Tag: poems

A Thing or Two

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My father always knew the secret
name of everything—
stove bolt and wing nut,
set screw and rasp, ratchet
wrench, band saw, and ball—
peen hammer. He was my
tour guide and translator
through that foreign country
with its short-tempered natives
in their crewcuts and tattoos,
who suffered my incompetence
with gruffness and disgust.
Pay attention, he would say,
and you’ll learn a thing or two.

Now it’s forty years later,
and I’m packing up his tools
(If you know the proper
names of things you’re never
at a loss) tongue-tied, incompetent,
my hands and heart full
of doohickeys and widgets,
whatchamacallits, thingamabobs.
~Ronald Wallace “Hardware” from Time’s Fancy

“Hold on,” she said, “I’ll just run out and get him.
The weather here’s so good, he took the chance
To do a bit of weeding.”

So I saw him
Down on his hands and knees beside the leek rig,
Touching, inspecting, separating one
Stalk from the other, gently pulling up
Everything not tapered, frail and leafless,
Pleased to feel each little weed-root break,
But rueful also . . . 

Then found myself listening to
The amplified grave ticking of hall clocks
Where the phone lay unattended in a calm
Of mirror glass and sunstruck pendulums . . . 

And found myself then thinking: if it were nowadays,
This is how Death would summon
Everyman.

Next thing he spoke and I nearly said I loved him.
~Seamus Heaney “A Call” from ‘Poems That Make Grown Men Cry’

Between my finger and my thumb   
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound   
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down
By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
~Seamus Heaney from “Digging” from Death of a Naturalist

My father was a complex man. As I’ve aged, I understand better where my own complicated nature comes from.

As inscrutable as he could be, there were things I absolutely understood about him:

he was a man of action
– he never just sat, never took a nap, never wasted a day of his life without accomplishing something tangible.

he was a man of the soil
– he plowed and harrowed and sowed and fertilized and weeded and cut brush and harvested

he was a man of inventiveness
– he figured out a better way, he transformed tools and buildings, he started from scratch and built the impossible

he didn’t explain himself
– and never felt the need to.

Time keeps ticking on without him here, now 30 years since he took his last breath as the clock pendulum swung back and forth in his bedroom. He was taken too young for all the projects he still had in mind.

He handed off a few to me.
Some I have done.
Some still wait, I’m not sure why.

My regret is not understanding how much he needed to hear how loved he was. He seemed fine without it being said.

But he wasn’t fine. And neither was I.

I wish I had said it when I had the chance.
I guess I am digging it out from the soil of my heart now.

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Exposed to the Light of Day

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The book sat on the table
for years
before it opened to a page
exposed to light
for the first time.

In their new surroundings
the words trembled
shaking all meaning
from their assembly,
the reader unable to enter.

Then the ink began to run
past the margins
to the mahogany to the floor,
random drops collecting themselves,
expanding from within.

The reader saw fit to stand
by the window,
following a cloud
till it stalled in front of the sun,
sweeping its passage along eyes closed.

As the sky proceeded
to draw the ink from the floor,
affixing the once-quivering words
to the slow-moving cloud,
the reader read the page in the dark.

And when the day’s shadows turned in
for the night
the book closed as it had opened
without a hand,
the reader calling it a day

of prayer.
~Howard Altmann “The Reader” from Infinite Sky Divided

Since childhood, I’ve imagined the books on my shelf having an internal life of their own, filled as they are with words and characters and plots and devices, contained in darkness between two covers until someone opens and reads.

Those words are freed, exposed to the light of day, to leak through the bindings or trickle down the pages to find new destinations. The stories morph, journeying on to who knows where.

Perhaps they drift to the ever-changing clouds that illuminate or darken the skies, depending upon their impact: some words of joy and some words of lament and sorrow.

Perhaps like closed books whose words are set free, when I pray, my words are liberated into the changing light to reach the ear of God.

And it is there my story is told, and He listens carefully to each word.

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Not Just a Leaf

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holyleaf2

It’s just a leaf. A damaged leaf at that,
clinging to a filbert tree ravaged by blight.
The leaf turns partially back upon itself,
riddled with holes, the traumatic result
of voracious insect appetites.

Damaged does not accurately describe
this leaf, the color of rich burgundy wine,
deep purple veins that branch to the tips
of its serrated edge. The holes open the leaf
to light and air, forming a filigree of nature,
an exquisite fragile beauty.

