Tag: William Carlos Williams

Love on the Edge

barnstormingblog5 Comments

avalanchelily2

 

It is at the edge of a petal that love waits…
The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space
― William Carlos Williams from Spring and All

 

avalanchelily4

 

 

avalanchelily1

 

 

It is too easy to look for love deep in the heart of things, up front and center, at once showpiece and show off.   We think of love as reverberating from within,  loud enough for all the world to see and hear and know it is so.

But as I advance on life’s road, I have found love is quietly waiting at the periphery of people: so fragile and too easily bruised and torn – clinging to the very edge of our lives.  It is ever-present as it protects and cherishes our core, fed by fine little veins of grace which branch out to feed our tenderest margins.

Love dwells on that delicate edge of us – that exquisite, ethereal and eternal edge of who we are.

 

 

avalanchelily3

 

 

avalanchelilies

So Different

barnstormingblog2 Comments

dandy517181

 

dandyseeds517184

 

So different, this man
And this woman:
A stream flowing 
In a field.
~William Carlos Williams, “Marriage”

 

sprinkler2

 

Like the water 
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We 
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst 
we cannot have it all, or want it all. 
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
~Wendell Berry from “The Country of Marriage”

 

 

30AEBAA5-A85C-4EA5-B20F-2CD52EF2C056

 

mejiergarden3

 

No matter how ruffled I may feel,
how rippled my smooth surface,
you are calming:
becoming stillness when I need it most.

So different
we fit perfectly.

 

 

shatter

 

 

We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know…
~Wendell Berry from “The Country of Marriage”

 

 

stringofpearls

That Rank Odor of Passing Springtime

barnstormingblog5 Comments

homerroller

 

homerroll

 

homerroll2

 

With what deep thirst
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime!

Must you taste everything? Must you know everything?
Must you have a part in everything?
~William Carlos Williams from “Smell”

 

notadeaddog

 

I realize I am not so different than my dogs rolling happily in the stinkiest thing they can find  – I want to taste and know and be part of everything whether it is good or not:

I tend to douse myself with whatever I wish to carry with me through the rest of my days, even if smelling like something just died repels others.

Maybe, like my dogs, it is to conceal who I really am.

Maybe, like my dogs, I would rather fit in with the barnyard than a palace.

Or maybe, just like my dogs, I simply like getting down and dirty and too proud of it.

Human nature being what it is — the desire to blend in with the world’s sordid and sin-ridden surroundings — this is why I, like my dogs, am in constant need of a good bathing.
It would be best to smell like that rank odor of too-swiftly passing springtimes – we all need a renewal and reminder of our rebirth rather than immersion in the stench of death.

May I, like my dogs,
recognize I must be cleansed –
again and again and again.

 

meetingofminds

 

damppups

 

 

homer2018

 

The Delicate Edge of Forever

barnstormingblog6 Comments

begonia622153

 

dogwoodpetal

 

rosepetalrain

 

It is at the edge of a petal that love waits.

Crisp, worked to defeat 
laboredness–fragile 
plucked, moist, half-raised 
cold, precise, touching

From the petal’s edge a line starts 
that being of steel 
infinitely fine, infinitely 
rigid penetrates 
the Milky Way 
without contact–lifting 
from it–neither hanging 
nor pushing–

The fragility of the flower 
unbruised 
penetrates space
~William Carlos Williams from Spring and All (1923)

 

quincetree

 

sakurauw4

 

blackberrybloom

 

It is common to look for love only inside the heart of things, pulsing front and center as both showpiece and show off.    We think of love reverberating from deep within, loud enough for all the world to hear and know it is so.

But as I advance on life’s road, I have found the love that matters lies quietly waiting at the periphery of our hearts, so fragile and easily torn as a petal –  clinging to the edges of our lives barely holding on through storms and trials.

This love remains ever-present , both protects and cherishes, fed by fine little veins which branch out from the center of the universe to the tender margins of infinity.

It is on that delicate edge of forever we dwell, waiting to be fed and trembling with anticipation.

 

rainyrose39917

 

sunsetbegonia

 

trilliumweeping

 

The Jeweled Prize

barnstormingblog3 Comments

drip

 

rainjewels2

 

But we are older,
I to love
                 and you to be loved,
                                        we have,
no matter how,
                 by our wills survived
                                        to keep
the jewelled prize
                   always at our finger tips.
We will it so
                  and so it is
                                       past all accident.
~William Carlos Williams, excerpts from “The Ivy Crown”
written at age 72, published in Journey to Love

 

fogdrops2

 

How can we, at our late middle age,
who have treated love as no accident,
look into a well
of such depth and richness~
how can we tell the young
to will their love to survive –
to strive through thorns and briars,
though tears wept and flesh torn,
to cherish the prize
of rose and ivy crown.

It is all that matters,
this crown of love
we have willed and worn together
through the years:

I love you or I do not live at all.
I to love and you to be loved.

 

 

silverthawthorn

 

 

weepingrose

 

 

ivycling

 

Bruised Purple at the Core

barnstormingblog2 Comments

qal2017

 

qalace719159

 

qalace713155

 

lacey4

 

Her body is not so white as
anemone petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.

Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness.  Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish.  Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over —
or nothing.
~William Carlos Williams — “Queen Anne’s Lace” (1919)

 

qalace71315

 

qalace7191511

We all arise from a single stem, branching off in countless directions, a thousand million hues and shapes and types. We reflect the sunlight and we reflect the Light of the Son.

There can be no question of whiteness nor a pious wish for purity – we are all blemished right at the heart.

We are, each one of us, all colors and we are, each one of us, bruised purple at the core.  We bleed together, my friends, as He did for us.  We bleed together.

