Retrospective

1

Each time we drive past
a garden of gray stones,
we hush the music --
mute Sufjan Stevens
or strains of folk:
"Ain't no grave
gonna hold my body
down"--
for a moment we've borrowed
an international friend's tradition.
With us to celebrate
an American Thanksgiving,
he's patient with our questions:
What does he love about his homeland?
The food. The history of centuries
piled one atop another.
Every time someone calls 
something "old" here,
I just laugh.

2


Heavy with our feast,
we take the tonic
of air and earth,
slip under hot wires
and walk the pasture's
uneven ground
to visit a single stone
at the timber's edge
and rediscover
limestone words
in grass and brambles
under the naked trees:
Died Feb 1, 1848.
In a civilization shifty
as a snow globe,
this is old.

3

We were very favorably impressed
with the country (his sister said) and thought 
we had very good soil for cultivation 
but did not think those large prairies
would ever be so thickly settled
as they are now. *

4

Astonishingly, after one hundred and sixty-seven years,
the characters still flourish like careful marks
from an old-fashioned hand. November-numb
fingers trace grooves, follow the circular swirl
embellishing the "A" in "Aged," the leaflet
curve of a grooved numeral, the fine line leading
to a "Y."

Surely such care denotes some kind of love:
the craftsman for his craft,
the loved ones for the remembered,
even our present attention added
to the attention of those others.

5

When I die, says Nouwen,
love continues to be active . . . . **

6

In the city again, I move my things
from one apartment to another.
I survey rooms reduced
of all that made them mine,
all the small enfleshments
of an inner life. Small, empty
stretch of carpet, ceiling, neutral walls:  
my place knows me no more.

7

It is the second week of Advent.
In half-occupied new rooms,
I snuff two candles.
Smoke curls upwards
like calligraphy, smells
like my grandma's water closet,
and, oddly, like incense.

* quoted from History of McDonough County. "Reminiscence of Martitia F. Harris." Published 1878. [Martitia is my great-great-great grandmother.]

** quoted from Henri Nouwen's Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit, "The Pathway of Living and Dying."

At My Door

(I'm linking up with Bonnie's Faith Barista Jam today. Bonnie's story of her journey through PTSD encourages me so much. I eagerly anticipate the publication of her book in June, 2014.)

At My Door

As I anticipate Thanksgiving this year, I miss what I have had and what I have never had.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins used to come up from Mississippi to celebrate with us, collecting back to the family land. I always hoped to finish house cleaning in time to go outside and wait for their arrival. Standing in the crisp evening near the edge of the road, I'd peer into the darkness, watching as headlights pricked the distance, blinked behind a hill, then reappeared and drew closer, closer. Sometimes, they veered off at one of the three branching roads, but finally, one pair continued gliding straight toward me until the large van lumbered to rest in our driveway. Our house filled, and thus began brimming over days of conversation and play. On the big day, we added two extra card tables to the end of our kitchen one and scrounged chairs so all the family could find a seat. Surfaces filled with favorite dishes: seven-layer-salad, crescent rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, turkey,and pies--chess, pumpkin, black raspberry, and apple. Air warmed with celebratory voices and fresh bread scents. Wedged with cousins around the young end of the table, I felt a robust happiness. The Thanksgiving meal exemplified for me the rare security of belonging in a group.

Sometimes I feel as if the vast spaces of my beloved fields have got inside of me, somehow, and predisposed me for an almost unwitting solitude. My adolescence had its loneliness. After we moved to the home place when I turned thirteen, I never experienced a close friend outside of the family. I declared to my mother before I left for college that I had no expectation of making friends. I would go and do my job. (Thankfully, the experience out-performed my expectations.) Even today, I am not a very good friend. I withdraw far too often. I have the wind-sculpted snow and the bare timber branches against a gold and purple sunset in my heart--and also the hunger for apricot kitchen walls and yellow lamplight framed against the night.

As I struggle into my grown woman identity, I find myself longing to create a type of home for others--a space of welcome, renewal, comforting. I want to draw that same warmth around myself through giving and receiving, listening and speaking. But I feel almost ashamed--counterfeit--to voice these desires, to reach for a character of nurture and welcome. Who are you, a voice whispers, to claim such things--passive, self-absorbed recluse that you are. But different words also linger in my mind, written by an instructor as our class shared "wishes" for each other during a final meeting: "I have one big wish for you. My wish is that the world will come to your door. I know you will be there beckoning with open arms." (Repeating in my memory, the words seem almost a prayer, a benediction.) "Lucky world!"

