Tag Archives: Earth

1025. The sweetest two words are “next time.” The sourest word is “if.” ~Chi Chi Rodriguez

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When a thing’s done, it’s done,
and if it’s not done right,
do it differently next time.
~Arthur Ransome

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Next time what I’d do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I’d stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.

When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I’d watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain,
any sign of what lifted the voice.

And for all, I’d know more — the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.
~A poem by Mary Oliver

Okay, kiddies, it’s January 1st and thus the “next time” around this old earth for all of us. And as I’ve aged I’ve come to realize that before starting a new chapter in life, it’s always a good idea to give some thought first to what I’d do differently “next time.” What-if’s are never a good choice because they take the focus off the gifts and lessons of today’s reality. What-iffies are like trying to see what’s coming around the corner before one ever gets to the corner. Since there is absolutely no way we can know what’s around that corner, they waste valuable time preparing for what may never happen. And they are “squishy” in nature in that they require of us no firm direction or intent and allow for a lack of faith. Finding bumps in the road around any corner is a given, but after falling and failing as many times as I have, I’ve learned to get up, dust my behind off, and look for the seeds inherent in all mistakes because they gifts from above that teach one how to improve. So off I go once more seeking that which the Lord lays upon my plate and knowing that in every season there is the possibility of all things under heaven which means sorrow will come but it can’t stop me from laughing, loving, singing, and dancing.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone, the new is here! ~2 Corinthians 5:17  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

1019. There’s not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice. ~John Calvin

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We were always intoxicated with color,
with words that speak of color,
and with the sun that makes colors live.
~Andre Derain

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By filling the earth with color the Lord has painted a kind of portrait of himself, and in so doing He has revealed an intentional path to His throne. This is no less true in winter for color is a continuous, rhythmic part of the mystery of God’s life and thus is deeply rooted in all four seasons. Winter may allow periodic breathing spaces for garden and gardener on forbidding days, cold and lacking in sunshine, but on days when the sun does make an appearance, there’s the usual soft, golden glow at sunrise, the sometimes pinky/purply bands low on the eastern horizon at day’s end, and the random blazing red and orange streaks of intensely tinted sunsets in the west. On occasional cloudless nights, there’s the white glow of the moon at times illuminating the deep indigo canopy overhead; on days when the bright yellow sun shines, there are the china blues of daytime skies, and when the sun doesn’t appear, there are the lovely, velvety grays of clouds filled with rain or  in rolling fogs or mists. I’ve heard winter called the season of drabness of the spirit yet I find bliss and hope not only in the things I’ve already mentioned but also in the reds of winter berries and the cardinals at the feeders, in the white of snow when it falls, in the silvery sparkles of icicles and frosts, in the constancy of green on hollies, conifers, spruces, and such, in the beiges and browns of dried grasses, autumn leaves, and seed pods, in the magenta of hyacinth bean seed pods or ornamental grass seed heads, and on and on it goes, the glorious, never ending sacred voice of color.

Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man,
color is the holiest, the most divine…
~John Ruskin

…for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. ~Romans 11:29  ✝

**Images and collage by Natalie

 

1013. I saw old autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening 
to silence. ~Thomas Hood

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After the leaves have fallen, we return
To a plain sense of things.  It is as if
We had come to an end of the imagination,
Inanimate in an inert savoir(way of knowing).
~Wallace Stevens

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O splendid, lusty autumn, you who come with a subtle change in the light, with skies a deeper blue, with cooler days and lengthening chilly nights, it is, I’m sad to say, time for you to go. This year’s first frosts have come and gone, migratory birds have vanished over distant horizons, and crops have been harvested from garden and field alike. And all the while your while beauty and bounty “shined unconfined” as your days spread a “common feast for all that live.” Grateful are we to God and thee, o “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” that rains fell in good measure and gusty winds laid abundant, leafy blankets over the ground in protective readiness against winter’s icy blasts.

silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest
-
the end of mere songs
~Michael McClintock

O Lord, I have truly enjoyed listening to nature’s solemn, autumnal hymns once again. And I’ve watched in wonder as leaf upon leaf floated down disrobing the earth. Now I find delight in the millions of shining stars I can see through the bare tree branches, and I know, according to Your promises, that when autumn’s allotted sands of time run out of this year’s hourglass that it’s not an ending. So I’ll go to bed tonight assured that with the arrival of the winter solstice near midnight this evening that the slamming shut of fall’s back door is in reality just a new beginning, a fresh start that will usher in another season, a season of restful silences. Thus at the morrow’s first light, I will rise and begin in earnest to prepare my heart to welcome Your son, Emmanuel, and to rest–to rest, to observe, to listen, and to continue worshiping You.