 

qalcenter

 

qalace3

 

qalaugust2

 

sunsetqal

Sleeping in the Cold

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

snowglowfarm2

 

supermoon2

 

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
~William Carlos Williams “Winter Trees”

 

januarymoon

 

wintertrees.jpg

 

Winter seems less complicated than other seasons until the wind blows brutal and the ice glaze is an inch thick and snow bends branches to the ground to the point of snapping a tree in half. It is no longer a quiet gentle sleeping time but can take a tree down,  unaware,  in the night, the crack and crash of branches like gunshots hunting down innocent prey.

The clean up has begun, the remnants lying waiting on the ground and the naked trunks scarred.

Despite such devastation, the buds still swell, readying for the complexity of spring.

 

img_9144

 

silverthawbirch.jpg

 

icytopofbirch

 

branchesdown

The North Wind Dying

barnstormingblog11 Comments

josehomer

josehomer1

Outside, the north wind,
coming and passing,
swelling and dying,
lifts the frozen sand drives it
a-rattle against the lidless windows
and we may
dear
sit stroking the cat stroking the cat
and smiling sleepily, prrrr.
~William Carlos Williams

josesam

josecat

José is our front porch cat. That is as opposed to our garage cat, our upper barn cat, our lower barn cats and those that come and go on the farm because we’re a hospitable place where food is always on the table.

But he is the king of the farm cats.  No one questions him (usually) and no one occupies his front porch bench without his express permission. His Majesty shows mercy to any who show proper submission, and every once in awhile, that includes the dogs.  He’s trained every pup here over the years.

He is the official front porch farm greeter, rising from his pillowy bench throne to investigate any newcomer up the sidewalk, mewing his cheerful little “chirp” of a meow in welcome.  Then he turns around and returns to his perch.

José also is a performance cat, having been trained in his younger years to ride on a bareback pad on our Haflingers, walk, trot and over jumps (sorry, no pictures).  This once again proved his ability to get any creature, large or small, to submit to his will.

The love of his life is our daughter, Lea.  José  arrived on our farm 13+ years ago from a city home where he had been adopted as a stray of indeterminate age, and was too intimidating to the other resident cats.  José needed his own kingdom and his own queen so he set his eyes on her and decided he was exactly what she needed.  They have had many happy snuggles together over the years whenever she returns home, including only a month ago during the holidays.

The winter weather was brutal over the past month with weeks of bitter northeast wind blowing right over José’s front porch bed.  Usually during northeasters he picks up and moves to another of our farm buildings until the storm is done, and then reclaims his favorite spot when he deems it cozy enough to be worthy of him.

Only this time, when the wind went away, José didn’t return.

I’ve looked, I’ve called, I’ve left goodies out.  But no José. No chirpy meow, no yellow eyed gaze, no black velvet fur to stroke, no rumbly purr to vibrate in my lap.

I fear he has left for warmer quarters far far away from here as the north wind was dying this winter.

I think he was dying too, and somewhere on the farm — I just haven’t found it yet — there is a black coat that he left behind.

He doesn’t need it any more.

163778_1801199308909_4054430_n

img_0258

jose105

jose1052

josemarch

josekelsysnowjose

Josetractor

jose

joseeye

The Angles of Winter

barnstormingblog6 Comments

sisterssnow2

snowybranches

winterfarm4

Long yellow rushes bending
above the white snow patches;
purple and gold ribbon
of the distant wood:
what an angle
you make with each other as
you lie there in contemplation.
–  William Carlos Williams, January Morning – XII

iceddogwood

snowybricks2

 

For the past eleven days, millions of us wake reluctant to contemplate the headlines:

At what cross purposes are we now?
What right and left angles have been sharpened in the night?
What blowing snow covers a multitude of sins, hiding what we know lies beneath?

And when, O God,  will a naked and merciless January yield to the more welcoming light of Your spring?

 

snowycottonwood

woods30

Perfectly and Completely Rotten

barnstormingblog10 Comments

applehole

O lovely apple!
beautifully and completely
                 rotten
hardly a contour marred–

                 perhaps a little
shrivelled at the top but that
                 aside perfect
in every detail! O lovely

                 apple! what a
deep and suffusing brown
                 mantles that
unspoiled surface! No one

                 has moved you
since I placed you on the porch
                 rail a month ago
to ripen.

                 No one. No one!
~William Carlos Williams “Perfection”

snowapple

“When a newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response:

‘Dear Sirs:
I am.
Sincerely Yours,
G. K. Chesterton.’

That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.”
~Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God (New York: Dutton, 2008)

snowyapple2

 

No one of us escapes the rottenness that lies not-so-deep beneath our shiny surface.  We are full of wormholes allowing the world inside to eat us alive.

We are the problem and the problem is us. That is why we need rescue by a Savior who is the one good apple among a barrel of contagiously bad apples. We are so tainted, it takes Someone who truly is Perfect to transform us from the inside out.

We’ve elected someone who is emphatically a reflection of who we are — bad and rotten and more than willing to spoil the barrel with his history of immoral and unethical behavior, his contentious and profane words, his complete lack of humility and his unwillingness to admit his flaws.

May we hang on to hope that our dis-united states will once again survive an imperfect leader, just as we’ve survived the other rotten apples we’ve placed over us.

We get exactly what we deserve in a President and no one should be celebrating that today.

May we fall to our knees, weeping and grateful, that Christ, who is the Leader of all in His Kingdom, will grant us a grace and sanctuary we emphatically don’t deserve.

Now that would be reason to celebrate.

rottenapple

North Brooklin, Maine
30 March 1973

Dear Mr. Nadeau:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
Sincerely,
[Signed, ‘E. B. White’] from Letters of Note