Category: sunset

The Raggedy Days of April Slip Away

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April is like the raggedy, wandering gypsy lad of the fairy tale.
When he moves, streaks of gold show beneath his torn garments
and you suspect that this elfin creature is actually a prince in disguise.

April is just that.

There are raggedy, cold days, dark black ones,
but all through the month for a second, for an hour, or for three days at a stretch you glimpse pure gold.

The weeks pass and the rags slip away, a shred at a time.
Toward the end of the month his royal highness stands before you.
~Jean Hersey from The Shape of a Year

I avoid spending much time in front of mirrors now. I’m thinning on top, thickening a bit lower, sagging and stretching, wrinkled and patched and, let’s face it…raggedy.

Still, if I look closely past the rags and sags, I see the same eyes as my younger self peering back at me.

There are some things that age does not disguise.

The lightness and freshness of youth might be covered up with the trappings of aging, but I’m overjoyed to still be here, just as I am.

Every once in awhile, I believe I glimpse a little gold under my wrinkly surface.

I’m no queen or princess in disguise, but breathing in the scents of certain perfumed days of April can make me feel like one.

A Slumbering Silence

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Again the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.

After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.

Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, “In April” translated by Jessie Lamont

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the year
At any other period –
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Hills
That Science cannot overtake,
But Human Nature feels.
~Emily Dickinson from 85- Part two: Nature

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I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.
~Mary Oliver “What Gorgeous Thing” from Blue Horses 

Maybe it is the particular tilt of the globe on its axis,
or the suffusion of clouds mixing
with the perpetually damp atmosphere,
or perhaps the knowledge
the darkness no longer claims us
most of our waking time.

The light of gentle April
has its own sacred whispering voice
orchestrated with myriad birdsong.

We are immersed inside it for just a few weeks,
yet it belongs framed on gallery walls for perpetuity
to be admired at any time of the year,
whenever we seek sweet slumber on
a soft cushion of golden pastels.

Surrounded by such sacrament
without and within,
our recreated life in the Lord
gently glows.

A Dishwater Sky of Sadness

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A dishwater sky mutes
sun’s rays to gray, the hills
leading to the pass forested
in haze, drained of green.

Though a steady bluster, the wind
musters nothing but silence.
The plodding sound of melt
drip, drip, drips
from the askew rusted rain gutter
outside my purview.
Perhaps, I have all my life been
too much in love with sadness.
~Lana Hectman Ayers from “Window in Late January” from Autobiography of Rain

A silence slipping around like death,
Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath,
One group of trees, lean, naked and cold,
Inking their crest ‘gainst a sky green-gold,
One path that knows where the corn flowers were;
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;
And over it softly leaning down,
One star that I loved ere the fields went brown.
~Angelina Weld Grimke “A Winter Twilight”

I am astonished by my thirst
for clinging to sadness
when a gray day asks so little of me.

Good thing I’m shaken from my melancholy
by such simple moments
as a twilight shimmering gold,
a burst of unexpected evening birdsong,
a steadfast fir standing unyielding on our hilltop,
where it glimpses the edge of tomorrow
as today’s dusky horizon fades away.

Surrounded By a Winter Sunset

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How can I feel so warm   
Here in the dead center of January? I can   
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is   
The only life I have. 
~James Wright from “A Winter Daybreak above Vence”

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to the northwest
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to the north

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
  Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
  I never kept before.
Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
  Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
  Falls the remorseful day.
~A.E. Houseman from “How Clear, How Lovely Bright”

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to the northeast
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to the east
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to the southeast

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions — that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

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to the south
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to the southwest

So welcome in the dead center of January:
a surround-sunset experience on our farm – 360 degrees of evolving color and patterns, streaks and swirls, gradation and gradual decline.

All is silent. No bird song, no wind, no spoken prayer.
Yet communion takes place with the air breaking and feeding me like manna from heaven.

Witnessing the light bleeding out all around me:

I will squander my days no more, treasuring each as sheer gift.
I will seek to serve my God, church, family, friends, and community.
I will be warmed on this chilly winter day even as it descends to darkness, knowing light and hope will return.

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to the west
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to the west
sunset113171
to the west

An Advent Threshold: Nothing But Light

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(Jesus said) I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
Luke 12:49

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning from “Aurora Leigh”

It is difficult to undo our own damage…
It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind.
The very holy mountains are keeping mum.
We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it;
we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. 
~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk

Nine Kinds of Blindness
1. The one where your eyes do not work to see anything.
2. The one where your eyes do not work to see everything.
3. The one where your eyes work, but you cannot see what you have never seen before.
4. The one where your eyes work but you cannot see what is inconvenient.
5. The one where your eyes work but someone is keeping you from using them.
6. The one where your eyes work but you are angry.
7. The one where your eyes work but you are afraid.
8. The one where your eyes work but there is no light.
9. The one where your eyes work but there is nothing but light.
~Paul Pastor “Nine Kinds of Blindness” from  Bower Lodge

I need to turn aside and look, blinded as I am,
to see, as if for the first and last time,
the kindled fire that illuminates even the darkest day
and never dies away.

We are invited, by no less than God Himself,
through the original burning bush that is never consumed
to shed our shoes, to walk barefoot and vulnerable,
and approach the bright and burning dawn,
even when it is the darkest midnight,
even when it is a babe in a manger who kindles a fire in each one of us.

Only then, only then
can I say:
“Here I am! Consume me!”

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire
that never dies away,
that never dies away.
Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire
that never dies away,
that never dies away.
~Taize

An Advent Threshold: The Light Inside an Open Barn Door

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When the miracle happened it was not
with bright light or fire—
but a farm door with the thick smell of sheep
and a wind tugging at the shutters.

