Tag: fiction

Somewhere Only I Know

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I miss the friendship with the pine tree and the birds
that I had when I was ten.
And it has been forever since I pushed my head
under the wild silk skirt of the waterfall.

The big rock on the shore was the skull of a dead king
whose name we could almost remember.
Under the rooty bank you could dimly see
the bunk beds of the turtles.

Nobody I know mentions these things anymore.
It’s as if their memories have been seized, erased, and relocated
among flowcharts and complex dinner-party calendars.

Now I want to turn and run back the other way,
barefoot into the underbrush,
getting raked by thorns, being slapped in the face by branches.

Down to the muddy bed of the little stream
where my cupped hands make a house, and

I tilt up the roof
to look at the face of the frog.
~Tony Hoagland, from “Nature” from  Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty

I grew up on a small farm with several acres of woodland. It was my retreat until I left for college; I walked among twittering birds, skittering wild bunnies, squirrels and chipmunks, busy ant hills and trails, blowing leaves, swimming tadpoles, falling nuts, waving wildflowers, large firs, pines, cottonwoods, maples and alder trees.

I had a favorite “secret” spot sitting perched on a stump where a large rock provided a favorite sunning spot for salamanders. They and I would make eye contact, pondering our common Creator.

At college I longed for a place as private, as serene, but nothing could match the woods and creatures of my childhood home. After living a decade in the city, I nearly forgot what a familiar woods felt like.

On this farm we’ve stewarded for nearly forty years, I’ve longed for a similar sanctuary, yet my distractions are so much greater than when I was a child. Filled with greater worries, I can’t empty my head and heart as completely to receive the varied gifts to be found around me.

In my ever-shortening timeline to accomplish what I’ve been placed here to do, I need to study the faces of creation, knowing those eyes reflect the face of God.

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A Christmas Dayspring

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Now, newborn,
in wide-eyed wonder
he gazes up at his creation.
His hand that hurled the world
holds tight his mother’s finger.
Holy light
spills across her face
and she weeps
silent wondering tears
to know she holds the One
who has so long held her.
~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary” in  Light Upon Light 

Now burn, new born to the world,
Doubled-naturèd name,
The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled
Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,
Mid-numbered he in three of the thunder-throne!

Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;
Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;
A released shower, let flash to the shire,
not a lightning of fíre hard-hurled.

Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us,
be a crimson-cresseted east…
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”

Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1:78-79 (Zechariah’s Song)

It never fails to surprise and amaze:
a colorful dawn seems to come from nowhere. 

There is always bleak dark,
then a hint of light over the foothills in a long thin line,
followed by the appearance of subtle dawn shadows
as if the night needs to cling to the ground a little while longer,
not wanting to relent and let us go. 

Then color appears, erasing all doubt:
the hills begin to glow orange along their crest,
as if a flame is ignited and is spreading down a wick. 
Ultimately the explosion of Light occurs,
spreading the orange pink palette unto the clouds above,
climbing high to bathe the glaciers of Mount Baker
and onto the peaks of the Twin Sisters.

~a Dayspring to our dimness~

From dark to light, ordinary to extraordinary.
This gift is from the tender mercy of our God,
who has become the Light of a new Day,
guiding our feet on the pathway of peace. 

We no longer need to stumble about in the shadows.
He has come to light our darkness.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
~John 1:5

Sleeping child, I wonder, have you a dream to share?
May I see the things you see as you slumber there?
I dream a wind that speaks, like music as it blows
As if it were the breath of everything that grows.

I dream a flock of birds flying through the night
Like silent stars on wings of everlasting light.
I dream a flowing river, deep as a thousand years,
Its fish are frozen sorrow, its water bitter tears.

I dream a tree so green, branches wide and long,
And ev’ry leaf and ev’ry voice a song.
I dream of a babe who sleeps, a life that’s just begun.
A word that waits to be spoken.
The promise of a world to come.
~Charles Bennett “Sleeping Child”

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Call Nothing Common

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Begin the song exactly where you are,
Remain within the world of which you’re made.
Call nothing common in the earth or air,
Accept it all and let it be for good.

