Category: dew

Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand,
and Eternity in an Hour.

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day
~William Blake from “Auguries of Innocence”

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Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
~William Butler Yeats “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”

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If I look closely enough underfoot,
I might find the extraordinary
in the commonplace things of life.

So I keep my eyes alert;
my heart open to infinite possibilities
and try to tread softly.

Sometimes what I see is so beautiful,
it is uncovering heaven come to earth,
when the cosmos is contained
within the commonplace.

The God of Light and Living Water
is no further away
than my back yard.

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Where You Go, I Will Go: A Place of Retreat

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… Maybe they have
no place to return or are lost,
having gone too far from the nest.

Female bees will also burrow
deep inside the shade of a squash
flower: the closer to the source
of nectar, the warmer and more
quilt-like the air. In the cool
hours of morning, look closely
for the slight but tell-tale
trembling in each flower cup:
there, a body dropped mid-flight,
mid-thought. How we all retreat
behind some folded screen as work
or the world presses in too
soon, too close, too much.
~Luisa Igloria from “Ode to Tired Bumblebees Who Fall Asleep Inside Flowers With Pollen on Their Butts”

How can I love this spring
when it’s pulling me
through my life faster
than any time before it?
When five separate dooms
are promised this decade
and here I am, just trying
to watch a bumblebee cling
to its first purple flower.
I cannot save this world.
But look how it’s trying,
once again, to save me.
~James Pearson “This Spring”

It isn’t unusual to find a bumblebee clinging to a spring blossom, all covered in morning dew, having overstayed its welcome as the evening chill hit the night before.

The bumble is too cold to fly, or think, or navigate. Instead it just clings through the night until the sun rises and the air once again warms its wings.

Maybe it got lost.
Maybe it is simply weary from flying with such tiny wings.
Maybe it has no home to retreat to in the darkness.
Maybe it only wants to cling tight to beauty in a dangerous world.

I’ve known what this feels like, dear plump fluffy bumble.
I think I know how you feel,
patiently waiting for the descent of Love to revive my spirit
and warm my wings…

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

AI image created for this post

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Desiring Dawn and Dew

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Overcome us that, so overcome,
we may be ourselves:
we desire the beginning of your reign
as we desire dawn and dew,
wetness at the birth of light.
~C.S. Lewis from The Great Divorce

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people.
Zechariah 8:12

I have had opportunity to fly over a vast ocean to three different continents in my life. Each time, I adjusted my internal clock due to disorientation about what day and time it was.

But my reassurance came from the consistency of the sun rising and setting, washing the world with a refreshing dew the next morning.

Overcome that I could witness dawn wherever I awoke,
I felt the familiarity of home, even in far off lands.

I am reminded the Son rises over a vast Kingdom without borders, without corruption, without alienation, without end.

No matter where I sleep, I am covered by His cleansing dew.

Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

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Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Latin lyrics:
Rorate caeli desuper, et nubes pluant iustum.

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When to That Bright World We Arise: Listen, Watch, Wait

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Rain. An excuse to stand at the window
And listen, watch, wait. Listen: to the hush
Of the house as still as a dark burrow
Where an animal hides. Listen: the rush
Of occasional gusts, then the stillness.

Watch: the wrens hopping from stem to wet stem
Their happy bearing in contrast to titmice
Who always seem afraid. Watch: the mayhem
That strikes when the grumpy bluejay, twice
As big as the rest, frumps onto a branch.

Wait: for what? For the steady rain to cease.
Wait: for the fair sunlight to avalanche
Down from space and remake the world again.
Then let my steps be fearless, like the wren.
~Andrew Peterson “Lenten Sonnet”

bluejay photo by Josh Scholten

I’m the child of rainy Sundays.
I watched time crawl
Like an injured fly
Over the wet windowpane.
Or waited for a branch
On a tree to stop shaking,
While Grandmother knitted
Making a ball of yarn
Roll over like a kitten at her feet.
I knew every clock in the house
Had stopped ticking
And that this day will last forever.
~Charles Simic “To Boredom”

I’m never bored on a quiet rainy Sunday.

My list of to-do’s
and want-to-do’s
and hope-to-do’s
and someday-maybe-if-I’m-lucky-to-do’s
is longer than the days still left to me.

I cherish these Sabbaths
when the clock stops, and “to-do’s” will wait.
Time suspends itself above me,
~dangling~
and the day lasts forever.

Sunday evening scaries in anticipation of Monday
are prayed away.

On a drizzly day of rest and gratitude, the world is remade,
eternity moves a little closer, my steps become more fearless
and the new week is yet another part of the journey.

Does the rain have a father?
    Who fathers the drops of dew?
Job 38:28

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”

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The Quivering Air of October

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I remember it
as October days are always remembered,
cloudless, maple-flavored,
the air gold and so clean it quivers.
~Leif Enger in Peace Like a River

I’m not someone who switches to pumpkin-spice-flavored anything in October.

No need, no need.
The air itself tastes like autumn, quivering on my tongue.

Instead I revel in the gold and bronze tint to the sky,
the cinnamon nutmeg dusting of the trees,
the heavy sprinkling of hanging dew drops,
the crisp and shivery breezes.

Soon the ground will be frost instead of dust
and leaves a crunchy carpet rather than shady veil.

October is a much-needed change,
keeping us fresh,
reminding us to breathe deeply when life feels shallow,
and remembering we have been immersed
in the pumpkin-spice of a new day we have never lived before.

