Holy Heralds

Holy Heralds

they are,
not angels proclaiming
on this Christmas dawn,
but sleepy rustlings
and voices 
from fields
and barn.

White-throats and cardinals,
softly chipping  
in the meadow
at first light,
hallow
the cold and cloudy
greyness
with their glad
tidings

The goats' quiet
nickering
greet the only shepherd
present
in the stable
this morning,
tending her flock in the darkness,
and humming hymns
of the One
newly born. 

Awaken!
The Holy has come,
Christmas
slipping in
through the
sacred ordinary 
of this
day of days,
once again.

 

Within - A Poem for Advent

 

Within our silence
the Song.

Within our longing
the Promise.

Within our darkness
the Light.

Within our sorrow
the Presence.

Within our tumult 
the Comfort.

Within our long waiting
the coming
of God.

Thanksgiving Guests

 

We never know who will join
the feast,
sometimes familiar faces,
sometimes strangers
we have never seen
before.

I don't cook for them,
but they may forage
on their own
where they will.
The menu is quite varied.
There is plenty for all.

The dining room looks
unkempt,
neglected even...
just how our guests like it.
We offer spaces to rest
when they are weary
and all the food they can eat,
sap, insects, seeds, berries,
and some lingering greenery,
everything a feast should offer 
hungry travelers.

November's bounty.
Thanksgiving with the wild ones.

Surprised by a Dawn Redwood

 

Surprised by a Dawn Redwood

gifted by a friend who had one 
to spare
and knew
I'd be grateful.

Gratitude,
that generous spirit
that sometimes surprises,
spilling
out into a weary world,
welcome as sunrise,
sowing kindness,
germinating
and rising
like new shoots
springing
from the dark earth
ever towards
the light.

November Woods

 This poem, by Patience Strong, is one of my favorites for this time of year, ushering in the transition of the seasons.

Lovely are the silent woods
on grey November days,
when the leaves fall red and gold,
upon the quiet ways.
From massive beech, majestic oak,
and birches white and slim,
like the pillared aisles of a cathedral
vast and dim.

Drifting mist like smoking incense
hangs upon the air.
Along the paths where birds once sang,
the trees stand stripped and bare.
Making Gothic arches, with their branches interlaced
and window-framing vistas
richly wrought 
and finely traced.

It is good to be in such a place
on such a day.
Problems vanish from the mind
and sorrows steal away.
In the woods of grey November,
silent and austere,
Nature gives her benediction
to the passing year.
            Patience Strong

Praying with Binoculars in the Berkshires in October

 

And with a cup of tea
on the porch off the old classroom.
Praying with the nuthatches and chickadees
foraging at the feeder and in the goldenrod out back,
and with the song sparrows and chipmunks
rustling through last years' leaves.

Praying with the horses on the hillside
and their foggy breath
as the sun rises over the mountain,
light slanting through the black cherry
and the birches.

Praying with the dew glistening in the hayfield
and the spider's silk slung between ash branches,
with yellowing ferns
and lingering asters 
and sugar maple leaves dropping
one by one.

The stone schoolhouse, 
filled with two centuries of memories,
feels too crowded for my silent prayer.
Outdoors I sit,
accompanied by descendents 
of the long ago wild ones,
in praise and thanksgiving
for this morning,
for this land,
and for the One who has been always here.

Deeply Rooted

This from a couple of years ago, but as I am admiring them again, here they are again.

Windflowers

(because they are deeply rooted,
with a nod to Psalm 1 and St Paul)

Tall
and graceful
supple dancers
straining heavenward
though no one tends them
swaying in the slightest breeze
storm-blown but not broken
in autumn as others fade
cheery pink and yellow 
welcoming faces
hosting hungry
bees.

Sabbath Rain

 Not everyone reading this will feel the same way about the autumn's rain, I realize. But where I live, it was a hot dry summer and the recent rain was a gift.

Interrupting the interminable drought,
drops are finally falling
on parched pastures 
and withered gardens.
We have been waiting,
the drooping woodlands
and tattered roadside sumacs,
the bedraggled spicebushes
and I.

