Chag Sameach - Happy Easter - Joyous Spring

Today

BY BILLY COLLINS

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

No sky lovelier

November Skies

Than these November skies 

Is no sky lovelier. The clouds are deep; 

Into their grey the subtle spies 

Of colour creep, 

Changing that high austerity to delight, 

Till ev'n the leaden interfolds are bright. 

And, where the cloud breaks, faint far azure peers 

Ere a thin flushing cloud again 

Shuts up that loveliness, or shares. 

The huge great clouds move slowly, gently, as 

Reluctant the quick sun should shine in vain, 

Holding in bright caprice their rain. 

And when of colours none, 

Not rose, nor amber, nor the scarce late green, 

Is truly seen, -- 

In all the myriad grey, 

In silver height and dusky deep, remain 

The loveliest, 

Faint purple flushes of the unvanquished sun. 

John Freeman

announcing your place in the family of things

Have you noticed lately how amazing the display has been each dawn when the rising sun hits our quotidian low clouds?  I've made it a practice this November to rise early enough to have coffee readied, allowing me to stir gratitude along with the cream into my first cup of the day, gazing out in quiet wonder at the shifting pink and gold tones of scattering light.

Occasionally I take my camera outside along with my coffee.  As part of my ongoing "we do SO get Fall color, only it looks like THIS" conversation with family members who live out of state, I try to capture in images the ongoing fireworks in our clouds.   

As I reluctantly turned away from the sun to go back indoors the other morning, I was surprised by the sight of a skein of geese migrating South in absolute silence.  I laughed to myself, thinking this particular flock must be populated with creatures who were simply "not morning birds", preferring to wing their way towards winter sanctuary sans the typical vocalise.    

Overcome with joy, I watched in appreciative admiration until they disappeared from view.  This flock did not announce my place in the family of things with their voices, but as I struggled to imagine their experience of flying through each glimmering dawn, their transit through my morning sky offered me kinship sufficient to the day.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
In the family of things. 

Mary Oliver

The Simple Precinct of Home

Yesterday I dodged a few raindrops as I dashed into a local polling place to vote.

Once inside, after both my identity and my vote were duly processed, I began a slightly more personal ritual that goes along with my election day experience. One of my precinct judges is an acquaintance I used to see weekly back when I was yet a living pillar in a worshipping congregation.

While this precinct official can still be found in the pews week to week, I can not.  So, if things are slow election wise, we step to one side and take a few moments to get caught up.  

She spoke of a trip they will take later in the month, and how it is the first time her husband has been out of the country since his High School days.  She and I agreed he was past due for a journey.

I've been thinking over that idea, that a person "must" travel, at least occasionally. As is often the case, I am of two minds.  While I thoroughly enjoy exploring "other" spaces, I also believe Dorothy and the Wizard had it right all along, though poet Billy Collins phrased it more elegantly...

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.

(from "Consolation", via Poemhunter.com)

October makes promises

I woke to a flash of light.  I held still, straining to hear what came after.  I fell back into sleep only to be stirred by the insistent drumming of water.

It was more than the absence of heat that drew me out.  A chill hangs in this shimmering morning, and with it a promise of changes to come.

A poem's fragment wrapped around me echoing my hand around my coffee.

"......It won't stay with you, but you'll remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt or something you've felt that also didn't last. ........." 

Leaves 

       by Lloyd Schwartz

Happy Second Day of Autumn!

Sure, sure.  Most people would indeed be wishing you a happy first day of Autumn.

Do we really want to waste time quibbling about whether it is more important to celebrate a first than a second day? All while cooler morning air evaporates into another stark reminder that Autumn in Central Texas is more a suggestion than seasonal change?

I thought not.

There will certainly be no shortage of internet foliage shots available if borrowed imagery is your deal.

And yet?  I find the color we get around these parts, the show that begins after a couple of welcomed rains in combination with cooled overnight air, though mostly of the Last Gasp Flowering variety? It is soothing and inspiring in its own way.

So if it is colored leaves you desire, please feel free to look elsewhere.  To follow is everything I've got to ease your summer weary eyes...

I listened, straining.

Shook my head

and listened once more.

It was then I heard her.

"I too, 

am Autumn's offering"

the Pomegranate was whispering

in my garden.

"Do I not embrace cooler mornings, 

eased afternoons,

respite from summer's braggadocio of heat?"

"I flower and fruit,

offering tribute to 

all that is,

has been,

or can be."

"You callously 

worship leaves

as they lose their life stream."

I heard her sigh.

"But I too,

I too am Autumn."