Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Nature and Beauty

January 12, 2018

two downhill haikus

I.

dawn sky glows blue
peach clouds drift above trees
tail-lights rush downhill

II.

warm rain
melts icy snow —
races downhill

We’re blessed with a snow-emergency highway in front of our house. It’s a state highway, two lanes not four, with a steady downhill slant beginning just before our driveway. During the week, rush hour is well underway by 7am, with cars headed for the freeway, multiple yellow busses headed for schools, an occasional city bus, and trucks of all sizes and shapes on the way to deliver something somewhere.

The juxtaposition of a stunning dawn sky and tail-lights rushing downhill struck me as noteworthy. If no one saw the sky, it was because he or she was watching the tail-lights of the car just ahead, with one foot ready to hit the brakes as needed. As a retiree, I love taking time each morning to inspect the sky and clouds and whatever else is stirring when I get up.

Today a warm front is coming through from the south. Ironically, it’s driving temperatures up into the low 60s F. Steady rain has almost washed away the last remnants of snow and gritty ice, mixed with brine. All of it is racing downhill with cars, trucks and busses. The runoff heads straight for creeks and drains that empty into the Schuylkill, a major river running by and through Philadelphia.

So, my friends, here’s to a happy Friday, a lovely weekend, and time to watch the dawn/evening sky without needing to be anywhere or anybody at a certain time.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 January 2018
Photo taken by me with my iPad, 9 January 2018, 7:05 am EST

3 Comments
August 26, 2017

Emily Dickinson meets Mary Oliver

Last year a friend gave me a volume of poems by Mary Oliver. It’s safe to say I’m as mesmerized by Mary’s poetry as I am by Emily’s. Both are keen observers of nature, both external nature and human nature.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

For the last few weeks I’ve been tantalized by a small poem of Emily’s. Cryptic as always, but not totally mysterious. Even so, I’ve wondered what to say about it. Then a few weeks ago I was reading Mary’s poems and was caught by a stanza in one of her longer poems.

First, Emily Dickinson’s poem:

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
True Poems flee –

c. 1879

Emily Dickinson Poems, Edited by Brenda Hillman
Shambhala Pocket Classics, Shambhala 1995

Now the third stanza of Mary Oliver’s poem:

The deer came into the field.
I saw her peaceful face and heard the shuffle of her breath.
She was sweetened by merriment and not afraid,
but bold to say
whose field she was crossing: spoke the tap of her foot:
“It is God’s, and mine.”

But only that she was born into the poem that God made, and
called the world.

Mary Oliver, Thirst, stanza 3 from “More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord,” Beacon Press 2006

Mary’s words helped me think about Emily’s poem. So here’s what I’m suggesting as one way to interpret them together.

  • No mortal words of poetry will ever do justice to this world, God’s poem. Nor do we understand ourselves unless we give up all efforts to capture in our words the reality of what God created and invited us to inhabit as caretakers. We can look and point; we cannot replicate.
  • Furthermore, no poetic words of ours will ever improve upon God’s great poem. Still, as humans we’re at our best when we reflect in our lives the grandeur of  creation.
  • Surely the summer sky, the deer, and all parts of God’s creation are dignified not because of what each does, understands or even writes in flowing poetry. Rather, we owe our dignity to being part of “the poem that God made, and called the world.”

Have a wonderful Sabbath rest.
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 August 2017
Image found at smartpress.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Dignify

11 Comments
December 27, 2016

A Quiet Ovation

stand_of_eastern_hemlock_and_white_pine_in_tiadaghton_state_forest_pennsylvania

~~~Eastern Hemlock and White Pine, Tiadaghton State Forest, Pennsylvania

No applause and no honors
Just the ignominious grinding
Of metal on wood
The thud of heavy bodies
Hitting the ground
Two old warriors
Honor intact
Upright as ever
Hospitable and welcoming
Home for the homeless
Food for the penniless
Grubs for the grubbers
Free and plentiful
Now deemed dangerous
Too unpredictable to ignore
Lest they do irreparable harm
Not of their own choice

This morning at 8am sharp the execution squad arrived. No ovations for them, be they ever so skillful. They came to take down two loyal friends who stood by me day and night for decades. Quietly and gracefully they shared their beauty, their shady branches and their contribution to the ecology of my life.

Their health, despite insect attacks, became their downfall. Too tall, too massive and too dangerous to stand between neighboring houses. And yet…home to squirrels, any number of small native and migrating birds combing their trunks for insects, and their branches for cone seeds. Eastern (Pennsylvania) Hemlocks.

I didn’t keep count of how often I woke up to a catbird, cardinal or wren perched on a limb just outside my bedroom window, singing a morning song. Or squirrels chasing each other up and down their trunks, chattering incessantly. Or the times I was up in the night during windstorms, watching their branches swaying to and fro, huge trunks tilting with the wind—dancing in it, unafraid.

I gave my towering friends a small ovation this morning—even though they were about to be taken down. I’m not a card-carrying tree hugger, but I have hugged trees in my lifetime. Large trees just like these. The kind that never get replaced in a lifetime.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 December 2016
Photo found at wickipedia.org
Response to WordPress Prompt: Ovation

6 Comments
June 30, 2015

Looking for Serenity | Photos

P1060706

Frequent Visitor to Water Lily Ponds at Longwood Gardens

Every time I visit the water-lily garden at Longwood, I want to sit on a bench and drink in the serenity. I could use a little right now. So here it is. A virtual tour. Free of charge!

This photo looks back toward a large display hall in the Conservatory.
Note the round pond in the center of the courtyard,
with a blossoming lotus plant in the center.

DSCN1380

Six rectangular ponds like this one surround the central pond.

P1060701

The garden also includes plants that thrive
in ponds and wetlands, such as
this Dwarf Papyrus from South West Africa.

P1030484

Here’s a view looking toward another side of the Conservatory,
water-loving plants in the background.

DSCN1377

Next, close-ups of water lilies in full bloom.

P1060722

 

P1060718

 

DSCN0731

It takes a lot of effort to keep this garden looking spiffy!

P1030491

One last serene lotus blossom.
P1030487

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference.

Click here to read the full text of the original prayer.

*  *  *

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 June 2015
Photo credit: DAFraser, October 2005, July 2014, June 2015
Full text of serenity prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, written in 1926.

4 Comments