Ebbing

Half halting, as in doubt,
Creeping, creeping, the tide goes out,
Oft breaks, impatient of delay,
And oft returns a little way
To kiss the old gray rocks, and pour
Its largess on the sand once more,
So the tide goes out.

The slender grasses rank
Reach trembling fingers down the bank,
And cling to helpless mosses when
The pitying water turns again;
And the forsaken cliffs look down
Upon the sands left bare and brown
When the tide goes out.

To hear a far-off sound
It listens close along the ground;
A call from the resistless sea,
A voice of dread and mystery;
Seaward the under-currents set,
Longing is stronger than regret,
And the tide goes out.

Whatever life it be
Hath heard the summons toward the sea,
Nor dread nor tenderness can stay
When once the ocean calls away;
Though every parting wave make moan
To leave the barren shore alone
When the tide goes out.

More poems by Caroline Spencer

When October goes

John Mercer penned the most poignant words about October I think I've ever heard, to which in 1984 Barry Manilow (as he discovered them after Mercer's death) applied his lilting music. Twenty years ago I heard "When October Goes" the first time and wept. I remember that year too well... the fall... 1994, Cincinnati, Ohio, months after Marc and I separated. Manilow wrote the moving melody out of his own love of the simple, haunting words. To hear this music every once in a while brings forward tears and yearnings from years ago and (almost) exposes long-carefully-guarded feelings.
-----

Even now I'm watchful as leaves are turning early in October for the same "turning" in my self. Everyone close to me realizes I talk constantly about trees – in winter remarking on their "bare bones"... spring, "teen-aged" leaves (ha ha) sprigging and buds swelling overnight into blossoms... in summer on how tall the cottonwood in the park, and old sycamore at Red Butte, stands; lovely the light and shadow over and under their full-green canopies – loveliness is the contrast! Ah, for my pecan orchard I lived under for seven and a half years in Georgia... too wonderful!

Late in September I begin to oooh and aaah over our gilded mountains. Nearer home the trees are losing their green still, ripening you might say... and to me they're never more glorious (or vulnerable) than now, nearly November. When October goes I feel the trees and my very own self turning, turning...

When October Goes…

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smokey roofs
I watch the planes go by

The children running home
Beneath a twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them

And when October goes
The same old dream appears
And you are in my arms
To share the happy years
I turn my head away
To hide the helpless tears
Oh how I hate to see October go

I should be over it now I know
It doesn't matter much
How old I grow
I hate to see October go

Green

We have the beginnings of things green!



Lovely to see buds opening on our sticks bushes!



Ahhhh!



At ground level, a profusion. Parsley braves the cold and flourishes...



while irises soldier up into the sunshine!
-----

Green is the Color
~Carolyn Spencer, American poet

You may go praise your roses, and talk of heavenly blue,
Or white, the garb of innocence, and purity's own hue;
Your roses fade, your white is dimmed, your blue is pale to see,
But here's the truest color – the green, the green for me!

Well chose the ancient Mother, our blooming Mother Earth,
When she could deck her majesty with beauty to its worth;
She keeps her youth, her every spring is fairest ever seen,
For young life's fresh beginnings are always in the green.

Come near it, ye foresaken, and charm your gloom away,
Green is the ever-fresh, and springing from decay;
A thousand winters stamp it out, the humble little grass; –
A thousand times it smiles to see the banished winter pass.

You must fade out the blue from the eternal sky,
You must blot out the sunshine, before the green will die;
Flaunt out, my summer beauty! of colors you are queen
The very heaven's blue and gold must blend to make the green!

There's honor to the lowest, the grasses small and sweet,
O, none should go among them but with the lightest feet;
They're kin to the nobility, the old and stately trees,
Yet love to bless the common soil with kindly charities.

Here's to the meadow grasses – O, bonnily they toss
Their light heads to the bobolink, his hidden nest across;
Here's to the churchyard grasses – O, tenderly they wave,
The certain resurrection they preach from every grave.

http://www.blackcatpoems.com/s/green_is_the_color.html

Verse

Do you love beautiful verse, unfathomable, almost, the first read through? Then the second... and, ah, other times... understood!

This all about geese might be best posted in the fall, October or November as the year is waning; however one season's not better than another to contemplate being "quiet in heart, and in eye, clear..."

As, says these lines, what we need is here.

The Wild Geese

Posted by jameswoodward under Sunday Pause for Thought

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here.

 Wendell Berry

On pause

Paused on our walk under the morning sky yesterday...


Stand still

The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

Part of an old Native American elder story rendered into modern English by David Wagoner, in "The Heart Aroused - Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America" by David Whyte.
-----

It's certainly something to pause on our walk each early morning and look around. Amazed to be here and here and Here... wherever we are.

