nature – Page 45 – Barnstorming

The Necklace of Days

November 20, 2015 barnstormingblog6 Comments

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It is a dark fall day.
The earth is slightly damp with rain.
I hear a jay.
The cry is blue.
I have found you in the story again.
Is there another word for “divine”?
I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.
If I think behind me, I might break.
If I think forward, I lose now.
Forever will be a day like this
Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.
Slightly overcast
Yellow leaves
Your jacket hanging in the hallway
Next to mine.
~Joy Harjo “Fall Song”

In the string of fall days,
each differs from the one before
and the one that comes after,
a transitional linkage to winter
at once gradual and unrelenting.
If I were to try to stop time,
hold tight a particular moment,
this necklace of days would break and scatter,
as the connection depends
on what was before
what is now
and what is to come.

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Needful Vanishing

November 18, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

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The mountain’s power
lies in the open secret of its remote
apparition, silvery low relief
coming and going moonlike at the horizon,
always loftier, lonelier, than I ever remember.
~Denise Levertov from “Open Secrets”

What does it serve to insist / … that its vanishings / are needful, as silence is to music?
~Denise Levertov from “Against Intrusion”

During these stormy autumn days,
the mountain vanishes and reappears
sometimes several times a day.
It peeks out from its cover of blankets
sometimes pink
sometimes gray
always a white comforter snugged to her shoulders.

Like a pause in a symphony overture,
the strings poised with bows above the instrument
the winds taking a breath,
we too all hold our breath,
waiting for the vanishing mountain
to reappear with the downbeat,
grand and sweeping,
ready to carry us away.

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The Fogs of Our Soul

November 15, 2015 barnstormingblog2 Comments

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It was November —
the month of crimson sunsets,
parting birds,
deep, sad hymns of the sea,
passionate wind-songs in the pines.
Anne roamed through the pineland alleys in the park
and, let that great sweeping wind
blow the fogs out of her soul.
~L.M. Montgomery from Anne of Green Gables

Midway through November
there is inevitability
about the descent into winter,
the enveloping darkness
shrinking the day,
the cloister of fog banks
rolling in, sticky in mind and soul.

The winds come brisk,
even harsh,
a reminder of a bitter cold
not long far off.

The fogs will clear to prepare me,
to open me up,
though chilled by searing waves,
to a coming advent of change
for my broken spirit and longing heart.

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The Signature of God

November 12, 2015 barnstormingblog4 Comments

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If God makes the world, populates the world,
infuses the world with every kind of ethical meaning,
then the signature of God is the beauty of the world.
Why even imagine a mystical experience when we’re born into one,
submerged in one, day after day?
~Marilynne Robinson from Image Journal

I’m reminded,
drowning in a morass of tiny details,
trying to make sense
of the incomprehensible~
life sometimes spread so thin
it’s punched with gaping holes
filled only by God’s breath.
This is Him
staking His claim
by signing His name
on our hearts.
There is beauty in the world
from our insides out,
submerged in
every hole of nothingness,
every connecting thread
every letter He has ever written
reminding us we are His.

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To Sunder for a Second

November 10, 2015November 21, 2015 barnstormingblog5 Comments

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake…

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes

In such kind ways,

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
~Richard Wilbur from “The Beautiful Changes” Collected Poems 1943-2004

_____________________________

A look out the window at first frost
as change breaks up the beautiful once again:
to wonder at the throes of dying,
to know the kindness of a glistening dawn
when all before seemed darkness,
when all to come so ephemeral,
the broken in a moment
made whole.

Successive Autumns

November 7, 2015November 7, 2015 barnstormingblog5 Comments

geesesouth

Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
~ George Eliot

These mornings are a din of calls
and breathy rush
of beating wings overhead,
a migration to something
that isn’t here
but beyond.
Such restlessness isn’t just in the air
but in this heart’s longing
for something more,
for somewhere else,
for somehow settled,
for somewhat remembered,
for Someone who leads the way,
calling us back home.

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I Greet Him

November 5, 2015November 7, 2015 barnstormingblog3 Comments

I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west;
Since, though he is under the world’s splendor and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “The Wreck of the Deutschland”

I greet Him when I meet Him
as the color of the evening sky
spills out as tipped paint
far fleeting across the horizon,
cleaned up and gone before grasped,
I kiss my hand
to the drama played out before sun is set.

I greet Him when I meet Him
as starlight speckles
the overhead ceiling,
each touching infinity
where it begins
and never ends.

I greet Him when I meet Him
in glowing cloud mountains
sparking lightning
and clapping thunder,
applause for His
resplendent magnificence.

I greet Him when
He is hidden
mysterious
unknown and unknowable,
waiting for the blessing
of understanding
wafting from Him
in color, in speckle,
in glow, in spark,
in appreciative applause
for His splendor
wrapped in wonder.

The Fall of the Leaf

November 3, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the heart feels a languid grief

Laid on it for a covering,

And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf

How the soul feels like a dried sheaf

Bound up at length for harvesting,

And how death seems a comely thing

In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
~Dante Gabriel Rossetti from “Autumn Song”

Now with darkness draping our morning commute
and darkness enveloping our return home,
we too are like the settling of the falling leaves:
our hearts of grief in the letting go,
our souls bound up dried for harvest.
We sing out loud,
in colors that glow in the dark,
while autumn moves us closer to our sleep.

Alms to the Poor

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015 barnstormingblog2 Comments

That year I discovered the virtues
of plants as companions: they don’t
argue, they don’t ask for much,
they don’t stay out until 3:00 A.M., then
lie to you about where they’ve been…

I can’t summon the ambition
to repot this grape ivy, or this sad
old cactus, or even move them out
onto the porch for the summer
where their lives would certainly
improve. I give them
a grudging dash of water-
that’s all they get.

The truth is that if I permit them
to live, they will go on giving
alms to the poor: sweet air, miraculous
flowers, the example of persistence.
~Jane Kenyon from “Killing of Plants”

During my dorm room years
and city apartment dwelling days,
this former farm girl was reconciled
to no pets allowed,
so I surrounded myself with an indoor garden,
every square inch of window sill
occupied by a living thing
whose survival depended only partially on me.

Those plants sustained me,
cheered me, moved me,
moved with me to windows
with better light and grander views.
Despite my neglect,
they persisted, often thrived,
and gave back to my shriveled city spirit
far beyond any water or repotting offered.

Somehow these miracles in chlorophyll
knew just what I needed when I needed it:
they fed me when I was starving
for something live,
something beautiful,
something that knew exactly what to do
and what to become
when I had no clue.

Summer Out of Winter

November 1, 2015January 23, 2016 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

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januarybug

He brought light out of darkness,
not out of a lesser light,
and he can bring thee summer out of winter,
though thou hast no spring.
Though in the ways of fortune, understanding, or conscience
thou hast been benighted till now,
wintered and frozen,
clouded and eclipsed,
damped and benumbed,
smothered and stupefied,
now God comes to thee,
not as the dawning of the day,
not as the bud of the spring,
but as the sun at noon.
~John Donne

______

I get caught by winter,
damped and benumbed,
stuck in place, frozen to the spot.
Only God can come,
like the winter sun dim at noon,
almost invisible, but there,
encouraging the shoot from the ground,
drying our wings,
wringing the darkness
to free the reluctant light.
~EPG

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I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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