Tag: foliage

That Point of Light

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Push on it again,
that point of light.

What do you think
light is?

What is anything?

§

If you aren’t telling kids
how to live

in a world
you can’t imagine,

what are you doing?

Telling God
about fall’s
claret-colored leaves.

§

Touch me
like you do the foliage!
~Rae Armantrout “Conversations”

There is no season
when such pleasant and sunny spots
may be lighted on,
and produce so pleasant an effect
on the feelings,
as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial;
and in sheltered places,
as on the side of a bank,
or of a barn or house,
one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine.
It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne from  The American Notebooks: The Centenary Edition

Of course
I reach out and touch a leaf lit like fire
though cool on the surface,
the flame for show only

I can only guess at what the world might be like
for my grandchildren
but I do know this:
the leaves will turn fiery red in the fall
before they die.

So much has changed
since my grandmother stood on her porch
and wiped away a tear at the sight
of the reddening maples on the hillside.

And so much has not changed.

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Always Something to Make You Wonder

barnstormingblog5 Comments
bayleaf

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore.
There is always something to make you wonder
in the shape of a tree,
the trembling of a leaf.
~ Albert Schweitzer

Long ago I gave up striving
for perfect symmetry,
strong shapely limbs,
the straightest trunk,
the most luscious foliage and colorful blooms.

Instead, my life is as fruitful as possible,
even if I bend more in winter storms,
my roots not anchored as deep,
despite bare and broken branches,
falling leaves,
crooked trunk,
and increasing lumpiness.

I try to provide the best of which I’m capable,
with a minimum of scab, rot and hidden worms.

The promise of breathtaking beauty for eternity
makes getting up in the morning worth the effort
when we would rather hide our homeliness and decay under the covers.

Yet nothing can be as beautiful as the reality of
broken people giving their all
for other broken people.

It is for this we are created;
our imperfections on display,
continually pruned and refined
to produce needed fruit,
abundantly filling and ever so sweet.

It’s enough to make you wonder…

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Losing Foliage

barnstormingblog2 Comments

In the shallows of the river
After one o’clock in the afternoon
Ice still
An eighth of an inch thick.
Night never disappears completely
But moves among the shadows
On the bank
Like a glimpse of fur.
Meanwhile
Trees
Grass
Flies and spiderwebs
Appear alone in the flat air.
The naked aspens stand like children
Waiting to be baptized
And the goldenrod too is stripped down
To its bare stalk
In the cold
Even my thoughts
Have lost their foliage.
~Tom Hennen “At the Beginning of Winter”, from Looking Into The Weather.

My thoughts are stripped bare these days,
no flowers or flourishing foliage left behind-
just stark rows of naked branches, waiting,
orderly and plain.

It is the nature of winter
to think only of the essentials
when night is always creeping
around the edges of midday.

There is silence outside
and echoing in my head,
while waiting for something,
~anything~
remarkable to bud out
and bloom.

It’s Life We Harvest

barnstormingblog1 Comment

mapleWWU
vine maple WWU

madronaberries
madrona tree berries –WWU

…still it’s not death that spends
So tenderly this treasure
To leaf-rich golden winds,
But life in lavish measure.

No, it’s not death this year
Since then and all the pain.
It’s life we harvest here
(Sun on the crimson vine).
The garden speaks your name.
We drink your joys like wine.
~May Sarton, from “The First Autumn”

burning bush-- WWU
burning bush– WWU

red fringed maple leaf --WWU
red fringed maple leaf –WWU

Is there something finished?  And some new beginning on the way?

I cried over beautiful things, knowing no beautiful thing lasts…
~Carl Sandburg, from “Falltime” and “Autumn Movement”

wwuheartleaf
WWU tree -Haskell Plaza

WWU tree

wwuyellow
WWU tree in Haskell plaza

I praise the fall:

It is the human season. On this sterile air
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.
~Archiblad MacLeish from “Immortal Autumn”

College Way, WWU
College Way, WWU