breathless air hangs
beneath steel-gray sky —
birds take cover
That’s what I saw outside our kitchen window this morning. Not the little bird, but the calm before a snow storm making its way up the East Coast. Right now the first flakes are coming down steadily. And I’m going into hibernation mode!
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 December 2017
Photo found at pinterest.com
late afternoon sun
warms exposed tree limbs
waiting for winter
Yesterday afternoon I walked outdoors in bearably cold weather. The bright sun was low in the sky, already dropping beneath tree tops. I could feel the warmth on my face, and wondered whether tree trunks and branches also felt the warmth.
How odd that trees shed their protective leaves for winter and face wind, sleet, snow and ice with bare limbs. We humans, however, pile on layers so thick that we’re scarcely recognizable in our winter combat suits. Especially as we age.
It’s challenging to see trees accept the coming winter stripped down. Naked. All their graceful, awkward or broken architecture clearly on display. Not as a sign of aging, but of strength. Perhaps even courage?
I’d like to think so. In part because I’ve always wanted to be a tree — or at least a poem lovely as a tree. A tree with roots sunk deep into the ground, finding rivers of water in underground sanctuaries untouched by human hands. Still producing fruit in its season.
Happy Friday and happy walking!
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 December 2017
Photo found at Shutterstock
yesterday’s ghosts
stir in their graves
dismembered
They want to shame and blame me. Turn me into the problem I am not. Make it my fault. Or the fault of my overactive emotions or hormones run wild.
And the tears. If I would just stop getting all emotional about it. It’s over and done with, Sister. Get used to it. This is the way of the world. If you don’t like the heat, don’t stand so close to the fire.
I’m proud to be a thriving survivor. Like other women and men, I’ve been sexually harassed, humiliated and punished physically, verbally and emotionally. Sadly, the patterns of my childhood and youth didn’t stop when I became an adult woman — a supposedly mature, thoughtful, educated, gifted, responsible, compassionate, dependable, reliable woman, true to her word.
My recent nightmare with its scoffer’s row of men intent on intimidating me brought it all back. As did my recent review of private journal entries from my years as a seminary professor and dean. To say nothing of public figures coming forward to talk about their experiences.
Where will this lead? Is it simply the media event of the year? I pray it is not.
My father set the stage early in my life. He was the boss. I was not. He wore his medals proudly: Male, Ordained, Father, The Boss.
Instead of learning to stand on my own two feet without apology, I was subjected to formation in unquestioning submission to men (unless they were obviously ‘bad’ men), submission to my teachers, submission to my employers, submission to the governing powers, and submission to God as a disobedient, rebellious, stubborn and angry little girl.
My father also formed me in the sick opposites of these submissions. These included lack of respect for my female body, female voice, thoughts, instincts, intuitions, emotions, and my identity as God’s beloved daughter child. They also included formation in going along to get along.
Today I’m holding out for women and men who won’t allow their ghosts to rest in peace until justice is done. Not for us, but for all the children of this world, especially those without safe allies. Otherwise, this will indeed become a passing fad–for all but the powerful few.
I’m in this for the long haul. How about you?
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 December 2017
Image found at raisingintuitivechildren.com
thin whistle
of white-throated sparrow
hangs in mid-air
The first I’ve heard this December. A sign of cold weather ahead? I’m never sure how to interpret this one-of-a-kind winter song. It’s always thin and high-pitched, and often trails off as though frozen in the air. Nothing like the full-throated winter call of the tiny house wren.
Is the sparrow announcing its presence? Maintaining boundaries? Better, perhaps it’s defying all preconceptions about its stamina, determination, survival instincts and importance in the greater order of this world. Reminding me life is greater and perhaps more precious than human existence inside a pre-heated igloo full of comfort and convenience props.
I love my heated dwelling and all my squirreled-away survival rations. I adore the sound and feel of precious radiator heat on a cold morning. I willingly tolerate the heart-stopping roar of my morning Vitamix machine. It enables me to sit at my kitchen table looking out the window, listening for sounds of outdoor creatures and imbibing my half-digested breakfast. Imagining I’m roughing it.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 December 2017
Photo found at Audubon.com
spent oak leaves
spiral to the ground
dancing a sad song
Today was dismal and gray. Rain coming tonight, followed by a fierce cold front moving in later this week.
