Some October, when the leaves turn gold, ask
me if I’ve done enough to deserve this life
I’ve been given. A pile of sorrows, yes, but joy
enough to unbalance the equation.
When the sky turns blue as the robes of heaven,
ask me if I’ve made a difference.
The road winds through the copper-colored woods;
no one sees around the bend.
Today, the wind poured out of Canada,
a river in flood, bringing down the brilliant leaves,
broken sticks and twigs, deserted nests.
Go where the current takes you.
Some twilight, when the clouds stream in from the west
like the breath of God, ask me again.
“Some October” by Barbara Crooker
I sit with the storm,
watching the wind do what wind does –
visible-invisible work.
It howls through the roof tops,
blows leaves past the window.
It is quite the showoff this morning.
The tree drips sorrow.
Thunder and lightening,
scare the dog into the bathroom,
but thrill me with their ferocity.
All morning it goes,
as I work at my 4′ space
pausing,
occasionally,
or more,
to watch the crying games just a few inches away.
Then,
suddenly,
my writing lights up.
It’s dramatic,
startling even.
I look up to see what has happened.
The storm is completely gone.
The sunlight has broken through the overcast sky.
The trees are drenched in golden glow,
leaves glistening like glowing emeralds.
It is so beautiful it takes my breath away.
I sit and stare for timeless time,
drinking it into my soul,
into my storehouse of these glory moments.
Then I go back to my work,
full of wonder and hope.
ACL 10/04/13
watercolor paintings by Mary Lou Peters
October. Its brilliant festival of dry
and moist decay. Its spicy, musky scent.
The church’s parking lot deserted
except for this one witness,
myself, just resting there.
Somewhere a radio plays Flamenco.
A spotlight of sunshine falls on the scattered debris.
Blood-red and gold, a perfect circle of leaves
begins to whirl,
slowly at first, keeping the pattern,
clicking against the blacktop
like heels and castanets,
then faster, faster, faster. . .
round as a ruffle, as the swirling
skirts of an invisible dancer.
Swept off into the tangled woods
by the muscular breeze.
The hoarse cheering of crows.
Inside the dark empty church,
long cool shadows, white-painted wood,
austere Protestant candles thriftily snuffed,
Perhaps a note on the altar,
Gone dancing. Back on Sunday
Outside by Dolores Stewart
For today, I will memorize
the two trees now in end-of-summer light
and the drifts of wood asters as the yard slopes away toward
the black pond, blue
dragonflies
in the clouds that shine and float there, as if risen
from the bottom, unbidden. Now, just over the fern—
quick—a glimpse of it,
the plume, a fox-tail’s copper, as the dog runs in ovals and eights,
chasing scent.
The yard is a waiting room. I have my chair. You, yours.
The hawk has its branch in the pine.
White petals ripple in the quiet light.
“Solitudes” by Margaret Gibson
A tree you pass by every day is just a tree. If you are to closely examine what a tree has and the life a tree has, even the smallest thing can withstand a curiosity, and you can examine whole worlds.
– William Shatner
The aspen glitters in the wind
And that delights us.
The leaf flutters, turning,
Because that motion in the heat of August
Protects its cells from drying out. Likewise the leaf
Of the cottonwood.
The gene pool threw up a wobbly stem
And the tree danced. No.
The tree capitalized.
No. There are limits to saying,
In language, what the tree did.
It is good sometimes for poetry to disenchant us.
Dance with me, dancer. Oh, I will.
Mountains, sky,
The aspen doing something in the wind.
“The Problem of Describing Trees” by Robert Hass
the sky is varying shades
of pale baby blue.
the water is like a silver mirror,
endless beautiful.
the same rocks that glittered
like a million diamonds,
just yesterday,
are silent today.
big dependable rocks,
ready for Monday work week.
still the same.
still awesome.
still beautiful.
just in a different mood.
today the brilliant emerald moss
on those huge rocks,
suspended
in the metallic mercury,
glow against the silver.
I think of Ireland.
my heart yearns to visit
the Emerald Isle
on the other side of this pond.
life is different there,
yet the same.
I watch as the oyster boat trolls.
a heron waits,
until just the right moment –
then takes off,
flying so close to the water.
on and on
until I lose him in the horizon.
I feel him.
I am waiting for my moment.
resting for the next phase of flight.
and in the fullness of time,
at just the right moment,
I will take a breath and
fly.
staying close to the water,
my source of life,
as the epic journey home
continues.
My heart knows one thing for sure –
my love story has
a very happy ending
AL 4/15/13
Morning light, green shoot,
door quietly opening,
what dawns upon you
that hadn’t before,
pilgrimage toward this moment,
first step at the Red Sea,
so much left behind,
and what abides,
and who,
and what is not yet,
what you have and
what will be provided,
divine promise,
its keeping yet to come,
new, and yet from of old
prepared, awaited,
led into the room
already set for you,
without your being able to know
what blessing is in store,
how you are needed here,
what grace is about to unfold.
First day of school.
Let there be light.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Biology: Course Review
by Marilyn McEntyre
If you forget what axons do,
or how a virus invades a cell,
remember this—
that light becomes food.
That the seasons rhyme,
a different word each time
turning soil into living song.
That all things work together.
Even death. Even decay.
That this is the way
of the world we got: what is given
grows by grace and care
and knows what it needs.
That life is strong, and precarious,
full of devices and desires.
That what we hold in common
may not be owned. Control
is costly. Close attention
is the reverence due
whatever lives and moves,
mutant and quick and clever.
That our neighbors—
the plankton, the white pine,
the busy nematodes—
serve us best
in reciprocal gratitude:
what they receive, they give.
The way the heart accepts
what the vein delivers and sends it on,
again. Again.
Our only blindness is our own lack of fascination, humility, curiosity, awe, and willingness to be allured forward.
– Richard Rohr
Nature will bear the closest inspection. She
Invites us to lay our eyes level with her
Smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its
Plain.
—Thoreau
The raspberries
in my driveway
have always
been here
(for the whole eleven years
I have owned
but have not owned
this house),
yet
I have never
tasted them
before.
Always on a plane.
Always in the arms
of man, not God,
always too busy,
too fretful,
too worried
to see
that all along
my
driveway
are red, red raspberries
for me to taste.
Shiny and red,
without hairs—
unlike the berries
from the market.
Little jewels—
I share them
with the birds!
On one perches
a tiny green insect.
I blow her off.
She flies!
I burst the raspberry
upon my tongue.
In my solitude
I commune
with raspberries,
with grasses,
with the world.
The world was always
there before,
but where
was I?
Ah raspberry—
if you are so beautiful
upon my ready tongue,
imagine
what wonders
lie in store
for me!
“Raspberries in my Driveway” by Erica Jong
life: acoustic & amplified 