autumn morning drive
past ponds with gray whorls of mist
revealing secrets
like the blue heron
materializing there
at the edge of hope
Blue Heron in Mist. Elizabeth Castillo, San Diego. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
with thanks to the herons I see in several misty ponds as I drive to work – they lift my spirits immeasurably
pencil pouch advice:
keep going. you are awesome.
trust it can be done
more than the coffee
I drink deep of the message
for living each day
part of a story-poem memoir, when I was nine
The nurse affixes
a sling
for my left arm
in its heavy
Z-shaped cast
she helps me
from the hospital bed
into the wheelchair
she wheels me
across the hall
to see the little boy
with the crushed foot
who’s five
who’s been screaming
almost
non-stop
there he is
very small
in his bed
with crib rails
his foot
big with bandages
is suspended in the air
on a tall sling
I see
the surprise
on his tear-streaked face
when he sees
me
This is the girl
from across the hall
says the nurse
She has a broken arm
look
but she’s okay
the doctors have fixed her arm
so it can get well
Hi
I say
because
I can’t think
of anything else
he stares at me
this little boy
with the crushed foot
who is five
but he’s stopped screaming
Hi
he says
at last
he doesn’t smile
exactly
I don’t know
if his foot
is going to be
okay
I just know
as look at him
and he looks at me
that somehow
he
will be
because
I am
I heard their stories over the last week and was deeply moved by their courage...
From the fragments
they rise
glittering
like stars in the heavens
glowing
like sunflowers in the field
turning their faces to the light
iridescent shards
in the mosaic
of our time
a prima ballerina
leaving her homeland
and the Bolshoi
to join the Dutch ballet:
‘I am against war
with all the fibers
of my soul’
a little girl
all of seven
consoling others with song
while sheltered
in a bunker
encouraging help
for her homeland
after escaping to Poland
with her grandmother
standing onstage
before a huge crowd
in traditional dress,
a little nightingale, singing
her national anthem:
‘The glory and freedom
of Ukraine
has not yet perished…”
They dance and sing
through the brokenness
iridescent shards
in the mosaic of our time
turning their faces to the light
like sunflowers in the field
glowing
like stars in the heavens
glittering
they rise
from the fragments.
Note: The sunflower and nightingale are national symbols of Ukraine
*******
with thanks to Wendy Everard, Tuesday host of Ethical ELA’s Open Write, for the idea of mosaic as a frame for poetry
with thanks also to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March
Early Sunday morning, on my way to church, the sky’s overcast but sun rays are peeking through, all set to teach the lesson on what constitutes a “hero” and while the best-known characteristic may be courage (which is not the absence of fear but acting bravely in spite of it), not to mention self-sacrifice, then perhaps the least recognized is humility, throwing off the mantle of leadership to be a servant, it’s all a matter of the spirit, service… and as I drive past barns, fields, pastures, the green, green grass hints of imminent spring, making my heart rejoice, as do the horses tossing their manes when I pass, surely shaking off sleep and the night, greeting the day as if to say Good morning, good morning, not to mention that I have just enough time to make choir practice before I teach, for we are finally singing as a choir again after two long years, and look at all these robins flocking by the roadside, taking flight as I round the bend, maybe straightening a curve or two, until I remember something my childhood preacher said: Don’t have a Jesus bumper sticker on your car if you drive like the devil… good thing I have no such sticker, but I’ll slow down a bit just the same…in my bag is a list of prayer requests and petitions to make, knowing the Lord already knows, for He knows all, sees all, is over all, and while there is so much I cannot understand, I am learning, I am always learning, and although words are forever scrolling through my brain, today, my heart needs no words; it just sings, like the birds.
A photo from last summer. In recent weeks a little Carolina wren has been perching on the tip of the cross of one of our two “bird churches,” singing its heart out to the sky. I haven’t been successful in recording this glorious solo… yet.
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March.
with thanks to Tammi over on Ethical ELA for sharing the “sevenling” poem. She writes: “The sevenling is a seven line poem written in two stanzas with an additional single line wrap up. The first stanza (lines 1-3) consists of three lines with connected ideas, details, statements. The second stanza (lines 4-6) also contains three ideas, details or statements. These may or may not be connected to previous stanza. Line seven should wrap up the poem or offer a juxtaposition to your previous stanzas. Because of the brevity of this poem, the last line should leave the reader with a feeling that the whole story has not been revealed.”
This is my first sevenling, really a tribute to someone special…reveal to come afterward.
Facing the Inevitable
Life pivots on this point.
Resolute but trembling at the threshold,
she considers her new place of belonging.
Releasing pent-up breath,
she takes a draft of courage with familiar paper and pencil:
“#1 Teacher seems nice #2 Not too scary”
—She’s starting kindergarten.
My granddaughter’s handwritten takeaway following kindergarten Open House:
“#1 Teacher seems nice #2 Not too scary”
Strength and safety to all going back into schools as COVID rages on.
Thanks also to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge and for always promoting writing. To paraphrase Donald Graves: Children really do want to write. They want to leave their own marks on the world. At age five, that is. Too often “school” turns writing to a chore, emphasizing receptive literacy over expressive, or valuing the ideas of others over one’s own.
