They're drawn like tiny bomers
to the breath that I exhale.
They buzz around me in a cloud.
Their one thought? To impale.
I hunch my shoulders, bless my hat
and hide each inch of skin.
Yet, undeterred, they circle
and seek a pathway in.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
WALKING THE LABYRINTH
The soft circles draw my feet.
The path is forgiving.
My breathing slows.
The journey is my focus,
Rather than the destination.
Like onion layers, my worries peel away,
And, in the rose-shaped center, there
My open mind itself is prayer.
The path is forgiving.
My breathing slows.
The journey is my focus,
Rather than the destination.
Like onion layers, my worries peel away,
And, in the rose-shaped center, there
My open mind itself is prayer.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Old Barns Becoming Memories
The old red barn across the street from us is a pile of rubble now . At first it was just listing to the side. One day the roof gave way. Now it is caving in upon itself. Soon it will be just a sodden mass of weathered boards where once a functional structure stood proudly.
It’s a real shame. I fear the old wooden barns, beautiful buildings in their own right, are going the way of the barn owl. They are getting scarcer and scarcer as the years roll on.
These barns are treasures. The Michigan Barn Preservation Network calls them “economic resources and symbols of our agricultural heritage”. I believe there is no more attractive image than a well-kept, freshly painted barn, surrounded by white fences, stolidly occupying the space between planted fields and wooded hedgerows and housing the various farm implements necessary to work the land.
I also find it ludicrous that we cannot insure our own barn for enough money to rebuild even a tiny corner of it. Of course, in reality, a pole barn is more efficient. It can store more stuff. It is easier to maintain. But it lacks the charm of the hand-hewn beams, the solid oak floor, and the multi-roomed layout of a barn built near the turn of last century.
I love to stand inside our barn on a rainy day and hear the sound of raindrops on the steel roof. My husband has room for all his projects in its spacious basement layout. Up above, we can store garden supplies and weights and rabbit cages, old doors and outgrown bicycles, and still have room to pull the tractor in. In the summer, the swallows return and build their mud nests under the high eaves.
I have so many vivid memories of that barn, including:
-Climbing up the wood ladder some forty feet to see fireworks out the top window
-Sitting with the kids watching Rocket, the calf, be born
-Watching tiny reddish piglets snuggle under the heat lamp
-Playing Ping Pong in the hay mow
-Staying away from the mean rooster who was prone to attack you as your head emerged when you climbed the basement stairs
-Filling up the loft with square hay bales while visiting cousins helped
-Holding my breath as Rick dangled aloft and ripped off two layers of shingles
-Using the South wall as a huge screen for Kara’s wedding powerpoint
Though our own barn is no longer filled with the soft breath of animals, it remains as a tribute to another way of life-a time when a small farmer, owner of a couple of hundred acres, willing to work hard, could earn a decent living from the land for the family.
It’s a real shame. I fear the old wooden barns, beautiful buildings in their own right, are going the way of the barn owl. They are getting scarcer and scarcer as the years roll on.
These barns are treasures. The Michigan Barn Preservation Network calls them “economic resources and symbols of our agricultural heritage”. I believe there is no more attractive image than a well-kept, freshly painted barn, surrounded by white fences, stolidly occupying the space between planted fields and wooded hedgerows and housing the various farm implements necessary to work the land.
I also find it ludicrous that we cannot insure our own barn for enough money to rebuild even a tiny corner of it. Of course, in reality, a pole barn is more efficient. It can store more stuff. It is easier to maintain. But it lacks the charm of the hand-hewn beams, the solid oak floor, and the multi-roomed layout of a barn built near the turn of last century.
I love to stand inside our barn on a rainy day and hear the sound of raindrops on the steel roof. My husband has room for all his projects in its spacious basement layout. Up above, we can store garden supplies and weights and rabbit cages, old doors and outgrown bicycles, and still have room to pull the tractor in. In the summer, the swallows return and build their mud nests under the high eaves.
I have so many vivid memories of that barn, including:
-Climbing up the wood ladder some forty feet to see fireworks out the top window
-Sitting with the kids watching Rocket, the calf, be born
-Watching tiny reddish piglets snuggle under the heat lamp
-Playing Ping Pong in the hay mow
-Staying away from the mean rooster who was prone to attack you as your head emerged when you climbed the basement stairs
-Filling up the loft with square hay bales while visiting cousins helped
-Holding my breath as Rick dangled aloft and ripped off two layers of shingles
-Using the South wall as a huge screen for Kara’s wedding powerpoint
Though our own barn is no longer filled with the soft breath of animals, it remains as a tribute to another way of life-a time when a small farmer, owner of a couple of hundred acres, willing to work hard, could earn a decent living from the land for the family.