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. ~Genesis 8:22  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1009. Who, what, where, when, and why?

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Every single word you read
Has a lot going on, you see?
So read this age-old story,
As it is a blessed advisory.

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The first Noel the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds as they lay
In fields where they lay a keeping their sheep
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

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They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the east beyond them far:
And to the earth it gave great light
And so it continued both day and night.

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And by the light of that same star
Three wise men came from the country far;
To seek for a King was their intent,
And to follow the star wherever it went.

“Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.” ~Excerpt from Matthew 2:8  ✝

**All images via Pinterest

1000. Poetry is when emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. ~Robert Frost

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Everything

I want to make poems that say right out, plainly,
what I mean, that don’t go looking for the
laces of elaboration, puffed sleeves. I want to
keep close and use often words like
heavy, heart, joy, soon, and to cherish
the question mark and her bold sister
the dash. I want to write with quiet hands. I
want to write while crossing the fields that are
fresh with daisies and everlasting and the
ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of
the bread of heaven and the
cup of astonishment; let them be
songs in which nothing is neglected,
not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable. I want them to honor
both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
the gladness that says, without any words, everything.
~Mary Oliver

He (Jesus) will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of His birth. ~Luke 1:14  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

996. Hold me, Lord, in the light of Your Being…

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Then, Breath of heaven, come dance
with me as autumn comes to an end

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And turn me round and round
on the earth, the beautiful hem of heaven

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So you can sing in my ear
the hymns of the spheres

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To fill me with heavenly peace
beneath the moon and stars

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Oh dance with me Yahweh
o’er fields of mercy and grace

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Waltz with me Emmanuel
as the angels and I sing, “Hallelujah”in praise of You

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Let them praise His(God’s) name with dancing… ~Excerpt from Psalm 149:3   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

975. Rain, I can hear you making small holes in the silence. The many notes of falling rain are all in tune. ~Unknown

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Grey clouds flowing overhead
Dead silence across the rolling hills
Misting haze hovering over the grass
Water dripping from leaf to leaf
Speckling pavement like splattered ink
Soft knocking at your door
Feel it, taste it on your lips
Rain…
~Sarah Mariah

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The only thing I love more
than a day of rain
is a night of rain,
a warm, colourless rain
that paints itself upon me
in long melodic lines.
~Edited excerpt from a poem by
Stephanie Rachel Seely

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Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered in the distance – a melancholy nature.  The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail. ~Edited excerpt from Henri Frédéric Amiel

May he(Solomon) be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. Praise be to His(God) glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen. ~Psalm 72:6, 19  ✝

**All images via Pinterest

968. O rain, tear-like drops of almighty nature…in times of need you are a blessing. ~Excerpted lines from a poem by George Krokos

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A
drop
of rain is
like a sudden
knock at the door.
Unexpected, yet often
welcomed with a smile. It
can brighten your day or ruin
your plans. It can make you laugh
or make you sad. Whether a raindrop
is moving fast or slow, or is big or small,
it always gets everyone’s attention. A rain-
drop contains many secrets. It’s a bubble of
excitement and wonder cleansing the earth,
nuturing the flowers, and filling the cracks.
The rain is seldom silent. It taps on roofs,
spatters on the windows, and splashes
down making mud puddles; those
are ways for raindrops to play.
Pitter patter, pitter pat
Pat, pat, pat!

Rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. ~Excerpted line from Joel 2:23   ✝

**I found this clever rain drop on the Internet and then changed it somewhat to make the shape a little more a drop of rain.

963. Autumn’s the mellow time. ~William Allingham

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I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
stand 
shadowless like silence, listening to silence.
~Thomas Hood

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Fall Song
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries – – -roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – – – how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
~Mary Oliver

All the kings of the earth sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, and robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. ~2 Chronicles 9:23-24   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

959. Come said the wind to the leaves one day, come o’er the meadows and we will play. ~Excerpt from a children’s song of the 1880’s

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Ah! the year is slowly dying,
And the wind in tree-top sighing,
Chants a requiem.
~Mary Weston Fordham

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In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those
with mossy, warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come —
six, a dozen — to sleep inside their bodies?
And don’t you hear the goldenrod
whispering goodbye… And
the wind pumping its bellows.
~Excerpted lines from
a poem by Mary Oliver

The tempest comes out of its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. ~Job 37:9   ✝

**Edited autumn photo via Pinterest