that silver sheen, shushshushshushshush, ceaseless sheet of velvet, of plenty. Enough to hear, to drink, to soak in, though you hadn’t known how dry you were. ~Joanne Esser “What You Need: (It Doesn’t Have to Be Lightning)” from Nothing is Stationary
Yesterday morning, our county was awakened shortly after 6AM with several thunder crashes after lightning bolts flashed and illuminated our dark bedroom.
Thunder storms are unusual in the Pacific Northwest; even more unusual is an early morning storm with so much drama and subsequent dumping rain.
I was fortunate to be sheltering inside a comfortable home with a good roof — not sitting in a tree.
I was happy,watching it happen without it happening to me.
Then I looked out my kitchen window, where a drenched pine siskin sat trembling on our bird feeder, her breakfast interrupted by the downpour. No doubt she would much rather have been at home quietly sitting in her favorite tree, but as she was unable to fly so soaked by the heavy torrent, she huddled under the little cover of the feeder, trying to ride it out.
Watching her cope with her wet plumage from an unplanned bird bath, I realized I hadn’t known how dry I was.
After twenty minutes, the storm was all over as the sun began peeking out from behind roiling clouds. She shook off the excess drops from her feathers, picked out a few more seeds before launching on her way to parts unknown.
I sat and finished my toast, musing at our brief breakfast alongside one another, each safe under temporary shelter. In her own way, she let me know: In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.
And so I shall…
Lyrics: We all need love and shelter A place where we let go and rest To live secure with one another To be ourselves, not somebody else
Everybody needs respect and dignity Everybody needs love, real love
We all need to know we’re worthy That we are treasure to our core We can tell the truth about our trauma To be believed so we can be restored
Everybody needs love; everybody knows love Is what it takes to make a life So everybody breathe love; everyone receive love It’s how we heal and make things right
We all need confirmation To know that we are seen and heard To live our lives out in freedom Then all our flags of hope can be unfurled
We all need a place to shelter
Lyrics: Whisper truth over me I’m loved eternally Never am I alone, you’re here with me I don’t have to be afraid Faithfulness doesn’t change Unshakable terra firm underneath my need
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I find Your love sustains my life
Whisper grace over me I don’t need to earn your peace Help me surrender now as you carry me When shadows are lengthening I’m sheltered beneath your wings Compassionate arms of love are still underneath
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I find Your love sustains my life
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I’ll find Your love sustains my life
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Silk-thin silver strings woven cleverly into a lair, An intricate entwining of divinest thread… Like strands of magic worked upon the air, The spider spins his enchanted web – His home so eerily, spiraling spreads.
His gossamer so rigid, yet lighter than mist, And like an eight-legged sorcerer – a wizard blest, His lace, like a spell, he conjures and knits; I witnessed such wild ingenuity wrought and finessed, Watching the spider weave a dream from his web. ~Jonathan Platt“A Spider’s Web”
I believed only air stretched between the dogwood
and the barberry: another thoughtless human assumption
sidetracking the best story this furrow spider knew to spin.
And, trying to get the sticky filament off my face, I must look,
to the neighbors, like someone being attacked by his own nervous
system, a man conducting an orchestra of bees. Or maybe it’s only the dance
of human history I’m reenacting: caught in his own careless wreckage,
Not everyone is taking a holiday today on Labor Day. Some are busier than ever, creating a masterpiece nightly, then waiting in hope for that labor to be rewarded.
I too spin elaborate dreams at night: some remembered, some bare fragments, some shattered, some potentially yield a meal.
We work because we are hungry. We work because someone we love is hungry and needs feeding.
Yet the best work is the work of weaving dreams ~out of thin air and gossamer strands~ where nothing existed before, not as a trap or lure or lair but as a work of beauty- a gift as welcome as a breath of fresh air.
Lyrics from E.B.White poem “Natural History” The spider, dropping down from twig Unfolds a plan of her devising A thin premeditated rig To use in rising
And all that journey down through space In cool descent and loyal hearted She spins a ladder to the place From where she started
Thus I, gone forth as spiders do In spider’s web a truth discerning Attach one silken thread to you For my returning
Lyrics
Take the silver thread of a spider’s web And spin, spin, spin Silver wings to fly and sing Upon the wind High above the trees, across the seas And through the sky To the rainbow’s bend, where stories never end And dreams never die
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Whatever is foreseen in joy Must be lived out from day to day. Vision held open in the dark By our ten thousand days of work. Harvest will fill the barn; for that The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled By work of ours; the field is tilled And left to grace. That we may reap, Great work is done while we’re asleep.
