so live...sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust

Sometimes, when the world has seemed to go to pieces and inexplicable tragedy and horror befalls innocent people, I grapple with what to write.  What could I possibly say that hasn't already been voiced, in words far more eloquent and resonant than mine? At the end of the day I can only offer up a prayer that those who have lost can find consolation, that those who witnessed the horror can find the strength to move past it and not let it define the rest of their lives, that those who continue to live in turmoil and fear can hang on and trust that there are good people in the world, people who fight tirelessly for peace.  

Today I am thankful for the German musician who understood the healing power of music.  Traveling four hundred miles from his home to Paris he set up his portable piano and played John Lennon's Imagine for the crowd.

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

And in the midst of all this terror and grief, I hope we can find time to reflect on all the things we have to be thankful about this season--our homes, our families, all the blessings that fill our hearts and our homes with love.  We're almost through the thankful banner, and today's poem is found on the letter "u".  It happens to have been my grandmother's favorite poem, and now that I am a grandmother myself I understand the power and beauty of a grandmother's love.  She taught farm children Latin and calculus in an Indiana one room schoolhouse, and inspired us all with her love of poetry and recitation.  Every time I enjoy a poem or hear one of my children recite, I am filled with gratitude for the gifts she bestowed upon us.  

This poem seems so appropriate today, after the horrors of the last week.  Go forth, under the open sky, and list to Nature's teachings... Let us take Bryant's counsel and live our lives with good intent and purpose.  

Thanatopsis
~~William Cullen Bryant

     To him who in the love of Nature holds   

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks   

A various language; for his gayer hours   

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile   

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides   

Into his darker musings, with a mild   

And healing sympathy, that steals away   

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts   

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight   

Over thy spirit, and sad images   

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,   

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,   

Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—   

Go forth, under the open sky, and list   

To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—

Comes a still voice—

                                       Yet a few days, and thee   

The all-beholding sun shall see no more   

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,   

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,   

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist   

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim   

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up   

Thine individual being, shalt thou go   

To mix for ever with the elements,   

To be a brother to the insensible rock   

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain   

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak   

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.  

     Yet not to thine eternal resting-place   

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish   

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down   

With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,   

The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,  

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,   

All in one mighty sepulchre.   The hills   

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales   

Stretching in pensive quietness between;   

The venerable woods—rivers that move   

In majesty, and the complaining brooks   

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,   

Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—   

Are but the solemn decorations all   

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,   

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,   

Are shining on the sad abodes of death,   

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread   

The globe are but a handful to the tribes   

That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings   

Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,   

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods   

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,   

Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:   

And millions in those solitudes, since first   

The flight of years began, have laid them down   

In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw   

In silence from the living, and no friend   

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe   

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care   

Plod on, and each one as before will chase   

His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave   

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come

And make their bed with thee. As the long train   

Of ages glide away, the sons of men,   

The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes   

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,   

The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man— 

 

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,   

By those, who in their turn shall follow them.  

     So live, that when thy summons comes to join   

The innumerable caravan, which moves   

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take   

His chamber in the silent halls of death,   

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,   

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed   

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,   

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch   

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

My thoughts and prayers are with those who are victims of senseless terrorism.
May I never lose my sense of gratitude for the things I sometimes take for gratitude--for the opportunity to let my family and friends know how much I love them today, and always.

Today is a good day for a good day.

and the night shall be filled with music

(I wrote this blog last night, but since I am up at 4:30 am (why?why?why?) it seems extra fitting--it won't be light for at least another hour!  I am thankful for many things, but right now I would have been extra thankful for a few more hours of sleep...).  Also---I couldn't fix all my formatting problems with this post!  No matter how many times I adjusted line spacing and text size some of the post was just not cooperating, so my motto for today is progress, not perfection..

As we continue working our way through the poems on the thankful banner in my dining room, the letter "f" today is offering not one but two poems which seem pretty darn appropriate at the moment.  While I might enjoy a little more sunshine as I get ready for work in the morning, I'll confess I don't find much to revel in as I exit my work garage at the end of the day only to meet darkness. The clock may read 5:15 pm, but my inner clock is clamoring for comfort food (meatloaf and mashed potatoes, anyone?), comfy pajamas and a book to crawl into bed with!  But if the night comes too quickly, at least having Longfellow around makes it a little easier!

Henry's first poem (I've read his work for so many years that surely we're on a first name basis by now!), Day is Done, was written in 1844 as a preface to an anthology of poems called The Waif.  Longfellow selected his favorite poems by other writers and compiled them into this book, adding this particular poem as an introduction.  I think one of the things I love most about Longfellow's work is that he wanted poetry to be part of our everyday lives--poems don't have to be so complex and fraught with meanings that the average reader can't figure out what they mean.  He wrote poems that you could memorize because of the lovely language and rhythm, poems that could bring you comfort at the end of the day.  Poems that could lighten the heaviness of the world.

Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness

      Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

      From an eagle in his flight. 

I see the lights of the village

      Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me

      That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,

      That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

      As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

      Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

      And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

      Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

      Through the corridors of Time. 

For, like strains of martial music,

      Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life's endless toil and endeavor;

      And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

      Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

      Or tears from the eyelids start; 

Who, through long days of labor,

      And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

      Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

      The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

      That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

      The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

      The beauty of thy voice. 

And the night shall be filled with music,

      And the cares, that infest the day,

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

      And as silently steal away.

    Over the weekend I had the chance to see the 75th anniversary movie of Disney's Fantasia on big screen.  It was so enjoyable listening to some of my very favorite pieces, with the remarkable and visionary animation that brings the music to life. I found it astonishing to think how all that art work was created 75 years ago...long before computers!  Every time I watch the last segment of the movie where the pulsing, whirling music of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain gives way to Schubert's plaintive Ave Maria, I always think of the last lines of Day is Done.  ...and the cares that infest the day...(shall) silently steal away.

New Orleans Botanical Garden, November 2014--a grand setting for Longfellow's  
Hymn to the Night

Aspasie, trillistos.

I heard the trailing garments of the Night

      Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

      From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

      Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

      As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

      The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,

      Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air

      My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there, —

      From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear

      What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,

      And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

      Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,

      The best-beloved Night!

All other photos from Door County camping trips

But at the moment, we can't revel in the night music but must greet the day!  I hope your day is blessed with the simple things that bring you comfort and make you smile, and remember..

Today is a good day for a good day! 


 

The letter "K" today is offering us the fall poem, To Autumn, penned by Keats in 1819, only two years before his untimely death. This well loved poem can be found in almost every one of my poetry anthologies, and is regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language.  In a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds written on 21 September, Keats described the impression the scene had made upon him and its influence on the poem's composition..."How beautiful the season is now – How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it [...] I never lik'd stubble fields so much as now [...] Somehow a stubble plain looks warm – in the same way that some pictures look warm – this struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it."

I had fun setting this poem with a few family and vacation photos that capture so perfectly this season of mist and mellow fruitfulness...

New Hampshire lake

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

Apple tree on Robert Frost's New Hampshire farm

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 

 And still more, later flowers for the bees, 

Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

 Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, 
  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 

From left, my great-grandfather Raines, my grandfather Badger and my cousin Byron Raines, 1955

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
  Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

My Uncle Lowell, my Aunt Hester and my Uncle Phil--three of my mother's siblings

 Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

My grandfather at his home in Indiana

 Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 

 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Taken from my bedroom window this morning--a goldfinch enjoying the last of my coneflowers!

 Have a wonderful weekend, and remember...

Today is a good day for a good day! 

the morns are meeker

What lovely weather we're having this first week of November--Mother Nature has graciously given me yet another reason to be thankful.  Prayers go out, though, to those who have been facing the destruction of their homes by tornadoes and flooding. Having experienced floods in both Texas and South Dakota I know the heart ache and fear, and pray for those affected.

Today's poems can be found on the "a" and "n" banners.  The lovely illustration is from the original Junior Classics book--I've always admired these old fashioned ink drawings.  Although we haven't experienced it yet, I know that windy nights will soon be here, as early as this weekend according to the weather station.  Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses was always one of my favorites growing up, and I always linked this poem with another poem that my fourth grade teacher read aloud in class--The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.  It was a little bit darker and creepier than Windy Nights, but I found the image of a mysterious horseman racing through the night exhilarating in both of the poems.

And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,   

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

A highwayman comes riding—

         Riding—riding—

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

And of course no autumn would be complete without Emily's poem No. 32 (Miss Dickinson never titled any of her poems)...

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

 The berry's cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf

the field a scarlet gown

Lest I sh'd be old-fashioned 

I’ll put a trinket on.  

May your day be filled with blessings large and small.  And remember...

Today is a good day for a good day!

The one advantage to daylight savings time is that morning light arrives a little earlier, and this morning's beautiful sunrise made getting up so early a little easier!

I always take quiet pleasure in hanging this banner on my china cabinet every November.  Not only does the message remind me daily to remember my blessings and recall how much I have to be extraordinarily thankful for, I also love the memories associated with it. 