It took a while for this haiku to take shape. The sight of brown oak leaves spiraling down from their high branches did it. If an elegy were a dance, that’s what I saw as they spun slowly to the ground now littered with them.
I felt torn. The ache of falling leaves is inevitable. Yet it’s also beautiful and, in this case, graceful.
I want to be a graceful oak leaf, pirouetting to the ground—having spent all I have to become and live faithfully as the child of God I am. Not without defects, but content. Using the voice my Creator placed in me not to be silenced or hoarded, but to be heard.
This time of my life is filled with aching beauty everywhere—including yours and my own. Thanks for stopping by.
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 December 2017
Photo by Joel Sartore found at fineartamerica.com
twilight
blankets earth
with silence
This morning I’m a bit slow, still trying to shake off weariness and a feeling of heaviness. No obvious cause or solution. Except to do what I can to keep moving today. One foot in front of the other. Or not.
Twilight can be a magical time of day—as it was yesterday evening when we were out for a late afternoon walk.
Then there was this morning’s twilight. I felt rudely awakened by light leaking through the window blinds. I wanted to pull the covers up over my head and go back to sleep. Which I did for a bit.
I’ve stopped trying to diagnose my body’s reasons. Instead, I’m going with the flow of today—slowly, without high expectations. Enjoying what I can, reading as I’m able, listening to music I love and believing today is important. Not simply for me but for you and for our Creator who loves this tired old world from the inside out.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 December 2017
Photo found at pexels.com
a day
unlike all others
wakes unannounced
During this Advent season I’m participating in an on-line retreat. An opportunity to slow down, listen with my heart, notice what’s happening in my body, and rest in the person I’ve become after all these years.
Writing haiku is an exercise in listening. Slowly. Without preconceptions. Without urgency. Without wondering when the alarm will go off to jolt me into action.
I readily admit that being retired is an advantage. Yet my internal life doesn’t always remember what it means to be retired. Much less where to focus long, patient listening that does more than take me in circles.
The on-line retreat invites me to write one haiku a day not just during Advent, but for the next six months. As a daily exercise it puts the brakes on my urge to do something. It turns my attention toward nature and our Creator, and invites me to make connections.
The haiku above suggests life is a daily gift from my Creator. A page-turner. An open, still-being-written adventure lived one day at a time. A puzzler without answers or clues at the back of the book. One of a kind.
Today I’m enjoying Sabbath rest at home—taking care of a head cold that began Thanksgiving Day. Wishing for each of you quiet time to listen with your heart and rest in the one-of-a-kind person you are.
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 December 2017
Photo found at pinterest.com, Sunrise in North Dakota
I.
rosy dawn
streaks across sky –
clouds blush
II.
morning sun
kisses clouds –
early frost bristles
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 December 2017
Photo found at mulierchile.com; taken from Clingmans Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina
silence descends
over dismal swamp –
a child weeps
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 December 2017
Photo of a Montana swamp found at wpnature.com
I wonder…
Does each nation
Each country
Have an original sin
The seed of its
Particular ignominy
Running through veins
Shot full of raging
Hormones escalating
Into tragedies
Of historic proportions
Played out in
Unnumbered permutations
Of seduction and flattery
Designed to deceive
And subdue?
It isn’t just the daily revelation of predatory behavior by public figures and officials. It’s the reality that various permutations of predatory behavior undergird the earliest foundations of our nation.
I’d describe it this way: The subduing and disappearing of some in order to pursue the welfare of a select group that viewed and still view themselves as more entitled than others.
Layer upon layer. Decade after decade. And now we’ve come to this juncture in our history without a clear understanding of how we got here, and how many were and still are subdued and disappeared. Buried beneath mountains of inspiring proclamations, and promises not kept.
So what am I doing about it? Besides writing, I’m reading. Today I’m focused on books that invite me to open my mind and my heart. Not simply to what happened when our country was founded, but what’s still happening today. Unrecorded, unexamined, and unacknowledged.
My newest book is Sing, Unburied, Sing, written by Jesmyn Ward. I’m also reading Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. One painful chapter at a time.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 November 2017
Photo of Great Dismal Swamp found at smithsonianmag.com
The swamp, located in Virginia and North Carolina, once served as a refuge for Native Americans and fugitive slaves.
Telling the Truth 