There was no sign the world had changed for ever
or that God had taken place;
just a child crying softly in a corner,
and the door open, for those who came to find.
~Kenneth Steven “Nativity”

This Advent, I’m trying not to be scared of the dark. 
~James K.A. Smith from “Waiting” (Image Journal)

I feel like I’m constantly aware of the world’s anguish, reminded daily in headlines and news updates. The knowledge of others’ grief and mourning, their losses and struggles, is overwhelming.

This world is a fearful place of pain and tears for so many, so much of the time. For my part, I try not to be afraid of the dark…

So who am I to write of moments of incredible encouragement and beauty, posting pictures of the latest masterpiece painted through the filtered light of sunrise and sunset, searching out and sharing the illuminated gifts that exist all around me – while people suffer?

We were certainly not created to wallow in anguish – yet here we are, trying in every way to climb our way out of the dark mess we’ve made. I am one of the countless standing on the threshold of a Light sent to diminish and overwhelm our darkest times.

Three different times, a messenger angel appeared out of the blue, saying “do not be afraid.” Zechariah had been “startled and gripped with fear,” Mary was “troubled and wondered at his words” and the shepherds were “terrified.” They were never to be the same again.

Yet the first words directly from heaven were “fear not.” My first reaction would be: there must be plenty to fear if I’m being told not to be afraid. And this world is a terrifying place, especially in the dark.

It is up to us, overwhelmed by the darkness of these times, to seek out the barn door opening enough to show a light spilling out. We are invited, troubled and doubtful, to come see what is inside.

So too then, we ourselves open: waiting, watching, longing for this glory to come. Nothing will be the same, ever again.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Watch with Awe as it Unfolds…

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People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be.
When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying,
“Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.”
I don’t try to control a sunset.
I watch with awe as it unfolds.
~Carl Rogers from A Way of Being

Once I saw a chimpanzee gaze at a particularly beautiful sunset
for a full 15 minutes,
watching the changing colors
[and then] retire to the forest without picking a pawpaw for supper.
~Adriaan Krotlandt, Dutch ethologist in Scientific American (1962)

There is much about this life we cannot control.
We like to think we can.
We even try.

We are mere witness to changes wrought by the Creator,
how He reaches deep in a person or
how He paints in the skies.

Watch in awe.

To the Dappled Damson West

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I kiss my hand 
To the stars, lovely-asunder 
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and 
Glow, glory in thunder; 
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west: 
Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder, 
His mystery must be instressed, stressed; 
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand. 
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from The Wreck of the Deutschland

I greet Him when I meet Him
as the plum color of the evening sky
spills as tipped paint
far fleeting across the horizon,
cleaned up and gone before grasped,
I kiss my hand
to the drama played out before the sun sets.

I greet Him when I meet Him
as starlight speckles
the overhead ceiling,
each touching infinity
where it begins
and never ends.

I greet Him when I meet Him
in glowing cloud mountains
sparking lightning
and clapping thunder,
applause for His
resplendent magnificence.

I greet Him when
He is hidden
mysterious
unknown
and unknowable,
waiting for the blessing
of understanding
wafting from Him
in royal color, in glistening speckle,
in enduring glow, in inspiring spark,
in appreciative applause
for His splendor
wrapped in wonder.

Ineffably Sublime

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Creator of the rolling spheres,
ineffably sublime…
~Matthew Bridges from “Crown Him with Many Crowns”

The rolling spheres of sun and moon,
particularly sublime in October
as we wander awed from dawn to dusk.

We are witnesses with only one word to describe it:
~ineffable~
a word that means there are no words.

Only Him.

Lyrics:
The barren land around me lies
My flame is burning low
Cold and pale the winter skies
And I am far from home.
With my light that burns so dim,
Am I visible to Him?
Does He hear the fragile song of creatures here below?

He wakes the lark and bids her fly
To greet the coming spring,
Wakes our hearts and bids us rise
Then gives our spirits wing.
He speaks, and winter melts away,
Hears us when we come to pray,
Turns our nighttime into day –
Our Light, our Life, our King.

Glorious joy of summer sun,
The gentle healing rain,
Banishing our tears and sighs,
With beauty for our pain.
Earth and sky, lay glory by-
Christ the Lord is drawing nigh!
All creation, bow to Him
From whom all blessings flow!

Blows the wind, and soon will come
The autumn of the year
With its golden light of love
Still shining ever clear.
From the rising of the sun
To the place where day is done,
Peace on earth has now begun
To cast away our fear.

[Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above ye heavenly host
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.]

-Johanna Anderson, 2018

Living a Life to Die For

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The sound of quiet. The sky
indigo, steeping
deeper from the top, like tea.
In the absence
of anything else, my own
breathing became obscene.
I heard the beating
of bats’ wings before
the air troubled above
my head, turned to look
and saw them gone.
On the surface of the black
lake, a swan and the moon
stayed perfectly
still. I knew this was
a perfect moment.
Which would only hurt me
to remember and never
live again. My God. How lucky to have lived
a life I would die for.
~Leila Chatti “I Went Out to Hear” from Wildness Before Something Sublime  

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
~Mary Oliver “In Blackwater Woods” from Devotions

(thinking today of God’s gift to the world of Jane Goodall,
whose life was about keeping promises)

When the earth and all that is in it glows indigo
in the angled light of October;
opening my eyes as witness to beauty
takes my breath away.

I can’t imagine letting go this life,
yet the other side of ashes and loss is salvation.

My God.
I am so finite.
I hold this close to my bones
with miles to go before I sleep.

My life depends on realizing
I’m living a life I would die for.

photo by Josh Scholten