Tag: beginning

A New Life Begins

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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
the 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

If I rise early enough, I can see a new day’s light splash everything awake.

I wander about the farm, bleary-eyed, watching and feeling it happen.

By the time I come in to sit down to my words and photos, I’m thoroughly washed with dawn, ready to take on what this day will bring.


A Breath Does the Rest

barnstormingblog3 Comments

dandy16

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This dandelion has long ago surrendered its golden petals, and has reached its crowning stage of dying – the delicate seed globe must break up now – it gives and gives till it has nothing left.  The hour of this new dying is clearly defined to the dandelion globe; it is marked by detachment.  There is no sense of wrenching; it stands ready, holding up its little life, no knowing when or where or how the wind that bloweth where it listeth may carry it away.  It holds itself no longer for its own keeping, only as something to be given; a breath does the rest…
~Lilias Trotter from “The Dandelion”

dandyyellow

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The farm is covered with them now;  momentary perfection standing ready to break apart and fly whether jostled by human or animal, breeze or breath.

The sacrifice of one becomes a gift of millions. A breath started it all and ends it all.

How can it be when nothing is left, everything is gained?

 

 

dandyseeds

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End of September

barnstormingblog2 Comments

fog101929

novfield

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it rained in my sleep
and in the morning the fields were wet

I dreamed of artillery
of the thunder of horses

in the morning the fields were strewn
with twigs and leaves

as if after a battle
or a sudden journey

I went to sleep in the summer
I dreamed of rain

in the morning the fields were wet
and it was autumn
~Linda Pastan “September”

morningrise

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I can choose to fight the inevitable march of time with sighs and sorrows,
thus arm myself with sour bitterness for what is no more,

or I can flow unmoved for as long as I can stay afloat,
only passively aware of the passage of all around me,

or I can smile with awaking each morning, whether to sun or wind or rain,
grateful I’ve been given one more day to get it right,

or at least to care enough to try.

rainylane2

sunrise929161

Autumnal Beginning

barnstormingblog1 Comment
 
“That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing… obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”
~Wallace Stegner in Angle of Repose
 

How is it the same day can be wistful and yet jubilant?  More than New Year’s Day, the beginning of autumn represents so many turned over “leafs”.  We are literally reminded of this whenever we look at the trees and how their leaves are turning and letting go, making joy as they make way, the slate wiped clean and ready to be scribbled on once again.

Tomorrow the school where I’ve worked for nearly a quarter century welcomes back 15,000 students to its halls and classrooms.  We see or are contacted by 2% of those students every day about their health concerns and symptoms.  I am struck anew every autumn when each adult comes to the university with that clean slate, hoping to start fresh, leaving behind what has not worked well for them in the past.  These are patients who are open to change because they are dedicating themselves to self-transformation through knowledge and discipline.

It is a true privilege, as a college health doc, to participate in our students’ transition to become autonomous critical thinkers who strive to better the world as compassionate global citizens.  Their rich colors deepen once they let go to fly wherever the wind may take them.

We who remain rooted in place celebrate each new beginning, knowing we nurture the coming transformation.

photo by Josh Scholten