In the hope that 2016 will be filled with daily opportunities for a slow walk through moments of serene beauty~
blessings to you all from Barnstorming!
For more “Best of Barnstorming” photos:
Seasons on the Farm:
BriarCroft in Summer, in Autumn, in Winter,
at Year’s End
Lord: it is time.
The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from Autumn Day
In these sweet mellow October days,
bushes gone dormant in the drought of summer
are awakening, confused and blooming six months early.
I feel like breaking into blossom too,
eagerly awaiting each sunrise
as it spills all over me
like an elixir.
I went out to cut a last batch of zinnias this
morning from the back fencerow and got my shanks
chilled for sure: furrowy dark gray clouds with
separating fringes of blue sky-grass: and the dew
beaded up heavier than the left-overs of the rain:
in the zinnias, in each of two, a bumblebee
stirring in slow motion. Trying to unwind
the webbed drug of cold, buzzing occasionally but
with a dry rattle: bees die with the burnt honey
at their mouths, at least: the fact’s established:
it is not summer now and the simmering buzz is out of
heat: the zucchini blossoms falling show squash
overgreen with stunted growth: the snapdragons have
suckered down into a blossom or so: we passed
into dark last week the even mark of day and night
and what we hoped would stay we yield to change.
~A.R. Ammons “Equinox”
We yield now
to the heaviness of the change,
the slowing of our walk
and the darkening of our days.
It is time;
when day and night compete
and neither wins.
No wind, no bird. The river flames like brass.
On either side, smitten as with a spell
Of silence, brood the fields. In the deep grass,
Edging the dusty roads, lie as they fell
Handfuls of shriveled leaves from tree and bush.
But ’long the orchard fence and at the gate,
Thrusting their saffron torches through the hush,
Wild lilies blaze, and bees hum soon and late.
Rust-colored the tall straggling briar, not one
Rose left. The spider sets its loom up there
Close to the roots, and spins out in the sun5
A silken web from twig to twig. The air
Is full of hot rank scents. Upon the hill
Drifts the noon’s single cloud, white, glaring, still.
~Lizette Woodworth Reese “August”
This poem written decades ago
by a poet now long departed
describes in detail
what I see outside my back door today.
Yet an unknowing detail of her foresight
includes a truth of this August:
her flaming river
is flowing across thousands of acres
only a few dozen miles away,
leaving behind ashes,
and little else.
An essence of August:
drying to dust – only a little
remains of the day.
There are philosophies as varied as the flowers of the field,
and some of them weeds and a few of them poisonous weeds.
But they none of them create the psychological conditions
in which I first saw,
or desired to see,
the flower.
~G.K.Chesterton
The news is filled with poisonous weeds,
disguised as something palatable,
but one taste, one look
and I am toast.
I seek a beauty that is more than petal thin,
weed or not,
where roots reach deep
and colors so vibrant
it renews my heart
and fills my retinas full.
What God arranges for us to experience at each moment
is the holiest thing that could happen to us.
~Jean-Pierre Caussade
I know there are moments
when there is no holiness in sight,
and even God hides His face;
certainly His Son cried out in anguish too.
So we tread barefoot and bloodied on this holy ground,
whether rocky, muddy, crumbling or cushioned,
and He is there, walking before us,
ready to pick us up if we fall.
Who would have thought it possible that a tiny little flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn’t room for any other thought?
~ Sophie SchollÂ
I think we are all in need of a little floral therapy.
Doctor, if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.
~Lisel Mueller from “Monet Refuses the Operation”
It is all about the light
when it fluxes and flexes around us,
transforming us, making us something more
than how we started.
If I could only see this in each person,
how light and water transfigures the rankest weed
and the deepest shadows,
if only my heart could expand
as does the heart of God
when He claims us as His own…
then I could truly see,
how heaven pulls earth into its arms,
blue vapor without end.
Summer was our best season:
it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots,
or trying to sleep in the tree house;
summer was everything good to eat;
it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape…
~Harper Lee from “To Kill a Mockingbird”
My mother, who hates thunder storms,
Holds up each summer day and shakes
It out suspiciously, lest swarms
Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there;
But when the August weather breaks
And rains begin, and brittle frost
Sharpens the bird-abandoned air,
Her worried summer look is lost,
And I her son, though summer-born
And summer-loving, none the less
Am easier when the leaves are gone
Too often summer days appear
Emblems of perfect happiness
I can’t confront: I must await
A time less bold, less rich, less clear;
An autumn more appropriate.
~Philip Larkin from “Mother, Summer, I”
Summer is simply too much excess,
from endless hours of daylight,
to rising temperatures,
clouds of dust,
to fruitfulness and abundant blooms.
It overwhelms and exhausts
while filling a void left empty
after endless cold bare dark days
that will all too soon
come again,
welcomed.
Barnstorming 