Tag: books

A Thousand Thoughts

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Yes, I know my mind is a fickle little bee
doting on a thousand thoughts, but I’m getting
better at chasing my mind back to the moment

so I can see the spiderwebs making hammocks
the color of the moon. My son tries to photograph
a rainbow outside the car window. It’s impossible,

of course, this wonder, the trying to hold it.
But I do what I can. I’ve stopped waiting to enjoy
the cinnamon tea. I take deeper breaths and listen

to the flutter of strings floating down from café
speakers. I don’t want to be a pilgrim of memory
anymore. I want to pop the champagne and salute

this now, and this one with soft brie, dried apricots,
and the sunset celebration another anniversary
of light while I eat fists of grapes the same shade

and sweetness of night. Congratulations, Time. Look
at you and your gorgeous minutes full of everything.
Three cheers for the temp agency that hired this

particular day, these particular clouds, this set
of honking geese migrating through it. I want to be
better at being alive, so I’ve been picturing my heart

as a fox—which means wild and nocturnal, not
terrorizing the neighbor’s chickens. My love says
most equations in quantum field theory give infinity

as an answer, which is not meaningful because all
infinities are the same. In that case, let’s stop reaching
so hard for it. I’ll take this infinity’s morning where

my son and I confused falling leaves for monarchs.
Every time we thought we saw a butterfly, it was
just a leaf with the gentlest falling. We laughed at

every mistake, and he said, That was a beautiful
confusion. Sometimes when the moment doesn’t offer
a praying mantis on the porch or a charismatic sky,

I imagine my heart is my son’s face, and I am back
in love with the day, its astonishments like hot-air
balloons, and the daily present of power lines strung

with starlings like dozens of music notes. Let me
be more bound to my living in each moment, be held
by this hum, that cloud, this breath, that shroud.
~Traci Brimhall “This Beautiful Confusion” from Love Prodigal

Some Monday mornings, my mind is going in a thousand different directions. So I follow, knowing there will never be another Monday morning quite like this one. I hope there will be a few hundred more Monday mornings to come.

I want to be better at being alive,
noticing, remembering, connecting,
and grateful to be breathing.

Perhaps you are here because — you do too…

our sons – 1990
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The Silence Between Words

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Words, of course, but
Also the silence
Between them.

Like the silence
Between
The beloved and you.
Silence full
Of the unspoken
As a seed is full
Of all
It will become.

No poem made only
Of silence.
No poem 
Made only of words.
~Gregory Orr from “Words, of course, but” from How Beautiful the Beloved

Some mornings all I do
is write down words—cistern,
tribal, cached—copying them
from sprawled pages of books
across my desk, words that call out—
glimmerings, cursive, saffron,
heartwood—holding me in place
as if to say listen, you may need me
someday, I might offer you another way
toward beauty, or even beyond.
~Andrea Potos “Daily Practices” from The Presence of One Word

I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable.
I want them to honor
both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
the gladness that says, without any words, everything.
~Mary Oliver from “Everything” from New and Selected Poems: Volume Two

This morning

poem hopes 

that even though
its lines are broken 

its reader 

will be drawn forward to the part where blueberries
firm against fingers 

say roundness sweetness unspeakable softness
     in the morning
light.
~L.L. Barkat, “This Morning” from The Golden Dress

In the ghostly dawn
I write new words for your ears—
Even now you sleep.
~Amy Lowell “V” from Twenty-Four Hokku

The blueberry fields
are all afire,
each leaf an October mosaic.

As chlorophyll wanes,
the colors appear by magic,
like words selected for a poem
which begins as an empty slate.

Each carefully chosen.

Each surrounded by silence
becoming more holy
when it’s no longer empty.

So much of the beauty of poetry is the silence, a pause between the words.

Like life, there is nothing empty or meaningless about pausing.

Like poet Mary Oliver:

I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable.

I am so awed at your faithful reading and generous sharing of what I offer here.

Even when my lines are broken, or I say again what another has already said much better, yet bears repeating — I too try to write with quiet hands, and see through quiet eyes, out of reverence and awe for what unseeable gifts God has given us.

Thank you for being here with me.

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Alone Together

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Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.
~A.S. Byatt from Possession

If librarians were honest,
they would say, No one
spends time here without being
changed. Maybe you should
go home. While you still can.
~Joseph Mills from “If Librarians Were Honest”

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?

Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?

Why are we reading, if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage and the hope of meaningfulness, and press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?
~Annie Dillard from “Write Till You Drop”

…for people who love books and need
To touch them, open them, browse for a while,
And find some common good––that’s why we read.
Readers and writers are two sides of the same gold coin.
You write and I read and in that moment I find
A union more perfect than any club I could join:
The simple intimacy of being one mind.
     Here in a book-filled sun-lit room below the street,
     Strangers––some living, some dead––are hoping to meet.
~Garrison Keillor 

The mere brute pleasure of reading–the sort of pleasure a cow has in grazing.
~G.K. Chesterton

photo by Kate Steensma

Each day as I decide what to share here, I think of each of you who might open my email, or click on a link to see what I have to say.

We are alone together, you and I, for only a few minutes. I consider that precious time you are entrusting to me and want to make it worthwhile.

When you read this, you may be eating breakfast, or in the middle of your workday at the computer, or on your phone during a commute, or sitting in a waiting room wondering when your name will be called.

Or maybe you are sitting in the bathroom, or past ready to fall asleep in bed.

I am honored and humbled to hear from you after our alone time together each day.

I too spend reading time alone every day, grateful for what writers write while alone. I don’t tell them often enough how they change my day for the better.

Some are long gone from this world, so I’ll never have the chance.

Like infinite blades of grass in a pasture, I find far too many words to read — so much to consume, so little time. I nibble away, blade by blade, page by page, word by word, but the greatest pleasure of all is to settle down into a good long cud-chewing session, redigesting and mulling over what all I’ve taken in.

It is brute pleasure to take in words that grow roots so deep they never go away, words that sustain and make me grow and keep me alive.   Words to illuminate from without and within.

That is something to chew on.

So from me to you, tell me how I’m doing…

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Exposed to the Light of Day

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The book sat on the table
for years
before it opened to a page
exposed to light
for the first time.

In their new surroundings
the words trembled
shaking all meaning
from their assembly,
the reader unable to enter.

Then the ink began to run
past the margins
to the mahogany to the floor,
random drops collecting themselves,
expanding from within.

The reader saw fit to stand
by the window,
following a cloud
till it stalled in front of the sun,
sweeping its passage along eyes closed.

As the sky proceeded
to draw the ink from the floor,
affixing the once-quivering words
to the slow-moving cloud,
the reader read the page in the dark.

And when the day’s shadows turned in
for the night
the book closed as it had opened
without a hand,
the reader calling it a day

of prayer.
~Howard Altmann “The Reader” from Infinite Sky Divided

Since childhood, I’ve imagined the books on my shelf having an internal life of their own, filled as they are with words and characters and plots and devices, contained in darkness between two covers until someone opens and reads.

Those words are freed, exposed to the light of day, to leak through the bindings or trickle down the pages to find new destinations. The stories morph, journeying on to who knows where.

Perhaps they drift to the ever-changing clouds that illuminate or darken the skies, depending upon their impact: some words of joy and some words of lament and sorrow.

Perhaps like closed books whose words are set free, when I pray, my words are liberated into the changing light to reach the ear of God.

And it is there my story is told, and He listens carefully to each word.

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What a Little Thing

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Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing;
What a little thing
To remember for years
To remember with tears!
~William Allingham “A Memory”

Tell no one of the wonders
of the Mallard duck’s green head,
how it glistens in the sun
against the gentle red
of the Willow branches budding
in the golden spring sun,
as they paddle through the waters
where the creek has come undone.

Tell no one of the beauty
of the butterflies that flit
through the flowers not yet budding
on the little sandy spit,
how their wings will keep them searching
for the hope that blooms in Spring
as they hover over what will be
a very lovely thing.

Tell no one of the glory
or the warmth of young spring’s sun,
of the joy that comes from watching
the smallest creatures run,
of the life that is teeming
in the wake of newborn day,
of the power that hope holds
over all we do and say.

Tell no one of the miracle
that is this daily life,
that cuts you to the quick
as if with sharpest knife.
Tell no one what you notice,
into which your wonder delves.
Tell no one of these things —
let them know it for themselves.
~Elizabeth Wickland “Tell No One”

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

~William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939

so much depends
upon me riding a red trike
chased by my little brother

now rusty memories frozen in time
and cobwebs

such a little thing is
never to be forgotten

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Rummaging Among Clouds

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The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky—
So many white clouds—and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the boughs and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls. …
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears….
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.
~Katherine Mansfield “Very Early Spring”

You might say that clouds have no nationality
Being flags of no country, flaunting their innocent neutrality
Across frontiers, ignorant of boundaries;
But these clouds are clearly foreign, such an exotic clutter
Against the blue cloth of the sky
I want to rummage among them, I want to turn them over
With eager fingers, I want to bargain
For this one or that one, I want to haggle and dicker
Over the prices, and I want to see my clouds wrapped up
In sheets of old newspapers, and give them away
To young girls to pin in their hair
Or tuck them, glossy as gardenias, behind an ear,
Or stretch one out to the length of a lacy shawl
And toss it over a shoulder, or around a waist.
~Constance Urdang “Clouds”

Our farm sits about 9 miles from an international border. The sky and clouds are oblivious to the line drawn by two governments, and don’t bother to stop at the border stations controlling access of humans across that line.

The clouds are free to go where they please, so they do, while we watch. They are both a foreign and domestic cloud of witnesses to our earthbound follies and foolishness.

No passports or IDs, no being pulled into “secondary” for more intensive searches and questioning, no being “turned back” not allowed across, no deportations.

They simply float and glide where the breezes take them, assuming whatever shape, identity or characteristics they wish.

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood if one happens to be a cloud or a cloud of witnesses…

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Where You Go, I Will Go: Constant and Changeable

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Light changes slowly with subtle words
such as cautious and determined,
marking a demarcation line across the horizon,
delineating between day and night
taking over the sky. Drakes in the wetlands
are excited by the transformation.

In daylight, the moon is a white wafer.
Perception only amazes
the participant who never notices
the daily occurrences with minor variations.

What difference are the blending shades,
clouds wheeling like hawks, the way light
haunches on the edge while day begins or ends.
There is always this anticipation of the differences,
and the end results are that our expectations are met—

not in color or uncertain times for the transfers
but in the way no two days begin or end the same.
For thousands of years, the universe has palpitated,
expanded, and contracted like a heart
with such restlessness we barely notice
what is plain to the eye: the universe is constant
and changeable. We barely break the surface
of observation, and when we do, we take for granted
the drakes will migrate when marshes are ice-tinged,
and the drakes will return when spring returns,
never considering it might be otherwise.
~Martin Willitts Jr., “Transformation” from Leave Nothing Behind

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
~Jane Kenyon “Otherwise”

No two days begin or end the same way.
It is my privilege to watch and take note.

I spent much of seven decades barely noticing, absorbed in all but what transpired right beneath my feet and over my head.

Now I take the time and effort to appreciate each day’s uniqueness and share what I see and hear and feel.

Yes, palpitations in the world and within me catch my breath.
There is expansion and contraction
and some moments of skipped beats.

The point is that the beat goes on.

I’ll never take transformation for granted again.
I welcome it, even as it focuses and fascinates and frightens me.
I am well aware, now ever aware,
it always could be otherwise.

This year’s Lenten theme:

…where you go I will go…
Ruth 1:16

English translation:

Hear, smith of the heavens,
what the poet asks.
May softly come unto me
thy mercy.
So I call on thee,
for thou hast created me.
I am thy slave,
thou art my Lord.

God, I call on thee
to heal me.
Remember me, mild one,
most we need thee.
Drive out, O king of suns,
generous and great,
human every sorrow
from the city of the heart.

Watch over me, mild one,
most we need thee,
truly every moment
in the world of men.
Send us, son of the virgin,
good causes,
all aid is from thee,
in my heart.

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Intended for Joy

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There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
~John Calvin as quoted in  John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (Oxford, 1988) by William J. Bouwsma

It is too easy to become blinded to the glory surrounding us if we allow it to seem routine and commonplace. 

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated a blade of grass, given how focused I am in mowing it into conformity and submission. 

During the summer months, I’m seldom up early enough to witness the pink sunrise. In the winter, I’m too busy making dinner to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets.

I miss opportunities to stop and notice what surrounds me innumerable times a day. It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel the joy, and for that moment time stands still.  So life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.  

