You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea); And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs. ~Robert Frost “Putting in the Seed”
The garden is ready; the soil turned over, the compost mixed in, rototilled to a fine crown. Next will come the laying out of strings, the trench hoed straight, the seed laid one by one in the furrow and covered gently with a light touch.
Then the sun warms and showers moisten, the seeds awaken to push upward, bold and abrupt, wanting to know the touch of sky and air to leaf and leap and bloom and bear.
We are partly tuber, partly bear. Inside our warmth we fold ourselves in the dark and its cold – around us, outside us, safely away from us; we tuck ourselves up in the long sleep and comfort of cold’s opposite, warming ourselves by thought of the cold, lighting ourselves by darkness’s idea. ~Donald Hall from “Seasons at Eagle Pond”
Being too warm the old lady said to me is better than being too cold I think now in between is the best because you never give it a thought but it goes by too fast I remember the winter how cold it got I could never get warm wherever I was but I don’t remember the summer heat like that only the long days the breathing of the trees the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane and the light getting longer in the valley the sound of a bell from down there somewhere I can sit here now still listening to it ~W.S. Merwin “Remembering Summer”
I confess loving the dark and cold as much as light and warmth. Drawn without alarm clock away from my pillow, I awake early covered in inky blackness of these unlit January mornings.
An uncharted day before sunrise, so raw with ripening, belongs to no one else until the light comes to force me forth. Only from darkness can I sprout so boldly.
I Here something stubborn comes, Dislodging the earth crumbs And making crusty rubble. It comes up bending double And looks like a green staple. It could be seedling maple, Or artichoke, or bean; That remains to be seen.
II Forced to make choice of ends, The stalk in time unbends, Shakes off the seedcase, heaves Aloft, and spreads two leaves Which still display no sure And special signature. Toothless and fat, they keep The oval form of sleep.
III This plant would like to grow And yet be embryo; Increase, and yet escape The doom of taking shape; Be vaguely vast, and climb To the tip end of time With all of space to fill, Like boundless Yggdrasill That has the stars for fruit. But something at the root More urgent than that urge Bids two true leaves emerge, And now the plant, resigned To being self-defined Before it can commerce With the great universe, Takes aim at all the sky And starts to ramify. ~Richard Wilbur “Seed Leaves”
Now the green blade rises from the buried grain, Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been: Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.
When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain, By Your touch You call us back to life again; Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been: Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green. ~John Crum from The Oxford Book of Carols
Over the last several weeks, roots have become shoots and their green blades have risen chaotically, uneven and awkward like a bad haircut. And like a bad haircut, a few days of further growth will make all the difference — renewal will cover all the bare earth, breaking through crusty rubble to reach up, heaving and healing, aiming for the sky.
There is nothing more hopeful than the barren made fruitful, the ugly made beautiful, the devastated restored, the dead made alive.
The fields of our broken hearts recover; love is come again.
This is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.
…To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’
Because we know what is coming behind the crocus.
The spring comes slowly down the way, but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not.
We can.
We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on…to which He is calling us.
It remains with us whether to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.
~C. S. Lewis from “God in the Dock”
You, who are beyond our understanding,
have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ.
You, who are the uncreated God,
have made yourself a creature for us.
You, who are the untouchable One,
have made yourself touchable to us.
You, who are most high,
make us capable of understanding your amazing love
and the wonderful things you have done for us.
Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation,
the mystery of your life, example and doctrine,
the mystery of your cross and passion,
the mystery of your resurrection and ascension.
~Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)– prayer
My husband, with help from our neighbor kids and our son who was visiting for Christmas, has prepared soil beds on our farm and planted hundreds of spring bulbs, including over two hundred crocus. We are called to this action, especially in the midst of winter – to plan for, to anticipate, to long for the spring that is coming. We become part of the promise that winter is not forever.
The larger bulbs – the tulip, the daffodils – have no choice but to respond to spring – the expanding light calls to them as the soil begins to warm. But the crocus are a mystery, sprouting earlier when there is no reason to. Snow is still on the ground. Frost still crisps everything at night. Yet they come forth from the soil even when everything is still weeping winter.
What comes behind the crocus?
We too rise up from the dark to enter the light.
We too are part of the mystery.
A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. — Isaiah 11:1-2a
Our salvation comes from something small, tender, and vulnerable, something hardly noticeable. God, who is the Creator of the Universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness, and hiddenness.
I find this a hopeful message. Somehow, I keep expecting loud and impressive events to convince me and others of God’s saving power; but over and over again I am reminded that spectacles, power plays, and big events are the ways of the world. Our temptation is to be distracted by them and made blind to the “shoot that shall sprout from the stump.”
When I have no eyes for the small signs of God’s presence – the smile of a baby, the carefree play of children, the words of encouragement and gestures of love offered by friends – I will always remain tempted to despair.
The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, he asks for my full attention. The work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with its claims and promises. But the promise is hidden in the shoot that sprouts from the stump, a shoot that hardly anyone notices. — Henri Nouwen from Gracias: A Latin American Journal
He who has come to men dwells where we cannot tell nor sight reveal him, until the hour has struck when the small heart does break with hunger for him;
those who do merit least, those whom no tongue does praise the first to know him, and on the face of the earth the poorest village street blossoming for him. ~Jane Tyson Clement from Watch for the Light
I see buds so subtle they know, though fat, that this is no time to bloom. ~John Updike from “December, Outdoors”
Our local grocery store garden center will soon do a brisk business selling buds. There is no market for the subtlety of potential.
After Christmas, overnight, unsold poinsettias and fresh evergreen wreaths are hauled away with the oddly shaped and drying Christmas trees to make way for containers of unbearably cheerful primroses and early forced narcissus and hyacinth plants. Just a week into winter, spring is right in our faces as we wheel past with the grocery cart, a seductive lure to effectively skip a whole season of restorative quiet. Color and fragrance and lush blooms are handed to us without taking a breather and simply waiting a couple months for them.
