Category: Weather

Autumn Begins to be Inferred

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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.

Pulse and Breath and Dream

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No jump-starting the day,
no bare feet slapping the floor
to bath and breakfast.

Dozing instead
in the nest
like, I suppose,
a pair of gophers

underground
in fuzz and wood shavings.
One jostles the other
in closed-eye luxury.

We are at last
perhaps
what we are:

uncombed,
unclothed,
mortal.

Pulse
and breath
and dream.
~Marjorie Saiser “Weekends, Sleeping In” from Beside You at the Stoplight

I am a dry man whose thirst is praise
of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup.
My sweetness is to wake in the night
after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.
~Wendell Berry from “Water”

I have had my dream—like others—
and it has come to nothing, so that
I remain now carelessly
with feet planted on the ground
and look up at the sky—
feeling my clothes about me,
the weight of my body in my shoes,
the rim of my hat, air passing in and out
at my nose—and decide to dream no more.
~William Carlos Williams “Thursday” from Sour Grapes

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rainygold
rainyrose1

Open the window, and let the air 
Freshly blow upon face and hair, 
And fill the room, as it fills the night, 
With the breath of the rain’s sweet might. 

Not a blink shall burn to-night 
In my chamber, of sordid light; 
Nought will I have, not a window-pane, 
‘Twixt me and the air and the great good rain, 
Which ever shall sing me sharp lullabies; 
And God’s own darkness shall close mine eyes; 
And I will sleep, with all things blest, 
In the pure earth-shadow of natural rest. 
~James Henry Leigh Hunt from “A Night-Rain in Summer”

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kaledrop

We are still waiting for a few late-summer rainy days;
each year they are a blissful reminder of God’s intent
to refresh and replenish us when we are at our driest,
when we are short on sleep and hope and dreams.

How sweet to fall asleep listening in the dark
to the patter of raindrops after weeks of drought,
waking to damp air, raindrop jewelry, and petrichor.

Perhaps I’ll remember this longing of mine
while I grumble and slosh around
in the fortieth day of rain this winter.

When will I be satisfied there is just enough but not too much?
When will all my dreams seem as real as pulse and breath?

In the meantime, God — let it rain – preferably as I sleep.

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rainyrose2

Lyrics:

I know your life
On earth was troubled
And only you could know the pain
You weren’t afraid to face the devil
You were no stranger to the rain

Go rest high on that mountain
Now your work on earth is done
Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

Oh, how we cried the day you left us
We gathered ’round your grave to grieve
Wish I could see the angels faces
When they hear your sweet voice sing

Go to heaven a-shoutin’
Love for the Father and the Son

This Failing Light

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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

Watching the Rain Happen

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Immense, entirely itself,
it wore that yard like a dress,

with limbs low enough for me to enter it
and climb the crooked ladder to where

I could lean against the trunk and practice being alone.

One day, I heard the sound before I saw it, rain fell
darkening the sidewalk.

Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches,
I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy,

watching it happen without it happening to me.
~Marie Howe “The Copper Beech” from What the Living Do

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

The Winds and Sea Obey…

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rialto1

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’

And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.

They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’
Matthew 8:23-27

rialto2

Sweet Jesus, talking 
   his melancholy madness, 
     stood up in the boat 
       and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry. 
   So everybody was saved 
      that night… 
       
         Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes 
   like the wind over the water — 
      sometimes, for days, 
        you don’t think of it.

 Maybe, after the sermon, 
   after the multitude was fed, 
     one or two of them felt 
       the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight 
   before exhaustion, 
      that wants to swallow everything, 
         gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy, 
    as they are now, forgetting 
       how the wind tore at the sails 
          before he rose and talked to it —

tender and luminous and demanding 
   as he always was — 
      a thousand times more frightening 
         than the killer storm.
~Mary Oliver from “Maybe”

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We sleep through our diminishing days
even more than we sleep through the nights,
unfocused on each passing moment
which never is to come again. 

Those moments crash to shore,
then pull back to be lost forever.

There is a blindness in us all
about what is inevitably coming,
how we tumble through the years like waves,
overcome by their passage,
helpless to stop them.

Yet He is tender and luminous and demanding 
He speaks to us with the same words
as He addresses the relentless stormy destructive sea.

Peace be still!

And so we obey in our helplessness,
forgiven, saved by grace,
so silky and sorry.

