Tag: Rain

To Bear the Light

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dripsanddrops

Rain-diamonds, this winter morning,
embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs;
each solitaire, placed, it appears,
with considered judgement,
bears the light beneath the rifted clouds —
the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.
~Denise Levertov “Bearing the Light”

Indivisible inestimable abundance —
as belighted jewels
descend from heaven
to adorn the plain and meager
on earth.

Nothing warrants
such grace falling like rain,
to cling like sequins sparkling
on our veil of tears.

novemberdrops

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Some Rain Must Fall

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leafdew

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
~Longfellow “The Rainy Day”

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Peering at a Landscape on a Branch

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I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of 59 years, and on this farm for 20 years.  The grandeur of the snow-capped mountains to the east and the peaceful shore to the west overwhelms everything in between.  I’ve walked past these bare antique apple trees autumn after autumn, but had never stopped to really look at the landscape growing on their shoulders and arms.  There is a whole other ecosystem on each tree, a fairy land of earth bound seaweed, luxuriant in the fall rains, dried and hidden behind leaves and fruit in the hot summer.

This is the world of lichen, a mixed up cross between mold and fungus, opportunistic enough to thrive on rock faces, but ecstatic on absorbent bark.

I had never really noticed how proudly diverse they are.  I had walked right by their rich color and texture.

Yet it hasn’t bothered them not to be noticed as they are busy minding their own business.  As John McCullough writes below,  they thrive happily where they find themselves “never and always true to their essence, never and always at home.”

Now I know.  And so do you.

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Closer, with the glass, a city of cups!

Why are they doing this?

In this big sky and all around me peaks &
the melting glaciers, why am I made to
kneel and peer at Tiny?
~Lew Welch from “Springtime in the Rockies, Lichen”
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The lichen raised its fragile cup,
and rain filled it, and in the drop
the sky glittered, holding back the wind.

The lichen raised its fragile cup:
Now let’s toast the richness of our lives.
~Helvi Juvonen  “Lichen Cup”

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A truly good book is something as wildly natural and primitive, mysterious and marvelous, ambrosial and fertile, as a fungus or a lichen.
~Henry David Thoreau

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We are lichens on a grand scale.
~David Haskell

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But what is life to a lichen?
Yet its impulse to exist,
to be,
is every bit as strong as ours —
arguably even stronger.
If I were told that I had to spend decades
being a furry growth on a rock in the woods,
I believe I would lose the will to go on.
~Bill Bryson

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It is merely
a question of continuous
adjustment, of improvising a life. When I’m far from friends
or the easing of a wind
against my back, I think of lichen—
never and always true to its essence,
never and always at home.
~John McCullough from “Lichen”

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A World Planted in Pennies

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novemberdropclose

triangle

If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity,
so that finding a penny will literally make your day,
then,
since the world is in fact planted in pennies,
you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
—Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Planted pennies
on days like today
are like raindrops,
just as plain and more than plentiful.
When I’m feeling dry and withered
I only need to look up into gray skies
and all the drops fill my bank
and hydrate my soul, lost in wilderness.
The desert flows, my thirst is quenched
by something so simple, so underwhelming,
so enriching
as pennies and raindrops.

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Tattered and Tumbling Skies

barnstormingblog1 Comment
 
 
morning9232
photo by Starla Smit
photo by Starla Smit
 
sunrise113The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain —
They are with us like a disease:
They worry the heart,
they work the brain,
As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane,
And savage the helpless trees.
What does it profit a man to know
These tattered and tumbling skies
A million stately stars will show,
And the ruining grace of the after-glow
And the rush of the wild sunrise?
~William Ernest Henley from “The Rain and the Wind”

Yesterday a calm and steady rain
made more sodden a sullen gray dawn
when unbidden, a sudden gust
ripped loose remaining leaves
and sent them spinning,
swirling earthbound
in yellow clouds.

The battering of rain and wind
left no doubt
summer is done for good —
the past is past.
I hunker through the turbulenceto await a clear night when once again
heaven empties itself into
a fragile crystalline dawn.

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A Melancholy Nature

barnstormingblog4 Comments

frontwalnutmist

wwusouth

rainymares

A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. 
The sky was hung with various shades of gray,
and mists hovered about the distant mountains
– a melancholy nature. 
Every landscape is,
as it were,
a state of the soul,
and whoever penetrates into both
is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.
~Henri Frederic Amiel

 

What is melancholy
at first glance
glistens bejeweled
when studied up close.

It isn’t all sadness~
there is solace in knowing
the landscape and I share
an inner world of tears.

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 fog1021

Send Rain

barnstormingblog3 Comments

redsquare

See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build — but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

Mine, O thou Lord of life, send my roots rain
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Thou art indeed just, Lord”

As I look out through a tear-streaked window at the beginning of this dark day,
I fear I’m inadequate to the task before me.
Parched and struggling patients line my schedule;
they are anxious and already weary and barren, seeking something, anything
to ease their distress in a hostile world,
preferably an easy pill to swallow.
Nothing that hurts going down.

While others are thriving around them, they wilt and wither, wishing to die.

Lord of Life, equip me to find the words to say that might help.
May it be about more than genetics, neurotransmitters and physiology.

In this dry season for young lives, send your penetrating rain.
Reach down and shake our roots
fiercely
and slake our thirst.

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morningrain

Awash with Angels

barnstormingblog5 Comments

sunrise830

Today, in Bellingham, even the sidewalks gleam.
Small change glints from the creases
in the lady’s mantle and the hostas after
the rain that falls, like grace, unmerited.
My pockets are full, spilling over.
~Luci Shaw from “Small Change”

There were thunder storms and torrential rains to the north of us, to the east and to the south, but we had only a gentle constant showering during the night — a calm center.  This morning such undeserved grace is gleaming as if a spill over of twilight’s gloaming.

Today we are awash, cleansed,  with bright wings.

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And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~ Gerard Manly Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”


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Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
~Richard Wilbur

The Land of Tears

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drops2It is such a secret place,
the land of tears.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sometimes not so secret.

Sometimes the landscape of tears is right there for all the world to see, hiding in plain sight, camouflaged by transparency.
Sometimes they glisten jewel-like under the sun, appearing more like fire than water.
May these teardrop sparks dry in place without a trace, self-extinguishing in forgiveness.

Gems remembered, lost in time, and let go.drops3Nobody deserves your tears,
but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.
~Gabriel Garcia Marquezdrops4I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter,
but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.
~Cat Stevensdrops