Category: Weather

Blossoming Time

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The year Dylan’s mother died
I picked sprays of apple blossom,
wound its pink, off-white shades
in raffia for you to take to him.

Every year it’s out I think of us,
the children, how apples bring
the tree so low, until they thud
to the lawn, drumming the end 

of summer. The blossom was heavy 
when Dylan’s mother was dying – 
old wood doing its best again –
and he, like you, was so young.
~Jackie Wills “Apple Blossom”

I can see, through the rifts of the apple-boughs,
 The delicate blue of the sky,                               
And the changing clouds with their marvellous tints
 That drift so lazily by.
And strange, sweet thoughts sing through my brain,
 And Heaven, it seemeth near;
Oh, is it not a rare, sweet time,
 The blossoming time of the year?
~Horatio Alger, Jr.  from “Apple Blossoms”

Is there anything in Spring so fair
As apple blossoms falling through the air?

When from a hill there comes a sudden breeze
That blows freshly through all the orchard trees.

The petals drop in clouds of pink and white,
Noiseless like snow and shining in the light.

Making beautiful an old stone wall,
Scattering a rich fragrance as they fall.

There is nothing I know of to compare
With apple blossoms falling through the air.
~Henry Adams Parker “Apple Blossoms”

The rain eases long enough
to allow blades of grass to stand back up
expectant, refreshed
yet unsuspecting,
primed for the mower’s next cutting swath.

Clusters of pink tinged blossoms
sway in response to my mower’s pass.
Apple buds bulge on ancient branches
in promise of fruit caressed
by honeybees’ tickling legs.

Though I bow low beneath the swollen blooms,
I’m still caught by snagging branches;
showers from hidden raindrop reservoirs
collected within blushing petal cups.

My face is anointed by perfumed apple tears.

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A Finisterre Prayer

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What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?

What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?

The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.

What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree.
~Christian Wiman, “Hard Night”

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer —
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
~Carol Ann Duffy “Prayer”

photo by Bob Tjoelker

As a child falling asleep, I prayed to God with moans and groans echoing in my ears.

Growing up on a small farm located about two miles from a bay in Puget Sound, I found myself praying for safety on foggy nights as fog horns moaned in the distance. Scattered throughout the inlet, the horns called out mournful groans of warning to passing freighter ships. The resonant lowing of the horns carried miles over the surrounding landscape due to countless water particles in the fog transmitting sound waves so effectively. The louder the foghorn moan heard on our farm, the thicker and more hazardous the mist in the air. Those horns would make me unspeakably sad for reasons I could only articulate to God. Thus I prayed for the ships, and I prayed for my own shaky navigation through life.

Navigating blind in a fog necessitates taking unpredictable risks. The future can seem a murky mess. I cannot see what lies ahead: I navigate by my wits, by my best guess, but particularly by listening for the low-throated warnings coming from the rocky shores and shallows of those who have gone ahead of me.

I am easily lost in the fog of my fears – disconnected, afloat and circling aimlessly, searching for a touch point of purpose and direction. The isolation I sometimes feel may simply be my own self-absorbed state of mind, sucking me in deep until I’m soaked, dripping and shivering from the smothering gray. If only I trust the fog horn warnings and reassurances from the Word of God, I could charge into the future undaunted.

He is in the pea soup alongside me, awaiting the Sun’s dissipation of the fog. Now I know, nearly seventy years into this voyage, the fog eventually clears. The journey continues on beyond these shores.

Even so, I will keep praying with the resonant voices of wisdom and caution from shore, like the nightly tradition of the BBC radio shipping forecasts that calm so many to sleep to this day. Even a Finisterre (the end of the land) prayer holds us in safety as we find our way home.

Instead of echoing the anxious moans and groans of my childhood prayers, may my voice be heard singing an anthem of hope and promise.

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As If Living in a Prayer

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Here in the time between snow
and the bud of the rhododendron,
we watch the robins, look into

the gray, and narrow our view
to the patches of wild grasses
coming green. The pile of ashes

in the fireplace, haphazard sticks
on the paths and gardens, leaves
tangled in the ivy and periwinkle

lie in wait against our will. This
drawing near of renewal, of stems
and blossoms, the hesitant return

of the anarchy of mud and seed
says not yet to the blood’s crawl.
When the deer along the stream

look back at us, we know again
we have left them. We pull
a blanket over us when we sleep.

