Forest Sonnet, Whidbey Island

(For a friend in grief,
for the assurance of resurrection )

 

 

Now, no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
No mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for."
     --from “Spring and Fall,” by Gerard Manley Hopkins



Here Sorrow springs and newborn Spring sorrows;
Their grief resolves in fiddleheads tomorrow.
The mournful poet sees the greening leaf
and vaults ahead to autumn's parting grief....

An anticipatory grief, so-called.
Here last year's leaves lie trodden, branch scraped-bald
From winter's remnant grip. But see, as Spring
Flushes first rosy throat, as thrushes sing

God's glory! Still, larks chirruping, skimming
The winds arise from southern vales, brimming
Their blessings upon the restive, waking Earth.
The forest floor will testify that birth

Sings from subsidence, converting death
God's gravid Spirit-- resurrection's breath.

--This was first published at Episcopal Journal's Speaking to the Soul on August 11, 2022.

The Armadillo

For Robert Lowell

This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard
to tell them from the stars—
planets, that is—the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,
they flare and falter, wobble and toss;
but if it's still they steer between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft!—a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!
O falling fire and piercing cry
and panic, and a weak mailed fist
clenched ignorant against the sky!

--Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), American poet and friend of poet Robert Lowell, from Collected Poems, 1927-1979

Lantern balloons are illegal in 29 states, and are often launched at the lunar new year in Asian cultures

In the Mushroom Summer

Colorado turns Kyoto in a shower, 
mist in the pines so thick the crows delight 
(or seem to), winging in obscurity. 
The ineffectual panic of a squirrel 
who chattered at my passing gave me pause 
to watch his Ponderosa come and go— 
long needles scratching cloud. I’d summited 
but knew it only by the wildflower meadow, 
the muted harebells, paintbrush, gentian, 
scattered among the locoweed and sage. 
Today my grief abated like water soaking 
underground, its scar a little path 
of twigs and needles winding ahead of me 
downhill to the next bend. Today I let 
the rain soak through my shirt and was unharmed.

--David Mason (1954- ), American poet, librettist, and Colorado Poet Laureate, 2010

The Garden Is Rich

The garden is rich with diversity
With plants of a hundred families
In the space between the trees
With all the colours and fragrances.
Basil, mint and lavender,
Great Mystery keep my remembrance pure,
Raspberry, Apple, Rose,
Great Mystery fill my heart with love,
Dill, anise, tansy,
Holy winds blow in me.
Rhododendron, zinnia,
May my prayer be beautiful
May my remembrance O Great Mystery
Be as incense to thee
In the sacred grove of eternity
As I smell and remember
The ancient forests of earth.

--anonymous, from the Chinook Psalter, found at Xavier University's JesuitResource.org .


Image: Appletree Garden, Whidbey Island, WA Dec. 4, 2019.

Trappists, Working

Now all our saws sing holy sonnets in this world of timber 
Where oaks go off like guns, and fall like cataracts, 
Pouring their roar into the wood’s green well. 

Walk to us, Jesus, through the wall of trees, 
And find us still adorers in these airy churches, 
Singing our other Office with our saws and axes. 
Still teach Your children in the busy forest, 
And let some little sunlight reach us, in our mental shades, 
   and leafy studies.
When time has turned the country white with grain 
And filled our regions with the thrashing sun, 

Walk to us, Jesus, through the walls of wheat 
When our two tractors come to cut them down: 
Sow some light winds upon the acres of our spirit, 
And cool the regions where our prayers are reapers, 
And slake us, Heaven, with Your living rivers.
                                                                            (1946)

--Thomas Merton (1915-1968) OCSO, American Trappist monk, priest, essayist, memoirist, and poet, from In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems, 2005. His feast day is today.

Forest Sonnet, Whidbey Island

"Now, no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
No mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for."

--from Spring and Fall, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Here Sorrow springs and newborn Spring sorrows;
Their grief resolves in fiddleheads tomorrow.
The mournful poet sees the greening leaf
and vaults ahead to autumn's parting grief....

An anticipatory grief, so-called.
Here last year's leaves lie trodden, branch scraped-bald
From winter's remnant grip. But see, as Spring
Flushes first rosy throat, as thrushes sing

God's glory! Still, larks chirruping, skimming
The winds arise from southern vales, brimming
Their blessings upon the restive, waking Earth.
The forest floor will testify that birth

Sings from subsidence, converting death
God's gravid Spirit-- resurrection's breath.

--L. K. S., written after forest bathing while reading Hopkins, December 6, 2019