Technical Difficulties :-(

:-(    I've been off line for a while due to computer problems at home.  I hope to be back online soon.  I really miss reading my daily blogs!!!

We're at the library today buying books.  :-)  Got some really great ones!

I hope you all have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Love & Blessings to Everyone,

xoxoxo,

~Marion

Moth & Dragonfly by Marion

Moth and Dragonfly Photos by Me from May, 2009

A composition book I collaged last week for writing my poems in.

 

Moth and Dragonfly
By Marion

Night, she awoke me
whispering in my ear
wake up, wake up, dragonfly.
Danger is near.

I’m glad we
weren’t born sparrows
because sparrows can be caged;
I’m glad we weren’t born mortals
because mortals bleed and age.

I flew up from my slumber,
the silence unlike other nights
and found his wings there beating
against love’s too bright light.

I’m glad we
weren’t born sparrows
because sparrows can be caged;
I’m glad we aren’t mere mortals
because mortals bleed and age.

I soared to him and told him
light would burn his delicate wings
if he didn’t move back from it,
he would soon die from its sting.

And I’m glad we
weren’t born sparrows
because sparrows can be caged;
I’m glad we’re moth and dragonfly
and don’t know love’s light fades.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

This is a poem I wrote last summer.  I have several in progress, but am having a case of scatter-brained going on mixed with procrastination.  Can't seem to finish anything.  Maybe next week...

I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.  It's hot, humid and sunny here with some amazing clouds about.  I did a little cloud-watching this morning until the heat brought me back into the cool house.  I was watering my Willows and gardens and also dragonfly-watching.  They swarm me when I turn on the water hose.  I spray the tree leaves so they can lite on them and drink.

Blessings,

~Marion

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."  ~Hans Christian Anderson

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it." ~Toni Morrison

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Monet Refuses The Operation by Lisel Mueller

One of my favorite paintings by Claude Monet is "Bridge Over Water Lilies".  Claude Monet is a founder of French Impressionist painting.  ("Impression, Sunrise" is a painting by Claude Monet which gave rise to the name of the Impressionist movement.)  I love his soft lines and pastel colors.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Ever so often I stumble across this poem in an anthology, or I pick up my copy of "Alive Together" by Ms. Meuller and it always blows me away, this poem.  I have to insist that you buy this book.  And not just because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  It's just overflowing with mind-blowing, amazing poems.  Go ahead and find it at Amazon or your local book store and buy it.  I promise you, it will give you hours and hours of pure joy.  :-)

Love & Blessings,

~Marion~

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Monet Refuses the Operation
by Lisel Mueller

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

~from "Alive Together, New & Selected Poems"

Yarrow by Andrea Gibson

My lovely lady Yarrow, May 2010

Yarrow stalks are traditionally thrown to read the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of divination. Several years ago I dried enough Yarrow to make my own 50 I Ching sticks.  I am still studying the I Ching. 

Yarrows botanical name, Achillea millefolium refers to the ancient Greek hero Achilles, who, during the Trojan War, reputedly used it to treat his wounds. Its specific name means ‘a thousand leaves’ and refers to its feathery foliage. The folk name Nosebleed confirms its traditional use as an emergency styptic.

Looking down at Ms. Yarrow's heart, May 2010

Yarrow's feathery, delicate leaves betray her amazing strength and ancient lineage.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Yarrow

by Andrea  Gibson

We packed our lives into the back of your truck

and drove two thousand miles

back to the only home you'd ever known.

On the bayou you ate crawfish

and god how I wished I had never become a vegetarian.

Here, whatever you came carrying

fell to the ground like Creole swamp rain.

Uptown you could watch the jazz notes float

from porch swings to sidewalks

of little girls playing jump rope and hopscotch,

to old women skipping rocks

across the gulf of the Mississippi

like heart beats they forgot they had,

while mid-city trombones

wrote love poems in lonely men's ears.

For a year we were gardeners.

"No, Andrea, yarrow doesn't grow here,

imagine a womb full of water,

plant like you would plant a daughter,

name her Iris, Rose, Magnolia, Gardenia."

You could hold the soil between your fingers

and smell gumbo and harmonicas.

Could smell po-boys and cathedrals on the same block.

"What do ya mean, you don't talk to strangers?

Come inside and see a picture of my son,
he raises hell, but he's a good one..."
Iris Rose, Magnolia, Gardenia,
when I heard of Katrina
I thought, "The flowers, save the flowers..."

I never thought for a second
we wouldn't save the people.

From:  Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, pages 11, 12 (This book is overflowing with amazing poetry!)

Tarot Tuesday - Swords

Oh, why can't someone invent a self-cleaning stove!  Oh, they have?  Do they sell them at Goodwill because that's all I can afford right now.

Comet, it makes your mouth turn green,

Comet, it tastes like listerine.....

Remember that elementary school song?  I love Comet.  It mixes well with Taaka Vodka.

AFTER - Who knew a clean stove could double as a write-on board!  How cool is this?  Since I don't cook, I'm going to use that stove for writing from here on out.  (Ray dirtied it up cooking me T-Bone steaks for Mother's Day.)

I love the suit of Swords.  Many people don't.  There are four suits in the Minor Arcana of Tarot, 56 cards:  Cups (Emotions/Water), Swords (Intellect/Air), Pentacles (Material/Earth) and Wands (Creativity/Fire).   The Major Arcana consists of  22 cards---there are 78 cards in all.  I'll touch on them later.  I tried to write a Tarot poem, but it just wouldn't come.  Too much garbage in my head and around me.  I clean house on occasion to encourage the Muse to come back. The bitch hates a filthy house, she told me.  So....... 