As if living in a prayer, we say
amen to the late arrival of red,
the stun of green, the muted yellow

at the end of every twig. We will
lift up our eyes unto the trees hoping
to discover a gnarled nest within

the branches’ negative space. And
we will watch for a fox sparrow
rustling in the dead leaves underneath.
~Jack Ridl “Here in the Time Between” from Practicing to Walk Like a Heron

We live in an in-between time:
we see the coming glory of spring and rebirth
yet winter’s mud and ice still grasps at us.

We want to crawl back under the blankets,
hoping to wake again on a brighter day.

Praying to emerge from the mud of in-between and not-yet,
we are ready to bud and blossom and wholly bloom.

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This Was The Day

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Opening the book at a bright window
above a wide pasture after five years
I find I am still standing on a stone bridge
looking down with my mother at dusk into a river
hearing the current as hers in her lifetime

now it comes to me that that was the day
she told me of seeing my father alive for the last time
and he waved her back from the door as she was leaving
took her hand for a while and said
nothing

at some signal
in a band of sunlight all the black cows flow down the pasture together
to turn uphill and stand as the dark rain touches them.
~W.S. Merwin “Sun and Rain” from Flower & Hand.

All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
~W. S. Merwin “Rain Light” from The Shadow of Sirius 

We want so much to leave a legacy for our children that will carry them through their lives, long after we are gone. Then they pass that on to their children, and on and on, like the strands of DNA we leave behind in our descendants.

But words and rituals of faith and covenant can be lost so quickly from one generation to the next. Our DNA passed down is a given, but nothing surpasses the teaching about the eternal love of God and His purpose for His people.

This day, three of our young grandsons are baptized by their church, ushering them into a life in fulfillment of God’s promise within them. As children, they may not yet fully understand how this manifests in their lives, but with the love and guidance of their church, parents, extended family and godparents, they will know His Love as they witness it in His people.

The washing with water from God’s creation, like rain from heaven, gives me hope for the future.

Though the world may be burning, Jesus is right alongside us through it all – I know our children and grandchildren will be all right.

Not So Sure…

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The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree–
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
–  Sara Teasdale, “April”

The snow piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.

Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens;
they march their black feathers past a blue pool;
they celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs,
a pink bug sits on my hand washing his forelegs.
I might ask: Who are these people? 
~Carl Sandburg from “Just Before April Came”

And so Spring asks:

Who are these people?

Here we are, closing in on mid-April and our weather continues to be unpredictable.  I am not so sure of Spring.

Yet it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

The calendar does not lie, nor does my nose.  The pollen counts are rising despite the rains and as I step outside in early dawn, I can catch the slightest fragrance of just-opening cherry and apple blossoms in the orchard.  Within a week there will be sweet perfume in the air everywhere and the fruit trees become clothed in white puffy clouds of blossom before bursting full into green.

In defiance of the calendar, our oak trees cling stubbornly to their brown bedraggled fall leaves as if ashamed to ever appear naked, even for a week. In May they will go straight from brown to green without a moment of bare knobby branches.

Even so, it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

A morning bird symphony tunes up ever earlier including the “scree” and chatter from bald eagles high up in the fir trees surrounding our house. Nesting has begun despite the wet and cold and wind because their nest is the secure home that calls them back, again and again, year after year.

Like them, it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

I rise opening like a bud,
I dress my nakedness to cover up my knobbiness,
I wander about outside exulting in the free concert,
I manage to do chores despite the distractions —
this routine of mine which is so unchanging through the calendar days becomes glorious gift and privilege.

Hopefulness sings in me in Spring.  Yes it sings.

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While Millions Join the Theme: Light Reflected

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I see your world in light that shines behind me,
Lit by a sun whose rays I cannot see,
The smallest gleam of light still seems to find me
Or find the child who’s hiding deep inside me.
I see your light reflected in the water,
Or kindled suddenly in someone’s eyes,
It shimmers through the living leaves of summer,
Or spills from silver veins in leaden skies,
It gathers in the candles at our vespers
It concentrates in tiny drops of dew
At times it sings for joy, at times it whispers,
But all the time it calls me back to you.
I follow you upstream through this dark night
My saviour, source, and spring, my life and light.
~Malcolm Guite “I am the Light of the World”

photo by Joel DeWaard

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen,
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else.
~C.S. Lewis from “They Asked For A Paper,” in Is Theology Poetry?

Without God’s Light that comes reliably every morning, I would be hopelessly casting about in the dark, stubbing my toes, stumbling and fumbling my way without the benefit of His illumination.

Dawn feels like a fresh gift each time, whether a brilliantly painted sunrise, or here in the Pacific Northwest, a somber gray cloud comforter.

I don’t mind the gray: the darkness in the sky, and in me, has been overwhelmed. And I do try my best to reflect the Light.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
John 8:12

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

To that Bright World We Go: Winter’s Grip

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This morning’s sun is not the honey light
of summer, thick with golden dust and slow
as syrup pouring from a jug. It’s bright,
but thin and cold, and slanted steep and low
across the hillsides. Frost is blooming white,
these flowers forced by icy winds that blow
as hard this morning as they blew all night.
Too cold for rain, but far too dry for snow.

And I am restless, pacing to and fro
enduring winter’s grip that holds us tight.
But my camellias, which somehow know
what weather to expect—they’re always right—
have broken bud. Now scarlet petals glow
outside the window where I sit and write.
~Tiel Aisha Ansari “Camellias” from Dervish Lions

Near a shrine in Japan he’d swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or — we had no way of knowing — he’d swept the path
between fallen camellias.
~Carol Snow “Tour”

Camellia and crocus blossoms are hardy enough to withstand our current low temperatures, defying freezing winds and hard frosts with their resilience.

Inevitably, their petals eventually will begin to brown at the edges and wither.

On windy days, the full camellia blooms plop to the ground without warning, scattering about like a nubby floral throw rug. They are too bulky to step on, so the tendency is to pick a path around them, allowing them the dignity of a few more days before being swept off the sidewalks.

These fallen winter blossoms become almost sacred, gracing the paths the living still must navigate. They are indeed grounding for the passersby, a reminder that our time to let go will soon come too. As we restlessly pursue our days and measure our steps, we try to carefully make our way around their fading beauty.

As a reminder to us, there is an unexpected blessing bestowed
in their budding,
in their blooming,
in their ebbing away.

Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.
They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
Do you fix your eye on them?
Job 14: 1-3

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.
Isaiah 40:7-8

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

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To Bear the Dreadful Curse: Every Limb Lit

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My sorrow’s flower was so small a joy
It took a winter seeing to see it as such.
Numb, unsteady, stunned at all the evidence
Of winter’s blind imperative to destroy,
I looked up, and saw the bare abundance
Of a tree whose every limb was lit and fraught with snow.
What I was seeing then I did not quite know
But knew that one mite more would have been too much.
~Christian Wiman “After a Storm” from Once in the West: Poems

Though a weak branch strains mightily to bear
a summer’s bounty of fruit without breaking, it will sustain the load.

Then comes winter wind and ice storms
and a snowflake becomes the mite too much.

Even so, a painful pruning is endured,
when even the strongest limbs are trimmed back,
urged to fearlessly grow on and be more fruitful.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 
John 15: 1-2

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

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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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And Through Eternity: Facing the Storm

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A front of thunderstorms had sought you out.
It vowed to run a diabolical
black line through all that you were sure about—
the ordinary, sane, the sensible.
You raced to get the loose stuff off the lawn,
with purpose rearranged and stacked the chairs,
relieved, almost, when the phenomenon
of gray-green storm clouds simplified your cares.
And though it couldn’t miss, it kind of did.
Darkness at noon gave way to sun at one.
Catastrophe and doom had been short-lived.
Embarrassed that your fears were overblown,
you faced your mundane day-to-day concerns,
vaguely upset that normalcy returns.
~Robert Crawford “Squall”

Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions,
beneath our religion or lack of it,
we are all vulnerable both to the storm without
and to the storm within.
~Frederick Buechner – from Telling the Truth

I watch the storm fronts roll in, threatening my outside and inside: heavy damaging winds, thunder and lightning, torrential unpredictable rains, mudslides, horrible forest fires destroying what is familiar and routine.

Inside my own head, the storm clouds of news headlines overpower day-to-day mundane concerns: devastating wars and violence, crime and protests, homelessness, rampant starvation and disease, man’s ongoing inhumanity to man.

I want to hide under a rock until the storms inside and outside blow over.

In the midst of the tempest — while wars rage on the planet, while a bitter election season is underway — a miracle may be wrought.
Brilliant light exposes how heaven weeps from heavy clouds. A rainbow touches the earth in holy promise.

God assures His people: this storm too will pass, even the storms of our own making. Darkness is overcome by Light.

Painting of snowy Cascades by John Hoyte

He stilled the storm to a whisper;
    the waves of the sea were hushed.
They were glad when it grew calm,
    and he guided them to their desired haven.
Psalm 107:29-30

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

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