The days of lugging heavy hoses,
and pouring dirtied goat and chicken water
on newly planted sassafras trees
compulsively checking the weather report,
and inwardly groaning,
are over.

The rain asks nothing
but that we receive its blessing,
refreshing 
and rejuvenating
our weary souls.
The rain has come 
and all is green with gladness,
once again.

Hospitality of the Hedgerow

Wild and unruly it is,
an untamed profusion
of blackhaw and arrowwood,
winterberry and shrubby dogwoods
weaving a tangle
of hiding places,
an autumnal banquet
for the wild ones.

Wild perennials wander here,
wingstem growing where it will,
and stands of goldenrod
jockeying with the asters,
nectar and pollen in yellows, pinks and purples,
swaying with the movement 
of bees and beetles feeding.

As mistflowers beckon
to the swallowtails and Monarchs,
goldfinches echo unceasingly 
from the sunflowers planted by chipmunks
and the pokeweed's purple berries
invite the catbirds to dine,
and the thrashers,
and thrushes.

Autumn's palette splashes
across the hedgerow 
in glad abandon,
welcoming everyone,
welcoming
all.

Attunement

In the abundance of this waning season,
let me be turned to You, O God.
In the sunflowers' cheerful faces
and the Joe-pyes' frothy billows,
in the barn swallows' final flight
and the goldfinches' tinkling song,
in the cicadas' rhythmic whining
and the coneheads' high-pitched drone,
in groundhogs fattening,
and foxes foraging on windfalls,
in the the black gums' first reddening
and the jewelweed's golden glow,
in the myriad offerings of late summer,
let me be turned to You, O God.
Let me be turned to You.

Sleepy Summer

Too tired to write yet the words
want to come.

Words to capture August's breezes,
and her heady scent,
tiger swallowtails on purple phlox,
and ruby throats-chasing the house finches
pecking holes 
in the ripening apples.

Words to paint blue dragonflies
over the pond,
and goldenrod in the fields,
amber meadow grasses waving,
and the buzzing of cicadas
and the bees.

Lazy August morning,
waiting for storms 
and listening to what the land
has to say.

The Day’s First Utterance *

First written for Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Formation's Prayer Notes.

Every morning,
before dark gives way to dawn,
a first voice greets
the day.

This morning,
the wood thrush’s melody
floats out of the woodlands
and across the field.
Other mornings, the peewee’s
plaintive song whispers
the day’s beginning,
or the cardinal’s piercing whistle
awakens the chorus,
or the catbird’s sleepy chatter
gently rouses
his companions.
 
Some mornings the first voice
is a last voice from
the night before...
the green frog still in the mood to party
or the field cricket not yet settled
into daytime sleep
or the great-horned owlet
begging one more morsel.
 
Some mornings’ first murmurings
are the whoosh of wind in the spruces
or the sigh of the rushing creek

running high,
or the pattering of a gentle overnight rain.
 
Every morning,
before dark gives way to dawn,
the Voice within all voices
beckons,
awakening
and welcoming us
into the
day.

 
*Title from a line by J. Philip Newell in Celtic Benediction, Saturday Morning Prayer.

Fuzzy

 

Heavy is the air
and the dew upon the mountain mint
and spider silk.
No breath of wind to
keep the fog at bay.

Quiet is the birdsong
and the thrumming insect chorus
and the green frogs.
Only the rooster
boldly greets the day.

Welcome are the bees
and their feeding on the fennel
and the phlox. Yet
their numbers dwindle
and slowly slip away.

Enshrouded is the path
and the road that runs before us.
Wearily we walk
searching for the way.

Sanctuary

Undecided, yet again
the tree swallows
swoop toward the hanging gourd's
entrance hole,
investigating and resuming flight
in one fluid motion.
Satisfied, they scavenge
straw from the garden 
and hay from the goat pen
and, nest completed,
she settles in to brood
the eggs that will
become her
children.

Unperturbed, motionless
in the mown path
through the wet meadow,
the meandering wood turtle
appears comfortably
at home.
Mouth smeared with slugs,
he gazes intently as I pass
before resuming
his foraging
and his
travels.

