RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal IV

Well, it's done. One full year of outdoor journal tucked into chapters, for potential use when I finally start (finish?) writing God in the Yard. Here are some random fragments I rescued from the last pages and put into poem form.

I'm planning to make this the year of the journal. A different kind of journal, using Journaling as a Spiritual Practice to guide me. So hopefully I'll still have random poems to find and set here.


xxxxvii

Blueberry bushes
stripped, lean, beautiful
amber and crimson against
a bronze needle bed.


xxxxviii

How desperately
the dog next door
tells the world
that I am
here.


xxxxix

Moon shimmers, glassy blue
night; I lie under glistening
pine, watch house lights shine
over empty white yard while my
girl cuts cucumber crescents
on grain-gold kitchen counters.


xxxxx

Three cardinals volley
chirps, swing calls—
bush to hemlock to pine.


xxxxxi

Snow descends in dancing
sheets, sparkling cloth flung
out by a dressmaker’s hands.


xxxxxii

Trees black, struck against
faded cobalt sky and the sun
leaking tears, yellow, pink.


xxxxxiii

Furled leaves of wild
garlic mustard and, soon,
forsythia breakfasts!


xxxxxiv

Hemlocks sway, twigs
snap, slap the air—bold
tango at yard’s edge.


xxxxxv

Faintest tongues
of forsythia speak
cheer into the yard.


xxxxxvi

Forsythia triple-
leafed—fleur de lis
gracing the woods.


xxxxxvii

Red thorn berry
shriveled, deepened
to muted cranberry—
too-long suckled
by winter’s
urge.


xxxxxviii

Thorn-studded branch—
wan skeleton, brittle
against the landscape.


xxxxxix

Look around! Watch
the hemlocks swinging
hear the ‘thtick thtick’ of
little pinecones dropping
touch the pearl-blue sky
see the buds swelling
in hopes of spring.

Moss photo by L.L. Barkat.

POETRY FRIDAY:
Ann's Of Launching and Recovering
Mom2Six's Poetry
Erica's Morketiden
High Calling's The Poetry of Twitter
Joelle's Emptied

THANKS FOR THE HIGHLIGHT!
High Calling's Confetti Days

RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal III

'Tis the season to feel overwhelmed. Yet in the midst of it all, I feel a sense of relief and accomplishment. This weekend I came to the end of my first outdoor journal and, indeed, almost to the end of sifting through my chronicles of the year of daily outdoor solitude. As this work is winding down, there are yet a few poems hiding, waiting. Here are a few I found on Saturday...

xxxiv

Maple afire ‘neath
sun’s last flames—
phoenix upon its nest.


xxxv

Maple, fine in yellow
dress, readies herself
for winter’s dance.


xxxvi

Wood-winged bushes
finally blush peach yellow,
succumb to wind’s cool fingers.

xxxvii

Scent
of death,
moldering;
how unexpectedly
lovely
the fragrance.

xxxviii

Fall sneaks into
the house, hiding on
my skin and hair.

xxxix

Moon’s full-orbed
body glows through
chintz of cloud.

xxxx

Dogwood
wears the finest
lace, woven from
day’s departure.


xxxxi

Hemlocks whisper,
“Hush, hush, hush,
the girl can hear us.”


xxxxii

Snow empties the sky
to a bare whiteness, but
it fills me, fills me.


xxxxiii

Little lemon tongues,
wagged off at last.


xxxxiv

Pine sways
softly and I
am at rest.


xxxxv

Hemlock branches
bounce like babies
in their swings.


xxxxvi

“Tip, tip, tip,” says the rain
to my sorrow. “Trust me, do.”
And the hemlocks in their
stillness say much the same.



RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal II
RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal I

Madonna and Child painting by Salvador Dali, photo by L.L. Barkat.

RAP: Found in the Outdoor Journal II

As I said before, I want to preserve bits of the outdoor journal. So I salvage sentences, dress them up in line breaks and set them here.

i.

Pine is sprung
with a million tiny
liquid globes, set

to capture day's grey
light or splash an
unsuspecting passerby.


ii.

I did not
want
to leave the warmth
of the kitchen,
scent of
fresh-roasted granola
and evening's
potato curry.


iii.