When we work well, a Sabbath mood Rests on our day, and finds it good. ~Wendell Berry “Sabbath Poem X, 1979″
Why do we bother with the rest of the day, the swale of the afternoon, the sudden dip into evening, then night with his notorious perfumes, his many-pointed stars?
This is the best— throwing off the light covers, feet on the cold floor, and buzzing around the house on espresso— and, if necessary, the windows— trees fifty, a hundred years old out there, heavy clouds on the way and the lawn steaming like a horse in the early morning. ~Billy Collins from “Morning”
photo by Krisula Steiger
He had driven half the night From far down San Joaquin Through Mariposa, up the Dangerous Mountain roads, And pulled in at eight a.m. With his big truckload of hay behind the barn. With winch and ropes and hooks We stacked the bales up clean To splintery redwood rafters High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa Whirling through shingle-cracks of light, Itch of haydust in the sweaty shirt and shoes. At lunchtime under Black oak Out in the hot corral, —The old mare nosing lunchpails, Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds— “I’m sixty-eight” he said, “I first bucked hay when I was seventeen. I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life. And dammit, that’s just what I’ve gone and done.” ~Gary Snyder – “Hay for the Horses” from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems
Sure enough, I’ve gone and done it — spent over 50 years of my life taking care of horses. I hope for at least a few more years of horsekeeping as long as I am able while our three retired, aging Haflingers stick around.
No one said I had to do this and plenty of people saw it as expensive folly, including a few cherished folks who continue to aid and abet my horse ownership.
When I was young and agile and full of energy, I didn’t really project ahead fifty years to see that picking up hay bales, moving manure piles and being bumped or stepped on by a 1000 pound animal is a bigger deal now than it once was.
Fourteen years ago, I wrote the following on this website:
From September through April, I scramble to the top of the hay pile in the barn to push down two bales to feed to our horses, now that the pastures are resting and “left to grace” for the winter. My husband has been busy spreading our composted manure out on the fields to give them an extra fertilizer boost for next spring’s growth.
As farmers, we have to always be thinking one or two seasons ahead: the hay brought into the barn in June or July does not leave the barn until late-autumn. The manure piled up in winter gets spread on pastures the following fall. The tilled cornfields surrounding us are seeded in May and not harvested until October after several months of rain and sun and rain again.
More than practicing forethought, as farmers we know our meager efforts, as tangible as they are, are dependent solely on grace: that there will be enough rain, that there will not be too much rain, that there will be enough days of sunlight, that the seed will sprout, that the machinery will work when needed, that there will be no blight or pests, and that the hay crew will materialize when needed for harvest. So much of this is not due to the labor of our hands, no matter how much we sweat and ache, but due to the great work of the Creator in His Creation.
Every hay bale I open spills forth His mercy, a reminder of how grateful I am for seed and sun and rain and a barn full of promises.
Despite the hard physical work, fifty years hasn’t changed how I love the smell of a soft muzzle, or seeing my reflection in their eyes.
When I lived in a city apartment so many years ago, I knew I would love to wake up every morning to take care of horses the rest of my life.
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society. A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.
A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world; he must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge. Much writing today strikes me as deprecating, destructive, and angry. There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger. But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion, their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation.
I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: one role of the writer today is to sound the alarm. The environment is disintegrating, the hour is late, and not much is being done. Instead of carting rocks from the moon, we should be carting the feces out of Lake Erie. …I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me. ~E.B. White 1969 (on writing)
It is tiresome always feeling angry about what it is happening in the world, feeling that everything has become political.
I’m tired of reading (and writing) words of frustration, but want to rail against the meanness that surrounds us, and push back the bully to seek out a balance of kindness, perspective and insight.
When I need to feel something other than mad, I walk as far as I can go, look up, revel in the gift of rays of light and bask in their warmth and promise.
I will accept what the Sun has to offer and tell about it so that my anger drains away like so much waste flushed down a pipe, never to be seen again.
Lyrics: Even before we call on Your name To ask You, O God, When we seek for the words to glorify You, You hear our prayer; Unceasing love, O unceasing love, Surpassing all we know.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Even with darkness sealing us in, We breathe Your name, And through all the days that follow so fast, We trust in You; Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace, Beyond all mortal dream.
Both now and forever, And unto ages and ages, Amen.
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In the evening there were flocks of nighthawks passing southward over the valley. The tall sunflowers stood, burning on their stalks to cold seed, by the still river. And high up the birds rose into sight against the darkening clouds. They tossed themselves among the fading landscapes of the sky like rags, as in abandonment to the summons their blood knew. And in my mind, where had stood a garden straining to the light, there grew an acceptance of decline. Having worked, I would sleep, my leaves all dissolved in flight. ~Wendell Berry “September 2”
And when I rise, let me rise Like a bird, joyfully. And when I fall, let me fall, Like a leaf, gracefully, without regret. And when I stand, let me stand, Like a tree, strong and tall. And when I lie, let me lie, Like a lake, peacefully, calm and still. And when I work, let me work, Like a bee, wholeheartedly. And when I play, let me play, Like a breeze, fresh and cool, light and clear. ~adapted from Wendell Berry’s “When I Rise” in The Mad Farmer Poems
The thistles, rooted out, throng in again; The single regal rose is mobbed by weeds; The plums, the pears, the ripening apples, rain In the sun; and past summer plants new seeds.
