Poetry in Perpetuity

One gray-skied October morning, I sat outside on my back porch alone in a rare moment of solitude. I was feeling a lot of feelings, experiencing a lot of sensations, about finally being gloriously alone, and instantly missing my four children. 

I looked up into that gray, wet-blanketed sky and saw to my right, a few crows. 

"The crows above the forest call;

tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow,"

Bits and pieces of one of my favorite poem by Robert Frost came back to me like an old friend sidling up to hold my hand. I wasn't alone in that moment. Robert Frost had known his own October mornings, good or bad, and he had feelings, too. 

A smile dawned on my face as my mind was taken away from my loneliness and ushered instead into what felt like a hug. When you memorize someone's poem, you connect with that person in a profound and beautiful way. Poetry truly is a gift that keeps on giving. 

I enjoy hearing my children recite poems like, "The Little Turtle" by Vachel Lindsay or "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. It's fun and delightful. But even more than that, I enjoy encountering poems that were memorized long ago, and summoning them back to this present moment. It is looking at them from a new angle, relating to them in a new way. That poem is now a part of me in a way it wasn't before. 

Memorizing a poem with someone else brings an even greater fullness to the pleasure.

On a particularly pleasant, mild day in December (think: September/October weather in Oklahoma), my youngest child and I walked home from church alone together. We didn't walk in a hurry. We stopped several times to pick up and admire "nature treasures": a red leaf here, a yellow one there. We admired acorns and wildflowers, too. When his little six-year-old hands were both so full of leaves that he insisted I take home and save forever, I gently reminded him of our most recent Robert Frost poem we memorized together. 

We prompted one another until we'd gotten through the whole thing, "Nothing Gold Can Stay."

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

If you're new to memorizing poetry, this one would be a great place to start. It's a reminder that the best things in life- the most real, the most precious- are also fleeting. It speaks to me, too, because I've never been one to take lots of pictures of my kids' childhood. Sometimes I feel the urge to do the "dutiful" parent thing, to try to preserve a moment for them and myself in the future, so that we can revisit it again. But there is also that part of me that knows this is delusional. Pictures are nice and fun to revisit, but they don't stop time, and they don't truly preserve anything- at least not the thing we really want to preserve, which is the moment. They don't slow down life by one second. 

In fact, I've often noticed that the very modern (and motherly) American habit of trying to photograph everything often takes up precious time that could be spent in the act of just being present to one another, giving our full attention to that moment in real time. It dulls the gold. Resisting the urge to grab my phone makes those moments even richer and fuller, because I acknowledge that they are but momentary.

These precious moments of motherhood are both golden and fleeting. They cannot stay anymore than the sun can keep from setting. The dawn MUST "go down to day." Springtime cannot be perpetual. We must have our Summers, our Autumns, our barren and sometimes dismal Winters. Good times must give way to hard times. Nature's gold is green and it is her hardest hue to hold. She cannot hold it, but loosely. As a mother, too, I can only hold these precious moments loosely, knowing that many memories will slip my mind, will fade over time. 

I think of the Virgin Mary as well. Luke 2:19 "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." 

It always reminds me to stop and silently, quietly, treasure today, with all the gifts that are given to me. In that moment, I know that what I have been given is plenty, is overflowing. I know in that moment that I'm well taken care of. 

Unlike a photograph that cannot truly hold a moment in perpetuity, a memorized, well-loved poem, can offer solace and enchantment year after year, can revisit you when you least expect it, and can be an uplifting friend come to hold your hand anew. 

What poems have you memorized? Are there any that you'd like to brush up on? Any poems that you have long-loved but never memorized? 

Sincerely,

Natasha

Evening Prayer

 

I rediscovered an old, well-loved friend today. 

It's really strange to stumble on an old poem written when I was particularly inflamed with an insatiable desire to write poem after poem. It's surprising that the poem doesn't now ring as naive or dull or embarrassing. Some do; this one doesn't. 

Evening Prayer

2007

And so I pray

to somehow learn to cope someday

with that ever aching flower caught

so that pain sinks away with every distraught pose

in quiet reverent thought

as the gently shining oil stains

in those old gravel service lanes

reflect the risen crimson rose.