A butterfly stops for a moment on a toppling concrete tombstone
In a country graveyard
On a dappled Sunday afternoon.
The span of human life is so-
We live and wither and fade away
So too do the markers that call others to remember.
But our faith holds strong
In life or death,
We are a part of a family of believers…
We know that, saved by grace,
We will find more in the life beyond.
The best is yet to come.
In a country graveyard
On a dappled Sunday afternoon.
The span of human life is so-
We live and wither and fade away
So too do the markers that call others to remember.
But our faith holds strong
In life or death,
We are a part of a family of believers…
We know that, saved by grace,
We will find more in the life beyond.
The best is yet to come.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Call
How could I hear Your call, Lord?
I think quiet’s a vacuum
and nervously fill it
with bodiless voices
or TV dramas.
I read a book,
or mop a floor,
or weed a flower bed-
avoiding the calm center,
fearing the time
when my mind opens.
But, tonight, I sit alone.
The wind stirs my hair.
A blue jay’s flight threads
the grey design of treeless branches.
To the North, the sun sets the maples ablaze.
In this peace, Lord,
will You call me?
How will I answer?
I think quiet’s a vacuum
and nervously fill it
with bodiless voices
or TV dramas.
I read a book,
or mop a floor,
or weed a flower bed-
avoiding the calm center,
fearing the time
when my mind opens.
But, tonight, I sit alone.
The wind stirs my hair.
A blue jay’s flight threads
the grey design of treeless branches.
To the North, the sun sets the maples ablaze.
In this peace, Lord,
will You call me?
How will I answer?
SIREN REMINDS US OF OUR LINKS
The sound of a siren is more unsettling when you live in the country. I remember living in Tucson, Arizona for years. You heard an ambulance and you got out of its way. Or you saw a fire truck and you got over on the shoulder of the road. Then you drove on and you never gave it another thought.
That’s just not the case when you live where I live now. The thing is- odds are when you hear that wailing sound, it is going to involve someone that you know. Or at least someone that someone you know knows. And it makes a big difference.
I never hear a siren and feel unaffected. I usually stop and say a prayer. Just a word of concern. A request for safety. There’s a different kind of feeling about it. One that is hard to describe.
The people in those fire trucks and ambulances are often people you know too. Some are volunteers. You just might know the victims as well . When my nephew and his girlfriend, who were visiting from Tucson several summers ago ,got into a bad four-wheeler accident, we were so shaken up by his misfortune. Still we were glad to see the speed with which help was dispatched once we called 911. Neighbors stopped in to see if they could help. Turns out he had to be airlifted to Borgess-and the whole incident was handled by people from our area. Folks asked about him with some regularity for the rest of the summer. He had to have a pin in his femur but is doing fine now.
In the country community, people just seem more willing to help and to get involved. When our neighbors’ house burned a couple of years ago, folks donated money and furniture and a place for them to stay. I guess it’s just more clear to everyone in the country community, that the sound of a siren indicates that real people are apt to be hurting and in need. And yes, there just might be something that you could do to help out.
It’s like the poet says “No man is an island”. Or more to the point- “Never ask for whom the bell ( siren) tolls (wails ). It tolls for thee. “ –My apologies to John Donne.
That’s just not the case when you live where I live now. The thing is- odds are when you hear that wailing sound, it is going to involve someone that you know. Or at least someone that someone you know knows. And it makes a big difference.
I never hear a siren and feel unaffected. I usually stop and say a prayer. Just a word of concern. A request for safety. There’s a different kind of feeling about it. One that is hard to describe.
The people in those fire trucks and ambulances are often people you know too. Some are volunteers. You just might know the victims as well . When my nephew and his girlfriend, who were visiting from Tucson several summers ago ,got into a bad four-wheeler accident, we were so shaken up by his misfortune. Still we were glad to see the speed with which help was dispatched once we called 911. Neighbors stopped in to see if they could help. Turns out he had to be airlifted to Borgess-and the whole incident was handled by people from our area. Folks asked about him with some regularity for the rest of the summer. He had to have a pin in his femur but is doing fine now.
In the country community, people just seem more willing to help and to get involved. When our neighbors’ house burned a couple of years ago, folks donated money and furniture and a place for them to stay. I guess it’s just more clear to everyone in the country community, that the sound of a siren indicates that real people are apt to be hurting and in need. And yes, there just might be something that you could do to help out.
It’s like the poet says “No man is an island”. Or more to the point- “Never ask for whom the bell ( siren) tolls (wails ). It tolls for thee. “ –My apologies to John Donne.