This is what you shall do

Don't ask me why I think this illustration goes with this prose below. To me it does. Some bloggers posting this from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass have placed rather thought-provoking images beside it. I've seen. This, well, makes me happy. 

Part of being on my blog each day (or whenever I can) is for making me happy! My own self. I hold my breath a bit or give a sigh as I reread, then re-experience what I first did when I posted crafted. Or I skim and may wonder why what I posted was all so important, aw. As I stay and explore and review, my own happiness is a big deal. Or I wouldn't write. 

This, ↓ all of it, today, seems just right.

This is what you shall do...

Love the earth and the sun and the animals, 

despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,

stand up for the stupid and crazy, 

devote your income and labor to others, 

hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, 

have patience and indulgence toward the people,  

...go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, 

and with the young and with the mothers of families, 

read these leaves in the open air 

every season of every year of your life,

re-examine all you have been told at school 

or church or in any book. 

dismiss whatever insults your own soul; 

and your very flesh shall be a great poem...

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Without judgment

Peace

Do you think peace requires an end to war
Or tigers eating only vegetables?

Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself?
Do you think peace will come some other place than here?
Some other time than now?
In some other heart than yours?

Peace is this moment without judgement.

That is all.

This moment in the heart-space where everything that is, is welcome.

Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way
That you should feel some other thing
That your life should unfold according to your plans.

Peace is this moment without judgement.

This moment in the heart-space where everything that is, is
welcome.

Dorothy Hunt 

"Beguile us..."

Tuesday October 1

Seriously? !! Seriously? October 1st - how can this be?
-----

OCTOBER
BY ROBERT FROST

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

Early morning poem

One morning walking with Laura recently, we passed these barns. (I've got a thing this month for putting my photos into sketch mode or poster, sorry.) We couldn't help ourselves - I had my camera and she whipped out her iPhone and



we stopped. And took pictures. And took pictures. Lots'a pictures. The light was so right and we're fascinated... or charmed silly, don't know which. We didn't grow up in homes with with barns out back.



Here's the appeal for me: Old barns don’t fall down in a day. "An old barn," writes this blogger's (link) Grandma, Janie Tippett, who I don't know and never will but I love how she says it... "is a poem."
-----

The Old Barn
Madison Julius Cawein

Low, swallow-swept and gray,
Between the orchard and the spring,
All its wide windows overflowing hay,
And crannied doors a-swing,
The old barn stands to-day.

Deep in its hay the Leghorn hides
A round white nest; and, humming soft
On roof and rafter, or its log-rude sides,
Black in the sun-shot loft,
The building hornet glides.

Along its corn-crib, cautiously
As thieving fingers, skulks the rat;
Or, in warped stalls of fragrant timothy,
Gnaws at some loosened slat,
Or passes shadowy.

A dream of drouth made audible
Before its door, hot, smooth, and shrill
All day the locust sings.... What other spell
Shall hold it, lazier still
Than the long day's, now tell?--

Dusk and the cricket and the strain
Of tree-toad and of frog; and stars
That burn above the rich west's ribbed stain;
And dropping pasture bars,
And cow-bells up the lane.

Night and the moon and katydid,
And leaf-lisp of the wind-touched boughs;
And mazy shadows that the fire-flies thrid;
And sweet breath of the cows;
And the lone owl here hid.

O Gather Me The Rose

From The Monthly Review, Vol. 12, by Sir Henry John Newbolt, Charles Hanbury-Williams: The poet William Earnest Henley "draws on a rich store of words, and can make them move at his will, in rhythms which always dance if they do not always sing. He can pour his heart out in an unforgettable strain of love and music and regret. It is the sheer simplicity of his sincerity, always his greatest gift, that works the spell."

Here's a beauty, and Henley's poem too...

O, gather me the rose, the rose,
   While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
   And winter waits behind it!

For with the dream foregone, foregone,
   The deed forborne for ever,
The worm, regret, will canker on,
   And time will turn him never.

So well it were to love, my love,
   And cheat of any laughter
The death beneath us and above,
   The dark before and after.

The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
   The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes,
   The memories that follow!
~William Ernest Henley

Fair among the fairest

Oh. My. Pretty. Irises! I keep loving my desktop this month, you can almost touch the droplets on these petals. Man the irises around here are gorgeous and, for once since we left Georgia, ours! Took this in our back garden two days ago.



2005 My own little corner of Georgia.



2006: Erm, no pics of irises from our yard though they're there... but I give you peas. Look how pretty! And tall.



2007: No irises again - we sure do have 'em, so where're my pics? Love these Easter lilies we saw on our walking tour of Macon, wow!