 

I made the banner from a few pages of an old set of Collier's Junior Classics. I loved reading the adventure stories from this set at the old Carnegie library in my hometown, and years later, as a thank you for assistance in grant writing the children's librarian gifted me with the set when it was being discarded.  I ended up with two of the poetry books so I didn't feel too heartless in using a few of the poetry pages from the extra book.  I know altered books are all the rage right now, but it's still hard for me to dismember a book!

I choose each page with care, using autumn poems that carry a special meaning for me in one way or another.  "T" features How the Leaves Came Down by Susan Coolidge...

I'll tell you how the leaves came down.
The great Tree to his children said,
"You're getting sleepy, Yellow and Brown,
Yes, very sleepy, little Red;
It is quite time you went to bed."

"Ah!" begged each silly, pouting leaf,
"Let us a little longer May;
Dear Father Tree, behold our grief,
'Tis such a very pleasant day
We do not want to go away."

So, just for one more merry day
To the great Tree the leaflets clung,
Frolicked and danced and had their way,
Upon the autumn breezes swung,
Whispering all their sports among,

"Perhaps the great Tree will forget
And let us stay until the spring
If we all beg and coax and fret."
But the great Tree did no such thing;
He smiled to hear their whispering.

"Come, children all, to bed," he cried;
And ere the leaves could urge their prayer
He shook his head, and far and wide,
Fluttering and rustling everywhere,
Down sped the leaflets through the air.

I saw them; on the ground they lay,
Golden and red, a huddled swarm,
Waiting till one from far away,
White bed-clothes heaped upon her arm,
Should come to wrap them safe and warm.

The great bare Tree looked down and smiled.
"Good-night, dear little leaves" he said;
And from below each sleepy child
Replied "Good-night," and murmured,
"It is so nice to go to bed."

and "H" displays Rhyme of November Stars by Sara Teasdale.  I loved reading this poem as a young girl and then from my top bunk at night I'd watch the stars and moon march by my window--what a lovely sight.  This morning the moon was shining brightly in the early morning sky...

 The noiseless marching of the stars
Sweeps above me all night long;
Up the skies, over the skies
Passes the uncounted throng,
Without haste, without rest,
From the east to the west:
Vega, Deneb, white Altair
Shine like crystals in the air,
and the lonely Fomalhaut
In the dark south, paces low.
Now the timid Pleiades
Leave the shelter of the trees,
While toward the north, mounting high,
Gold Capella, like a queen,
Watches over her demesne
Stretching toward the kingly one,
Dusky, dark Aldebaran.
Betelgeuse and Rigel burn
In their wide wheel, slow to turn,
And in the sharp November frost
Bright Sirius, with his blue light
Completes the loveliness of night.

Tomorrow we will see what lovely poems the letters "A" and "N" have to share!  Until then, please remember that

Today is a good day for a good day!

...the changing light of fall

Hello, and welcome to November!  I could be a tad grumpy about today's poem and point out that the "changing light of fall" should actually be dubbed the "no light of fall" as darkness came so quickly last night due to the time change.  But I will refrain from grumpiness--it's hard enough on a Monday morning to muster enthusiasm without additional grousing about something I can't change! 

We had a lovely weekend--Phil winterized our deck and I worked on several sewing projects.  We celebrated Halloween evening in the land of Oz with our own sweet Dorothy, who caught on to the idea of trick or treating very quickly!

And to our surprise, the "cowardly lion" made an appearance at dinner time!  I'm so proud of this little cap I knit in the car during my recent trip to Indiana--isn't it sweet?

I find it hard to believe that October has already bid adieu and skipped away, leaving behind it's more somber, no-nonsense sibling, November, known for its bare trees and brown yards and early evening dusk.  I miss the bright reds and yellows and sunlight streaming through the leaves, setting the tree branches on fire.  But after I adjust to the time change I know I will also embrace this more mellow season--while October delights in dazzling displays of color, November creeps up softly and whispers "slow down.  sit by the fire and dream.  count your blessings and give thanks." 

I like this autumn poem by Edward Hirsch.  The maples in our backyard are definitely in the fall...falling...fallen phase and will soon be bereft of all their  lovely yellow leaves.  While we have definitely moved beyond "summer's sprawling past" we haven't yet been forced to greet "winter's hard revision" so hopefully we can linger awhile in this in-between land of seasons and remember all our blessings.

Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season

Changes its tense in the long-haired maples

That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves

Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition

With the final remaining cardinals) and then

Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last

Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.

At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees

In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager

And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever

Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun

Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,

A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud

Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything

Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s

Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment

Pulling out of the station according to schedule,

Another moment arriving on the next platform. It

Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away

From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,

Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving

Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,

Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.

And every year there is a brief, startling moment

When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and

Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless

Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:

It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;

It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

Happy Monday!  Please join me in being grateful and thankful for today and remember...

Today is a good day for a good day!