Monday, March 22, 2010
The country is still our choice
Thirty-two years ago, Rick and I packed our bags, and moved across the country from Arizona to Michigan, discarding our city ways for the country life. It was, overall, a good choice. We came to the country without jobs and bought our small farm on M-99. We had no equipment, minimal farm experience, not much money and two little kids under the age of five. Visions of Mother Earth News danced in our heads. I guess you would call us optimists.
We chose the country as the place we wanted to raise our family, and though our kids are all grown-up now, it’s still where we want to live. Like any other major life style choice, country living has brought us both happiness and tears. I admit I had visions of a Walt Disney farm, a place where white fences would edge perfectly groomed green lawns. A place where proud red barns would house pink, smiling, odorless pigs. A place where orderly fields of corn would dry swiftly and be sent to market at a comfortable profit. The alternate reality included unpaid bills, duct-taped fences, many meals of deer, long hours weeding and canning, and finally facing the music….you just can’t make a full-time living on a 200 acre farm.
Still there’s no better life. The highs have included : walking in a wooded fairyland after an ice storm, planting spruce and white pines with the entire family, smugly surveying shelves of our own home-canned produce, and hiking with the dogs along the old rail bed in the late Fall afternoons. The lows were there as well. Having to put Honey ( our ancient milk cow ) down when she could not give birth to her calf, finding aphids in the soybeans, hydraulic leaks in our old John Deere tractor, and one memorable winter losing $25.00 on each hog we sold at market.
These days I have retired from my job as a librarian. Half of our farm land is planted to Michigan oak savanna. We mow more. Our animals are dogs. But the country life continues to enchant us. We heat with wood and Rick cuts a year or two ahead as he logs out the hedge rows and our wood lot. We have dug a small pond (mostly used for dog washing ) and we cultivate a small garden. We love the small-town feel of Springport-and we consider going to the big town of Jackson adequate entertainment most weeks. The country life still suits us.
We chose the country as the place we wanted to raise our family, and though our kids are all grown-up now, it’s still where we want to live. Like any other major life style choice, country living has brought us both happiness and tears. I admit I had visions of a Walt Disney farm, a place where white fences would edge perfectly groomed green lawns. A place where proud red barns would house pink, smiling, odorless pigs. A place where orderly fields of corn would dry swiftly and be sent to market at a comfortable profit. The alternate reality included unpaid bills, duct-taped fences, many meals of deer, long hours weeding and canning, and finally facing the music….you just can’t make a full-time living on a 200 acre farm.
Still there’s no better life. The highs have included : walking in a wooded fairyland after an ice storm, planting spruce and white pines with the entire family, smugly surveying shelves of our own home-canned produce, and hiking with the dogs along the old rail bed in the late Fall afternoons. The lows were there as well. Having to put Honey ( our ancient milk cow ) down when she could not give birth to her calf, finding aphids in the soybeans, hydraulic leaks in our old John Deere tractor, and one memorable winter losing $25.00 on each hog we sold at market.
These days I have retired from my job as a librarian. Half of our farm land is planted to Michigan oak savanna. We mow more. Our animals are dogs. But the country life continues to enchant us. We heat with wood and Rick cuts a year or two ahead as he logs out the hedge rows and our wood lot. We have dug a small pond (mostly used for dog washing ) and we cultivate a small garden. We love the small-town feel of Springport-and we consider going to the big town of Jackson adequate entertainment most weeks. The country life still suits us.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Grandparent Love
A friend of mine recently sent me an email announcement of her new grandson's birth. In response, I tried to include, along with my congratulations, the magic of this new relationship that she is about to experience. Words simply fall short.
I recently spent a week with my own grandsons, Caden, almost five, and Troy, almost two, this past month and , because I am a long-distance grandma, the memories we made will have to last me several months until I can see them again. This fact probably makes me more conscious of each experience as time passes so swiftly away.
Each time I bury my nose in Troy's chubby neck rolls, or tuck Caden in for a nap after reading him a story or two, I catalog the experience and file it away, so that, when I am back in Michigan, with only pictures and videos of them for company, I can call out the sweetness and re-experience the connection across the miles.
Being a grandparent is just a kind of pure love that brings out the best in us, I think. When I see Rick cradle Troy so lovingly, his weathered cheek against Troy's smooth one, I fall in love with both of them all over again. When Caden says to me, "Hey Nanoo, let's play Go Fish or let's play in the sandbox or let's shoot baskets", I am ready no matter what he wants to do. It does not matter if we blast away at robots on his Chicken Little Game, or if we share oatmeal for breakfast. We can build with Lincoln Logs or pretend fight with plastic dinosaur puppets. We can mix the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies or practice his batting with his Chicago Cubs bat and ball. We can take a walk or fight with Star Wars Light Sabers or snuggle on the bed and share his new favorite video: Pinocchio. We can make up silly rhymes or invent words with his refrigerator magnet alphabet or chat while he takes a bath. What we do is irrelevant-but when his eyes twinkle up at me and he says "I LOVE you, Nanoo" my heart is filled with happiness.
Troy took a little bit of time to get to know Rick and me as we had not seen him for several months. But now his cheery smile will flash our way and he will sidle over and lift his chubby arms skyward, wanting to be picked up. He will trustingly put his soft little hand in mine and head off for a walk in the refuge where his dad works. He will relax back into my lap and chatter away, generating long sentences of words most of which I don't fully understand.
In a conversation with a neighbor, my son Eric said "They didn't really come to see US." That's not entirely true but the grandparent connection is probably the strongest draw... There's just nothing like it.
It's like you have no agenda. You don't really have to mold and discipline and worry about grammar and manners and grades and friends....you just have to be there. To be ready to focus your full attention on whatever story they want to share, whatever question they want to ask, whatever game they want to play. And, in the process, you can almost forget that you are a not -so -young person on the far side of middle age, and your heart can fill once again with the magic of childhood, reflected in their clear blue eyes.
I recently spent a week with my own grandsons, Caden, almost five, and Troy, almost two, this past month and , because I am a long-distance grandma, the memories we made will have to last me several months until I can see them again. This fact probably makes me more conscious of each experience as time passes so swiftly away.
Each time I bury my nose in Troy's chubby neck rolls, or tuck Caden in for a nap after reading him a story or two, I catalog the experience and file it away, so that, when I am back in Michigan, with only pictures and videos of them for company, I can call out the sweetness and re-experience the connection across the miles.
Being a grandparent is just a kind of pure love that brings out the best in us, I think. When I see Rick cradle Troy so lovingly, his weathered cheek against Troy's smooth one, I fall in love with both of them all over again. When Caden says to me, "Hey Nanoo, let's play Go Fish or let's play in the sandbox or let's shoot baskets", I am ready no matter what he wants to do. It does not matter if we blast away at robots on his Chicken Little Game, or if we share oatmeal for breakfast. We can build with Lincoln Logs or pretend fight with plastic dinosaur puppets. We can mix the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies or practice his batting with his Chicago Cubs bat and ball. We can take a walk or fight with Star Wars Light Sabers or snuggle on the bed and share his new favorite video: Pinocchio. We can make up silly rhymes or invent words with his refrigerator magnet alphabet or chat while he takes a bath. What we do is irrelevant-but when his eyes twinkle up at me and he says "I LOVE you, Nanoo" my heart is filled with happiness.
Troy took a little bit of time to get to know Rick and me as we had not seen him for several months. But now his cheery smile will flash our way and he will sidle over and lift his chubby arms skyward, wanting to be picked up. He will trustingly put his soft little hand in mine and head off for a walk in the refuge where his dad works. He will relax back into my lap and chatter away, generating long sentences of words most of which I don't fully understand.
In a conversation with a neighbor, my son Eric said "They didn't really come to see US." That's not entirely true but the grandparent connection is probably the strongest draw... There's just nothing like it.
It's like you have no agenda. You don't really have to mold and discipline and worry about grammar and manners and grades and friends....you just have to be there. To be ready to focus your full attention on whatever story they want to share, whatever question they want to ask, whatever game they want to play. And, in the process, you can almost forget that you are a not -so -young person on the far side of middle age, and your heart can fill once again with the magic of childhood, reflected in their clear blue eyes.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
SUMMER OF THE SOUL
SUMMER OF THE SOUL
In the frigid cold of winter
When the snow is swirling, wild…
When your heart itself is shivering
When you wish it would turn mild.
You may feel like turning inward
Like just curling in a ball;
Feel like sighing and bemoaning
The white snowflakes as they fall.
Instead you must look outward
With soft hope and a prayer
Contemplate the world around you
And celebrate what’s there.
Send yourself some yellow roses
Plant green thyme upon your sill
Sow alyssum seed in rich, dark soil
Let the cold do what it will.
Look for sunshine on the snow bank
Look for joy within your soul
Let faith and peace take root within
Eternal summer be your goal.
-Jill Cline
In the frigid cold of winter
When the snow is swirling, wild…
When your heart itself is shivering
When you wish it would turn mild.
You may feel like turning inward
Like just curling in a ball;
Feel like sighing and bemoaning
The white snowflakes as they fall.
Instead you must look outward
With soft hope and a prayer
Contemplate the world around you
And celebrate what’s there.
