Category: Worry

And Light Splashed…

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Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.
So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
and still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
“Light splashed…”

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.
~Stanley Kunitz  “The Round” from Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected

It is too easy to be ground to a pulp by the various irritations of the day – aggravations are too easily expressed, worries never seem to wane – all of it sucks gladness out of me. 

When my feelings become four-dimensional and surround and drown me, I lose all perspective on what got me out of bed to begin the day.

God is in these intricate details, whether the splash of light on a petal or the smell of rotting compost; it is my job to notice this. It is tempting to look past His ubiquitous presence in all things, to seek out only the elegant grandeur of creation and bypass the plain and smelly and homely.

Yet even what lacks beauty from my limited perspective is worthy of His divine attention. He knows the value and purpose of each thing He created, including me and the things that aggravate me no end – like mosquitos.

The time has come to be refreshed and renewed
even when surrounded by decay.
His care is revealed in the tiniest way.
He is worthy of my attention because I am constantly worthy of His.

If I rise early enough, I can see each new day’s light splash everything awake. By the time I come in to sit down to record my words and photos, I’m thoroughly washed by a fresh dawn. I can scarcely wait to take on what this day will bring.

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

Consumed by Harrowing Fire

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(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
~Sara Teasdale “There Will Come Soft Rains”

…one of man’s purposes is to assist God
in the work of “hallowing” the things of Creation.
By a tremendous heave of the spirit,
the devout man frees the divine sparks
trapped in the mute things of time;
he uplifts the forms and moments of creation,
bearing them aloft
into the rare air and hallowing fire
in which all clays must shatter and burst.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puffing out skirts of spark and smoke.

The crash. The attic smashing into kitchen and parlour. The parlour into cellar, cellar into sub-cellar.

Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke.

Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble
and steam:

“Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”

~Ray Bradbury from the end of his 1950 short story “There Will Come Soft Rains”

So much of the world is beset by smoke and ashes this summer.

Not only are the fires roaring uncontrolled across landscapes, consuming everything in their path,
but harrowing fires burn within us as well.

We too are consumed,
left in a haze of gray and dust.

Even the smoke-painted sun traverses the sky
and then settles and sets,
swallowed by a seed puff ball,
absorbed and hallowed.

Like us, may it be released aloft this morning
transformed like a seed freed to the wind,
to rise unfettered and holy.

Unanswerable Questions

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Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

   Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~Carl Sandburg “Under the Harvest Moon”

I mistake the sound of a recycling cart
hitting the curb

for the latch of our gate
and picture him instantly:

my father stumbling
into the light of the backyard

to shoot himself.

I’d been looking at the fruit trees
and the fire pit,

the loose board of the old fence
in the wind.

I’d been thinking of how lost
you’d have to be

to believe you knew
everything there was to know

about yourself.
And now this sound

I mistake for my father
going through with it: one

awful letter in his coat pocket
to me, another

to my unborn son.
~Bobby Elliot “Mondegreen” from The Same Man

I’ve been there, and so have you.

I might hear or see or smell something
completely benign and insignificant,
but my brain processes it differently,
its similarity to past memory or experience
bringing it front and center and real again.

Often it is a song, or a smell, or a date on the calendar.
It can be an unexpected, sudden sound,
like a slammed door
or a recorded voice or photo from long ago.

This can lead to time travel
back to that previous moment in time,
with the feeling of being right there again.

It can be a lovely memory, warm and comforting,
or it can be a total nightmare
I never want to remember or reexperience.

When it happens to me,
to distract from the distress it can cause,
I instead admire the stickiness of my stored memories,
how powerful chemical connections are
between my body and my feelings.

There is poignancy in how I
relive those moments of past joy and struggles,
trying to capture in words what just happened,
all the while knowing, for the rest of my days,
some questions will forever remain unanswered.

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

Plowing Deep for Love

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image
image
Photo by Joel DeWaard

It’s the immemorial feelings
I like the best: hunger, thirst,
their satisfaction; work-weariness,
earned rest; the falling again
from loneliness to love;
the green growth the mind takes
from the pastures in March;
the gayety in the stride 
of a good team of Belgian mares
that seems to shudder from me
through all my ancestry.
~Wendell Berry “Goods”

photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard

The plow has savaged this sweet field
Misshapen clods of earth kicked up
Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view
Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.

