Tuesday, January 30, 2018

yesterday's walk




































the raucous cry
of the crow
rang out

over the crackling
of cornstalks
underfoot

as my lungs
breathed in
the smoky air

and my heart
cried
holy
holy

“Walking is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.” 
                           — Elizabeth Von Arnim

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

winter's brown

















it’s nine degrees
when i step foot 
onto the driveway

and start my trek
down the gravel
road

this kind of cold
creates
quiet

and i know it will not be
birds today
that stir my understanding

half way through the cornfield

when all i hear are sounds
of my own footsteps
through frozen snow

and the whisk whisk
of my ski jacket

i notice 
at my feet

dying weeds
brown and fallen
like a straw rug, woven
still bearing 
golden tint

and when i look up again

i am filled with
the black brown
circling round

the woods are dark today

the barren trees
bear their branches
into a stone cold 

sky


"I prefer winter and fall--when you feel the bone structure of the landscape--the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it. The whole story doesn't show.  ~ Andrew Wyeth 

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.  ~Introduction to the book of Job

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

this tree























here she stands
one among millions

and here i stand
too

more than a million chances 
to one
of not seeing her 

and yet,

and
yet



While on the topic of chance……C.S. Lewis gives us good food for thought. :)

"In friendship, we think we have chosen our peers.  In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart.  But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances.  A secret master of ceremonies has been at work.  Christ, who said of the disciples, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, " can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another."  The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out.  It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others."     ~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves