Throw Me Away

Proposed antiphon: God blesses us and keeps us, and hereafter will make us new

Sometime in late spring
The pansies were discarded
Dumped in the common area
Behind the houses
Where the blackberries grow
And the morning glories dance
Twisting from cane to cane

There the soil is rich,
Full of grass cuttings and bits of bark
Discarded potting soil
Leaf mould and pine needles -
The detritus of years past

There the essence of green life
Spirals up like slow flame
Through the stems and leaves
Through the curling growing tips
And into the air

You can smell it, see it
Wafting from the full petals
And shining from the generous faces
Of the pansy blooms that grew there
Burgeoning with beauty and life

Throw me away
Cast me aside
Into the dung-heap of creation
Let the sun beat down
And the wild rains fall
Let me bloom

Hold On

The land is grey
and cold winds blow
the rain spots down
mixed in with snow

The reeds sigh in
the the wind so cold
their roots hold tight
to mud and mold

The grass and reeds
are bleached light dun
by wind and rain
and distant sun

Around their roots
the mud lies black
around the ponds
ice-water, black

The ponds seem dead
abandoned, left
-of mammals, bugs and fish
bereft

The eagle eye
sees more below
within the depths
a greenish glow

Life perseveres
and will return
and send up shoots
and uncoil fern

Hold on through one more storm
and then
wild life will arise
again

Living Fruitful Lives

The red-winged blackbirds perch on the cattails
Last year's cattails that are going to seed
Their brown firmness gone
They are transformed into down
Leaving stalks with strange, bleached tufts and wisps of fluff on them.

Some of the cattail fluff
Is carried off to pad nests
And comfort the little lives
That hatch and fledge there
Or becomes bedding for fieldmice,
Muskrats, and chipmunks.

Some is eaten by bugs
Or it rots on the stalk
Or in the mud of the marsh
Enriching the soil

And some of the tiny seeds that it carried
Burst open and grow anew.

May God grant us richly fruitful lives, and may many benefit thereof.

And may we also appreciate how very humble a fruitful life can be.

Signs of Life

I came across a perfectly circular 1.5" hole in the still-partly-frozen ground the other day. It looked like small cookie-cutter had made it, but I knew the author of this particular void, and it wasn't a child running around wreaking lawn-havoc with a bit of baking equipment. No, the author of this strangely symmetrical divot is small, brown, and has spent much of the last month in hibernation, tail curled over it's nose.

A chipmunk.

There is something to be said for being able to lie low, and sleep through the tough seasons. Unfortunately, we humans cannot. We must tough, or fight it out. And when the seasonal warfare wanes and the sun returns it's warmth to us, we are glad to greet again these, our fair-weather friends.

Life is good, and we must all approach it as best we can.

Spring is Coming!

It was a draining and busy week.
But today dawned sunny and calm, if cold.

Making my way across the parking lot to go to work, I was impressed with all the birdsong that the Sun was inspiring.

Then I heard a call that jarred me out of my routine, a red-winged blackbird. The red-wingers are common birds, which overwinter as far north as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, -but this one was doing the male territorial cry, which I haven't heard this winter. Looking about, I spied him atop a telephone pole, singing gustily against the blue sky.

It may be cold, he says, but
Spring is Coming.

How appropriate and encouraging to end this cold week in the Lent-thening of days with a sign of the spring to come.

Blessed Be!