Maples shake
shower the woods,
while pine barely
trembles, keeps
shivering pearls
to herself.


iv.

Sun:
mere
suggestion
beneath
white-blanket
sky.


v.

Spider
spun
while I
rested
did not
know.


vi.

Pine
royal-
waves
in faltering
sun, needles
wear
golden
resin.


vii.

Squirrel tail
wiggles, a weightless
question mark.


viii.

Dying dogwood: a rippled
set of leafless branches
yearning towards sky.


ix.

Mosaic of leaves
fans out from
canopy of wood-
winged bushes;
I feel at a loss
for words.


x.

Leaves
already golden
curled
at the tip, a small
whisper
that summer
will soon
depart.


xi.

I shall not
miss
the mosquitoes!


xiii.

Squirrel
purrs,
soft-trills.


xiv.

I take off
my glasses,
am privy to a
softer, brighter
wood, living
Impressionism.


xv.

New squirrel
in the woods,
black like a
velvet cat!


xvi.

Pine branches...
spokes in two directions,
lateral 'round trunk and
spinning 'cross knobbly
joints of each protusion—
wheels within wheels,
Ezekiel tree.


xvii.

Silken web undulates,
a lady's private wash
upon the wind.


xviii.

Lesser fauna
begin
the first
soft weeping,
shed summer's
joy
and substance.


xix.

Kale is
purpling,
bluing and
purpling.


xx.

Curled
brown
lace
edges
yellow
fern
fronds.


xxi.

Wild cowboy squirrels
buck through hemlocks;
cardinals shoot out, cry.


xxii.

Fall's dry fingers open
winter's white duvet,
shake and ready it.


xxiii.

Crickets
serenade,
auditory
softness.


xxiv.

Spider's suspension bridge:
one line, span supported
by a single silken cable.


xxv.

Puffs of pine needles
shimmy like fat grass
hula skirts.


xxvi.

Let the mosquito
land. Then you can
swat him.


xxvii.

Red berries on
thorn bush— bright
packages for birds.


xxviii.

Lone, fresh forsythia bud
spills October's secret:
too flirtatious with the sun!


xxix.

Pine flames
amber under Fall's
enroaching torch.


xxx.

Geese call overhead,
fading sound of
goodbye summer.


xxxi.

Yellow and red
splash against
my black umbrella.


xxxii.

Lightning flashes
and I write
of yellow leaves.


xxxiii.

Mischief pine has
decked the little
bush beside me with
a thousand threads
of bronze needle
tinsel, draped her
in surprise holiday.


I'm pleased to have found so many poems in one day. I realize, looking at all these next to each other, that I use the word soft too much. Which was no problem in the journal. But which I would need to attend to if I wanted to really work on poetry. However, I'm not your read-the-dictionary type. Suggestions?


Sunset photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.

POETRY FRIDAY (or thereabouts):
Little Sonia's To the Lake, to the Ribbon Red at LL's Green Inventions
Erica's Writer's Block

Writer's Anxiety

I've been culling my year-long Secret Place journal, pulling out images and thoughts, as I prepare to write my next book. Today, I found this entry from last winter, which I really like, because it reminds me that the beginning of a writing project is always an anxious time...

I am like my children, with the sun umbrella, but it is night and I am in the woods... with the rain pop-pop-popping and fff-fffing onto my pants (cold drops that melt into the cloth with a wet slur). I lie here, a night beachcomber, combing the mass of pine branches for some treasure, some insight on what I will eventually write.

How will I get it all down? My brain is a bound Ezekiel, watching the feet of people scuffling by. I think of Psalm 139, "how vast are your thoughts...I come to the end, I am still with you." I pray a half-baked sort of prayer for God's vast thoughts to hold all this together, to shake it up and pour it out in some design, to replace what I'm holding in my palm right now... a jumble of senseless marbles, shells, musings on pine trees and night beaches.

And so it goes. My writer's anxiety, my hope that a Mind bigger than mine will guide me in and onward.


Cross in Needle Dress photo, by L.L. Barkat. (Sometimes it takes a moment for us to see it, but then we do see... a design in the mess.)

Wordless

It seems that after a vacation and perhaps especially after a hectic time like Christmas, we find ourselves nearly wordless. The blogosphere embodies this, as we see people posting less, commenting less, or simply commenting in fewer words. (At least this is how it goes in my blog communities.)