For my students' laughter, for my family's friendship, for teachers' encouraging words, and for the tender kindness of my God as He speaks new messages of hope into old, despairing places--this Thanksgiving, I am thankful.

Recounting Blessings

Tonight I am grateful for home and kindness, and for the ability to recall good memories.

Have any particular blessings caught your notice lately? I'd love to read about any you wish to share here!

Thinking Of My Mother And Grandmothers With Gratitude On Mother's Day

 Intelligent and brave with an innate personal dignity, I cannot capture my mother with words. When I was child, she tucked me into bed,saying, "You're very precious and special, and I love you just because you're you." That same love follows me yet. With admiration I watch her continue to embrace change and opportunities to grow. I know great chapters are yet to come!

My mother's mother was clever--both with her mind and with her hands. I still regularly wear a classic black skirt she sewed as an outfit for my violin recitals over a decade ago. She loved clouds and countryside and music. I've written more about our relationship here.

 Dad's mom exuded a vibrancy like the crazy quilt squares she created--a strong, textured, many colored engagement with the world. As a little girl, she whistled, borrowed her brother's overalls, and took part in BB gun battles. The years filled her face with laugh lines, and neither tragedy nor age dimmed her love.

Deep Down Things

the scent of spring in a March snow
the first red blush in the timber
a sudden remembrance that life can be sweet
a sister's voice, a sister's understanding

To Our Father

Thank You
for wide winged spaces of sunset sky;
for ducks in the morning on the way to work;
for the scent of a warm rain
and the hug of a friend.

Thank You
for sanctuaries:
the ones in churches,
the ones in nature,
the ones in memory or in words.

Thank You
for sitting with us
when we are stuck in traffic
of the streets or of the mind.

Thank You
that you will indeed--
somehow, someway--
bring us home.

Singing in the Dark

I am grateful for pockets full of warm memories: my sister & I digging in the sandbox under the oak until mosquitoes drove us inside at dusk, gathering lilacs with Dad and bringing them home for Mom, playing Poo Sticks from the bridge at the edge of "The Open Space" (the play area at the edge of our trailer park), and pretending on keen days that the half-fearsome tug of my kite against the spool in my fist was a medieval falcon answering my commands.

I am grateful for the smiles of children today: the exuberance of their play, their happy shrieks and unfettered laughter. I am grateful for blossoms: on my geranium, in the neighbors' yards, on the bushes and trees. I am grateful for tea and good news and beauty hiding like Easter eggs all around our world.

I am grateful for a God Who cannot be eclipsed or threatened by my changing moods: Who knows me better than I know myself, Who every moment sees each cranny of my soul and somehow loves me more than I will ever understand, Who holds my hope for forgiveness and redemption and tomorrow.

I am grateful that He hears me singing in the dark and knows that I am afraid. I am grateful that I cannot--and need not--hide from Him.

A Bit of Thanks

Thanks for
a little more light
and bold red blooms,
for kind voices
and undeniable love.

Riches

Thanks
for familiar handwriting on happy notes,
for warm food on bright plastic plates,
for kindred company and coffee shops
and Earl Gray tea with lots of cream.
Thanks for poetry--
especially the unexpected volume I bought
for a dollar sixty-nine.

Thanksgiving Scene

In the absence of well-developed visual art skills, I am reduced to words:

Light from the double windows of an old house captures our vision. We see in the glow behind the glass a happy chaos of warm colors: sweaters,faces flushed with laughter and bustle,a half-devoured feast lingering on the bright cloth. Close against the window, two children press noses and palms to the glass, peering out into the night. Their breathing makes cloudy rings around the spot where their mouths should be. Perhaps they are watching two figures walk along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street--a man and a woman, their arms linked. Their backs are to us, but the woman's head is turned toward the man and we see her face, a pale oval above her black winter coat. She is smiling. By the light of a street lamp at the end of the block, we see a man mid-stride across the intersection--a distant, solitary figure in perfect silhouette.

Harvest Time

Come, ye thankful people come;
Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in;
Ere the winter storms begin.
God, our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied.
Come to God's own temple, come;
Raise the song of harvest home.



"Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" by Henry Alford