Dormant plants and hibernating animals have the right idea this time of year. Rather than slogging daily through the daily burden of mud, skittering precariously across icy pavement or reaching up out of snow drifts, they are staying busy taking a break. Well fed and pregnant with potential, they remain alive and well beneath a facade of sleep. Come out too early and risk frostbite.
It’s no time to bloom right now — being a bud is exactly what is needed, out of season blossoms need not apply.
We can stay busy swelling with potential and dream dreams of the glorious growth to come.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
The shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright,
How Christ, the Lord of glory was born on earth this night.
To Bethlehem they sped and in the manger found Him,
As angel heralds said.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.
O Savior, Child of Mary, who felt our human woe,
O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know;
Bring us at length we pray, to the bright courts of Heaven,
And to the endless day!
The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough. Matthew 13:33
An infant is a pucker of the earth’s thin skin; so are we. We arise like budding yeasts and break off; we forget our beginnings. A mammal swells and circles and lays him down. You and I have finished swelling; our circling periods are playing out, but we can still leave footprints in a trail whose end we do know. ~Annie Dillard from For the Time Being
…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. Paul Harding in Tinkers
We are all mixed together within the Word, created to bud and swell and yield and rise and transform the dough around us, even when we are hurting and frozen and drenched and dry.
Like yeast, we can make a difference to all that is flat and unyielding. May it be so.
May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand. He prepares me with parable.
How do you know, deep underground, Hid in your bed from sight and sound, Without a turn in temperature, With weather life can scarce endure, That light has won a fraction’s strength, And day put on some moments’ length, Whereof in merest rote will come, Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb; O crocus root, how do you know, How do you know? ~Thomas Hardy, from Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems
This is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulders. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise.
…To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’
Because we know what is coming behind the crocus.
The spring comes slowly down the way, but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not.
We can.
We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on…to which He is calling us.
It remains with us whether to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.
~C. S. Lewis from “God in the Dock”
If there’s fire on the mountain Or lightning and storm And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing The outcry and the birth-cry Of new life at its term. ~Seamus Heaney from “The Cure at Troy”
We are mere seed lying dormant, plain and simple, with nothing to distinguish us one from the other until the murmurs of spring begin, so soft, so subtle. The soil shakes loose frosty crust as the thawing warmth begins. Sunlight makes new life stir and swell, no longer frozen but animate and intimate.
We will soon wake with a “birth-cry” from our quiescence to sprout, bloom and fruit. We will reach as far as our tethered roots will allow, beyond earthly bounds to touch the light and be touched.
How do we know when the time has come?
We are ready and waiting to unfurl, in response to the fire in the sky:
called by the voice and breath of God.
Some of us . . . are darkness-lovers. We do not dislike the early and late daylight of June, but we cherish the gradually increasing dark of November, which we wrap around ourselves in the prosperous warmth of woodstove, oil, electric blanket, storm window, and insulation.
We are partly tuber, partly bear. Inside our warmth we fold ourselves in the dark and its cold – around us, outside us, safely away from us; we tuck ourselves up in the long sleep and comfort of cold’s opposite, warming ourselves by thought of the cold, lighting ourselves by darkness’s idea. ~Donald Hall from “Season at Eagle Pond”
I confess
loving the dark as much as light.
Drawn without alarm clock
away from my pillow,
I awake early
covered in inky blackness
of unlit January mornings.
An uncharted day
before sunrise,
so raw with ripening,
belongs to no one else
until the light comes
to force me forth.
Only from darkness do I
sprout so boldly.
The light beats upon me. I am startled— a split leaf crackles on the paved floor— I am anguished—defeated.
A slight wind shakes the seed-pods— my thoughts are spent as the black seeds. My thoughts tear me, I dread their fever. I am scattered in its whirl. I am scattered like the hot shrivelled seeds.
The shrivelled seeds are spilt on the path— the grass bends with dust, the grape slips under its crackled leaf: yet far beyond the spent seed-pods, and the blackened stalks of mint, the poplar is bright on the hill, the poplar spreads out, deep-rooted among trees.
O poplar, you are great among the hill-stones, while I perish on the path among the crevices of the rocks. ~Hilda Doolittle “Mid-Day”
If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars? —G.K. Chesterton
We are mere seeds lying dormant, plain and simple, with nothing to distinguish us one from the other until the murmurs of spring begin, so soft, so subtle. The soil shakes loose frosty crust as the thawing warmth begins. Sunlight makes life stir and swell, no longer frozen but animate and intimate.
We wake from our quiescence to sprout, bloom and fruit. We reach as far as our tethered roots will allow, beyond earthly bounds to touch the light and be touched.
There is renewed hope seeded in the heart of man, ready and waiting to unfurl, with a precious fragrance that lingers, long after the petal has dried, loosened, and fallen to freedom.
How do you know, deep underground, Hid in your bed from sight and sound, Without a turn in temperature, With weather life can scarce endure, That light has won a fraction’s strength, And day put on some moments’ length, Whereof in merest rote will come, Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb; O crocus root, how do you know, How do you know? ~Thomas Hardy from “The Year’s Awakening”
______________
Only a handful of days with temperatures over 50 degrees F and the ground begins to crack with sprouting bulbs. They are emerging early, sadly misled that winter is done. In any case, it is glorious to see them. I won’t be surprised to hear the peepers starting their night chorus before long.
The year awakens despite the darkness when I leave for work in the morning and the darkness when I return. We are turning a corner, staggering and bleary-eyed, emerging from the underground, preparing to face the light.