Undeterred, the solitary
doe glances my way
as she browses
the field.
Stepping gingerly
across uneven ground,
she nips at the spicebush
and samples the grasses,
the goldenrod and asters.
Perhaps she will
bring her
fawn.

Unbidden, they graze
unfamiliar territory.
Young groundhogs now
out on their own
have discovered the hedgerow.
And the vegetable patch.
Nimbly, they crawl
over, under and through fences
to access the sustenance
they need to grow,
and later,
hibernate.

Undaunted, curious
baby rabbits roam
the yard 
nibbling oxalis, violets, grasses
and fallen apples,
sometimes sitting 
in the old magnolia's shade
Startled,
they freeze,
watching warily for danger,
and the need
to flee.

Uncertain, the new
barn swallows sit 
side by side
on a cable above the goats.
Amid undecipherable twitterings and
nervous aerial acrobatics
they agree to set up
housekeeping.
After incubating her eggs
on a beam above the hay bales,
the all-consuming frenzy 
of feeding babies
will commence.

Wild ones
know nothing of land deeds,
of property lines 
or asking permission before
taking up residence. 
In this refuge
all are welcome.
In this refuge
squatter's rights
reign.

Wonder

 

Have you noticed children squatting,
captivated by an ant and following 
every movement as it crawls way?

Or smiled as they pluck dandelions' seedheads,
blowing the fluff with abandon and 
giggling all the while?

It doesn't have to a field of Monarchs
or an orange dragonfly hovering above a pond.
It might be a few black ants
carrying a crumb
across the sidewalk.

It doesn't have to be a forest
or a garden's riot of color.
It might be a solitary dandelion
growing brazenly beside a
busy parking lot.

"Let the children come," He said.
Let us all be children
once again.

Steward of Time

 

The oriole is singing again
after days of silence,
so I stop what I am doing, 
and listen to
the sweetness of his song.
One last, perfect peony
is blooming in the garden,
so I pause,
and bend low,
inhaling the
sweetness of her scent.

Bees are on the beardtongue,
and fledgling cardinals on the fence,
startled by frenzied ruby-throats
zipping by.
Chipmunks, their cheeks bulging, dash to and fro,
as young rabbits sample young clover
and the gnat's wings and 
tall meadow grasses glisten,
backlit by the rising sun.

The breezes that caress the ostrich ferns
caress my cheeks too,
joining me to the Oneness,
of all living things. 
Invited into contemplation,
invited into the now,
I have become a steward of the moment.
I have become a steward of time.

Babies

We are in the thick of babies.

Four legged ones,
from whom no planting is safe,
dart through the fences, 

tiny bodies zipping through the two-inch
mesh that keeps larger mammals
at bay.

Beneath the water, legless ones spend

long days feasting on pond algae,

one day to become the toads and
green frogs they already are,
in metamorphic disguise.

The two-legged feathered ones all wear
the same bewildered expression
at the wide world in which they are
learning to make their way.
Juvenile brown thrashers,
carbon copies of their mother,
follow her through the hostas,
foraging in the mulch.
Young mockingbirds, 

restless in the ripening serviceberries,
plead to be fed, surrounded
by unrecognized abundance.

Baby catbirds experimentally preen their new feathers,
following mama's example, 
and newly fledged cardinals, 
adventurous round little bits of grey fluff,
are never where their parents
last left them.

Fledgling robins in the grass.
Infant house wrens in the hanging gourds.
Carolina wrens exploring the barn.

Chickadees peeping in the nesting box, and
barn swallows zig-zagging above us all.

I had asked for more of God.
Enfolded in new life and
the plenty that sustains it,

again I see.
God is everywhere I look.

 

All The Good

 

Waking early,
grumbly,
agitated,
irritated at the dismal quality
of interrupted sleep,
I begrudgingly filled the water buckets, and
reluctantly headed to the barn, 
when the wood thrush's song
stopped me in
my tracks.

He who had not slept,
who had flown who knows how far
through the darkness, 
who had finally set down into these woods
at first light,
was singing.
No sleepy murmuring, he,
but a full-throated song that
pierced my self-pitying doldrums.
"Pay attention!" he nudged.
"Remember all the good!

All the good given,
day in and day out,
to those willing to receive it
into their being.
Soul lifted and 
eyes opened,
I stepped into
the morning made new,
once again.

 

First Revelation

This was originally written as a Prayer Note for Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development https://www.oasismin.org/

When I got up this morning, I had the idea

to spend part of the day in

Serious Study.

Perhaps I would read the mystics,

or some accessible theologian,

or the Scriptures, themselves.

But the toads were trilling
and the white throats were singing,

and the redbud was bursting into bloom,

and my feet were itchy
and my spirit restless and I forgot

my high-minded intentions,

and went out to seek God.

I walked the woods, gazing at 

the expanses of skunk cabbage
and bowed low to examine the dwarf ginseng
and the emerging tips of mayapples.

I listened to hymns sung by robins

and titmice
and song sparrows
and peered at leaf buds
and spicebush flowers

and the trout lilies thriving under

as-yet-unclothed trees.

I sat at the feet of a yellow birch

on a bank above the rushing creek

and inhaled the scent of spring,

of new growth,

of life, 

and wonder,

and gloried in the arrival 
of the year's first Louisiana waterthrush.

God's First Revelation enfolded
and drew me into the Presence of

The One who imagined and then

breathed us all

into life.

I don't think I need to be reading

the mystics today,

after all.

How Many Springs?

 

I am of the age when I have begun to wonder 

how many years might be left to me, 

particularly, how many springs will I yet live

to experience.

How many more seasons to savor the beauty of 

redbuds softening the forest edges, 

or to smile at the hilltops, clothed in their pale green furriness 

that lasts only a few days?

How many more April hikes up the mountain where I strain to

distinguish pine warblers from juncos by their calls, or

early mornings of jumping out of bed to welcome

the first warblers of the spring migration, 

or to marvel at the zillions of tiny toad tadpoles

hatching in the pond?
How many more years to watch the spicebush's early color

wash through the woodlands, or

the red maple flowers blazing crimson across the landscape,

or the subdued trailing tassels of the oaks,

or the olive haze of new leaves on the
creek-side stand of sycamores?

How many more days will I delight in the fragrance of lilacs 
and apple blossoms and 
wild mint in the empty fields, 
of newly mown grass,
or the scent of a soft spring rain?

How many more opportunities to stroke the 
pussy willow's fuzzy buds,

or the hazelnuts' dangling catkins,

or to reverently reach out to the one trout lily flower

amid the sweeping colony of leaves?

How many more springtime walks to suddenly stand still,

and wonder at the exuberant song of the ruby-crowned kinglet,

who has just broken into my melancholy musings?
And how many more times will the catbird's song,

or the peeper's call,

or the newly noticed bank of rue anemone

call me back from such pensive questioning into

the moment, 

this moment,

the only moment of the only spring

I am sure to witness,

to hug to myself in unrestrained gladness

and gratitude.

At the Opening of the Day

Jubilant are the robins' songs
in the dark
before the dawn,
greeting the day from as far away as I can hear,
waves of music drifting through the sleepy landscape,
as if every robin in the world were singing.

Suddenly, 
as if the conductor has lowered his baton,
some mysterious cue quiets them and,
as their song subsides,
their attention turns to
matters of survival.
And nest building.

The towhees are back,
and the thrashers,
and the chipping sparrows,
all self-importantly announcing their arrival amid
the melodies of white-throats and titmice,
Carolina wrens and both chickadees,
cardinals and a downy woodpecker,
a cacophony of sound,
like an orchestra tuning up,
voices almost
indistinguishable.

How can a person think with all this noise?
Perhaps that is just the point.
What if all the busy humans stopped,
and listened,
and accepted this moment,
and its invitation
to noticing,
to reverence,
to caring,
to stillness
at the opening of this day?

The Birth of Leaves

 

Have you ever pondered the
birth of leaves?
Have you wondered what nudges them
from the womb of their buds,
in this seasonal morning
of the year?

I walked the fields this afternoon
as impatient as any child on
Christmas Eve,
searching for signs of life in the
believably dead-looking twigs
on the saplings I had 
set out as bare roots 
this past winter.

