Tag: nature

Just Pay Attention

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It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
~Mary Oliver “Blue Iris”

Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
   Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
   The message of some God.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Flower-de-Luce

To plunge headlong into
the heart of a blossom, its amber eyes
inscrutably focusing on your own,
magnified by a lens of dew.
Whose scent, invisible,
drowns you in opulence, and for which
you can find nothing adequate to say.

You sense that you are loved wholly,
yet are quite unable to understand why.
But then, you lift your face,
creased with the ordinary, to a heaven
that is breaking into blue,
and find your contentment utterly beyond
telling, unspeakable, uncontained.
~Luci Shaw from “Speechless” from  Sea Glass

May your blooms be floriferous and in good form,
Distinctive, with good substance, flare, and airborne,
With standards and falls that endure, never torn.
May you display many buds and blooms sublime,
In graceful proportion on strong stalks each day,
Gently floating above the fans and the fray.
May you too reach toward the moon and stars,
Bloom after bloom, many seasons in the sun,
Enjoying your life, health, and each loved one,
Until your living days are artfully done.
~Georgia Gudykunst “An Iris Blessing”

Whenever I allow my eye to peer into
an iris, it takes all my attention:
I need a flotation device
and depth finder.
I’m likely to get lost,
sweeping and swooning
through inner space
of tunnels, canyons and corners,
coming up for air and diving in again
to journey into exotic locales
draped in silken hues
~this fairy land on a stem~
Patching a few words together,
I’m immersed in the possibilities,
blessed by such an impossible blossom.

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Fearsome Things to See

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Not much to me is yonder lane  
 Where I go every day;  
But when there’s been a shower of rain  
 And hedge-birds whistle gay,  
I know my lad that’s out in France
 With fearsome things to see  
Would give his eyes for just one glance  
 At our white hawthorn tree.

   .    .    .    .  

Not much to me is yonder lane  
 Where he so longs to tread:
But when there’s been a shower of rain  
I think I’ll never weep again  
 Until I’ve heard he’s dead.
~Siegfried Sassoon “The Hawthorn Tree”

I drove West
in the season between seasons.
I left behind suburban gardens.
Lawnmowers.  Small talk.

Under low skies, past splashes of coltsfoot,
I assumed
the hard shyness of Atlantic light
and the superstitious aura of hawthorn.

All I wanted then was to fill my arms with
sharp flowers,
to seem from a distance, to be part of
that ivory, downhill rush.  But I knew,

I had always known,
the custom was
not to touch hawthorn.
 Not to bring it indoors for the sake of

the luck
such constraint would forfeit–
a child might die, perhaps, or an unexplained
fever speckle heifers.  So I left it

stirring on those hills
with a fluency
only water has.  And, like water, able
to redefine land.  And free to seem to be–

for anglers,
and for travellers astray in
the unmarked lights of a May dusk–
the only language spoken in those parts.
~Eavan Boland “White Hawthorn in the West of Ireland”

The bird-sowed hawthorn bush along the lane to our back field has suddenly become a blooming tree, staking out its place alongside the trail the horses follow to their pasture. This May, it is a white flame against the dark woods.

Though we didn’t intend for it to be there, we’ll leave it be. Hawthorns are great bird habitat and a haven for honeybees. They are found in most hedge rows in the United Kingdom, impenetrable due to their fierce thorns and criss-cross network of branches, a historic symbol of the toughness and persistence of the Celtic people. Though we don’t need a hedge row here, I appreciate the tree’s reminder it has a place in myth and lore.

It will never be a hospitable tree like the lone fir tree that graces our hill, or the big leaf maple where children climb, or the black walnut whose branches support the treehouse. But it will be a white beacon every May, portending the summer to come, and if it bears fruit, it will feed the birds that nest in its interior.

And like the poem written by WWI soldier/poet Sassoon, it will be a bittersweet reminder of the familiar comfort of home, even though sharp thorns abound among the blossoms. Those thorns are nothing compared to the despair found in the fearsome trenches of warfare.

