All posts by GretchenJoanna

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About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

Patience comes to the bones.

poetry, summer, , , ,

PATIENCE

What is the good life now? Why,
look here, consider
the moon’s white crescent

rounding, slowly, over
the half month to still another
perfect circle–

the shining eye
that lightens the hills,
that lays down the shadows

of the branches of the trees,
that summons the flowers
to open their sleepy faces and look up

into the heavens.
I used to hurry everywhere,
and leaped over the running creeks.

There wasn’t
time enough for all the wonderful things
I could think of to do

in a single day. Patience
comes to the bones
before it takes root in the heart

as another good idea.
I say this
as I stand in the woods

and study the patterns
of the moon shadows,
or stroll down into the waters

that now, late summer, have also
caught the fever, and hardly move
from one eternity to another.

-Mary Oliver

 

The living enchantment of September.

nature, poetry, , , , , ,

In addition to several poems that he shares in his recent post about September, including those of Derek Mahon, Howard Nemerov, and Bashō, Stephen Pentz offers this thought:

“I have a vague notion of what occurs when ‘the ecliptic and equator cross.’ Something to do with the movement of spheres, I suspect. But I’m reminded of my oft-repeated first principle of poetry: Explanation and explication are the death of poetry. Here is a wider principle I have adopted at this moment: Explanation and explication are the death of enchantment. The enchantment of the World, of course. Mind you, I accept the existence of the ecliptic and the equator. This is not an anti-scientific manifesto. I simply prefer, for instance, a single butterfly or a single leaf, with no explanations attached.”

-Stephen Pentz on his blog, First Known When Lost

Here is one of the poems:

THRESHOLD

When in still air and still in summertime
A leaf has had enough of this, it seems
To make up its mind to go; fine as a sage
Its drifting in detachment down the road.

-Howard Nemerov

I hope you will visit his blog and read the whole loving tribute, including evocative works of art, to the month that is soon to be gone for another year.

Where everything is music.

music, poetry

WHERE EVERYTHING IS MUSIC

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

-Rumi

Bitter Cherry

mountains, nature, ,

I told myself that I did not need to stop for wildflowers on my drive home from the cabin. I have seen plenty of them already to satisfy, on this trip and throughout my life — and I needed to make up for lost time. It always takes longer than I anticipate, to turn off the water, to turn the water heater to pilot, to leave the cabin clean for the next family members who will come. It was midmorning before I locked the door and headed out.

But my self did not listen. Only a few minutes down the hill and she insisted on stopping to notice exactly how tall the Ranger’s Buttons are this year. And then to get close up to the  most brilliant goldenrod ever. And so it went. She wanted to stop by a particular intersection where sneezeweed have been seen before, and they were there again. So she (that is, I) said hello, and remarked on how well they were looking, and blessed them. The gooseberries were so thick and red I could see them without even slowing down, and I wished that I had time, and a big bucket in which to carry some home.

The only plant I stopped for that I think was new to me was this tall shrub in the Rose family called Bitter Cherry or Prunus emarginata. I did stop to admire it and let Seek identify it. When I got home I read more about it. Some people say it is so bitter it is inedible, but others say it is usable for jam, if you add enough sugar. One person was trying to pick branches to decorate a lodge, but the bears had evidently arrived beforehand, and I guess they don’t mind the bitterness. The ones I saw were in their prime; after meeting them, I was content to leave further plant research for another time, but not without taking one post to share their beauty.