Slough-Spring life shouts from below
Tans to Greens—a verdant show
Spoonbills, Woodies, Redwings sing
Croaking, chipping, tinking things
Mud-Resurrection’s whispering roar.
My solstice eye imagines you,
seeing the winter moon rising
in long dark mornings before new days.
I sense you feeling the edge of sun-warmth
on a cold-nipped, winter-blushed cheeks;
turning to keep the wind at bay,
wiggling toes and shuffling for warmth.
THANKYOU for being here!
As one snowflake is the beginning
of child-delight screams on a winter sled hill.
Or one effort to kneel and meet the snow,
transposes us to Snow-Angel elegance!
So, do, we, all, with each given part and step,
by courageously showing up for each other,
create community here–spring’s seeds stirring
and equinox’s waters warming beneath our feet.
Celebrating us-all-beautiful-participants,
Warming one another, delightfully hygge!
Nuzzled from morning indecision by an eager whine,
polite, with play-bow; and those eyes….
Such eyes of expectation met mine, and held them
in faith and hopeful love of common things-
How can I resist my friends invite to a walk!
With some effort, feet found boots,
arms took sweater and wind-breaker,
head took hat, and hands, gloves.
And, don’t forget a 6’ leash!
My friend’s anticipation carried us to the Trail-Head.
First out, we brush fall frost from leaved grasses.
I sight migrating flocks; he is scenting unseen things-
Pulling me, loosening muscle, to limb, together, striding.
In no time, my “trainer” has me at a cardio level!
My weak excuses and funk are just tracks behind.
I forget myself in his dancing exuberance.
He is all alive, sensing life and wonder to share.
We see, much more, and better, through a friend’s gaze.
How glad I am, again, he has gotten me out!
This brief half hour is well invested!
We turn now, heading back, too soon it seems;
so sorry I cannot go farther-
but this invigoration and its treasures
will renew and replay all day, and beyond
The Trail, outdoor air and pet’s companionship.
Excursions to wild-tinged places renews,
sweetens drab days as I recall writings of Muir,
Leopold, Whitman, Richard Dorer, Muggs Townsend.
Their words and works, with so many unnamed,
preserved woods and wetlands where, now, new trails lead!
We know these excursions take us further than we know…
to Connections we can only have in a partnering.
These “Tail Waggers” so wonderfully beckon us explore,
to savor, together, our priceless outdoor heritage.
“So then, when can we go out again, together?”
Rodney James Spidahl 04-27-18
There are spaces
and cracks in our lives
where love seeps in
A rock is split
in the freezing/thawing places
of a Minnesota field
Powered by persistence
water-life breaks stone
by just being there
Penetrating and seeking
as the world turns
in the crevices of life
Tenaciously brave-hearted
in rain and snow
unrelentingly supple
No matter
how hard
the other heart-
There are spaces
and cracks in our lives
where Love must slip in . . .
Even if we are faithless
Christ remains faithful
for He cannot deny Himself.
Sometimes
I just hear better
when the rocks say it
God’s Love never fails.
I travel seul; we journey, wearied
Of Me, myself & I- not three
Ego hungers for His Presence
Butterfly in Pollened Lee . . .
We are sand, just drifting, sifted
We are flakes the wind will shake
Detached, these dry bones lying frozen
Pieced in ice above the lake
Songs without harmonic motion?
Barques on adolescent’s sea?
Joi de Vivre found in Being
Woe in we if all are me’s
We are snows sifting, drifting
Simple grains the waters rake
Death like lone bones yearning, lying,
Locked immobile ‘neath life’s lake
Traitorous, betrayed and traitor
Welcomed wounding, healing space
God’s attacking hoarded me-somes
Slain and raised in arms of Grace!
Child- I burrowed snows soft comfort
Youth –my toes the beach embraced
Grown, we travel, far, together
Love creates all kindred space.
Snowstorm beckons into calmness,
Cutting sand- smooth agates make!
Let my journey be Communion
Melt my ice and drink the lake!
between our evening
and the Morning
across this field
“neighbors”
stand facing
silhouetted wood
enhanced being
slanting flakes
winter storm’s gift
hygge komforte
locked gazes
holy-hushed
spaces between
now connected (!)
snow-silenced wonder
fearful glances
cast at tail-lights
passing…holding
don’t leave
w/o blessing me
given-ness
shivering me
intensely divine
community
grace-arresting
look long
the cost of pausing
to feel/see you
empathied we
where Other stands
tomorrow is now
soft wonder anew
having seen me
across silence only
in contemplating you
On the two of us,
gathered, solemn,
this day’s sun also rises.
Single sentinel form, so singly white,
catching with me,
some warming
in these early rays.
Simple tulip-life
rising undaunted
from grassland, untended.
Someone planted you here,
life happened
and they left.
How do you still bring
friendly bloom?
Reflections in white
on the disconsolate.
I stretch out across this distance,
Me, with arms and you
your green and white limbs!
Wishing, somehow,
to bring it all back again.
Somehow to brush back
the night spun cirro-stratus . . .
But it is too far, this past
our friends are gone.
Yet I do stare; following your gaze upward
as if staring could bring your light!
My thoughts pass
beneath the warmth.
Heart and brain in fog
weightier sheets it seems
than those tons of droplets
hung in morning blues
all around me.
Drifting up with random warmth,
In chaotic shades
as sunlit-seamed memories
they rise to somewhere . . .
Oh, self, pray, give way!
Fears-
as verbal, noun,
or, God forbid,
adjective!
Appearing
in so many forms-
and don’t forget
all the relatives!
But who cares,
their literary bounds?-
when in the night
they burst their bonds,
come leaping on,
a’ganging, a’hunting
and all-ranging
as famished demons!
But if I bring
and release them,
become
or increase them,
surely
it matters well
Who hears and how
And with what
intensities,
I speak
The Word,
to defeat them.
Venturing like a faith-song
into country spaces,
pulled from far beyond me
out from city to cabin
then across
into the calming
of a clearing at dusk-light;
from the chill of crowd
and all such noises
toward what is quieted
The house is within ear-shot
yet the sounds of people laughing
are not comprehended in this silence
I am accustomed to the feeling-
listen: The trees on each side
are touching.
I feel they know my place
much better than I
and I feel they accept my place
much more than I can,
ever.
For I shiver and tremble deep
at such compassionate silence
hearing me.
Journeyed, now
yet only more sure
of this turning away,
the need of movement
to unexplained openings,
leaving physicality enveloped
in the trans-empirical spaces
where unspoken realities
seem so naturally
to have the last word.
 | Lindsay on Snow Journey; Sand Prayer… |
 | Isiah Darm on The Call of Cirsium Arven… |
 | rjspoems on Fired! |
 | Andrew on Fired! |
| rjspoems on The Call of Cirsium Arven… |
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