2008 Our own back yard, love this and the dark purple bud just showing.



2009 Mom's next door neighbor Reva picked irises from their joint back yard and brought them in to mom. What a delicate color.



2010 Georgia, at home...



2011... Utah, mom's back yard...



2012... and Utah, Red Butte Garden, our first visit.



Heaven!



2013 Once again in my own little corner here. At home.



Flower-de-Luce  
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
Thou dost not toil nor spin,
But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
The meadow and the lin.

The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,
And tilts against the field,
And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent
With steel-blue mail and shield.

Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,
Who, armed with golden rod
And winged with the celestial azure, bearest
The message of some God.

Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities
Hauntest the sylvan streams,
Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties
That come to us as dreams.

O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river
Linger to kiss thy feet!
O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever
The world more fair and sweet.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens

After hearing from our friends Sherri and Randie who were visiting from Georgia and whom we saw last week that Thanksgiving Point's Annual Tulip Festival is wonderful...



Monday Kent and I went to Gardens. The festival ended on Saturday and that part's okay with us - I wanted only to see flowers and nature, and that - if possible - in peace and quiet.



A Monday morning is a great time to wander gardens. We got our wish that not many would be at Thanksgiving Point after the big festival,



and indeed only a few of the "dang public" (link) (and here) (link) had driven a way and parked out far and come in with cameras and happy smiles;



there were mothers with children, one school class field trip, a photographer with a bulky backpack and tripod; and a contingency of little old ladies in sun hats ('twas a cloudless 73°) (of which I shall soon be one some day I do not doubt) driven about in golf carts. Workers bent over deadheading and weeding and watering virtually silently while we onlookers wandered the manicured 55-acres.


Seasons
BY JOHN HAAG

Clouds so thick

   they put down

         roots

                        Young aspen

                           practising

                                 quakers

                                          Incoming geese

Periwinkle                              sign passports

   brings remission                        with a V

         of the blues

                         Feel the sun

                              butting the buds

                                    open

                                           Blossoms

Trout lilies nod                        expand

    they know                                  the sky

         they know

                        Lilac

                              a scent by which

                              we mark the calendar

                                          Weather report

         May?                               showers

             By all means               and fresh rainbows

                  Yes. You May

Sweet, huh

The other night at dinner mom scooted toward dad in her chair and he reached over and drew her close. Just held her next to him as we talked and Kent cleared the table and Jen grabbed her iPhone for pictures. I love this one.



Prose written by dad (mom thinks) June 22, 1976, their twenty-first wedding anniversary
Twenty-one years we have been together
Giving our all to each day that goes by.
Striving to follow the will of our Savior,
Teaching our children those patterns sublime.
What have we given and what have we gained?
Sacrifice mellows and softens the heart.
Bringing a oneness to life in it fullness,
To family, and friendships and loved ones divine.
How can one put a price on the blessings,
That come from the gift of the spirit above,
Our service we offer to the Lord who will use us,
The sanctified life is our goal, yours and mine.
Mom and dad have been together nearly 58 years now.

In acceptance

In her book "Keep a Quiet Heart" Elisabeth Elliot said, "There are a great many things in this life we cannot change. Should we stew and fume and fret and be miserable about it? Or say, 'Yes, Lord... I accept what has been given and I won't make a fuss about what has not been given.'"

"Look not after great things. Small breathings, small desires after the Lord, if true and pure, are sweet beginnings of life. Take heed of despising the day of small things by looking for some great visitation. Thou must wait for life to be measured out by the Father. And be content with what proportion and at what time He shall please to measure."

In Acceptance Lieth Peace

He said, "I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places,
They shall be filled again.
O voices moaning deep within me, cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action,
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of manhood, cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavour lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life's riot?
Shut be my door to pain.
Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit; I am defeated.
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
O futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?"
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God to-morrow
Will to His son explain."
Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.
Not vain the word, not vain;
For in acceptance lieth peace. 

-Amy Carmichael

Do the Next Thing

Amen to the following:

"Elisabeth Elliot’s words 'Just do the next thing' still ring in my ears even after many years. 'And if you don’t know what to do, do the thing in front of you,' she reminds us. In my world the 'next thing' is often to simply clean the kitchen, prepare dinner or get the laundry started."

"Instead of holding down a 'real' job we homemakers do manage to keep busy doing the next thing… everyday. Instead of giving our time to a company, office job or personal career, our investment is in our home and family. Our time is devoted to teaching our children and building a happy family life." Anne, author at Educators at Home (link) blog.