Send yourself some yellow roses
Plant green thyme upon your sill
Sow alyssum seed in rich, dark soil
Let the cold do what it will.
Look for sunshine on the snow bank
Look for joy within your soul
Let faith and peace take root within
Eternal summer be your goal.
-Jill Cline
Friday, March 19, 2010
In remembrance of Goofy
Goofy is gone.
We held off the decision long as we could. But the inevitable deterioration of age became too great. Her pretty brown eyes grew clouded with cataracts. Her formerly strong back legs lost muscle tone. Whereas she once leaped vertically like an NBA star (Great Dane style) , the day had come when she struggled to rise at all.
And then she began to fall, and she needed help to stand again. She lost weight. Tumors appeared on her chest and her ribs showed despite the huge amount of food she ate.
I kept thinking, once spring is here, she will feel better, but at last we faced the truth. She was not going to get better. She was past thirteen and she was tired and hurting.
We called the vet who came to the house. We all petted Goof and talked to her and fed her peanut butter sandwiches and told her that it was okay, she could go on without us. I held her head on my knee and stroked her face. “Good girl, Goofy,” I said softly as the needle slipped into her vein.
She gave a little sigh and closed her white eyelashes for the last time. I felt her grow still and cold.
The house feels so empty now. The living room looks huge. Goof’s pillows and blankets are gone from in front of the woodburner. She used to lie so close to it that her toenails would occasionally turn off the blower.
We buried her with two blankets and several pillows, in the asparagus row where she used to hide among the feathery ferns and peer out into the main garden to watch me weed. I don’t suppose another dog will ever love me so unconditionally.
Kara said that Goofy could hear my car coming south on M-99 and it is true that she would always be at the door as I came in each afternoon. That is when her day began too.
I will remember: how she barked whenever Rick put his arm around me, how eager she was to go for a walk on any occasion, how she ran like a carousel horse with a funny little prancing gait, how she loved peanut butter, how she backed onto my lap and sat down when I sat on the couch, how she leaned against me wanting a scratch, how she would head butt you softly if you forgot her presence, and how beautiful she was…a Harlequin with black and gray and white markings and a feminine head and the sweetest disposition.
Thirteen years before, Kara and I scooped her out of a litter of black brothers and sisters. She buried her little pink nose in my neck and from that day on, she was my faithful friend and companion.
She’s gone ahead now. I can imagine her waiting on the Rainbow Bridge for my footstep. For how can heaven be heaven without Goof’s joyous welcoming bark?
We held off the decision long as we could. But the inevitable deterioration of age became too great. Her pretty brown eyes grew clouded with cataracts. Her formerly strong back legs lost muscle tone. Whereas she once leaped vertically like an NBA star (Great Dane style) , the day had come when she struggled to rise at all.
And then she began to fall, and she needed help to stand again. She lost weight. Tumors appeared on her chest and her ribs showed despite the huge amount of food she ate.
I kept thinking, once spring is here, she will feel better, but at last we faced the truth. She was not going to get better. She was past thirteen and she was tired and hurting.
We called the vet who came to the house. We all petted Goof and talked to her and fed her peanut butter sandwiches and told her that it was okay, she could go on without us. I held her head on my knee and stroked her face. “Good girl, Goofy,” I said softly as the needle slipped into her vein.
She gave a little sigh and closed her white eyelashes for the last time. I felt her grow still and cold.
The house feels so empty now. The living room looks huge. Goof’s pillows and blankets are gone from in front of the woodburner. She used to lie so close to it that her toenails would occasionally turn off the blower.
We buried her with two blankets and several pillows, in the asparagus row where she used to hide among the feathery ferns and peer out into the main garden to watch me weed. I don’t suppose another dog will ever love me so unconditionally.
Kara said that Goofy could hear my car coming south on M-99 and it is true that she would always be at the door as I came in each afternoon. That is when her day began too.
I will remember: how she barked whenever Rick put his arm around me, how eager she was to go for a walk on any occasion, how she ran like a carousel horse with a funny little prancing gait, how she loved peanut butter, how she backed onto my lap and sat down when I sat on the couch, how she leaned against me wanting a scratch, how she would head butt you softly if you forgot her presence, and how beautiful she was…a Harlequin with black and gray and white markings and a feminine head and the sweetest disposition.
Thirteen years before, Kara and I scooped her out of a litter of black brothers and sisters. She buried her little pink nose in my neck and from that day on, she was my faithful friend and companion.
She’s gone ahead now. I can imagine her waiting on the Rainbow Bridge for my footstep. For how can heaven be heaven without Goof’s joyous welcoming bark?
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