Late September

The late September warmth coaxed the flowers on her teacup into bloom.

quote adapted from Shelley Hely

artist is unknown

Prayers from the Ark

    I have been listening to the crickets sing their love songs at night, and it reminds me of a treasured poem. The poems I like the best, the ones I understand the most are usually the ones that define my own experience in sharper images and more perceptive words than I could muster myself. I reverence the way the mind of a good poet works. Sometimes I use lines of poetry as prayer. The Prayer of the Cricket is one that often falls from my lips when I have been shabby or small.

                    O God,

                    I am little and very black,

                    but I thank You

                    for having shed

                    Your warm sun

                    and the quivering of Your golden corn

                    on my humble life.

                    Then take—but be forbearing, Lord—

                    this little impulse of my love:

                    this note of music

                    You have set thrilling in my heart.

                                                                            Amen

     For me, the images in this poem are their plain selves, unfussy and straightforward: a humble cricket, a thankful heart, a song of praise; but they are something broader too, encompassing all of me at my worst and best, all of the common and specific graces of Providence and my own modest yet earnest responses to them.

 Many years ago for our nineteenth anniversary, my husband gave me this slim volume of poetry: Prayers From the Ark by Carmen Bernos De Gasztold translated from the French by Rumer Godden. The poems are simple but sage, and I recognize myself in many of them, as in the prayers of the cricket, lark, butterfly, glow worm and ox...while there are others I can only aspire to. Oh, to be a dog or a bee! It is an often read, beloved book and the only thing that could improve it for me would be to possess the ability to read the poems in the original French…je suis tout petit et très noir…

Summer's Ghost

We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer's wreckage. We will welcome summer's ghost.

                                                                 ~ Henry Rollins ~

     Sitting on my deck in the late afternoon shade with the warmish winds of summer’s wreckage sifting through the trees, I am writing stories and sprinkling water on the new sod I laid in the back garden yesterday. There are sun diamonds sparkling in the wet grass; bees are feasting in the lavender; and a chorus of crickets is singing secrets to the earth. Fragrant pots of rosemary, basil and thyme at my elbow, still smelling of sunshine, will soon give up the ghost but will continue to haunt me in the shape of stews, roasted vegetables, sauces, pizza and bread as the days shorten and the cold closes in. Why did I wait so long to grow herbs in the summer? What other joys have I overlooked that take so little effort yet give so generously?

     These days I welcome the apparition of summer because it is milder than the full-bodied being. While I do prefer autumn over the other offspring of the year, I am in no hurry to release this last embrace of the season.

painting by Vincent Van Gogh

This Could Be Me

     This could be me, except that I have a fringe of bangs to cover my forehead. Cheers to the other worlds we live in layered piecemeal over our own.

image from thethingswesay.com

Weed in the Walk

     While I admit to being obsessive and compulsive on some levels, I am not one of those who cannot tolerate any dust on the furniture or leaves on the lawn. Okay, I do enjoy green grass and crisp edges and there is that hopeless yearning that the weeds would stay forever young, or that I would, so that I could spend countless hours on my knees chasing them without the creaking consequences I suffer these days; but when the final furnace blast of summer wilts even the rabbits resting in the shade beneath my garden bench…I give up. If not for my trusty husband, the grass would turn brown and not even the pots of geraniums would survive.

     There is a weed growing in a crevice of my front walk. It is growing bigger all the time and yet, slightly compulsive person that I am, I continually walk past it resisting the urge to pull it. There is hardly a space for purchase but it is thriving better than my pampered impatiens. That weed has tenacity. Day after day, it stubbornly clings to the aim of every weed to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. That weed’s got guts. If it is afraid that I might suddenly sneak up from behind and whack it, you wouldn’t be able to guess from its placidly determined demeanor.

     The reason I haven’t pulled it, poisoned it or whacked it is this: I admire it, both its inner and outer beauty; I am curious to see how long it will last against the vicissitudes of nature; and I appreciate the reminder in my daily pursuits that I need a little more of that weediness in my own walk.

Curtain Blowing Days

     It is August, the hot, panting, dog days of summer when the air sweats and the earth blisters beneath my feet. The trees complain with the electric buzzing of fat-bodied cicadas. I water the weeds in order to temper the cracked, iron-souled soil, and my burgeoning pots of geraniums and marigolds tire with the effort to flourish and threaten to wither. I become a slave to the sprinkler, a prisoner of air conditioning. Woe is me.

     Not this August. Last summer was relentless, but this year we have had armfuls brimming with curtain blowing days deserving of a whole blog post of wonderment. Some days I wake early in the morning feeling chilly beneath the sheet as the restless curtains fill with the sweet breath of summer whispering wistfulness to me. The windows and doors are flung welcoming-wide all day long and the lines between house and garden are blurred. The cicadas are hushed with disbelief. “Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability,” so I sit respectably beside an open window and devour books like ice cream. I go outside to water the flowers and shrubbery by hand because it lasts longer than sprinkling, and I have a need as urgent as thirst to quaff this rare elixir of days right down to its dregs. At night, I listen to the crickets brighten up the dark.

     What bliss there is in this crumpled old world.

     There are still the days that boil over and burn, after all, it is August; but I hold fast to those hours when I wake in the morning with the curtains blowing blessings to me.

oil on canvas by Karen Hollingsworth

quote by author and philosopher, Sam Keen

All This Juice and All This Joy

     Holding a ripe peach in my hand, I peel away the eager, blushing skin to the sweet, golden flesh beneath. I am making a pie, filling a deep, porcelain bowl with thick slices of mellow fruitfulness. The pie is a gift to my husband. I know from experience that no matter how well I handle the flour, butter, sugar and cinnamon, it is the peach that makes the pie.

     These peaches are perfect.

     Perfect as the pulse of color in the ardent evening sky. Perfect as the kiss of sunshine on a child’s cheek. Perfect as the flame of summer as it burns into autumn. Perfect as the warm embrace of memory on a winter afternoon.

     From bud burst to blossom and burgeoning fruit these peaches were blessed. Long after the pie is consumed, I will be savoring the juice and joy of them.

post title from Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

painting by Sylvia Angeli