I think this is okay. Healthy. Even desirable. To accept silence.

Regarding silence, Ruth Haley Barton says,

[It] helps us drop beneath the superficiality of our mental constructs to that place of the heart that is deeper in its reality than anything the mind can capture or express in words. It is a place of longing and desire and reaching for that which we do not yet have....When we give in to the exhaustion that comes from trying to put everything into words and mental concepts, we give our mind permission to just stop. We give ourselves over to the experience of the Reality itself. (p.74-75)

I'm thinking that this is a small reason why I first made a commitment to go outside every day, into silence, beginning last January. We need those places where we can be wordless, where we can listen to the voice of God while we ourselves sit quiet, free, and open to a much-needed rest.

Maybe we should simply declare January as a month of wordlessness. Or at least seek out a secret place where we needn't speak. Not even one little word.

Old Fashioned Typewriter photo by L.L. Barkat.

Needles of Bronze

Today, in my little woods, I lay back, tired. So many things on my mind.

The breeze was light, mischievous and persistent, disrobing the pine above me. I watched. Time stood still. A bronze shower of dead needles drifted down— parachutists come to blanket the ivy, bent on coming to earth in a glorious display of flight and landing.

I opened my notebook. The page fell to the wrong day. Or maybe it was the right day. I couldn't be sure. On that day, I had written about my mother. For it was her birthday. And I had said of her birth...

Who knew the pain she would face. Who knew that she would bear me, that I in turn would bear my sweet daughters. And would anyone, having known both the depth of sorrow and the height of joys, have chosen for it to go any other way?

The words of Job came to mind, and I wondered at them...

Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said 'A man-child is conceived'....Let the stars of its dawn be dark...because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, and hide trouble from my eyes. Job 3:3,7,10

Then I picked up a bouquet of needles. Bronze, beautiful in their dying and falling. I poked them into my cheek. They were still sharp. Sharp as the dark green needles I harvest in winter for tea. Their razor edges, their sharp points urged me towards the day, this day of both joy and pain.


Red Leaves on the Rock photo, by J Barkat. Used by permission. Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

NEW LINKS TO THIS POST:

Lynet's I Am Not Resigned

Driving Me

If you happen to see a driver taking extra wide turns and avoiding parallel parking, it might be me. Ever since I received the "you're stuck in all-wheel drive" diagnosis, I've been engaging in avoidance driving. Sharp turns make the car shudder. Parallel parking is the worst of the worst, as my wheels almost skid me into a space. My wheels are working against each other, which could cause permanent axel damage. So I'm trying to live turn-free.

Of course, all astute readers are thinking, "GET THE CAR FIXED! YOU CAN'T DRIVE IN A STRAIGHT LINE FOREVER!" Right. True! So I plan to go to that scary T place (the transmission guy), but life's requirements are precluding that option for at least a few more weeks. In the meantime, I'm living in a state of anxious control.

It struck me, as I was trying to let inertia move me into my driveway, backwards, uphill, that this is somewhat a parable of my life. There are ways that my childhood experiences have gotten me stuck in all-wheel-drive. I often live in a state of anxious control.

Indeed, I'm feeling the deep cost of trying to live turn-free.

There is no transmission place to cruise into, to fix this chronic problem. But I am using my time in the Secret Place to place myself before God. Mostly right now I'm finding a well of emotion and sorrow when I show up there. But it feels like the beginning of discovery. Diagnosing what's driving me.


Tire in Drive photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

Provision

The more time I spend in my Secret Spot, the more I am startled by God's provision right in my own backyard.

Apparently, for instance, I can brew tea from pine needles (so says the man in Man vs. Wild). I can eat pine needles if there's a water shortage. They store up good amounts of water and have 10 times more vitamin C than oranges (again, so says the man). I do not know if this is true for all types of pine, but I'm going to do the research.

The other day, I harvested my first set of dandelion greens (watch for an upcoming recipe on my other blog). Soon, I'll be able to garnish salads with tender violet leaves, and sugared violet flowers. I can fry fiddleheads (the curved shoot of new ferns), as well as make tea with red raspberry leaves. And if I were to grow my grass long enough (which I almost did last year, for those who remember!), I could eat the seeds.