It makes me think of our own traumas,
how they open us, raw and hurting, humble us,
soften and expand us to the pain of others
and when we are most vulnerable we hold on,
weakened, but not necessarily damaged.

Perhaps it is then our scars become beautiful
and an inner loveliness shines through.
~Lois Parker Edstrom “Fragile Beauty” (an ephrastic poem written about the picture below) from Almanac of Quiet Days

holyleaf1

Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound.
By the mediation of a thousand little mosses and fungi,
the most unsightly objects become radiant of beauty.
There seem to be two sides of this world,
presented us at different times,
as we see things in growth or dissolution, in life or death.
And seen with the eye of the poet,
as God sees them,
all things are alive and beautiful.
~Henry David Thoreau (journal)

holyleaf1-1

…writing was one way to let something of lasting value emerge
from the pains and fears of my little, quickly passing life.
Each time life required me to take a new step
into unknown spiritual territory,
I felt a deep, inner urge to tell my story to others–
Perhaps as a need for companionship but maybe, too,
out of an awareness that my deepest vocation
is to be a witness to the glimpses of God I have been allowed to catch.
~Henri Nouwen

As I stepped under a dripping birch tree on our farm on this rainy summer day, I ran head-long into a branch of leaves that appeared more lace than leaf.

They were filagreed nearly to invisibility, presumably by a leaf miner of some sort who chewed intricate designs as its leavings. The residual was left hanging, trying to make the best of things in the drizzle.

Though they are mostly eaten away, these leaves have nearly fulfilled their full season of growth in support of their home base tree. Instead of an ordinary summer of drying and coloring and dropping as a birch leaf must in another month or two, they instead manifest the creativity of our God who designed his creatures to interact in such a way that beauty could be found in the most unlikely places, slapping us full in the face.

God sees such intricate wounds in the leaf as beautiful.
God knows our visible and invisible scars are the way His Light illuminates our darkness.
I feel the deep urge to share this glimpse of such “holiness” with you.

Lyrics:
No star is o’er the lake,
Its pale watch keeping,
The moon is half awake,
Through grey mist creeping,
The last red leaves fall round
The porch of roses,
The clock hath ceased to sound,
The long day closes.
Sit by the silent hearth
In calm endeavour,
To count the sounds of mirth,
Now dumb for ever.
Heed not how hope believes
And fate disposes:
Shadow is round the eaves,
The long day closes.
The lighted windows dim
Are fading slowly.
The fire that was so trim
Now quivers lowly.
Go to the dreamless bed
Where grief reposes;
Thy book of toil is read,
The long day closes

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I Just Want to Ask…

barnstormingblog5 Comments

The ant in the shadow of this blade of grass
Is indifferent to my presence, to the action
Of the day, to the creaking of the limbs
Of the sycamore, to the sun lowering itself
Slowly from the scaffolding of the sky…

The ant has not moved.  It is deep in meditation.

…Ants understand
The principle of undefiled silence.  My ant glows
Like charcoal now in the lengthening rays of the sun.
I kneel and whisper, “Look up at me.  I’m here.”
~John Gilgun from “The Ant in the Shadow of This Blade of Grass”

Today, when I could do nothing,
I saved an ant...

Small black ant, alone,
crossing a navy cushion,
moving steadily because that is what it could do.

Set outside in the sun,
it could not have found again its nest.
What then did I save?

It did not move as if it was frightened,
even while walking my hand,
which moved it through swiftness and air.

Ant, alone, without companions,
whose ant-heart I could not fathom—
how is your life, I wanted to ask.

I lifted it, took it outside.

This first day when I could do nothing,
contribute nothing…

…I did this.
~Jane Hirshfield from “Today When I Could Do Nothing”

Each day I look for words
which might bring a smile,
a nod of recognition,
or moistened eye.

I seek common ground
with those I may never meet
in the chaos of existence.

So I ask:
how is your life?

Though I can do nothing else of import
in the scatter-mess of life’s ant hill,
I’m here,
listening for your comments, feedback and messages.

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I Borrowed This Dust

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Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver “Sometimes” from Red Bird

Getting older:

The first surprise: I like it.
Whatever happens now, some things
that used to terrify have not:

I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose
my only love. My three children
never had to run away from anyone.

Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent.
We all approach the edge of the same blackness
which for me is silent.