Like the generous Sower of the parable
(though, perhaps, with more thought to site conditions)
I scattered my trees across the landscape.
Yet, whether they thrive
or wither
is beyond my control.

Slivers of green are emerging
on the yellow birches, but
the red and silver maples are lazily dozing,
their leaf buds plump with the roundness
of a uterus about to give birth.
The beech and river birches,
the persimmons and the oaks 
are deep in their arboreal dreams,
not ready to give thought to waking.
They will not be rushed, and
care not for my eagerness, nor 
my hopes.

And so today I peered closely
at each one, not
with the eyes of a husbandman,
but with the eyes of a mother,
blessing, and 
urging my tiny trees to live and
bear fruit and 
to grow into
what they may become, 
long after I am
gone.

The Brave Ones

It is yet too cold for gardening
or the turning of the soil 
or planting the seeds that are readily at hand
on my kitchen counter.
The earth's surface is still
encrusted with crystallized shards of ice
that will leave their tiny footprints
as they evaporate or melt into the ground
in a few hours.

The hellebores are pouting after a night
well below freezing 
and the golden ragwort's leaves are
adorned with frozen lace,
as if dressed for a ball.

But the intrepid ones, those 
early blooming bulbs,
brave botanical souls who laughingly
defy late winter and raise their
faces to the dawn,
they impart the courage I need
to trust that winter is receding and
warmth will come.

Later today, when the sun has
warmed the land, 
I will plant peas.

 

Certainty

The changes are subtle and
easy to miss.
Raspberry canes reddening,
willow twigs yellowing,
the almost invisible
purple points of skunk cabbage,
breaking through the forest floor,
exactly the same color
as the muck from which
they emerge.

Not yet the season for courtship,
a new voice has joined the winter throng.
Energetic song sparrows singing their certainty,
proclaiming to the wide world
their confidence
that the time for mating will
not delay.

Like a baby sleepily stretching towards consciousness
unconvinced the time is right for opening its eyes,
like the thaw that teases before
the cold refreezes the earth,
transformation comes fitfully, 
confusingly,
erratically,
unpredictable but incessant.
For this we wait,
offering ourselves to Love's warming,
unable to speed the process, 
unable to shake off winter, 
unable to hasten spring.

Our promise is
the earth's promise.
Growth wins out
as surely as buds break and
fruit forms and
trees reach their branches
ever farther towards
the sky.

The Work of My Hands

 The referenced prayer below is from the Northumbria Community's Mid-Day Prayer liturgy.

The work of my hands is 
the work of my life.
Not in halls of academia,
nor business, nor healing, 
nor ministry, but 
in the earthy dealings of
the everyday.
Hands that have long labored,
often when no one was watching, 
at the myriad, ordinary, sometimes-dirty,
consecrated tasks, 
to which I have
been called.

Holding my babies.
And theirs.
Guiding bewildered newborns'
tiny mouths to
their mother's milk.
Turning, feeding, washing, dressing
gentle souls who could 
no longer
care for themselves,
work demeaned by others,
caring for the least of these.

Milking sixty cows.
Or one.
Caring for goats and sheep,
and chickens and turkeys,
an unpredictable donkey, two pigs,
and a couple of geese.
Feeding, mucking stalls,
stacking hay, carrying water, 
collecting eggs,
stringing fences that contained the beef herd,
cradling a just-born calf as its life faded
away into the snow.

Decades of plants,
decades of gardens,
digging, planting, weeding, harvesting 
to sustain humans, 
body, soul and spirit.
Returning to the land its
glad abundance and inviting
the wild ones to dine,
one small, 
or sometimes large,
plot at a time. 

Hands on the latch,
opening the door
to God and to
those who come
seeking,
creating spaces of safety,
spaces of welcome,
spaces of
communion.

These hands are no longer young,
nor beautiful.
They are worn and sometimes rough,
slowly becoming misshapen,
often tired,
yet eager, still, 
to take up the work
yet before
them.

And so, gratefully,
I pray, 
"Let the beauty of the Lord be upon me.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands.
Establish, Thou, the work of my hands."