I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. The job is done.
Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that’s to come.
I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons—

The farmer plows to plant a greening season.
~Parker Palmer “Harrowing”

photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard

It’s not likely anyone would say I didn’t work hard enough.

After all, I come from a long line of human work-horses
who knew it takes sweat and tears, and sometimes bleeding.

Even so, all those years
I know I could have plowed more deeply than I did.

I could have thrown myself more fully
into the pull on the tugs,
shared the load more effectively,
shouldered the yoke with greater enthusiasm,
bent my neck down low with unbroken determination.

You could say somewhere
I lost the gayety in my stride,
and you would be right —
toward the end, I was trudging through the furrow,
bruised from turning up too many submerged rocks,
bumping into immoveable tree stumps,
tripping on hidden roots,
stuck in the deep mud
of long and lonely post-midnight hours.

You might even say the knowledge of a job well-done
lay at a depth my plow could ever reach.

I had seen others die in the harness,
never able to rest easy.

A few years ago I knew
the time had come
to shrug off the yoke,
shake off the bridle and bit,
shudder free of the harness.

On this side of the ground,
I find myself wondering and wandering,
the blinkers no longer impeding my vision,
feeling the morning sun on my unyoked withers.

Yet when I see an untilled field,
something in me even now
still tries to hold on to the plow —

photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard

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.

A Road to Lead Me Home

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It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door.
You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet,
there is no knowing where you might be swept off too.
~J.R.R. Tolkien – Bilbo to Frodo in Fellowship of the Rings

What if this road, that has held no surprises
these many years, decided not to go
home after all; what if it could turn
left or right with no more ado
than a kite-tail? What if its tarry skin
were like a long, supple bolt of cloth,
that is shaken and rolled out, and takes
a new shape from the contours beneath?
And if it chose to lay itself down
in a new way, around a blind corner,
across hills you must climb without knowing
what’s on the other side, who would not hanker
to be going, at all risks? Who wants to know
a story’s end, or where a road will go?
~Sheenagh Pugh “What if This Road?”

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish;
but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.
~C.S. Lewis from The Great Divorce

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When Light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye —

A Moment — We Uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darknesses —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.
~Emily Dickinson

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
~Jane Hirschfield from “The Weighing”

I admit I stumble if not careful,
bearing some bruises and scrapes from
hazards hidden in darkness.

My eyes slowly adjust to such bare illumination,
when the Lamp is dim and the road unfamiliar.

I’m feeling my way through uncertainty in this time of life.

I suspect there are fellow darkness travelers
who also have lost their way and their Light,
giving away what they can
and sometimes more than they have.

And so, blinded as we each are,
we run forehead-first into the Tree
which has always been there and always will be,
the symbol of our salvation.

Because of who we are and Who loves us,
we, now free and forgiven,
safely follow a darkened road made nearly straight,
all the way Home.

Lyrics: Tell me where is the road I can call my own,
That I left, that I lost, so long ago.
All these years I have wondered, oh when will I know,
There’s a way, there’s a road that will lead me home.

After wind, After rain, when the dark is done,
As I wake from a dream, in the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling from far away,
There’s a voice I can hear that will lead me home.

Rise up, follow me, come away is the call
With (the) love in your heart as the only song
There is no such beauty as where you belong
Rise up, follow me, I will lead you home.

Seeing Clearly

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Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.
~William Butler Yeats from “Vacillation”

photo by Emily Dieleman

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.
White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind
Was too busy visiting sea after sea.
We did not succeed in interesting the animals.
Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,
A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.
A person seemingly very close
Did not care to hear of things long past.
Conversations with friends over vodka or coffee
Ought not be prolonged beyond the first sign of boredom.
It would be humiliating to pay by the hour
A man with a diploma, just for listening.
Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?
That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble
Yet later in our place an ugly toad
Half-opens its thick eyelid
And one sees clearly: “That’s me.”
~Czeslaw Milosz “At a Certain Age”

photo by Nate Gibson

I have a brief confession
that I would like to make.
If I don’t get it off my chest
I’m sure my heart will break.