Knowing as much sharpens
my delight in January freesia,
hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say

as we lie close on some gentle occasion:
every day won from such
darkness is a celebration.
~ Elaine Feinstein, “Getting Older” from The Clinic, Memory

Maybe
it’s time for me to practice
growing old… I only
borrowed this dust.
~Stanley Kunitz from “Passing Through” from Collected Poems

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, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

I am astonished at living over seven decades,
despite my faltering dust.

Amazed by joys and sometimes by sorrows,
I hope to see much more before I’m done,
trying in my own way to tell about it.

I am grateful, so very grateful
to still be here,
living out the time left to me
learning:
how love can heal,
how tears are dried,
and most astonishing of all,
how God came here
to loan us His dust –
until the day He carries us,
all dusty,
back home.

photo by Tomomi Gibson

Lyrics from Carrie Newcomer:
I’ve been looking for beauty
In these broken times
By making some beauty
In the world that I find
Some say it′s too late
It′s too much to brave
But I believe there’s so much
Worth being saved

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Rung Like a Bell

barnstormingblog6 Comments

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine
but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. 
Audacious longings,
burning songs,
daring thoughts,
an impulse overwhelming the heart,
usurping the mind-
these are all a drive towards serving Him
who rings our hearts like a bell.
It is as if He were waiting to enter
our empty, perishing lives.
~Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion

In the end,
coming to faith remains for all a sense of homecoming,
of picking up the threads of a lost life,
of responding to a bell that had long been ringing,
of taking a place at a table that had long been vacant.
~Malcolm Muggeridge

I saw the tree with lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed.

It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Too much of the time
I fixate on what I think I can control in life~
what I see, hear, taste, feel

Instead I should consider
how might I appear to my Maker
as I begin each day?
-my utter astonishment at waking up,
-my pure gratitude for each breathless moment,
-my pealing resonance
as like a bell, I’m struck senseless by life.

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What is Waiting Behind the Wall

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If ever we see those gardens again,
The summer will be gone—at least our summer.
Some other mockingbird will concertize
Among the mulberries, and other vines
Will climb the high brick wall to disappear.

How many footpaths crossed the old estate—
The gracious acreage of a grander age—
So many trees to kiss or argue under,
And greenery enough for any mood.
What pleasure to be sad in such surroundings.

At least in retrospect. For even sorrow
Seems bearable when studied at a distance,
And if we speak of private suffering,
The pain becomes part of a well-turned tale
Describing someone else who shares our name.

Still, thinking of you, I sometimes play a game.
What if we had walked a different path one day,
Would some small incident have nudged us elsewhere
The way a pebble tossed into a brook
Might change the course a hundred miles downstream?

The trick is making memory a blessing,
To learn by loss the cool subtraction of desire,
Of wanting nothing more than what has been,
To know the past forever lost, yet seeing
Behind the wall a garden still in blossom.
~Dana Gioia “The Lost Garden” from Interrogations at Noon.

At present we are on the outside of the world,
the wrong side of the door. . . .
We cannot mingle with the splendours we see.
But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling
with the rumour that it will not always be so.
Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory

Memory can play tricks,
either smoothing over
the many potholes in the road of life,
or digging the holes so deep,
I fall in and am lost.

Whenever I am feeling regret
for the things I have done,
or all that I have left undone,
I remember I have walked on
paths of beauty beyond imagining.

I wouldn’t change much about what has been,
knowing there is much more beauty to come.

I remember gates and doors I could not open.
Just a peek told me all I needed to know:
there is a hidden, lost garden just waiting,
still blooming, still inspiring, still brimming
full of everything any of us could ever need.

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A Century From Now

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I’m sorry I won’t be around a hundred years from now.
I’d like to see how it all turns out.
What language most of you are speaking.
What country is swaggering across the globe.
I’m curious to know if your medicines cure what ails us now.
And how intelligent your children are
as they parachute down through the womb.
Have you invented new vegetables?
Have you trained spiders to do your bidding?
Have baseball and opera merged into one melodic sport?
A hundred years….
My grandfather lived almost that long.
The doctor who came to the farmhouse to deliver him arrived in a
horse-drawn carriage.
Do you still have horses?
~David Shumate “A Hundred Years from Now” from Kimonos in the Closet

When the local obituary notices lists someone who had lived nearly a century, I stop to think what societal changes have taken place over those 100 years.

Over the past century, our melting pot country has absorbed a panoply of languages and nationalities, in addition to being the source of plenty of political swagger.

There have been many new medical discoveries and public health measures resulting in longer life expectancy and lower child mortality rates, despite what our swaggering politicos currently say.