Start with the very breath you breathe in now,
This moment’s pulse, this rhythm in your blood
And listen to it, ringing soft and low.
Stay with the music, words will come in time.

Slow down your breathing. Keep it deep and slow.
Become an open singing-bowl, whose chime
Is richness rising out of emptiness,
And timelessness resounding into time.

And when the heart is full of quietness
Begin the song exactly where you are.
~Malcolm Guite “The Singing Bowl” from The Singing Bowl

In the center of my chest,
a kindling there in the hollow,
as if a match had just been struck,
or the blinds snapped up on a sealed room,
gold suffusing the air,
and through the wide windows,
a solstice unfolding,
mine for the lengthening days.
~Andrea Potts “On Reading John Donne for the First Time” from Her Joy Becomes

I will not forget, dear harvest moon,
to keep you as my singing bowl
where I can find your song months from now,
even when your reflected light leaks out
to tangle up in the weary trees of autumn.

Once the leaves fall, you illuminate
even the most humble branches
in their embarrassed nakedness.

Call nothing common in the earth or air,
Accept it all and let it be for good.

When I too need your warm light
in the center of my hollowed chest,
I’ll know exactly where to find you,
as you sing lullabies, waiting for me to empty.

I’ll not forget you,
because you never forget to
keep looking for me.

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Softer Than Rain

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Teach me to walk
with tender feet,
as the wild ones do.
Let me be the cinder-glow
of the fox in her burrow, wreathed
around the honey-spark fur
of her sleeping kits.

Let me be the shaded pools
of the doe’s eyes
in winter, when the snow falls,
when the stars lean down to listen,
when the world is darker
and softer
than rain.

Let me be the swallow
after flight, when she is
perched upon the branch
where the petals of the lilacs used to be,
and she is just still, and quiet,
her downy head inclined, as though
she is praying
for their return.
~Kimberly Beck “Tender Feet”

As the weather changes,
softening in the mists of autumn,
I walk each step with careful feet,
my tender heart singing songs in the rain.
I pray for peace in this troubled land,
for protection from harm until spring comes again.

May God grant a gentle night’s sleep for all His creatures.

video by Harry Rodenberger

Lyrics for Aragorn’s Sleepsong:
Lay down your head and I’ll sing you a lullaby
Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay
And I’ll sing you to sleep and I’ll sing you tomorrow

Bless you with love for the road that you go
May you sail far to the far fields of fortune
With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet
And may you need never to banish misfortune

May you find kindness in all that you meet
May there always be angels to watch over you
To guide you each step of the way
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

May you bring love and may you bring happiness
Be loved in return to the end of your days
Now fall off to sleep, I’m not meaning to keep you
I’ll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay

May there always be angels to watch over you
To guide you each step of the way
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

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Pure State of Light

barnstormingblog4 Comments

How hard it is to take September
straight—not as a harbinger
of something harder.

Merely like suds in the air, cool scent
scrubbed clean of meaning—or innocent
of the cold thing coldly meant.

How hard the heart tugs at the end
of summer, and longs to haul it in
when it flies out of hand

at the prompting of the first mild breeze.
It leaves us by degrees
only, but for one who sees

summer as an absolute,
Pure State of Light and Heat, the height
to which one cannot raise a doubt,

as soon as one leaf’s off the tree
no day following can fall free
of the drift of melancholy.
~Mary Jo Salter “Absolute September”

Only nine days left of summer –
I search the skies for what might be left of it.

The mornings lighten later,
evenings darken sooner.

How can I not sadden at the change?

Yet this is where I am in life,
this time of bringing inside the garden and orchard
to savor and salvage before the rains come.

The light leaves behind ripened fruit of foraged memories;
in the darkening, its purity sweetens over time.

AI image created for this post
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