Here, or there, these common yearly things Repeat, repeat, and gardens do not range: Yet thistles, roses, fruit trees, birds, and stings Come to an end, and the church bells sound a change.
These many soft declensions of the day, So hard to take to heart, bear life away. ~Dunstan Thompson from “Passage”from Here At Last Is Love
This end-of-summer winding down, a descent into shorter days and longer nights, this preparation for autumn austerity, reminds me to accept my own slow decline ~ an emptying husk once so full of fruit and seed, now clinging to what is left of me ~ still filled with the joys, the tears, the eyes of a brimming-over heart.
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In gratitude to the writing and wisdom of farmer Wendell Berry who, at age 92, passed through his porch’s dark doorway yesterday 8/31/26
All day he’s shoveled green pine sawdust out of the trailer truck into the chute. From time to time he’s clambered down to even the pile. Now his hair is frosted with sawdust. Little rivers of sawdust pour out of his boots.
I hope in the afterlife there’s none of this stuff he says, while I broom off his jeans, his sweater flocked with granules, his immersed-in-sawdust socks. I hope there’s no bedding, no stalls, no barn
no more repairs to the paddock gate the horses burst through when snow avalanches off the roof. Although the old broodmare, our first foal, is his, horses, he’s fond of saying, make divorces.
…he says let’s walk up to the field and catch the sunset and off we go, a couple of aging fools.
I hope, he says, on the other side there’s a lot less work, but just in case I’m bringing tools. ~Maxine Kumin from “Chores”
photo by Emily Vander Haak
They sit together on the porch, the dark Almost fallen, the house behind them dark. Their supper done with, they have washed and dried The dishes–only two plates now, two glasses, Two knives, two forks, two spoons–small work for two. She sits with her hands folded in her lap, At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak, And when they speak at last it is to say What each one knows the other knows. They have One mind between them, now, that finally For all its knowing will not exactly know Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone. ~Wendell Berry “They Sit Together on the Porch”
If just for a moment, when this world is tilting so far we just might fall off, we pause to look at where we’ve been and get our feet back under us.
The porch is a good place to start: a bridge to what is beyond without leaving the familiar.
Outside, looking square at the unknown, yet still hearing and smelling and tasting the affection that dwells just inside these walls.
What could we want more than to be missed when we step away?
Our voice, our words, our heart, our touch never to be replaced, its absence a hole impossible to fill…
When we are called back inside where Love made us who we are, may the “in between” of time spent on the porch, be even more treasured, because two aging fools sat together there a spell.
front porch
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Last night we were laying in bed when my husband rolled over and said, “Do you hear birds?” I said I heard the laundry dragging itself along the inside of the dryer as it turned.
My grandparents’ neighbor, Doris, once said she heard birds in the chimney. Her in-home helper confessed they weren’t birds— she’d had a baby in the night without knowing she was pregnant.
Poems are like that, insisting on being born, heard, making themselves known as soon as we’re quiet and still. We hear birdsong in the ordinary, and it sings us awake in the dark until the mundane becomes miraculous. ~Elizabeth Wickland “Do You Hear Birds?”
Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people.
But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle.
For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don’t want to reach our last one for a long time.
We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say,no,this isn’t one I’ve been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when we are convinced, our lives will start for real.
Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night’s meandering skunk. ~Tom Hennen“The Life of a Day”
Age concentrates the mind. The moment you realize you will no longer do something you’ve done all your life. The moment you realize that you will now need to do something you’ve never had to do before. The moment you realize that what used to be will never be the same. Some of this could lend itself to melancholy. But there is also a bigness to such moments that allows for wonder. A sense that you can’t quite comprehend it all.
Like any life, mine has had its pain, yet from the outset it seems to have been graced by unbelievable people and events.
I am ashamed to admit I squander time shamelessly, blind and deaf to what is happening around me, waiting for that particularly special day I always dreamed of, tossing off mundane yet irreplaceable moments as somehow not measuring up nor exciting enough.
The shock is: there have been nearly 40 years of such ordinary days on this farm, one passing by after another, emerging fresh each morning from the mundane duff and stuff of life, and wouldn’t you know… every single one has ended up being exactly what I’m looking for.
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