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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