"Here is a poem which contains wisdom for Christian living. I found it" (link) says pastor Ray Van Neste ("Oversight of Souls" blog) "in Elisabeth Elliot’s 'The Shaping of a Christian Family' (pg.178-179). Elisabeth Elliot’s writings have meant a lot to me along the way, and I have often heard her discuss her 'do the next thing' philosophy. I did not realize until recently that her language came from this poem which her mother had."

From an old English parsonage down by the sea
There came in the twilight a message to me;
Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven,
Hath, it seems to me, teaching from Heaven.
And on through the doors the quiet words ring
Like a low inspiration: “DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE.”

Many a questioning, many a fear,
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from Heaven,
Time, opportunity, and guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrows, child of the King,
Thrust them with Jesus, doe the nexte thynge.

Do it immediately, do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly, casting all care;
Do it with reverence, tracing His hand
Who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,
Leave all results, doe the nexte thynge

Looking for Jesus, ever serener,
Working or suffering, be thy demeanor;
In His dear presence, the rest of His calm,
The light of His countenance be thy psalm,


Strong in His faithfulness, praise and sing.
Then, as He beckons thee, doe the nexte thynge.
--Anonymous

"There is much simple wisdom here," he repeats.

"Do you find yourself...  feeling your soul is scorched, terribly aware of your inadequacies, fearful of what is to come? 

Since God is still in heaven and His steadfast Word declares His love for you, just carry on and do the next thing. Take the next step of obedience.

Do you worry how your children will turn out, what the future will hold... how the finances will look at the end of the month? 

Resist the allure of self pity, and just take the next step of obedience.

We are typically given enough grace just for the next step. Fret not about what lies around the bend. Perform faithfully the next step, and we will make it home safely in the end."

Elisabeth Elliot is one of the most influential Christian women of our time. For a half century, her best selling books, timeless teachings and courageous faith have influenced believers and seekers of Jesus Christ throughout the world. She waited for years to marry only to have her beloved killed as a missionary. Many years later she remarried only to have her new husband die shortly there after from cancer. She uses her experiences as a daughter, wife, mother, widow, and missionary to bring the message of Christ to countless women and men around the world. (http://www.elisabethelliot.org)

Everyone Smiles in the Same Language

Thought I'd post a poem - I wrote it first in August, 2005 and rewrote it two days ago. Kind of like a chef tosses the salad, this is word salad and I've been mixing' it up!

We may not be too much the same.
We do not have the same physique.
We wear a style and bear a name
And quite prefer to be unique.

We do not act alike as such,
We keep within our comfort zone.
We may not talk, or talk too much!
We have a language of our own.

We may not sound alike perhaps;
We use a characteristic speech.
And dialogue won't fill the gaps 
(and any dialogue would lapse)
With miles or years between us each.



Yet we may choose (if words be gone)
To set particulars aside.
Friendship may be remarked upon
By smiles in case our tongue be tied!

We may remark on who we be -
Our certain style, what's in a name.
Each one of us 'talks' differently;
Though when we smile we talk the same.

Loved by You

For Kent on Valentine's Day, 2005

Three years married

-----

For all the days you've stayed and worked for hours,

And all the ways you've gone out of your way,

For every time you've ever brought me flowers

            or held my hand,

Or simply passed the time of day;

For all the days you've simply had to “take it,”

And all the ways things haven’t gone your way,

For every time you've promised we would make it,

            or wiped a tear

Or simply told me it’s okay;

For all the ways you've shown me that you love me,

For times when you don’t have to, but you do.

For every time, I've thanked the Heavens above me

            for this one thing,

Of simply being loved by you.

February, 2007

Last leaf

November can feel somber.

Or maybe it's me that's wakened this way today.

Halloween indulgences are over. Fall has been stealing in for a full month and in Denver even laid the place bare. Driving home the other day from there I felt comforted seeing leaves on our trees here still, in the valley, in the neighborhoods, but they're falling fast. I learned the term "abscission" early this year writing the poem "Leaves in Winter," (link)

Why, when the air smells of apple in the fall, and gold and brown
Leaves grapple with breezes that, sighing, lift them down...



When winds’ cold grasp takes all these, dying, from their limbs
And shakes them over fields and roots and earthen rims...
And winter's shivering frission strews them, dry as death...
Do some cling, quivering, refusing abscission at her breath?
February 3, 2012

and will soon see leaves all around leaving at last.

Why does it make me think of this by Edith Warton:

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul.

You tell me.
-----

ab.scis.sion zone The region at the base of a leaf, flower, fruit, or other plant part where the formation of a cork layer results in the separation of that part from the plant body

ab.scis.sion: The shedding of leaves, flowers, or fruits following the formation of the abscission zone.