Monday, August 13, 2012

Sunday Service

 Quiet hovers around the edges of morning,
no cicada howls its urge to procreate,
no human sounds emanate 
from teenage radios,
 trees keep their own peace.

A gardener ventures outside to work,
immediately enveloped in stillness,
 breathing in a silence more church-like
 than church.




Anemones are weeks early,
their smiling faces 
held midair by a magician
who lives in the garden
along with the chelone,
(cha-loanee)
shadow nymphs that nod



and smile at nearby lobelia,
still fired up, waiting 
for ruby-throats to return,
willing to give up nectar for a kiss.







The gardener toils
slipping out of stiffness
into a girlish body,
bending and pulling,
bending and pulling,
she finds the weeds don't resist
preferring shallow roots
they hit and run
 setting a billion seeds.

She spies a shy trumpet flower
wrapped in voluptuous shade 
behind the garden trellis,
a brilliant orange cup,
in search of a butterfly.




 High in the cloudless blue
flies a single hawk,
wings like sails, aloft on a breeze.
She stops to watch,
 and  silent grace flows,
 surrounding
the hawk and the woman.

At last she bends again,
 engulfed in the sweetness
rising from the herb patch
on humid air.
Hyssop bites, mint invites,
basil calms, sage invigorates.



Pausing for a lemonade
when the sweat trickles and tickles,
she notices a green crickety fellow
sunning itself on the window.
It lingers long enough
for the obligatory photos,
and the gardener holds her breath,



studies his underside
through skin transparent as glass,
watching his body perform
the samba of life,
 six legs stretched to the limit,
antennae ever vigilant,
eyes popping,
respirations steady and strong.
This marvelous green creature,
 breathes
the gardener's air.



Linking up with :Spiritual Sundays

Thought for Today:  Sensing 'The Near One' (Karl Rahner) during a morning of garden work. 
            

17 comments:

  1. It's wonderful that you can write a poem based on the photos you take.
    Rilke likes to watch at the landscape and natural surroundings and make them alive.
    Your words capture the spirit of the flowers and the cricket.
    I've to wait for a whisper from an invisible muse.

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    1. Thank you for visiting. The poem is based on the experience I had in the garden. The photos are caught up in the whole package but incidental. For instance, I would love to have gotten a shot of the hawk but alas, do not have a camera capable of that. Have fun catching those whispers!

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  2. Pięknymi słowami połączyłaś zdjęcia kwiatów i zielonego stwora. Pozdrawiam.
    Beautiful words between the pictures of flowers and a green creature. Yours.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your kind words. I am wondering how my poetry translates into Polish on Google. Hope you are getting a sense of what I'm trying to say.

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  3. What a magician you have in your garden. The photos are lovely and the last two of the grasshopper / cricket are a fabulous capture. Your poetry interspersed between pictures is so soft, gentle and yet vibrant.
    All of this is a lovely post. Thanks for visiting me. :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your kind words and for stopping by to visit my 'word garden.'

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  4. Very beautiful words and pictures! Love the cricket. And the herbs. And transfomation to girlish body. We've grown hissop (Anise hissop) this year - so good. But really the stillness here is lovely. k.

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  5. Thank you for visiting and I'm happy you experienced the stillness.

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  6. I have been debating with myself(and winning by default)... Should I write some Haiku, or go out and weed the garden? Internal conflict mediation brought me to your blog, and now, in turn, your blog has inspired me to do both! I'm off to go "Bend and pull and write, repeat... bend, pull write, repeat.... donaldeallen.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. Your comments always make me smile. Thank you and may you find a haiku moment or two AND get something concrete done at the same time!

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  7. Beautiful. Okay. I'm headed out to my garden now!

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  8. Hi Barbara ~~ You obviously have a green thumb. :) I envy you in a way but because of my lack of ambition I suppose I get the weeds I deserve. (We do have a few easy to care for flowers and plants and trees.)

    It is nice that you end it with the grasshopper, generally the enemy of the gardener. But you almost honored him, "marvelous green creature, breathes the gardener's air." I would say, horible green creature, by nature devours the gardener's fruits of his labor.
    ..

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    Replies
    1. I think my green friend may have been a cricket. I haven't seen a grasshopper in these parts in many years. Thanks for stopping by to visit.

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  9. Beautiful - You are an awesome poet!

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    1. Thank you for your kind words and for visiting.

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  10. Beautiful. I'm glad you chose to share with us on Spiritual Sundays.
    Blessings,
    Charlotte

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  11. Beautiful photos and poem. love that little green guy

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