Category Archives: poetry

Endlessly gently in his hands.

church, poetry, , , , , , ,
Egon Schiele, Four Trees

Today is Saturday, and I am attending a wedding, which is a cause for joy. According to statistics, 70% of weddings are held on Saturdays these days, but in the Orthodox Church Sunday is the preferred day. Sunday is The Lord’s Day since the Resurrection, and the day for celebration and feasting, while Saturday is the day of rest, when we remember those who have fallen asleep in death and rest in their graves. Here is another poem that ties the remembrance of death to the season, and to the One who mitigates our sorrow over it.

AUTUMN

The leaves are falling, falling as from far off,
as though far gardens withered in the skies;
they are falling with denying gestures.

And in the nights the heavy earth is falling
from all the stars down into loneliness.

We are all falling. This hand falls.
And look at others; it is in them all.

And yet there is One who holds this falling
endlessly gently in his hands.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

After the rushing of wings.

poetry, , ,

THE GEESE

My father was the first to hear
The passage of the geese each fall,
Passing above the house so near,
He’d hear within his heart their call.

And then at breakfast time he’d say:
“The geese were heading south last night,”
For he had lain awake till day,
Feeling his earthbound soul take flight.

Knowing that winter’s wind comes soon
After the rushing of those wings,
Seeing them pass before the moon,
Recalling the lure of far-off things.

-Richard Peck

Zinaida Serebriakova, Autumn, 1910

Come again shining glance.

nature, poetry, , , ,

THE LOVE OF OCTOBER

A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
… walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun.

–W.S. Merwin

Anna Althea Hills, Autumn Fallbrook

 

Under her raincoat.

poetry, ,

THE RAINCOAT

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five-minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say that even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

-Ada Limón

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m pretty sure the photo was taken by Farm Girl Kim; used with permission ❤