Sunday Muse ~ Happy Winter Solstice

If you have seen the snow
under the lamppost
piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table
or somewhere slowly falling
into the brook
to be swallowed by water,
then you have seen beauty
and know it for its transience.
And if you have gone out in the snow
for only the pleasure
of walking barely protected
from the galaxies,
the flakes settling on your parka
like the dust from just-born stars,
the cold waking you
as if from long sleeping,
then you can understand
how, more often than not,
truth is found in silence,
how the natural world comes to you
if you go out to meet it,
its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,
its vacant birdhouses, and dens
full of the sleeping.
But this is the slowed-down season
held fast by darkness
and if no one comes to keep you company
then keep watch over your own solitude.
In that stillness, you will learn
with your whole body
the significance of cold
and the night,
which is otherwise always eluding you.

"Winter Grace' by Patricia Fargnoli

Happy Thanksgiving!

Messenger
by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

          equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
          keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
          astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,



which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

          and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

          to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

          that we live forever.

Sunday Muse

"Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian-flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air."
-   William Cullen Bryant, Autum  

Sunday Muse

The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way. Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth's green fountains dried,
And fallen all the works of light.
You do not speak, and I regret
This downfall of the good we sought
As though the fault were mine. I bring
The plow to turn the shattering
Leaves and bent stems into the dark,
From which they may return. At work,
I see you leaving our bright land,
The last cut flowers in your hand.

~ "The Summer Ends" by Wendell Berry

Sunday Muse

Gradually along the range
All things exchange their light
For darkness.

Single oaks
On hills that burned with gold
Merge now in shadow,

And hawks sail out
Over the valley,
Its air like a mirror

Filling with night,
That takes our images
And does not return them,

Just as the pines
Blot out our voices,
And even the stones at our feet

Fade from sight.
Now only the stars
Have eyes,

And around us sounds
Of things we cannot see
Begin to rise:

The owl's single note,
And the coyote's cry.

"Night in the Mountains" by Heather Allen

Sunday Muse

Just as we lose hope
she ambles in,
a late guest
dragging her hem
of wildflowers,
her torn
veil of mist,
 of light rain
blowing
her dandelion
breath
in our ears;
and we forgive her,
turning from
chilly winter
ways,
we throw off
our faithful
sweaters
and open
our arms.

"Spring" by Linda Pastan

Sunday Muse

"Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you upon the wind 
and dance upon the mountains like a flame!"
~ William Butler Yeats

Sunday Muse

l(a

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af

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one

l

iness

 

l(a leaf falls)oneliness by e. e. cummings

Sunday Muse

"Digging"

Seamus Heaney 

April 13, 1939 - August 30, 2013

rest in peace

Sunday Muse

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver 

Sunday Muse

Let the end of all bathtubs
be this putting out to pasture
of four Victorian bowlegs
anchored in grasses.

Let all longnecked browsers
come drink from the shallows
while faucets grow rusty
and porcelain yellows.

Where once our nude forebears
soaped up in this vessel
come, cows, and come, horses.
Bring burdock and thistle,

come slaver the scum of
timothy and clover
on the cast-iron lip that
our grandsires climbed over

and let there be always
green water for sipping
that muzzles may enter thoughtful
and rise dripping.

~ Watering Trough by Maxine Kumin



 

Sunday Muse

Alas, that June should come when thou didst go;
I think you passed each other on the way;
And seeing thee, the Summer loved thee so
That all her loveliness she gave away;
Her rare perfumes, in hawthorn boughs distilled,
Blushing, she in thy sweeter bosom left,
Thine arms with all her virgin roses filled,
Yet felt herself the richer for thy theft;
Beggared herself of morning for thine eyes,
Hung on the lips of every bird the tune,
Breathed on thy cheek her soft vermilion dyes,
And in thee set the singing heart of June.
And so, not only do I mourn thy flight,
But Summer comes despoiled of her delight.

~ Sonnet by Willa Cather

Sunday Muse

As a child, my father helped me dig

a square of dense red clay, mark off rows

where zinnias would grow,

and radishes and tender spinach leaves.

He'd stand with me each night

as daylight drained away

to talk about our crops leaning on his hoe

as I would practice leaning so on mine.

Years later now in my big garden plot,

the soggy remnant stems of plants

flopped over several months ago,

the ground is cold, the berries gone,

the stakes like hungry sentries

stand guarding empty graves. And still

I hear his voice asking what I think

would best be planted once the weather warms.

"Lonely Harvest" from Family Constellation by Margaret S. Mullins

Sunday Muse

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost 

Sunday Muse

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

~ from 'The Tyger' by William Blake

Please don't forget to comment on Monday's post! You could be the lucky winner of a 2013 Sheeps and Peeps Calendar!

Solstice to Solstice :: Sweet

The summer sun is nearly done

Frost will follow soon

Asters and chrysanthemums

Light up the afternoon

The dew is on long after dawn
Mornings are a haze
One swallow's song is holding on
In these fading sweet summer days

~ excerpted from "Sweet Summer Days by Dennis Caraher

response to week thirteen of the thirteen weeks of summer
the solstice to solstice project with urban.prairie.forest

Sunday Muse

"How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out..."
~ Mary Oliver from "Yes! No!"

Sunday Muse

A noiseless, patient spider,

I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;

Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,

It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;

Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking

the spheres, to connect them;

Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

~ Walt Whitman from "Leaves of Grass"

Sunday Muse

My bonnie flower, with truest joy

Thy welcome face I see,

The world grows brighter to my eyes,

And summer comes with thee.

My solitude now finds a friend,

And after each hard day,

I in my mountain garden walk,

To rest, or sing, or pray.

All down the rocky slope is spread

Thy veil of rosy snow,

And in the valley by the brook,

Thy deeper blossoms grow.

The barren wilderness grows fair,

Such beauty dost thou give;

And human eyes and Nature's heart

Rejoice that thou dost live.

~excerpt 'Mountain-Laurel' from A Garland for Girls by Louisa May Alcott

Summer Solstice

"Then followed that beautiful season... Summer...

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape

Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow