Viriditas

on our morning commute
the newborn summer air rises
from honeysuckled thickets
and the roots of trees.
it mingles with the more
domesticated scents,
garden irises and dryer steam,
freshly hung laundry
from those who still believe
in the goodness of the outdoors.

driving, i cannot help
but thank God that this
is no passing glance at his creation:
for i am going to work in it,
to put flowers in earth
and sell them to openhanded gardeners.
i go to bury my hands in the soil,
to do nothing but give life a chance,
and by so doing preserve
this morning's holy pilgrimage
for the children, who will
play in creeks and snap twigs,
only later realizing that
they tread a hallowed temple,
one that resounds
with the rhythm of redemption.

(c.l.)

*viriditas: (latin) greenness, freshness, bloom

Running to Stand Still

I want to marry someone who loves this song.

Running to Stand Still
by U2

and so she woke up
woke up from where she was lying still
said i gotta do something
about where we're going

step on a steam train
step out of the driving rain maybe
run from the darkness in the night
singing ah la la la de day
ah la la la de day
ah la la de day

sweet the sin
bitter the taste in my mouth
i see seven towers
but i only see one way out

you've got to cry without weeping
talk without speaking
scream without raising your voice

you know i took the poison
from the poison stream
then i floated out of here
singing ah la la la de day
ah la la la de day
ah la la de day

she runs through the streets
with her eyes painted red
under black belly of cloud in the rain
in through a doorway she brings me
white gold and pearls stolen from the sea
she is raging
she is raging
and the storm blows up in her eyes

she will
suffer the needle chill
she's running to stand

still

One Day a Woman

by Miller Williams

One day a woman picking peaches in Georgia
lost her hold on the earth and began to rise.
She grabbed limbs but leaves stripped off in her hands.
Some children saw her before she disappeared
into the white cloud, her limbs thrashing.
The children were disbelieved. The disappearance
was filed away with those of other women
who fell into bad hands and were soon forgotten.
Six months later a half-naked man in Kansas
working on the roof of the Methodist Church
was seen by half a dozen well-known
and highly respected citizens to move
directly upward, his tarbrush waving,
until he shrank away to a point and vanished.
Nobody who knew about the first event
knew of the second, so no connection was made.
The tarbrush fell to earth somewhere in Missouri
unnoticed among a herd of Guernsey cows.

A Line-Storm Song

It stormed today while I was at work. The gales blew in the plastic walls of the greenhouse and at times we had to yell over the roar of the rain on the thin tin roofs. I heard rumors of five inches of rain in one hour in some regions, and half inches of hail. I glory in those times when it seems as if nature is feeling something, when it is unleashing its anger, or trying to calm the earth down, or radiating ecstasy.

Dedicated to my friends, who I miss, and who I fear do not miss me.

Come over the hills and far with me...

A Line-Storm Song
by Robert Frost

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift.
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world's torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, earily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods, come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea's return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.

The Waking

I have my B.A. in English. I have the whole world in front of me and large pieces of my heart missing, scattered all over the nation and world. I don't know when or if they will come back to me.

I know only this:

The Waking
by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Graduation (Leaving Love)

I know some people won't understand, but I've never voluntarily done something so difficult as this. I have to turn myself into a machine to get through; my flesh and bone are far too tender.

If today was not an endless highway
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn't such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again

I can't see my reflection in the waters
I can't speak the sounds that show no pain
I can't hear the echo of my footsteps
Or remember the sound of my own name

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again

There's beauty in that silver singing river
There's beauty in that sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love's eyes

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting
If I could hear his heart softly pounding
Yes, and only if he was lying by me
Would I lie in my bed once again

(nickel creek)

I've Been Known

by Denise Duhamel

to spread it on thick to shoot off my mouth to get it off my chest
          to tell him where
          to get off
to stay put to face the music to cut a shine to go under to sell
          myself short to play
          myself down
to paint the town to fork over to shell out to shoot up to pull a
          fast one to go haywire
          to take a shine to
to be stuck on to glam it up to vamp it up to get her one better to
          eat a little higher
          on the hog
to win out to get away with to go to the spot to make a stake to
          make a stand to
          stand for something to stand up for
to snow under to slip up to go for it to take a stab at it to try out
          to go places to play
          up to get back at
to size up to stand off to slop over to be solid with to lose my
          shirt to get myself off
          to get myself off the hook