Tag: soft

A Beautiful Softness of Being Human

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Sometimes when you start to ramble
or rather when you feel you are starting to ramble
you will say Well, now I’m rambling
though I don’t think you ever are.
And if you ever are I don’t really care.
And not just because I and everyone really 
at times falls into our own unspooling
—which really I think is a beautiful softness
of being human, trying to show someone else
the color of all our threads, wanting another to know 
everything in us we are trying to show them—
but in the specific, 
in the specific of you
here in this car that you are driving
and in which I am sitting beside you
with regards to you 
and your specific mouth
parting to give way
to the specific sweetness that is
the water of your voice 
tumbling forth—like I said 
I don’t ever really mind
how much more 
you might keep speaking
as it simply means 
I get to hear you 
speak for longer. 
What was a stream 
now a river.
~Anis Mojgani “To the Sea”

I always thought
softness was weakness
that by letting my
body relax
or gentleness live
on my fingertips
that I was somehow
letting go
somehow sacrificing
my bravery

now I see, to be soft
is majestically courageous
~Juniper Klatt from I was raised in a house of water

I’ve always wanted to be tougher than I am. So soft, I’m ready to burst into tears too much of the time, whether from sadness, worry, or joy. I wish I could be less transparent with my big feelings.

Yet I wouldn’t change my softness for you. I want to always be unspooling myself, to finally reveal what is underneath all the woven threads.

So much of this life is about having the courage to trust even when things are rocky, to follow the flow of things rather than creating obstruction, to lead when everyone else hangs back, to be gentle when the world needs kindness.

May I always be soft enough if you need a cushion to land upon and a pillow to rest your thoughts.

The sun went down and the moon came out
On the day that you were born
The stars were more than we could count
On the day that you were born
On a morning that was old and new
On the day that you were born
The world opened up to welcome you
On the day that you were born

It’s all mystery and motion
How the wheels of this world open
There were gentle rains and summer storms
On the day that you were born

The winds blew patterns through the trees
On the day that you were born
The waters wandered toward the sea
On the day that you were born

The redbuds fade and bloom again
On the day that you were born
The birds knew where and they knew when
On the day that you were born

In the clouds and vapor and the quiet lakes
On the day that you were born
In the deepest currents and waves that break
On the day that you were born

In the prayers and psalms that whisper through the trees
In the secret places only God can see
In the things we feel but cannot be said
We all hold hands and bow our heads

Seasons pass and seasons grow
On the day that you were born
There were things we’ll never know
On the day that you were born
But love is all and love is true
On the day that you were born
And love will always welcome you
On the day that you were born
~Carrie Newcomer

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So Soft

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

the hard mountains,
and the spears of the trees-
from a distance,
look so soft
~L.L. Barkat

photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard
photo by Joel DeWaard

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for — 
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
~Mary Oliver from “Mindful” from Why I Wake Early

Some days I’m the sharp needle
and other days I’m the pin cushion

Some days I may be both,
probing others’ lives and feelings,
moving beyond sharp edges
to find the source of pain.

I wince too,
remembering how it feels.

I notice the gentle light
that floats close to the ground,
that reaches out with cloudy grasp.

This is what I was born for:
destined to be lost
in the softness of each morning,
and still be found before the end of day.

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Reading Over My Shoulder

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Ten more miles, it is South Dakota.
Somehow, the roads there turn blue,
When no one walks down them.
One more night of walking, and I could have become
A horse, a blue horse, dancing
Down a road, alone.

I have got this far. It is almost noon. But never mind time:
That is all over.
It is still Minnesota.
Among a few dead cornstalks, the starving shadow
Of a crow leaps to his death.
At least, it is green here,
Although between my body and the elder trees
A savage hornet strains at the wire screen.
He can’t get in yet.

It is so still now, I hear the horse
Clear his nostrils.
He has crept out of the green places behind me.
Patient and affectionate, he reads over my shoulder
These words I have written.
He has lived a long time, and he loves to pretend
No one can see him.
Last night I paused at the edge of darkness,
And slept with green dew, alone.
I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow
To the shadow of a horse.
~James Wright “Sitting in a small screenhouse on a summer morning”

I have a sense of someone reading over my shoulder as I write. It keeps me honest to feel that breath on my hair, that green smell reminding me who I am.

I should not try to be anyone else.

When my words don’t say exactly what I hope, I feel forgiveness from the shadow beside me.

It’s all softness. It’s all okay even when it’s not.

Rippling of the Land

barnstormingblog1 Comment

The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In the dull pasture where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law,
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream.
There was a subtle flood of steam
Moving upon the face of things.
It came from standing pools and springs
And what of snow was still around;
It came of winter’s giving ground
So that the freeze was coming out,
As when a set mind, blessed by doubt,
Relaxes into mother-wit.
Flowers, I said, will come of it.
~Richard Wilbur “April 5, 1974”

As the ground softens with the warming sun,
so do I.
Winter freeze was comforting
as nothing appeared to change, day after day.

