All of a sudden
One day
You notice a yellow leaf or two
Silently falling from the tree
Outside the dining room
Window
As you lunch with friends.
All Summer you’ve seen the sun strike
The pantry shelves,
Until
Suddenly,
One day,
You notice the light that’s coming through the
Window
Is striking the opposite wall.
All of a sudden,
While reading a book on childrearing,
Your son phones from
A different state,
Where he’s married, and farming
Someone else’s farm.
All of a sudden
It is Autumn.
Today I’m thankful for the stars:
those noiseless voices, speaking truth
even while the sky’s still blue
and we forget they’re there;
even while the night is dark
and we’re sheltering under the blinding rooves.
Their voices like God’s:
speaking in whispers,
unobtrusive,
patiently unminding our unmindfulness
in spite of their compelling enormity.
They remind me He’s still there too,
that I can hear Him anytime I like –
stepping outside into the black suede air
and turning my back on all the electric noise and light.
That it’s not that I’m waiting for Him to speak after all –
But that He’s waiting for me to hush.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
(Psalm 19:1-4)
“Don’t matter if it’s sad. At least Ezekiel knows what certain things feel like. That voice above the firmament. He knows the sound of it. There is no speech nor language. But it was asking a hard question all the same…”
(Lila, Marilynne Robinson)
O the violence
Of the green leaf on the red soil;
Of the cold air on my warm skin
Of the aliveness, the sudden wakefulness
in my comatose body,
my slumbrous indoor mind,
in Winter.
O June!
Southern Hemisphere Queen in your veil of mist,
in your slippers of frost,
in your crown of low cloud.
Your daylight is clear and your night is star-jewelled.
You are crisp in your movements and so quiet of voice.
You are naked in tree
and wool-wrapped in sheep
and feather-fluffed in bird
and tail-curled in cat.
You are slippery in mud
and ghostly in smoke.
You are shy and come out
when the rest of us hide away.
You take silent peeks at the sleeping world
while any who dare join you for your short perambulation
become shockingly awake
and joyously alive.
Season of mine.
You are wisdom and melancholy and reflection and pause.
You are understatement and subtlety.
You are patient.
You are poised.
I like you.
Thank you for reigning here again.
(Genesis 31:38)
This man, he is farmer, not writer
– but when he does this I am slain:
He is more than farmer, more than writer. He is like the poet-warriors of old.
“The man is a fighter, but when he is not fighting he is a farmer…” (David Malouf, Ransom p4).
Happy twenty years, Man of the Soil: “You are the most excellent of men.” Psalm 45:2 (NIV)
Thank you for fighting the good fight for us, for keeping the faith through every seedtime and harvest.
Happy twenty years, Author of that faith:
“I am the God of Bethel, where you… made a solemn vow to me.” Genesis 31:13 (HCSB)
Thank you both for your “name-changing, story-changing love” (Tullian Tchividjian, Unfashionable p153); for making my heart your home.
You are my home also.
You are my Abode.
Abode 