Siegfried Sassoon’s handwritten poem

along fair Arran’s shores
the swans sing soft of tale of yore,
of a young love taken to sea

the two were hand in glove
like sparrows bound in sacred love
a tune that only they can sing

a tree of unity
they planted by the green eyed sea
the branch would hold their love through time

a sailor lad was he
he said,”dont cry my lovely, mhari
before the moon is full i’ll return”

I’ll wait for thee and she sang to him

the moon shone full and bright
and home he sailed mid-summers night
the tree so young and blossoming

they slept among the green
the world was light and dreams serene
the fires in their hearts burned bright

Where moss-grown boulders stand,
he took her by the lily hand
and there they wed at break of day

the seas know not of hearts
and once again the two must part.
“it wont be long, i swear to thee.

please wait for me.”
and she sang to him

The hawthorn tree has grown,
10 years she walked shores alone,
she hears his whisper in the leaves

Home is the sailor lad,
home in the sea, forever plaid,
Under the wide and starry sky

Yes, I will wait for thee,
By mountain, sea and tree;
And on the wind you’ll hear my love,

for at the fall of day
Beneath the leaves where once we lay
I’ll sit and sing i’ll wait for thee

come back to me….
music and lyrics by Fae Wiedenhoeft

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Thoughts We Cannot Say

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A hundred thousand birds salute the day:–
        One solitary bird salutes the night:
Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away,
        And tunes our weary watches to delight;
It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say,
        To know and sing them, and to set them right;
Until we feel once more that May is May,
        And hope some buds may bloom without a blight.
This solitary bird outweighs, outvies,
        The hundred thousand merry-making birds
Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise
Would we but follow when they bid us rise,
        Would we but set their notes of praise to words
And launch our hearts up with them to the skies.
~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”

photo by Harry Rodenberger

Birds afloat in air’s current,
sacred breath? No, not breath of God,
it seems, but God
the air enveloping the whole
globe of being.
It’s we who breathe, in, out, in, the sacred,
leaves astir, our wings
rising, ruffled—but only saints
take flight…
But storm or still,
numb or poised in attention,
we inhale, exhale, inhale,
encompassed, encompassed.
~Denise Levertov from “In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being” from The Stream and the Sapphire

As if reluctant to let go the setting sun last night,
one lone bird still sang a twilight song,
long after the others fell asleep,
their heads tucked neatly under their wings.

This lone bird had not yet finished with the day,
breathing in and out its plaintive melody,
articulating my thoughts I could not say.

And before a hint of light this May morning,
I am swept from my dreams
by a full chorus singing from the same perch,
no longer a lone voice, but hundreds.

My day is launched by the warbling songs,
but I cannot forget twilight’s one reluctant bird
who fought the impending darkness using only its voice.

I too fight back the darkness with what I write here,
if I can keep it at bay:
inhaling, exhaling, encompassed in Breath.
I want to sing out light to Light and live light in Light.

No darkness here.

I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky
I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I
see the river flowing water running by
I’d like to be that river, see what I might find

I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time
I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky
I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring
I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything

I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun
I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone
I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within
I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins

I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night
I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light
I know the silence as the world begins to wake
I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks

He doesn’t know the world at all
Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out.
He doesn’t know what birds know best
Nor what I sing about, Nor what I sing about, Nor what sing about:
That the world is full of loveliness.

When dew-drops sparkle in the grass
And earth is aflood with morning light. light
A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the dawning after night,
the dawning after night,
the dawning after night.
Then I know how fine it is to live.

Hey, try to open your heart to beauty;
Go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there.
Then if tears obscure your way
You’ll know how wonderful it is
To be alive.
~Paul Read

Blossoming Time

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The year Dylan’s mother died
I picked sprays of apple blossom,
wound its pink, off-white shades
in raffia for you to take to him.

Every year it’s out I think of us,
the children, how apples bring
the tree so low, until they thud
to the lawn, drumming the end 

of summer. The blossom was heavy 
when Dylan’s mother was dying – 
old wood doing its best again –
and he, like you, was so young.
~Jackie Wills “Apple Blossom”

I can see, through the rifts of the apple-boughs,
 The delicate blue of the sky,                               
And the changing clouds with their marvellous tints
 That drift so lazily by.
And strange, sweet thoughts sing through my brain,
 And Heaven, it seemeth near;
Oh, is it not a rare, sweet time,
 The blossoming time of the year?
~Horatio Alger, Jr.  from “Apple Blossoms”

Is there anything in Spring so fair
As apple blossoms falling through the air?