Although neither of my parents lived past 90 years of age, when they were born in the early 1920s, rural transportation was primarily horse and buggy, most babies were born at home, antibiotics had not been developed and only smallpox vaccination was routinely administered to children.

Everyone wrote postcards or letters to one another to stay in touch, and photographs were done by professionals.

The moon had not been visited, the web was something your face ran into on a foggy morning, and nuclear referred to a center of a cell.

Oh, and yes, we still have horses.

Not many horses still labor on behalf of humans as they did on a daily basis 100 years ago. Ours have a pretty sweet life here on our farm, living well into their thirties – a century in horse years.

Thinking ahead to a century from now?
So much more will happen that we can’t begin to imagine.

But I hope there will always be horses…

Aunt Lois, nearly 100
Aunt Betty, age 99
Great Grandma Elna, age 88
Great Grandpa Harry holding baby Emerson, photo by mama Abby Mobley
Great Grandma Emma, granddaughter Andrea, great-grandson Zealand
my paternal grandparents in the early 1910s
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Taking Time to Stand and Stare

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What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
~W.H.Davies “Leisure”

…I believe there are certain habits that, if practiced, will stimulate the growth of humble roots in our lives. One of those is a habit of awe and wonder.

By awe and wonder, I mean the regular practice of paying careful attention to the world around us. Not merely seeing but observing. Perceiving. Considering. Asking thoughtful questions about what we see, smell, hear, touch, taste. In other words, attending with love and curiosity to what our senses sense. (How often do we eat without tasting? How often do we look without seeing? Hear without listening?) Admiring, imagining, receiving the beauty of the world around us in a regular, intentional way: this is the habit of a wonder-filled person. And it leads to humility.

A regular habit of awe and wonder de-centers us. It opens a window in our imaginations, beckoning us to climb out of our own opinions and experiences and to consider things greater and beyond our own lives. It strengthens our curiosity, which in turn lowers the volume on our anxieties and grows our ability to empathize. Over time, we become less self-focused and can admit without embarrassment what we don’t know. In short, we grow more humble.
~Kelly Givens from “Teaching Children to See” from Mere Orthodoxy

This would be a poor life indeed
if I didn’t take time
to stand and stare
at all that is displayed before me.

The golden cast at the beginning and endings of the days,
the light dancing in streams like stars,
simply staring at God’s creatures
who stare back at me,
each wondering what the other is thinking.

We don’t dare blink…

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While the World Tilts Toward Sleep

barnstormingblog1 Comment

The cat calls for her dinner.
On the porch I bend and pour
brown soy stars into her bowl,
stroke her dark fur.
It’s not quite night.
Pinpricks of light in the eastern sky.
Above my neighbor’s roof, a transparent
moon, a pink rag of cloud.
Inside my house are those who love me.
My daughter dusts biscuit dough.
And there’s a man who will lift my hair
in his hands, brush it
until it throws sparks.
Everything is just as I’ve left it.
Dinner simmers on the stove.
Glass bowls wait to be filled
with gold broth. Sprigs of parsley
on the cutting board.
I want to smell this rich soup, the air
around me going dark, as stars press
their simple shapes into the sky.
I want to stay on the back porch
while the world tilts
toward sleep, until what I love
misses me, and calls me in.
~Dorianne Laux “On the Back Porch” from Awake

They sit together on the porch, the dark
Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.
Their supper done with, they have washed and dried
The dishes–only two plates now, two glasses,
Two knives, two forks, two spoons–small work for two.
She sits with her hands folded in her lap,
At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,
And when they speak at last it is to say
What each one knows the other knows. They have
One mind between them, now, that finally
For all its knowing will not exactly know
Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding
Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.
~Wendell Berry “They Sit Together on the Porch” from A Timbered Choir

If just for a moment,
when the world feels like it is tilting so far
I just might fall off,
there is a need to pause
to look at where I’ve been
and get my feet back under me.

The porch is a good place to start:
a bridge to observe “out there”
without completely leaving the safety of “in here.”

I am outside looking squarely at uncertainty
yet still hear and smell and taste
the love that dwells just inside these walls.

What do any of us want more
than to be missed if we were to step away
or be taken from this life?

Our voice, our words, our heart, our touch
never to be replaced,
its absence a hole impossible to fill?

When we are called back inside to the Love
that made us who we are,
may we leave behind the outside world
more beautiful because we were part of it.

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