Indiana Dunes State Park--winter 2018/2018

A Farewell

On Thanksgiving weekend, I learned that a significant portion of the original Our Place will be sold on Friday. (For a description of the place for which this blog is named, see here.) The physical Our Place is very dear to me, and I'm grateful that I managed a super quick trip back to say goodbye today. Perhaps I may find words to share about this. For now, a few pictures:

 

 

 

By The Lake

In a distant factory,
white mountains of sand
transformed to glass:
bottles, mostly,
which somebody left
to be gobbled by waves--
rubbed and rolled
in a sea-green gizzard,
and stranded,dimly lit
as dragon gastroliths,
upon the ever evolving edge
of these high, white dunes.

* * *

I learned today
that cottonwoods
turn roots to branches
and branches to roots
depending on the way
the sand blows.

* * *

Raindrops wink
in softly billowing water;
this body of waves,
a gray blanket swung
to catch the stars.

Monday Praises

Beyond the park and pond,
the Calumet River runs
under dark brown banks
alligatored like home's backdoor,
like legs of an ancient snapper.

The water runs two ways:
with the current, mostly,
but sometimes counter,
leaves and ripples going otherwise,
following the wind.

Watching, I, who claimed car trouble
as excuse for skipping church,
find praises on my lips
and a squirrel drawing near,
as if I were a certain saint.

'Tis The Yellow-golding Of The Year

'Tis the yellow-golding of the year--
the lighting of goldenrod torches;
the lifting of flowers, yellow as
crayon suns; the lilting of goldfinch
whistles over thistledown; 
the yellow light through leaves
above the river's gloaming.

Botanic Garden: summer's end

Anemones' delicate sketchings
on September air, five petals
lifted, come to life in cool pink.

Weeping willow leaflets pave
a yellow-flecked path
across the quiet water.

In the lily pond, a sunken
Victoria bloom is mum
about fantastic transformations.

Last hummers of the season
shimmer ecstatic energy
from spire to penstemon spire.

Between Time

The fireflies ascend
like divers in the dusk.
They breach the surface of
the evening, tip dark's husk
to spill seed-shadows sharp
as angled stars. Time crawls
through some uncertain depth.
The twilight lifts. Night falls.

Night Hunting

Robins warble, whistle up and down
the thinnest light, flick sedate riffs
of second soprano lines, harmonize
the scattering of night and the silhouette
of day gathered to pounce.

Full

Midnight, and the world brims
with messages just beyond consciousness.
The moon, behind the sycamore's soft spheres
gleams a brilliance that dims the stars,
paints rectangles on the kitchen floor,
casts my pen-hand's shadow
across an otherwise legible page.

I watch the moon, old window
cold against my forearms: small soul,
small planet, small satellite . . . vast space.
My mother's little cat with the moon
on her midnight chest, arks against my calves.
Her purr is cousin to the tree frogs' ascending songs,
another resonance of contentment.

Promise Land 1

In girlhood I
was a disciple of space:
black loam land on and on--
and heaven's deep blue bowl pouring
air upon air
to the rounded horizon
and over--
and swallows slicing sky
to feed new young each year
in barns dying their slow,
dignified deaths.
When David rejoices
that God has lifted him
atop a fortress rock,
it is that space I see,
inhale the breathlessness
of an ocean of breath
above a quiet land.

November Snow

Last yellow rose
against white picket fence,
fall of yellow leaves
across white snow
in the garage's shadow.
The white, the gold--
three seasons meet
a moment, only.
Worried for our shoes, we forget
to worship.

Quest

Give me the simplicity,
the solitude, the silence
of ten years old and tall grass--
the ministry of blue and gray and green,
of wind, breath, sky, and secret,
the solitary tickings of stems
under a winter jacket.
Give me always that certainty
of coming back, of being found.

River's Art

The ripples and reflections on the tranquil Tippecanoe River fascinated me on my recent visit. These remind me of impressionist paintings.

The reflections in this one strike me more as modern, nonrepresentational art.

Dry Times

Sometimes
the word stream sinks
to a trickle over tan stones,
leaving an emptiness,
high as a man's shoulder,
where water once cut a path,
rinsed soil from tree roots
as meticulously as any
archeologist's brush.
The roots elbow
from the brown bank
into the emptiness--
silent, living sculptures woven
from years and shade
to uphold the emerald
skin of the world
and to guard the chasm's
white lightening wink
where sunshine still finds
the water.

Fragility

Drops on magnolia blossoms,
dew on daffodils--
globes of water blow
kaleidoscope worlds:
a curve of magenta,
a flare of silver,
spring sunshine
turned to perfection's elixir.
Pressed, they burst,
leaving cool on fingertips
the damp of absence
and tears.

Brooding

Hen on nest scants herself,
grows ragged and gaunt
in a passion of patience.

Feathers, an ancient comfort--
catch warmth, hide life
against a sharp breast bone.

flat yellow eye--a petri dish
of primeval tranquility,
mirrors a colossal waiting.

Beautiful Places

Places we visited on summer vacation:
Illinois River
Starved Rock State Park
Lake Michigan

Summer Evening

Wonderful, isn't it, how God fills the air with beauty and action? It could have been enough to make earthbound creatures and leave overhead only perfect, ever changing blue. But it wasn't enough. Instead, action and beauty wing across the skies. A small hawk tumbles and cuts away from swifts as the little birds ply wings like whirring paddles in pursuit. High up, a few seagulls stroke clean lines through the sky, like great sail-ships in an inverted ocean. And close down, the fantastic body of a dragon fly darts on translucent wings.

summer verse

Summertime,
when light lingers longest,
and life, unquenched, stays up
twirling stories
through warm and welcoming nights.

Suspend

You, Who blows beneath the hummer's wings,
Who suspends him, mouse-soft bodied, eggshell boned, in thin air--
You, Who holds together such distilled vibrations of living,
not letting them scatter into a thousand meaningless glitters
lost across an abandoned world--
my mind knows, but my heart cannot comprehend, why

You let the sparrows fall.

Holding this tiny corpse of air-dust, my palm its bier,
I catch all I can of answer--
a whisper of all You gathered up into Yourself,
impaled on a tree.

Strange (or is it?)
that the answer is always,
always You.