When from a hill there comes a sudden breeze
That blows freshly through all the orchard trees.

The petals drop in clouds of pink and white,
Noiseless like snow and shining in the light.

Making beautiful an old stone wall,
Scattering a rich fragrance as they fall.

There is nothing I know of to compare
With apple blossoms falling through the air.
~Henry Adams Parker “Apple Blossoms”

The rain eases long enough
to allow blades of grass to stand back up
expectant, refreshed
yet unsuspecting,
primed for the mower’s next cutting swath.

Clusters of pink tinged blossoms
sway in response to my mower’s pass.
Apple buds bulge on ancient branches
in promise of fruit caressed
by honeybees’ tickling legs.

Though I bow low beneath the swollen blooms,
I’m still caught by snagging branches;
showers from hidden raindrop reservoirs
collected within blushing petal cups.

My face is anointed by perfumed apple tears.

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Let Live

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Let us not with one stone kill one bird, 
much less two. Let us never put a cat 
in a bag nor skin them, regardless 
of how many ways there are to do so. 
And let us never take the bull, especially 
by his gorgeous horns. What I mean is 

we could watch our tongues or keep 
silent. What I mean is we could scrub 
the violence from our speech. And if we find
truth in a horse’s mouth, let us bless her

ground-down molars, no matter how 
old she is, especially if she was given 
as a gift. Again, let’s open her mouth——that of the horse, 
I mean——let us touch that interdental space where 
no teeth grow, where the cold bit was made to grip. 
Touch her there, gently now, touch that gentle 

empty between her incisors and molars, rub her 
aching, vulnerable gums. Don’t worry: doing so calms her. 
Besides, she’s old now; she’s what we call 
broken; she won’t bite. She’s lived through 
two thirteen-year emergences of cicadas

and thought their rising a god infestation, 
thought each insect roiling up an iteration 
of the many names of god, because god to her is 
the grasses so what comes up from grass is
god. She would not say it that way. Nor would she

say the word cicada——words are hindrances 
to what can be spoken through the body, are 
what she tolerates when straddled, 
giddy-up on one side then whoa on the other. After, 
it’s all good girl, Mable, good girl, 
before the saddle sweat is rinsed cool 
with water from the hose and a carrot is offered 
flat from the palm. Yes, words being 

generally useless she listens instead 
to the confused rooster stuttering when the sun
burns overhead, when it’s warm enough
for those time-keepers to tunnel up from the 
dark and fill their wings to make them 
stiff and capable of flight. To her, it is the sound 

of winter-coming in her mane 
or the sound of winter-leaving in her mane——
yes, that sound——a liquid shushing 
like the blood-fill of stallion desire she knew once 
but crisper, a dry crinkle of fall 
leaves. Yes, that sound, as they fill their new wings 
then lumber to the canopy to demand
come here, come here, come 
here, now come. 

If this is a parable you don’t understand, 
then, dear human, stop listening for words. 
Listen instead for mane, wind, wings, 
wind, mane, wings, wings, wings. 
The lesson here is of the mare 
and of the insects, even of the rooster 
puffed and strutting past. Because now, 
now there is only one thing worth hearing, 
and it is the plea of every living being in that field 
we call ours, is the two-word commandment 
trilling from the trees: let live, let live, let live. 
Can you hear it? Please, they say. Please.
Let us live.  
~Nickole Brown “Parable”

When a governor writes about her decision to shoot her wayward dog and stinky goat, our reaction is about the injustice perpetrated on the dog more than her decision to play god with any animal she has responsibility for. I feel a twinge of guilt at the accusation. Who among us can throw stones?

God is clear we are meant to be caretakers of His Creation. Yet I still swat flies and trap mice – there is no pleasure in doing so, so I still ask for forgiveness for my lack of charity and decision to make my own existence more comfortable at the expense of another living thing.

I admit I fail Creation in myriad ways.

I have owned animals whose behavior brought me to my knees, sometimes literally with my face in the muck. I have wept over the loss of a deformed stillbirth foal and a pond of koi frozen in a bitter winter storm. The stories abound of my helplessness in the face of sadness and loss and frustration but I never wanted to become executioner.

I don’t live with cycles of cicada population booms but have experienced their overwhelming din and understood we are mere witnesses and not in control. We are not “little g” gods on this earth. We are its stewards.

Let us live and thrive together.

Please let us live.

photo by Emily Vander Haak

As If Living in a Prayer

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Here in the time between snow
and the bud of the rhododendron,
we watch the robins, look into

the gray, and narrow our view
to the patches of wild grasses
coming green. The pile of ashes

in the fireplace, haphazard sticks
on the paths and gardens, leaves
tangled in the ivy and periwinkle

lie in wait against our will. This
drawing near of renewal, of stems
and blossoms, the hesitant return

of the anarchy of mud and seed
says not yet to the blood’s crawl.
When the deer along the stream

look back at us, we know again
we have left them. We pull
a blanket over us when we sleep.

As if living in a prayer, we say
amen to the late arrival of red,
the stun of green, the muted yellow

at the end of every twig. We will
lift up our eyes unto the trees hoping
to discover a gnarled nest within

the branches’ negative space. And
we will watch for a fox sparrow
rustling in the dead leaves underneath.
~Jack Ridl “Here in the Time Between” from Practicing to Walk Like a Heron

We live in an in-between time:
we see the coming glory of spring and rebirth
yet winter’s mud and ice still grasps at us.

We want to crawl back under the blankets,
hoping to wake again on a brighter day.

Praying to emerge from the mud of in-between and not-yet,
we are ready to bud and blossom and wholly bloom.

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Our Neighbor The Moon

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Just as the night was fading
Into the dusk of morning
When the air was cool as water
When the town was quiet
And I could hear the sea

I caught sight of the moon
No higher than the roof-tops
Our neighbor the moon

An hour before the sunrise
She glowed with her own sunrise
Gold in the grey of morning

World without town or forest
Without wars or sorrows
She paused between two trees

And it was as if in secret
Not wanting to be seen
She chose to visit us
So early in the morning.
~Anne Porter, “Getting Up Early” from An All Together Different Language. 

And who has seen the moon, who has not seen
Her rise from out the chamber of the deep,
Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber
Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw
Confession of delight upon the wave,
Littering the waves with her own superscription
Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes towards us
Spread out and known at last, and we are sure
That beauty is a thing beyond the grave,
That perfect, bright experience never falls
To nothingness, and time will dim the moon
Sooner than our full consummation here
In this odd life will tarnish or pass away.
~D.H. Lawrence “Moonrise”

photo of supermoon by Harry Rodenberger

What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. It’s full tonight.
So we go

and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit, myself

thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
perfect beauty and also, oh! how rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up
into my face. As though I were just as wonderful
as the perfect moon.
~Mary Oliver “The Sweetness of Dogs” from Dog Songs

I could not sleep last night,
a tossing turmoil,
wrestling with my worries,
concerned I’ve dropped the ball.

As a beacon of calm,
the moon shone bright
onto our bed covers before sunrise.

This glowing ball is never dropped,
this holy sphere of the night
remains aloft, sailing the skies,
to rise again and again to light our darkest nights.

A lambent reflection of His Love and Peace;
I am soothed by its balming beauty.

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This Was The Day

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Opening the book at a bright window
above a wide pasture after five years
I find I am still standing on a stone bridge
looking down with my mother at dusk into a river
hearing the current as hers in her lifetime

now it comes to me that that was the day
she told me of seeing my father alive for the last time
and he waved her back from the door as she was leaving
took her hand for a while and said
nothing

at some signal
in a band of sunlight all the black cows flow down the pasture together
to turn uphill and stand as the dark rain touches them.
~W.S. Merwin “Sun and Rain” from Flower & Hand.