Let us be about nurturing a lifelong love of the craft and belief in the power of one’s own thoughts and voice.
Write bravely.
For Spiritual Journey Thursday
As it’s February, the word heart came to mind when I prepared to write for Spiritual Journey Thursday (the first Thursday of each month).
No doubt Valentine’s Day conjured the word. Still feels a bit early for that, although I saw grocery shelves being stocked for it back before Christmas.
I began thinking more along the lines of taking heart. As in courage, which derives from Latin cor, meaning heart, and encourage, from Old French encoragier, to make strong, or to hearten.
One of my favorite images of courage and being encouraged is a scene from the Chronicles of Narnia. In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, young Prince Caspian’s ship has sailed into a mysterious, enchanted darkness where nightmares come true. Lucy prays to Aslan, the Narnian lion-god: “Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us, send us help now.” The darkness doesn’t change but Lucy senses an inner change. She sees a speck of white materializing above. It comes closer and closer. An albatross, which whispers in her ear as it sweeps past: “Courage, Dear Heart.” And it leads the vessel through the infernal, terrifying darkness to the light just ahead.
We are nearing the year mark of nightmarish things come true. The COVID-19 pandemic rages on. Numbers are still high. New and more virulent strains are developing before vaccines can be obtained. Schools closed last spring and are still in various stages of reopening. There’s been turbulence in the streets, at the Capitol, a heavy toll taken on people’s lives, livelihoods, psyches, and souls…a long, long darkness.
Yet there is faith. And prayer.
Even when it seems eternal
Night cannot last forever.
Courage, dear hearts
One guides you onward
Until the morning comes.
Remember you are never
Alone.
God Himself walks alongside you
Every step of the way.
While the darkness may not have lifted, we can always sense the light.
There are, after all, the children.
They are unique encouragers. At the end of some of my remote learning sessions, students have signed off by holding up “heart hands.” My own heart lightens as I give heart hands back. While our church was closed, kids mailed handmade cards covered with crayoned hearts to my husband and me: “Pastor Bill and Miss Fran, we miss you!” Years ago, long before I entered the education profession, my oldest son, around the age of five, spent his own money to buy me a little piece of artwork bearing this quote on encouragement: A teacher in wisdom and kindness helps children learn to do exactly what they thought could not be done.
That is true. For it is exactly what the Teacher did for His students, otherwise known as the disciples, just before the the darkest days they’d ever experience. They could hardly have imagined the light ahead. Nor, I imagine, can we. But the heart, it senses. And clings to that hope.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. —John 16:33
Spiritual Journey Friends, please click here to leave your link ❤
Written while waiting for word from the governor about schools re-opening.
Suspended animation
upended education
sense of desolation
facing the fall.
What school should be
we cannot see.
Ill winds still blowing
so much not-knowing.
Separate, there’s a cost.
So much is lost.
But not all
in one fall.
Until the surging tide
should subside
virtuality
may be reality.
Enduring
assuring
we will outlast
passing shadows cast
in empty halls
on empty walls.
By decrees
or degrees
a calling
for not falling
is conversely
full of mercy.
Choosing heartache
over heartbreak
choosing to be stronger
being a little longer
apart.
By whatever decrees
by whatever degrees
however they fall
however we start
dear ones, above all
—take heart.
Photo: Heart. Glenn Lascuna. CC BY
Psalm 46:10 is one of my life’s verses: Be still and know that I am God.
It’s appeared, and re-appeared, at various junctures of my life. When I was a teenager, my youth minister presented me with a little plaque bearing this verse. It hung on my bedroom wall until I married and left home.
In recent years, a church member gave my family a stepping stone with Be still and know that I am God etched on it. That stone hangs on my bedroom wall now.
Imagine my delight— awe, rather — on researching quotes by Saint Patrick and discovering Psalm 46:10 and how it’s reduced, a line at a time, to one word:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
I can’t verify that Patrick actually deconstructed the verse this way, but it’s widely attributed to him. If so, what was he getting at?
My first thought: It’s an admonishment to be still. How fitting for the present time. With a pandemic on the rise, when we are at the mercy of a new ultramicroscopic virus with the power to deconstruct society, we must pull in and be still. Fear not. And wait.
It is not what we do best. We are not patient. We “do” fear and anger far better. We are accustomed to go go go and hurry hurry hurry and get get get. We have to-do lists that are never complete, that only grow longer.
And when do we ever just be?
Maybe right about now.
Oh, and by the way, here’s the whole of Psalm 46:10:
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
I shall leave you with the words of Saint Patrick — but not the one you know. This day cannot pass without mention of my grandfather, born in 1906 with the given name Columbus and the middle name St. Patrick (yes, for real). In one of our last phone conversations (his love for me evident in that he would talk to me on the phone, for he hated it; he was hard of hearing), I said, tears streaming, which he couldn’t see, thankfully: “I love you, Granddaddy. You’re safe in God’s hands.”
To which he replied, in his raspy, precious voice: “There’s no better place to be.”
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
—St. Patrick’s Day blessings, dear hearts.
lit bits and pieces 