AN AWAKENING
O Spring will waken the heart of me
With the rapture of blown violets!
When the green bud quickens on every tree.
The Spring will waken the heart of me.
And dews of honey will rain on the lea.
Tangling the grasses in silver nets.
Yes, Spring will waken the heart of me
With the rapture of blown violets!
-Alice Furlong (1875-1946) Ireland
Yesterday my godmother called, suggesting that we go for coffee or a walk. What a nice idea! I knew I needed the walk, and didn’t need the coffee, so she came over, and we ambled along my usual path, but farther than I’ve been going lately. That gave me the oomph to go again this afternoon, on a Sunday of all days, when typically I need a nap more, and rarely get that…
It’s been a week or more since the rains, I can’t keep track, and the creek has quieted down to a silver ribbon. Actually I walk along two different creeks, and cross the bridge where they merge.
The tender fennel ferns are popping out greenly.
When the flowers of earth have faded,
go outside at night and look up…
WANDERERS
Wide are the meadows of night
And daisies are shining there,
Tossing their lovely dews,
Lustrous and fair;
And through these sweet fields go,
Wanderers ‘mid the stars __
Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.
Tired in their silver, they move,
And circling, whisper and say,
Fair are the blossoming meads of delight
Through which we stray.
-Walter de la Mare
THE STOCK MARKET LOSES FLUIDITY
I’ll show you what’s really liquid—it’s this sunlight pouring down
from the west, from the great glass jar of the sky. The creek playing
its little tune, running over the stones. The descant of syllables
in the mockingbird’s song. For not a single hickory nut
banked by the squirrels will gain any interest.
Not a grain of wheat in the wallet of a chipmunk’s cheek
will increase in worth. The bear’s fat layer is its IRA.
Here in the woods, it’s autumn’s great investment portfolio; look,
everything’s turned the color of money: copper, brass, gold.
-Barbara Crooker
Gladsome Lights 