Friday, October 31, 2008

Great Spirit God

I am very needy. I know that you promised to love me, but could you really? It’s not going to be easy. I’m very stubborn and on my very best days, very annoying. I try to get my own way in ways that even I do not understand. About sin, I try to avoid it but the worst part is that most of the time I don’t even know that I am committing it! I could use some help here. You have known me since I was conceived. That was a long time ago. I try to keep the bad part of me hidden. I expect that you still know me, but the good part wants to honor your trust in me. If you still want to take a chance ~ I’m here and in great need.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

To God of the Rising Sun

January 31, 2001

When light begins to streak the sky
And dreams won’t fade by day,
Rock us back to sleep awhile
Till darkness burns away,
And sunshine laughs across the land,
Until we dare, by your grace,
To push the blankets back
And reach to touch your face.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Krista Beth at 2 ½

Fall of ‘77

“Give Gram a kiss!” and you wrap your arms and your whole body around me as tightly as my own skin. How I wish I could protect you always and that we could stay the way we are. But after hugs and kisses I release you and watch you walk away, a whole yard tall, your own person, even now.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

For My Critique

My thoughts emerge from
chrysalis,
Exposed to light, with
shallow breath.
A vagrant breeze can
fold their wings.
Gossamer and near
to death.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Learning from a Sparrow

The cup before me is almost empty now but still I’m not inclined to leave this little room. For one thing, my chair is very comfortable and faces two Currier and Ives prints. There’s a clean bleakness about “The Blacksmith Shop in Winter” and a wide awake feeling in “Winter Morning,” with it’s fresh snowfall. On the pine hutch is a bronze school bell that has called many an impatient child in at recess time. A large cup is there that once kept neat the bushy moustache of an ancestor. A wooden mortar and pestle stands proudly retired beside a plate inscribed with the poem “The Quiet Room” written by Whittier when questioned about his Quaker faith. It is quiet here. The clock ticks and the fire crackles in the grate.

Outside the pines are beginning to bend in the wind and by the window the birds are clinging to the swaying suet rack. One rusty little sparrow has lighted on the mound of snow on the feeder, immersing his tiny legs completely and seems to be studying me. I shiver for him. Beneath him his friends squabble over the seeds. Are you waiting for your chance little fellow? Brave Mrs. Downy Woodpecker doesn’t mind the slow movement of my hand that lifts the cup to my lips. The plump chick-a-dees flit to the feeder and away. Ten minutes have passed and the sparrow still sits with his twiggy legs buried in the snow. There is a place on the feeder now. Come on down. Your legs must be so cold. The wind is blustery now and swirls the fine snow from the pines about. I’d like to go now but must see why the little fellow on the feeder does not move. Downy Woodpecker has replaced his mate on the suet, looking as though some-one splendid had touched him on the head and left a glowing mark. The quiet juncos are collecting the scatterings beneath the feeder. Twenty minutes have passed and the little sparrow, two inches high with freezing little sticks for legs still sits in the snow. Once the wind blew him but he fluttered his wings and braced his feet and held on. Does the red from my sweater attract him? Come down into the feeder where the wind is not so harsh. Your friends, the nut-hatches, are here walking upside down on the suet. I know you’re a contemplative bird but don’t be so stubborn. Have you a message for me? Is it that you can stand for thirty minutes in the freezing weather up to your feathers in snow and that you are really not a bird at all but a miracle? The sparrow cocked his head and dropped down into the feeder. So that was the message, my little friend.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Quick Silver

Quick-Silver

How quick she was
When she was small.
She’d dart into the street
Before our eyes.

How do you hold
A daughter you love
Made of silver
Running through your fingers?

Friday, October 10, 2008

Night

For the Night

Stay close beside me
Through this long night.
The cold dark is falling
And blurring my sight.

My strongest defenses
That stood through the day,
The evening has crumbled
And melted away.

See not my weeping;
Let my tears fall.
Just for a time let my
Weakness be all.

Give your strong succor
In this brief death,
Your hand on the pillow,
Your love, your warm breath.

If in your presence
I could but sleep,
Know not my dark dreamings
Your vigil keep.