I didn’t do my reading.
I watched TV instead—
while munching cookies, cakes, and chips
and cinnamon raisin bread.

I didn’t wash the dishes.
I didn’t clean the mess.
Now there are roaches eating crumbs—
a million, more or less.

I didn’t turn the TV off.
I didn’t shut the light.
Just think of all the energy
I wasted through the night.

I feel so very guilty.
I did a lousy job.
I hope my students don’t find out
that I am such a slob.
~Bruce Lansky “Confession”

Norman Rockwell’s “Before the Shot”
photo by Barb Hoelle

We all have confessions we could make.
We all want to avoid admitting mistakes and failings.
We all live under the black cloud of knowing our guilt and shame.

I have plenty of opportunity to replay the many moments I’ve regretted what I said or did,
or what I could have said or did….and didn’t.
Recalling remorse is far easier and stickier
than replaying joy that seems so fleeting in my memory.

There are times when I feel both weighed down by memories
and freed at the same time.

It almost always happens while sitting in worship in church,
silently confessing how I have wronged those around me
or turned my face from God.

Yet in the next moment,
I feel the embrace of a Creator who never forgets but still forgives.
It is an overwhelming knowledge that brings me to tears every time.

It is in that moment that my joy no longer is fleeting;
it lives deeply in my cells since I, like all around me,
am created in His image.

And no, we don’t look like a toad.

God saw what He made in His image,
and it was, and still is, good –
though flawed in our own choices.
He made each of us out of love for us,
not out of regret.
We each open our heavy eyelids, see His Face
and can say, “That’s me.”

toad picture by Josh Scholten

Within That Grip Until the End of Time

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The severest pain will send you
to your bed, drop you to the floor.

The severest pain will roll you
into a fetal ball, and squeeze.

Within that grip, you might descend
into your long-abandoned core,

where, mid uncommon darkness, you
may find the door, whose opening

avails at last that lacuna
wherein the nous proves yet to be

also more spacious than heaven,
bearing also the Very God,

who is most pleased to meet you there.
~Scott Cairn “The End of Suffering” from Lacunae

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.
~William Stafford “Cutting Loose” from Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems

Before my fever broke,
And the pains lessened, I could actually see
Myself, in the exact center of that square.
How still it had become in my absence, & how
Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see
The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree,
See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than
I had seen anything before in my whole life:
Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk,
The leaves were becoming only what they had to be—
Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing
More—& frankly they were nothing in themselves,
Nothing except their little reassurance
Of persisting for a few more days, or returning
The year after, & the year after that, & every
Year following—estranged from us by now—& clear,
So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed
And always coming back—steadfast, orderly,
Taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time.
~Larry Levis from The Widening Spell of the Leaves 

I did not sleep well last night —
my mind would not stop turning over and over,
my blankets twisted in turmoil,
my muscles too tense and tight.  

The worries of the day
needed serious wrestling in the dark
rather than settling forgotten under my pillow.

Yet this morning dawns anew.

I’m comforted by the rhythm
of hours starting fresh, like leaves on the trees
steadfast, orderly,
taciturn, oblivious—until the end of Time…

So today, I’ll get my hands dirty
digging a hole deep enough to hold my worries;
tomorrow I’ll forget where exactly I buried them.

Flare Up Like A Flame

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God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.
~Rainer Maria Rilke “Go the the Limits of Your Longing” from Book of Hours

…you mustn’t be frightened …
if a sadness rises in front of you,
larger than any you have ever seen;
if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows,
moves over your hands and over everything you do.
You must realize that something is happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you,
that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.
Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness,
any misery, any depression, since after all
you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you?
~Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

We were made for difficult times such as these:
we feel things deeply,
our joys and awe and fears ~
so much so we can feel swept away.

Feelings are not the final say
yet they both motivate and immobilize us.

God has told us to be His Light in the shadows;
we will find Him if we long for Him.

Though we may feel lost,
wandering, uncertain, hopeless
He takes us by the hand and leads us through.

Grab hold and hang on tight.