Bluster

     I awoke in the wee hours of the morning to the sound of the wind shouting to get in. I usually feel quite friendly toward this visitor and his brethren, even the overblown ones, but this time he was pounding on the door like a drunken sailor. My normally placid windchime was ringing a frantic warning. When I peeked out the bedroom window, I saw that my lovely wintercreeper, clinging tenaciously to the corner of the garage beside my front walk for over twenty years, had been cruelly ravaged and thrown to the ground.

     Such piratical behavior is not welcome here. So I kept my door firmly shut against the loudmouthed marauder, but as the windows continued to rattle and wave after wave of tide-wind slammed against the house in fits of rage, I must confess to a little trembling beneath all of my bravado.

A furore septemtriones libera nos, Domine

From the fury of the northwind, Oh Lord deliver us!

     I was alone in the house. It was dark, still several hours until dawn. And I most certainly could not go back to sleep. So I sat in a cosy room furthest from the sound of the wind cracking its blustering cheeks and crocheted a winter scarf striped with echoes of the Aurora Borealis.

Wild wind, sail me away

Over the greensward sea,

My bark and I shall leap the sky

And toss upon the lea.

Mad wind, bear me away

Across the grassy tide,

Break thy steed o'er the coursing mead

Mount where the corbie rides!

                                                                         ~ Nib of Nib's End ~

    

My Veterans

Homage to a Grandfather

     It has been nearly three years since my father passed away. He was a very young man when he joined the Navy and went off to fight in the Pacific in WWII.  He was understandably proud of his three grandsons (two of them pictured above) who joined the Marines and fought in Iraq.

     I went to put flowers on my parents grave last month when I went home to visit with family. They are buried together in a veterans cemetery, and there are many more headstones surrounding their plot than the last time I visited. It took my sisters and I a little longer to find it. As I read the inscriptions of their neighbors, it struck me how many wars and different branches of service are represented in that one section of the cemetery.

     To my shame, Veterans Day has, more often than not, been just another day on the calendar for me. Not any more. Since that day that I experienced the deeply moving level of respect and honor veteran strangers demonstrated toward my father at his burial, it has changed my perspective and my response.

     It is personal now.

The Sound of Fog

     "It's fun walking in a cloud," said our live-in daughter.  "I like the sound of it."

     We woke up to fog this morning. We seldom get it where we live, so it feels like an anomaly. I remember the moaning of the foghorns out on the Puget Sound where I grew up. To me, that is the sound of fog. But the only body of water large enough to need them where we now live is nearly an hour away.

     "What does the fog sound like?" I asked my daughter.

     "It sounds like rain...only it isn't."

     She is right.  Here, in this long pause between the cornfields and the Lake, the trees were dripping with cloud this morning.

     What does fog sound like to you?

The Passenger's Wife

     It is three weeks since I last saw my husband, and then only for a few hours. I was visiting family in Washington State when he left for Alaska and then Australia and Papua New Guinea. When I got home from my trip I found these waiting for me.

     It warms the cockles of my heart that he has left an echo of himself to keep me company.

Fidélité - The Prayer of the Dog

    I was visiting family in Washington State earlier this month. My oldest sister showed me this photo her son took of his recently deceased golden labrador. Liberty was buried alongside other beloved family pets beneath the dogwood tree at my sister's house. When I complimented my nephew on his artistic eye, he modestly replied that if he takes enough shots, eventually one will be good.

     I am skeptical about his statement. I think this photo is unique. It looks like a painting to me and the emotions it evokes epitomize The Prayer of the Dog from Carmen Bernos De Gasztold's book of poems: Prayers from the Ark. 

The Prayer of the Dog

Lord,

I keep watch!

If I am not here

who will guard their house?

Watch over their sheep?

Be faithful?

No one but You and I

understands

what faithfulness is.

They call me, "Good dog! Nice dog!

Words...

I take their pats

and the old bones they throw me

and I seem pleased.

They really believe they make me happy.

I take kicks too

when they come my way.

None of that matters.

I keep watch!

Lord,

do not let me die

until, for them, all danger is driven away.

Amen

     My nephew is the assistant pastor in a small church in a small town in Washington. There aren't many accolades or much recognition for such a position in such a place, and yet, he faithfully keeps watch over the souls in his care until, for them, all danger is driven away. Amen.

poem translated by Rumer Godden

The London Doorknob

     You will, of course, want to see what I did with the doorknob that I bought in Nottinghill when I visited this spring. I hung it in my kitchen beneath the painting of the coffee cup. Some mornings, as I sit at the breakfast table with my tea and toast, I imagine I can just turn that handle and walk through into Westminster. Sigh.

   
     Perhaps I will find a spare tesseract or mislaid Babylon candle when I go down to clean the basement.

Generosity

     I was recently given a packet of Medura brand teabags by Australian acquaintances visiting the United States. It is a lovely blend of Ceylon and Australian black tea leaves that I am enjoying each morning.  I find the directions on the bag intriguing.

     Must one be reminded to use the teabag only once?

     I suppose there are frugal persons in the world who feel it is wasteful not to squeeze every ounce of flavor from the leaves, and for some it may even be a necessity. I must confess, I have tried it myself a few times, but the second cup is always too bitter and I would rather go without.

     I had a friend in college who was raised in India. Her parents were missionaries there for many years. She told me her family had received some bizarre packages from the States over the years, but there was only one which made her mother weep. It was a box of used teabags. Someone, who couldn't bear to throw the bags away after using them only once, had taken the trouble to save them up, pay the postage and send them all the way to India, the second largest tea producer in the world.

     I would have cried, too.

     It was a profound lesson to me on the nature of generosity and I rarely throw a teabag into the trash bin without being reminded of it. It takes grace to become a truly generous soul.