All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
~W. S. Merwin “Rain Light” from The Shadow of Sirius 

We want so much to leave a legacy for our children that will carry them through their lives, long after we are gone. Then they pass that on to their children, and on and on, like the strands of DNA we leave behind in our descendants.

But words and rituals of faith and covenant can be lost so quickly from one generation to the next. Our DNA passed down is a given, but nothing surpasses the teaching about the eternal love of God and His purpose for His people.

This day, three of our young grandsons are baptized by their church, ushering them into a life in fulfillment of God’s promise within them. As children, they may not yet fully understand how this manifests in their lives, but with the love and guidance of their church, parents, extended family and godparents, they will know His Love as they witness it in His people.

The washing with water from God’s creation, like rain from heaven, gives me hope for the future.

Though the world may be burning, Jesus is right alongside us through it all – I know our children and grandchildren will be all right.

The Magical Frontier

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Between the March and April line —
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows, —
The birds, they make it in the spring,
At night’s delicious close.

It makes us think of all the dead
That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.
~Emily Dickinson “The Saddest Noise”

Every spring
I hear the thrush singing
in the glowing woods
he is only passing through.
His voice is deep,
then he lifts it until it seems
to fall from the sky.
I am thrilled.
I am grateful.
Then, by the end of morning,
he’s gone, nothing but silence
out of the tree
where he rested for a night.
And this I find acceptable.
Not enough is a poor life.
But too much is, well, too much.
Imagine Verdi or Mahler
every day, all day.
It would exhaust anyone.
~Mary Oliver “In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare Music ” from “A Thousand Mornings”

What does it say about me that a only a few months ago, in the inky darkness of December mornings, I was yearning for the earlier sunrises of spring. Once we’re well into April, the birdsong symphony alarm clock each morning is no longer so compelling. 

This confirms my suspicion that I’m incapable of reveling in the moment at hand, something that would likely take years of therapy to undo. I’m sure there is some deep seated issue here, but I’m too sleep deprived to pursue it.

My eyes pop open earlier than I wish, aided and abetted by vigorous birdsong in the trees surrounding our farm house. Daylight sneaks through the venetian blinds. Once the bird chorus starts, with one lone chirpy voice in the apple tree by our bedroom window, it rapidly becomes a full frontal onslaught orchestra from all manner of avian life-forms, singing from the plum, cherry, walnut, fir and chestnut. Sleep is irretrievable.

Yet it would be such a poor life without the birdsong.
Even so, too much is … a bit too much.

I already need a nap.

photo by Harry Rodenberger

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Not So Sure…

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The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.

Yet the back yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree–
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
–  Sara Teasdale, “April”

The snow piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.

Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens;
they march their black feathers past a blue pool;
they celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs,
a pink bug sits on my hand washing his forelegs.
I might ask: Who are these people? 
~Carl Sandburg from “Just Before April Came”

And so Spring asks:

Who are these people?

Here we are, closing in on mid-April and our weather continues to be unpredictable.  I am not so sure of Spring.

Yet it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

The calendar does not lie, nor does my nose.  The pollen counts are rising despite the rains and as I step outside in early dawn, I can catch the slightest fragrance of just-opening cherry and apple blossoms in the orchard.  Within a week there will be sweet perfume in the air everywhere and the fruit trees become clothed in white puffy clouds of blossom before bursting full into green.

In defiance of the calendar, our oak trees cling stubbornly to their brown bedraggled fall leaves as if ashamed to ever appear naked, even for a week. In May they will go straight from brown to green without a moment of bare knobby branches.

Even so, it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

A morning bird symphony tunes up ever earlier including the “scree” and chatter from bald eagles high up in the fir trees surrounding our house. Nesting has begun despite the wet and cold and wind because their nest is the secure home that calls them back, again and again, year after year.

Like them, it sings in me.  Yes it sings.

I rise opening like a bud,
I dress my nakedness to cover up my knobbiness,
I wander about outside exulting in the free concert,
I manage to do chores despite the distractions —
this routine of mine which is so unchanging through the calendar days becomes glorious gift and privilege.

Hopefulness sings in me in Spring.  Yes it sings.

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