A Time Less Bold

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Would you believe I’ve been looking
for rain, here, with few days remaining
in this fleeting season of summer?
Our days are numbered that we might
share with the sun in a clear blue sky
and the hours growing warmer,
and I have kept an eye out for the clouds.
Only I wish for the conditions and doubt
that might send us all deep inside
our dark homes to sleep and read and pray
in preparation for the coming colder days.
Would you believe that the sight
of slate gray spanning horizon to zenith
and down is one I am quite taken with?
~David K. Wheeler “The Cold Season” from Contingency Plans

My mother, who hates thunder storms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost,

And I her son, though summer-born
And summer-loving, none the less
Am easier when the leaves are gone
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can’t confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear:
An autumn more appropriate.
~Philip Larkin “Mother, Summer, I”

Summer grass aches and whispers.

It wants something; it calls and sings; it pours
       out wishes to the overhead stars.

The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is slow 
        coming; the rain wets the face of the grass.
~Carl Sandberg “Summer Grass”

August rushes by like desert rainfall,
A flood of frenzied upheaval,
Expected,
But still catching me unprepared.
Like a match flame
Bursting on the scene,
Heat and haze of crimson sunsets.
Like a dream
Of moon and dark barely recalled,
A moment,
Shadows caught in a blink.
Like a quick kiss;
One wishes for more
But it suddenly turns to leave,
Dragging summer away.
– Elizabeth Maua Taylor “August”

The endless clear skies of August
now broken with exuberant clouds,
rain falling in warm gusts,
leaves landing on browned ground.

This summer ended up being simply too much –
an excess of everything bright and beautiful,
meant to make us joyful,
yet bold and exhausting in its riches.

From endless hours of daylight,
to high rising temperatures and wildfires,
to palettes of smoke-filled landscapes
to fruitfulness and abundant blooms.

While summer always fills a void
after enduring cold spare dark days
the rest of the year,
I still depend on autumn returning.

I welcome darkening times back,
knowing how much I miss
those drear twilight months of longing
for the overwhelming fullness of summer.

Waking with the Light

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Light wakes us – there’s the sun
climbing the mountains’ rim, spilling across the valley,
finding our faces.
It is July,
between the hay and harvest,
a time at arm’s length from all other time,
the roads ragged with meadowsweet and mallow,
with splays of seedheads, slubbed and coarse, rough linen.
The fields above the house, clotted with sheep all spring,
are empty now and froth with flowering grasses,
still in the morning light. Birds move around
the leafy fields, the leafy garden.

It is the time
to set aside all vigil, good or ill,
to loosen the fixed gaze of our attention
as dandelions let seedlings to the wind.
Wake with the light.
Get up and go about the day and watch
its surfaces that brighten with the sun.

And later, when the light is drowsed and heavy
go find the burdened fruit trees where the shade
lies splashed and opened-out across the ground.
Spread over it a quilt worn soft by other bodies,
then curl and fall down into sleep at light.

Awaken to a world of long, loose grass-stems,
and leaves above,
and birds, breaking out of the leaves.
~Kerry Hardie from “Sleep in Summer”

Saying good-bye to July last week
meant admitting summer is already half-baked
and so are we–

we who are still doughy,
not nearly done enough.

The rush to autumn is breathless.
We want to hold on tight
to our longish days,
fall asleep in the grasses,
endure sweaty nights
for just a little while longer…

Please, oh please
grant us unending light
and steady us for the task
of getting ready for letting go.

A new series of summer photo notecards from our farm is now available as a thank you gift to you for your financial support of Barnstorming — details here

How to Clear the Fog

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~Lustravit lampade terras~
(He has illumined the world with a lamp)
The weather and my mood have little connection.
I have my foggy and my fine days within me;
my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.
– Blaise Pascal from “Miscellaneous Writings”

Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled
to leave the house and search for what
might lift me back to what I had fallen away from,
I stood by the shore waiting.
I had walked in the silent woods:
the trees withdrew into their secrets.
Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk
over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray.
Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies
afloat on their element as I was not
on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.
But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again
to linger, to look North before nightfall—the expanse
of calm, of calming water, last wafts
of rose in the few high clouds.
And was rewarded:
the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying
widewinged toward me, settled
just offshore on his post,
took up his vigil.
                               If you ask
why this cleared a fog from my spirit,
I have no answer.
~Denise Levertov “A Reward” from Evening Train

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Flee for a while from your tasks,
hide yourself for a little space from the turmoil of your thoughts.
Come, cast aside your burdensome cares,
and put aside your laborious  pursuits.
For a little while give your time to God,
and rest in him for a little while.
Enter into the inner chamber of your mind,
shut out all things save God
and whatever may aid you in seeking God;
and having barred the door of your chamber, seek him.
~Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works

And so you have a life that you are living only now,
now and now and now,
gone before you can speak of it,
and you must be thankful for living day by day,
moment by moment …
a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present…
~Wendell Berry from Hannah Coulter

photo by Josh Scholten

There were long days during my doctoring years
when I would be near tears,
physically spent, too fried
to keep listening, problem solving, comforting.

I needed to feel something other than needed.
I needed neediness myself — 
a sorry place to be
for a physician and healer.

Of course it had happened before, many times:
middle of the night mothering a vomiting child,
middle of the night mothering a frail mother,
middle of the night reassuring a frightened patient,
middle of the night worried about the state of the world.

Yet morning always comes because God has never left,
maybe not bright and shining and wondrous,
maybe still hidden behind a fog,
maybe not hidden at all
but waiting inside my muddled thoughts –

I found if I gently closed the door to all
that is not God,
I would find Him looking for me
and all would become clear.

Text by George Matheson:
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thy ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Joy that seeks me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

When the dawn
O’er hill and dale
Throws her bright veil,
Oh, think of me!

When the laugh
With silver sound
Goes echoing round,
Oh, think of me!

When the rain
With starry showers
Fills all the flowers,
Oh, think of me!

When the wind
Sweeps along,
Loud and strong,
Oh, think of me!

When the earth
Sleeping sound
Swings round and round,
Oh, think of me!

When the night
With solemn eyes
Looks from the skies,
Oh, think of me!”

-Frances Anne Kemble

What the Sky Might Bring

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When it snows, he stands
at the back door or wanders
around the house to each
window in turn and
watches the weather
like a lover. O farm boy,
I waited years
for you to look at me
that way. Now we’re old
enough to stop waiting
for random looks or touches
or words, so I find myself
watching you watching
the weather, and we wait
together to discover
whatever the sky might bring.
~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”

My father was a skywatcher,
cloud-noter, wind-gauger,

trained since birth
to check the weather first thing
and last. In those last

dim years when all else had left
mind and memory, he’d still stare
keenly out the car window

as I drove him to neurologist
or podiatrist, and exclaim with joy and

satisfaction: Look at those clouds!
And I knew right then
that watching the sky

was a good way to conduct a life–
that reading the outlines of clouds,

lifting a finger to the pulse of
breeze coming your way,

is what can hold you close,
clasp you tight to the thrum.
~Wendy Ingersoll “Weatherman”

My farm boy still looks at me that way,
wondering if today will bring
a storm,
or a scorcher,
or a deluge,
and I reassure him as best I can,
because he knows me so well
in our many years together:

today, like nearly every other day,
will be mostly cloudy
with occasional sun breaks.

At Summer’s Edge

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At the edge of the city,
at the edge of the world,
at the edge between
the earth and endless sky,
the moonshining place,
the place where we hung
our long summer legs
over the edge and fought
the urge to drop a shoe
or sneak a real first kiss,
the place where we played
hide-and-go-seek
and Tag, you’re it!
until we couldn’t breathe
or the sun went down,
the place where we came
on the quietest nights
to feel the moon kiss
the edge between
our skin and endless sky.
~Sarah Kobrinsky, from Nighttime on the Otherside of Everything

photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger

there will be sun, scalloped by clouds,
ushered in by a waterfall of birdsong.
It will be a temperate seventy-five, low
humidity. For twenty-four hours,
all politicians will be silent. Reality
programs will vanish from TV, replaced
by the “snow” that used to decorate
our screens when reception wasn’t
working. Soldiers will toss their weapons
in the grass. The oceans will stop
their inexorable rise. No one
will have to sit on a committee.
When twilight falls, the aurora borealis
will cut off cell phones, scramble the internet.
We’ll play flashlight tag, hide and seek,
decorate our hair with fireflies, spin
until we’re dizzy, collapse
on the dew-decked lawn and look up,
perhaps for the first time, to read the long lines
of cold code written in the stars….
~Barbara Crooker “Tomorrow” from Some Glad Morning.

The truth of it is: we’re always on the edge of something.
Often we’re not aware of it
but that’s where some of the best things happen.

Summer itself can lead us right to edge of ourselves,
a bright and bold tease to imagine something
even more beautiful beyond our reach.
It is an invitation to follow the lingering light of the horizon
to wherever it may take us.

I can’t help but cling just a while longer
before I tumble off the edge of the world.

Lyrics:
In love, we find our way
With trust, hope remains

I’ll be here
Stay right here
Don’t you fear

In love, we find our way through the night
In love, we find our way

In love, we find a way
Your love leads the way