When the warm sun
Melts the frost on the pane
Lean over and wake me
To living again.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Loss

The grass comes tender green out
of the ground.
Oh God, how I feel like crying.

The glorious clouds roll in from
the North.
Oh God, how I feel like crying.

The afternoon sun gilds the pine
boughs with gold.
Oh God, how I feel like crying.

The garden shoots spring up and
you’re not here.
Oh God, how I feel like crying.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Apples

It began as a game to entertain a group of older women. We were given paper and pencil and asked to list the names of as many kinds of apples as we could remember. As the flurry of passing paper and pencils subsided the whispering began and like merry children we had a desire to share the names before they were written down. Bright eyes and smiles of good humor made it seem that apples and their names had pleasant association for us.

“What was the one with the stripe?”
“Ben Davis.”
“Ben Davis.”
“Porter. That was a good apple.”
“Yes, a good apple.”

When the tally was in there were twenty-five names. The fine flavor and quality of the apples was discussed. I asked why we never hear some of these beautiful old names anymore. One woman said, “They can’t take the time and they don’t care that much about them anymore.”

Later, the names kept going through my head. Remember the rough, rusty skin of the Russet and the hard yellow inside? How good they were! Hear the thud of the soft-fleshed yellow Transparent as it falls to the ground. One bite shows the juice so gathered at the core that it really is transparent. In the old homes that housed three generations at once trips to the cellar for apples were frequent. When it was your turn remember how you lit the lamp and whistled your way down into the gloom to the hard packed dirt floor and the barrels of apples that kept well? And the way up through the shadows swelling of Wealthys, Courtlands, Starks?

Crab apples appeared on the table for special occasions, spicy, pickled, still in their little red skins and held daintily by the stem and eaten to the core. The crab apple tree in bloom was like a bridal bouquet.

Red and Yellow Delicious smell as good as they taste. Biting thru the red skin of the McIntosh into the cool white fruit is a pleasure most of us know. The Red Astrican was the first apple to show red in the fall and was a favorite of hungry children although apples didn’t have to be red. Remember eating green apples with salt, or just green apples, and remember green apple sauce? Were dried apples made from Kings, Wealthys, Baldwins?

Skiing home on a warm winter day did you stop and pick a shriveled apple from the tree and suck the thawing brown cider? A snow apple? A Northern Spy?

A Wolf River was a giant of an apple with a beautiful red color, to be eaten, yes, but also to be polished and shined and rubbed to a glow and arranged on platters where they could be seen, like a word fitly spoken, apples of gold in pictures of silver.

The Harvey has a solid name. Who wouldn’t want to try the flavor of the Winesap? Did they send you with a basket to gather wind-fall Pumpkin Sweets before the sharp beaks of the hens found them? Do you remember the boughs hanging low and heavy with Greenings and Bellflowers; the props under the branches of the Bitter Sweets and the Tolman Sweets and climbing the ladder and reaching --- away--- up---there---for the High Top Sweetings?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Plans

Our Plans for 1973

Spring and Summer

Throw away the packing boxes
Pound a nail in the wall and hang a picture
Fill the bird bath
Plant strawberries
Paint a picture
Work in the herb garden
Learn a psalm
Cultivate roses
Cane a chair
Hear the whippoorwill
Notice as the sound of the night train approaches, whistles at the crossing and fades away
Write a letter
Follow an old stone wall
Visit a friend
Fill the cookie jar and invite a grandchild for a visit
Ride the bike
Watch for lady slippers
Take an interest in someone young
Listen to the rain on the leaves coming nearer
Sleep to the sound of rain on the roof
Feel the wind freshen
Wake up in time for the birds early morning chorus

Fall and Winter

Fill the bird feeders
Go apple picking
Bake bread and share it
Hook a rug
Finish Pilgrims Progress
Walk in the path of moonlight thru the Groce
Rake leaves
Play the auto harp and sing a hymn
Make a pot of tea
Write a poem
Gather rose hips and herb
Listen to the lonesome owl
Kindle a fire
Learn bird calls
Ask friends in
Cook a stew in the iron kettle in the fireplace
Shovel a path
Tell our young families how much we love them and how proud we are
Be very quiet and watch our pines fill up with snow