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The Dewy Cheek of Day

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The red east glows, the dewy cheek of Day
Has not yet met the sun’s o’erpowering smile;
The dew-drops in their beauty still are gay,
Save those the shepherd’s early steps defile.
Pleas’d will I linger o’er the scene awhile;
The black clouds melt away, the larks awaken–
Sing, rising bird, and I will join with thee:
With day-break’s beauties I have much been taken,
As thy first anthem breath’d its melody.
I’ve stood and paus’d the varied cloud to see,
And warm’d in ecstacy, and look’d and warm’d,
When day’s first rays, the far hill top adorning,
Fring’d the blue clouds with gold: O doubly charm’d
I hung in raptures then on early Morning.
~John Clare “Daybreak”

You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
~Linda Pastan “Imaginary Conversation”

How to begin each day like the first day, rather than the last…

It would mean unbridled awe and astonishment, hung in raptures. Look Not only gratitude that the world exists, but also grateful that I exist within it.

Instead of living as if this were my last day, I want to be newly created and dew-baptized in amazement – just like my first day.

Undivided Wonders

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One grief, all evening—: I’ve stumbled
upon another animal merely being
             itself and still cuffing me to grace.

             This time a bumblebee, black and staggered
above some wet sidewalk litter. When I stop
             at what I think is dying

             to deny loneliness one more triumph,
I see instead a thing drunk
           with discovery—the bee entangled

            with blossom after pale, rain-dropped blossom
gathered beneath a dogwood. And suddenly
             I receive the cold curves and severe angles

             from this morning’s difficult dreams
about faith:—certain as light, arriving; certain
            as light, dimming to another shadowed wait.

            How many strokes of undivided wonder
will have me cross the next border,
            my hands emptied of questions?
~Geffrey Davis “West Virginia Nocturne”

Faith steals upon you like dew:
some days you wake and it is there.
And like dew, it gets burned off 
in the rising sun of anxieties,
ambitions, distractions.
~Christian Wiman from My Bright Abyss

My faith,
refreshed in the light, through the moisture of morning,
evaporates in the drying stress of the day.
May I turn my face to the heavens
each night, ask to be washed
in the mist of God’s renewing dew,
my worries settling like dust,
my wrestle with questions soothed,
my wonder expansive as the skies.

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Fixing Eyes on the Unseen: Like a Cloud of Dew

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This is what the Lord says to me:
    “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
Isaiah 4:18

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving,
then at evening the dew comes down —
no eye to see the pearly drops descending,
no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass —
so does the Spirit come to you who believe.
When the heart is at rest in Jesus —
unseen, unheard by the world —
the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul,
quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne from The Love of Christ

Amid daily hubbub, there comes a time when I must be quiet myself, devoid of selfish desires and hushing pointless ambitions. I need rest and renewal with a refreshing of purpose.

Only when I am thus silent and still – receptive and emptied of self, I am ready.

It is then I am touched, filled oh so softly, without fireworks or thunderclap, or dramatic collapse. The Spirit descends like silent dew onto my longing heart.

I wake restored, a new life quickened within me.

It is that simple. And so gentle.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is taken from 2 Corinthians 4: 18:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Frost of Adversity

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There is an arid Pleasure –
As different from Joy –
As Frost is different from Dew –
Like Element – are they –

Yet one – rejoices Flowers –
And one – the Flowers abhor –
The finest Honey – curdled –
Is worthless – to the Bee –
~Emily Dickinson

Remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity.
~Charles Spurgeon

Even when hard times leave us frozen solid,
completely immobilized
and too cold to touch,
there is hope and healing,
in the warming immensity
of the goodness of God.

Even when life’s chill leaves us aching,
longing for relief,
the coming thaw is real
because God is good.

Even when we’re flattened,
stepped on, broken into fragments —
the pieces left are the beginning
of who we will become,
becoming whole again
because God is good.

Frost lasts not forever.
Sunlight makes us glisten and glitter
as ice melts down to droplets.
We are a reflection of the goodness of God:
His eyes and ears,
heart and soul,
hands and feet.
Even more so,
we become His tears
as God weeps in His goodness.

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Pearls of Early Dew

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October is the treasurer of the year,
And all the months pay bounty to her store;
The fields and orchards still their tribute bear,
And fill her brimming coffers more and more.
But she, with youthful lavishness,
Spends all her wealth in gaudy dress,
And decks herself in garments bold
Of scarlet, purple, red, and gold.

She heedeth not how swift the hours fly,
But smiles and sings her happy life along;
She only sees above a shining sky;
She only hears the breezes’ voice in song.
Her garments trail the woodlands through,
And gather pearls of early dew
That sparkle, till the roguish Sun
Creeps up and steals them every one.

But what cares she that jewels should be lost,
When all of Nature’s bounteous wealth is hers?
Though princely fortunes may have been their cost,
Not one regret her calm demeanor stirs.
Whole-hearted, happy, careless, free,
She lives her life out joyously,
Nor cares when Frost stalks o’er her way
And turns her auburn locks to gray.
~Paul Laurence Dunbar “October”

Frost arrives this week
as pearls of dew freeze into place, dangling –
strings of liquid gems transform to icy diamonds.

A rich and mellow October gives way
to crisp and colorless November –
a sorrowful undressing.

All fades to gray; so do I.

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