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”
We cannot find God in noise and restlessness.
Look at nature:
the trees, flowers, grasses all grow in silence;
the stars, the moon, the sun all move in silence.
The important thing is not what we are able to say
but what God says to us
and what he speaks to others through us.
In silence he listens to us;
in silence he speaks to our souls;
in silence we are granted the privilege of hearing his voice.
~Mother Teresa from “No Greater Love”
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
This fevers me, this sun on green,
On grass glowing, this young spring.
The secret hallowing is come,
Regenerate sudden incarnation,
Mystery made visible
In growth, yet subtly veiled in all,
Ununderstandable in grass,
In flowers, and in the human heart,
This lyric mortal loveliness,
The earth breathing, and the sun…
…The apple takes the seafoam’s light,
And the evergreen tree is densely bright.
April, April, when will he
Be gaunt, be old, who is so young?
This fevers me, this sun on green,
On grass lowing, this young spring.
~Richard Eberhart
It is a mystery
how dead,
so very dead
can live again.
Ground frozen
mere weeks ago
now leaps lush.
Branches snapped off dry
in midwinter
now burst with bloom.
Beyond understanding
Beyond imagining
Beyond each fevered breath
that could be,
but isn’t,
our last.
Fifty weeks of dirt rows
Plain and unnoticed.
Could be corn, could be beans
Could be anything;
Drive-by fly-over dull.
Yet April ignites an explosion:
Dazzling retinal hues
Singed, crying
Grateful tears for such as this
Grounded rainbow on Earth
Transient, incandescent
Brilliance hoped for.
Remembered in dreams,
Promises realized,
Housed in crystal before shattering.
A look around the farm and nearby to find our spring
O Deus, ego amo te,
O God I love Thee for Thyself
Nec amo te ut salves me,
and not that I may heaven gain
Nec quod qui te non diligent,
nor yet that they who love Thee not
Æterno igne pereunt.
must suffer hell’s eternal pain.
Ex cruces lingo germinat,
Out of the bud of the wood of the Cross
Qui pectus amor occupant,
wherefore hearts’ love embraces
Ex pansis unde brachiis,
whence out of extended arms
Ad te amandum arripes. Amen.
you lovingly take us. Amen.
~Prayer of St. Francis Xavier “O Deus Ego Amo Te” 18th Century Traditional
Suddenly, in the last week, buds are forming everywhere.
From seemingly dead wood, standing cold and dormant,
there springs new life.
What could be more lifeless than a cross piece of timbers
built specifically for execution?
Yet life sprung from that death tree,
an unexpected and glorious bud,
ready to burst into most fragrant blossom.
…was it, maybe,
a frost that had turned its sap to ice,
and so it stood,
bitter-sweet,
still fair to see,
but stricken,
soon to fall and die?
~J.R.R Tolkien from Return of the King
Any hint of spring
is frozen in place,
buds encased,
unable to swell,
their future
suspendedand stricken,
bitter in
their beauty.
Under the giving snow blossoms a daring spring.
~Terri Guillemets
Although the snow still lingers
Heaped on the ivy’s blunt webbed fingers
And painting tree-trunks on one side,
Here in this sunlit ride
The fresh unchristened things appear,
Leaf, spathe and stem,
With crumbs of earth clinging to them
To show the way they came
But no flower yet to tell their name,
And one green spear
Stabbing a dead leaf from below
Kills winter at a blow.
~Andrew Young, “Last Snow”
The snow is ice-encrusts the morning
before it bids farewell under warming sunlight.
Winter encasing spring
grasping one last moment
of timelessness.
Barnstorming 