And so I pray

to fall and bend and break

as the clouds shift in colors bright

-feel that tinge of orange that flows

in humble glowing light

and as they swiftly fade and pass

my flesh, I know, is merely grass

yet that I may be the patch that grows. 

_______________________________

Is it naive? Is it flawed? I don't know. But I know that it makes me feel echoey and light, breathless and pensive. It's so surprising that it still makes me feel raw and tender and fills me with something like awe and quiet reverence. I love that the poem does that to me even now, and from here, after coming along all this way (18 years), and perhaps, in some ways, remaining in the exact same place.

Have you ever stumbled on work from long ago- some artwork or writing that still surprises you today? 

Sincerely,

Natasha

The Sun Came Out Timidly, First by the Fingertips...

 The sun came out timidly, first by the fingertips, then slowly baring its whole shy self.

We are a rather predictable sort of family. We look for nature wherever we can find it, moved perhaps instinctively toward every landscaping in medical complexes, outside of grocery stores, wherever we happen to be. We go down to the creek to do “nothing,” really just to be there. Sometimes we bring a picnic or a nature journal, a book or some whittling. But that ever-elusive "nothing" of the Christopher Robin variety is really what we're after.

To be clear, it’s uncomfortable. Growing up with debilitating allergies, chronic ear infections and as a highly sensitive person, my relationship with nature has always been a tenuous one. It is my children who have strengthened it. That constant questioning of, what do they most need? What will nurture them the best? These questions often lead me back into the arms of Mother Nature. 

We came here and found a dry creek, animal teeth, a relentless wind, and the harassment of ants and poison ivy. But we also found solitude and community all at once, endless objects of interest, and an expansiveness that really allows you to inhale with gusto. 

Here we find our spirit's rest. Here we can be still and know that Yahweh is God. We can't help but gaze around in awe and wonder at what He's made, at what He's given to us, at the beauty He's constantly creating in the skies. This is precisely the antidote we needed for the season's hustle and bustle, for the constant pressure to "attend," "sign-up," and "join-in." It's such a pleasant way to opt-out for an hour at a time, to go get lost, and to find one's calm anew. It clears out the noise and makes more space for our coming joyful triumph, for those same deep inhales taken by shepherds and friendly beasts and angels alike, to rejoice in Christian community and proclaim the coming of Christ. 

Sincerely,

Natasha 

P.S. I just started Bright Evening Star by Madeleine L'Engle. What are you reading this holiday season? 

Backyard Kingdom

 

I love my backyard. Wherever I live, I love it. These photos were taken...maybe last Winter?

I love poring over Herbal texts, contemplating the magical (and scientific, natural) powers of plants. 

I love that God made the outdoors magical and truly enchanting. It's the children who discover it first, who remind those who left the Enchanted wood and the Galleons Lap of A.A. Milne literature behind long ago. 

It's the children who show us the way again, who remind us. Because we certainly need reminding. 

I will never get over the color green. It speaks life to me. I want to be enveloped in it, to luxuriate and revel in its liveliness. Austin, Texas stays remarkably green in the Fall and Winter. I may miss the snowfall of Oklahoma, but I do find plenty to appreciate wherever I am. That isn't a "humble brag" about how content I am. God really made an incredible, beautiful world. Or, perhaps, I'm just lucky to happen to be in the most wonderful, beautiful places. 

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe was rather difficult to trudge through. I felt like I was dragging myself along with the characters through the Italian mountains. As someone new to the idea of monasteries and monks, asceticism and liturgy, I found this to be a particularly unsavory literary encounter. But when you have met an author and fallen in love with them through their writing before, (Mysteries of Udolpho), you are willing to trudge far and wide, knee-deep, and often uncomfortable just to be with them on the journey. Though I found the book to be uncharacteristically dull in places (compared to M of U, which was sheer joy), I couldn't help but admire her ingenious ability to weave an intricate and unpredictable plot. 

Ann, I still love you. :) 

Through novels, I get to travel all over time and the world, all from my own sunlit backyard. I feel rich, luxurious, and quite at my leisure on my quilted throne, if only for twenty minutes at a time. 

Sincerely,

Natasha

P S I would love to hear about your own backyard. Or perhaps front yard? Front porch? What do you do? Drink? Read? Tell me in the comments.