Neither did I,
staying stolid and fixed and frozen.

But now the fixed is flexing its muscles,
steaming in its labor,
greening and growing transformed.

So must I,
giving ground
and birth
to blooms.

Both Landlord and Tenant

barnstormingblog2 Comments

snail1

 

The frugal snail, with forecast of repose,    
Carries his house with him where’er he goes;    
Peeps out,—and if there comes a shower of rain,    
Retreats to his small domicile again.    
Touch but a tip of him, a horn, – ’tis well, –           
He curls up in his sanctuary shell.    
He’s his own landlord, his own tenant; stay    
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.    
Himself he boards and lodges; both invites    
And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o’ nights.        
He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure    
Chattels; himself is his own furniture,    
And his sole riches. Wheresoe’er he roam, –   
Knock when you will, – he ’s sure to be at home.
~Charles Lamb  — “The Housekeeper”

 

snail2

 

I like to think of myself as carefully self-contained and safe from whatever threatens  – not dependent on others, able to bear my own burdens, completely sufficient unto today.

The reality is far different.  As sturdy and solid as I may seem on the outside, I’m nothing but soft and a bit mushy on the inside. And I have a tendency to retreat and hide inside my shell when the going gets rough.

Yet even shells can and will be broken.  I know it’s my home only for a little while.
So knock when you will:  I’ll be here.

 

For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.  Hebrews 13:14

 

snailshell

 

 

broken

The Earth An Invalid

barnstormingblog5 Comments

roseleafrain

 

 

pinkdogwood510188

 

 

The earth invalid, dropsied, bruised, wheeled
Out in the sun,
After frightful operation.
She lies back, wounds undressed to the sun,
To be healed,
Sheltered from the sneapy chill creeping North wind,
Leans back, eyes closed, exhausted, smiling
Into the sun. Perhaps dozing a little.
While we sit, and smile, and wait, and know
She is not going to die. 
~Ted Hughes from ” A March Morning Unlike Others” from Ted Hughes. Collected Poems. London: Faber & Faber, 2003

 

 

barbed18

 

 

centralnorth

 

 

Spring emerged slowly this year from an exceptionally haggard and droopy winter.
All growing things were a month behind the usual budding blooming schedule when, like the old “Wizard of Oz” movie, the landscape suddenly turns from monochrome to technicolor.

Yearning for the annual greening to commence, I tapped my foot impatiently as if owed a timely transformation from dormant to verdant.  We all have been waiting for the Physician’s announcement that the patient survived some intricate life-changing procedure:  happy to say the earth is alive after all and restored, wounded but healing, breathing on her own but too dozy for a visit just yet.

And now her recovery has happened in an overwhelming rush — the colors, the scents, the bird songs, the softness more than overwhelming the sharp-edged bare barbed wire of winter.

I waited impatiently for her emergence and now celebrate my immersion in her healing.
She is very much alive, this temporary home of ours.
No invalid this patient.
She lives, she breathes, she thrives,
she is blooming with everything she’s got
and now so am I.

 

 

 

dandyfrill

 

 

pinkdogwood510187

 

Between Midnight and Dawn: The Spirit Soft

barnstormingblog3 Comments

thistledowndrizzle

fog101944

 This is what the Lord says to me:
    “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
Isaiah 4:18

 

When all nature is at rest, not a leaf moving, then at evening the dew comes down — no eye to see the pearly drops descending, no ear to hear them falling on the verdant grass — so does the Spirit come to you who believe. When the heart is at rest in Jesus — unseen, unheard by the world — the Spirit comes, and softly fills the believing soul, quickening all, renewing all within.
~Robert Murray McCheyne

 ******************************

Amid the hubbub and chaos of modern life, there comes a time when I must quiet myself, voided of selfish desires, hushing harried pointless ambitions. I seek rest and renewal within a freshening of purpose.

When I am thus silent and still, receptive, emptied of self, I am ready.

It is then I am touched, filled oh so softly, without fireworks or thunderclap, or dramatic collapse. As the Spirit descends like silent dew onto my longing heart, I wake restored, a new life quickened within me.

It is that simple. So gentle.

 

dandy910151

dandy910158

Dripping Soft

barnstormingblog2 Comments

aprilnorth2

appleblossomrain3

rainypond

peonyrain2

A soft day, thank God!
A wind from the south
With a honey’d mouth;
A scent of drenching leaves,
Briar and beech and lime,
White elderflower and thyme,
And the soaking grass smells sweet,
Crushed by my two bare feet,
While the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.
~ Winifred M. Letts (1882-1972), English poet

raindandy

 

webrain1

rain8

rainyclotheslines2

appleblossomrain