If a blade of grass, if a palette of color,
if all this is made for joy,
then perhaps, so am I.
Even colorless, commonplace, sometimes stormy me.
Indeed, so am I.

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The Light That’s Left Them

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Now’s a good time, before the night comes on,
To praise the loyalty of the vase of flowers
Gracing the parlor table, and the bowl of oranges,
And the book with freckled pages resting on the tablecloth.
To remark how these items aren’t conspiring
To pack their bags and move to a place
Where stillness appears to more advantage.
No plan for a heaven above, beyond, or within,
Whose ever-blooming bushes are rustling
In a sea breeze at this very moment.
These things are focusing all their attention
On holding fast as time washes around them.
The flowers in the vase won’t come again.
The page of the book beside it, the edge turned down,
Will never be read again for the first time.
The light from the window’s angled.
The sun’s moving on. That’s why the people
Who live in the house are missing.
They’re all outside enjoying the light that’s left them.
Lucky for them to find when they return
These silent things just as they were.
Night’s coming on and they haven’t been frightened off.
They haven’t once dreamed of going anywhere.
~Carl Dennis, “Still Life” from Ranking the Wishes

Wendell Berry – Another Day Sabbath Poems

The transformation of objects in space,
or objects in time,
To objects outside either, but tactile, still precise…
It’s always the same problem –
Nothing’s more abstract, more unreal,
than what we actually see.
The job is to make it otherwise.
~Charles Wright from “Basic Dialogue” in Appalachia

Annie Dillard – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Let us treasure the Light that is left to us, to dwell outside in its midst as night is coming.

Meanwhile, a still life exists within, unchanging, real, tangible, not going anywhere.

Stillness is always there if we decide to come in as the dark descends.

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Page After Page

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Just looking at them
I grow greedy, as if they were
freshly baked loaves
waiting on their shelves
to be broken open—that one
and that—and I make my choice
in a mood of exalted luck,
browsing among them
like a cow in sweetest pasture.

For life is continuous
as long as they wait
to be read—these inked paths
opening into the future, page
after page, every book
its own receding horizon.
And I hold them, one in each hand,
a curious ballast weighting me
here to the earth.
~Linda Pastan “The Bookstall” from Carnival Evening

…for people who love books and need
To touch them, open them, browse for a while,
And find some common good––that’s why we read.
Readers and writers are two sides of the same gold coin.
You write and I read and in that moment I find
A union more perfect than any club I could join:
The simple intimacy of being one mind.
     Here in a book-filled sun-lit room below the street,
     Strangers––some living, some dead––are hoping to meet.
~Garrison Keillor 

You know who you are.

You are the person who stockpiles stacks of books
on the bedside table and next to your favorite chair.

The person who sacrifices sleep to read
just one more page.

The person who reads the cereal box when
nothing else is available near the breakfast table.

The girl who falls into an uncovered manhole
walking down a busy street while reading.

The objects of your affection may be
as precious as the Book of Kells.

or as sappy as an Archie and Jughead
comic book.

It’s the words, the words,
that keep zipping by, telegraphing

an urgent message: What’s next?
What’s next?
~Lois Edstrom “Bookworm” from Almanac of Quiet Days

Most of my life has been a reading rather than a writing life. For too many decades, I spent most of my time reading scientific and medical journals, to keep up with the changing knowledge in my profession. Even as a retired physician, I try to spend an hour a day reading medical articles but now have the time to dabble in books of memoir, biography, poetry and the occasional novel.

As a reader, I am no longer a stranger to the author or poet whose words I read. In a few instances, I’ve had the honor and privilege to meet my favorite authors in real life and to interact with them on line. Some are friends on the page as well as in my life.

I am no longer a stranger to many of you who read my words here on Barnstorming every day – I have been able to meet a number of you over the years. There is no greater privilege than to share our stories with one another.

No matter where I discover books – in an independent bookstore, in a little free library standing along the roadside, or inside the world’s treasured libraries filled with books of antiquity – I seek out the privileged sanctuary of turning page after page written by those who graciously give me a glimpse of their inner world.

If librarians were honest,
they would say, No one
spends time here without being
changed. Maybe you should
go home. While you still can.
~Joseph Mills from “If Librarians Were Honest”

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