Considering these simple provisions, I realize that God freely gives me everything I need for life— body and soul. I just have to open my eyes, my mind, and my heart.

Needles in Tea photo, by L.L. Barkat


Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

NEW LINKS TO Subfused:

Kim's Subfusion

Perspective

So my kids have been going outside too, sitting in the little "woods," writing poetry and gazing up into the pine.

I like this poem from Sara. There was snow on the ground when she wrote it...


It's not very cold outside
and it's beautiful
and it's peaceful
and the birds are singing
and then the dogs bark
and the distant sound of cars
and the rustling of birds in the trees
and I am in the forest
and it's real.

It's real. I wonder what's real to me, and to you... and how our perspective influences this reality...

Poem by Sara. Pine photo by L.L. Barkat.


Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.


NEW LINKS TO Subfused:

Maria's Suburban

Al Hsu's Discussing Suburbia

Charity's Subruralurbanite

Bedecked

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! Song of Songs 4:9,10

Out in my Secret Place today, the whole landscape is wet... crystal drops poised on every surface, the whole world contained therein. Water drips, slides down branches in unrestrained play. The tree trunks are darker, the ivy greener, the bud tips brighter in this rain.

One raindrop, large raindrop, "plops" into my red tea— a promise, perhaps, of cleansing, of renewal? Drink this cup, said He.

The pine needles are hundreds of lady's fingers, hanging with new-bought diamonds, life contained therein. Look here, the needles wave to the ivy. Look here, at what my beloved has given. A gift come down, bestowed by tears. Heaven's groom, who wept for me.

Easter Egg watercolor, by Sara. And another freewriting from yours truly, L.L.

A Well and The Word

Ever since I've been going to my Secret Place each day, I've been freewriting about it afterwards. Freewriting is one of those tasks that every good writing book emphasizes.

V.H. Wright's The Soul Tells a Story considers freewriting to be a well-dredging activity— the "well" being that secret place inside us that contains all manner of thoughts and passions, memories and dreams, that we are rarely aware of in conscious life.

I like how Wright comforts the soul who gets out a bucket and sends it down with a splash...

"If you are mastering your craft, then you won't need to panic when all manner of strange stuff comes up out of your well. You know that as time goes by your skill will take hold of all that stuff and make something out of it." (p.129)

Here's what came out of my well the other day, after I sat in my "woods" and read Psalm 15, which says, Keep your word, even when it costs you. It is just unpolished freewriting, but I wanted to share it. I'm also going to take Wright's advice and put a hold on the panic.


The air is cool. I'm in shadow. Though the sun is up, it is not yet shining into these "woods." Daffodils poke through frost-bitten ivy and a lattice-work of pine needles. One green spike has the suggestion of a yellow promise behind a skin-like veil. The forsythia bend, dangling tear-drop earrings, flashing tinkling green-swelled jewels.

Wood-winged bushes are green-tipped candelabras, the promise of spring's light in this shadowy corridor. The stalks of the bush are torches, bleeding green from the core. If I hold them, will I be stained green? Will I leave this place with green stripes on my hands?

Somewhere, the muted gunshot of a woodpecker sounds and echoes. Or, it is a snare drum from the trunk of some tree? Wood-winged bud tips are fleur de lis or the bud-tip of a king's scepter. Through the fence, a patch of snowdrops bows delicate faces— for the coming of a king? Above me, a rustle and a leaf falling down. A furry Zaccheus perhaps, up in the tree, come to hear a king's words. The sun is now pouring lightly into the wood-winged bushes which are casting shadows on the pine.

I read Psalm 15, "Keep your word, even when it costs you," and it strikes me that the explosion of these buds, this drumroll of life, is yet again the keeping of God's first words, "Let there be light." I remember, suddenly, that we are in the Lenten season, and this too is the harbinger of a Light bleeding green, bleeding the cost of a promise, of a word spoken so long ago... "Let there be light."

A raucous band of five white birds with grey tails has come to watch The King walk his road towards his word. In the haven of the maple, they settle into a low "chr-chr-chr-chr." It is the "oh, my" of the crowd above the procession... and the ladies with their green teardrop earrings sit motionless... and wait.

Through the Chainlink Fence photo, by L.L. Barkat

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

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Earth Month

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Yay! I did it!