I've spent the last 8 or so years studying Tarot.  I've spend thousands of dollars on books, cards, time, lessons, etc.  It's taught me much about myself, life, synchronicity, mythology, archetypes, and mystery.  Unfortunately, nobody offers a degree in Tarot.  But if you're interested in learning the Tarot, the best free site is Joan Bunning's http://www.learntarot.com/  She also has reviews of many of the decks available and she has a book out with all of the online lessons in it.

The Suit of Swords:

"The Swords are the suit of intellect, thought and reason. They are concerned with justice, truth and ethical principles. Swords are associated with the element Air. A cloudless sky, open and light-filled, is a symbol of the mental clarity that is the Swords ideal. This suit is also associated with states that lead to disharmony and unhappiness. Our intellect is a valuable asset, but as an agent of ego, it can lead us astray if it is not infused with the wisdom of our Inner Guide."  ~From:  http://www.learntarot.com/
 
I'm attempting housework today.  I had to stop walking for exercise due to the severe pain in my knees and back.  I sent Ray to the movies so I wouldn't holler at him while I clean.  He tries, bless his heart, but I've yet to meet the man who can clean as good as a woman.  Yes, I'm prejudiced.  I'm going now to clean one more thing, like the sink maybe.  FYI:  The Vodka bottle is a joke.  I do not drink.  Seriously, Ray found that bottle full in the woods across the street.  We poured it out, but I saved the bottle for a craft project.  (Sounds good, right?  LOL!)
 
I leave you with a few photos of new flowers/plants my sweet husband gave me for Mother's Day.  (Even though, every year, I adamantly say, "I ain't yo Mama!")   Oh, we sent Mama a big box of Godiva Truffles which she'd never tasted before.  She called me and said, "These are better than sex!!!"  (I replied, "Mama, do you even remember sex?"   Her reply, "BITE ME"!  She's 81 and as sharp as a tack, God love her. 
 
Have a good week, bloggers, and be kind to yourself.
 
xoxoxo,
 
~Marion, in a funky mood....
 
 

Three new rich, healthy ferns.  I love ferns and they love me right back.

A pretty light pink Geranium, one of my favorite flowers.  I put it in a hanging basket.

This hot pink Geranium is in my patio flower bed.  It almost shimmers with pink-ness!

Ms. Red Thang Geranium.  She's HOT.  She's also in my patio flower bed.

+ + + + + + + + + +

"My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view."  ~H. Fred Dale

 
 
 

Poetry by Pablo Neruda and To Pablo Neruda by Erica Jong Fast

Fresh Red Strawberries in Blue Dragon Bowl by Marion

Poetry
By Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

~Pablo Neruda

It was Erica Jong Fast's poetry that led me to Pablo Neruda.  I share the poem here which led me to his amazing works:

To Pablo Neruda
By Erica Jong Fast

Again & again
I have read your books
without ever wishing to know you.

I suck the alphabet of blood.
I chew the iron filings of your words.
I kiss your images like moist mouths
while the black seeds of your syllables
fly, fly, fly
into my lungs.

Untranslated, untranslatable,
you are rooted inside me--
not you--but the you
of your poems:

the man of his word,
the lover who digs into the alien soil
of one North American woman
& plants a baby--
love-child of Whitman
crossed with the Spanish language,
embryo, sapling, half-breed
of my tongue.

I saw you once--
your flesh--
at Columbia.
My alma mater
& you the visiting soul.

Buddha-like
you sat before a Buddha;
& the audience
craned its neck
to take you in.

Freak show--
visiting poet.
You sat clothed
in your thick
imperious flesh.

I wanted to comfort you
& not to stare.
Our words knew each other.
That was enough.

Now you are dead
of fascism & cancer--
your books scattered,
the oil cruet on the floor.

The sea surges through your house
at Isla Negra,
& the jackboots
walk on water.

Poet of cats & grapefruits,
of elephant saints;
poet of broken dishes
& Machu Picchu;
poet of panthers
& pantheresses;
poet of lemons,
poet of lemony light.

The flies swarm
thicker than print on a page,
& poetry blackens
like overripe bananas.
The fascists you hated,
the communists you loved,
obscure the light, the lemons
with their buzzing.

We were together
on the side of light.
We walked together
though we never met.

The eyes are not political,
nor the tastebuds,
& the flesh tastes salty always
like the sea;
& the sea
turns back the flies.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Love Poems From God by Daniel Ladinsky

This is an amazing book overflowing with wisdom, love and compassion.  The subtitle is "Twelve Sacred Voices From the East and West".  To me, the poems were more of the author's interpretation than a literal translation, but they're still awesome. 

Sitting on my book shelf with hundreds of other books, it glows with light and is warm to the touch when I hold it in my hands. 

From the Preface:

"Hafiz sings, 'A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, then raise it to nourish your beautiful, holy, parched mouth.'" page xii

"I hope a few of these poems will reach in deep enough to cure what separates us from each other, and from the beautiful.  I hope you fall into this wine barrel (this book) and crawl out legally drunk, and get arrested for doing something that makes God proud of you, like being too happy."  page xii

I'll share a few of my favorite poems, the ones that radiated light to me.  Enjoy! 

Blessings,

Marion

+ + + + + + + + + +

DEAR GOD

Dear God, please reveal to us

your sublime

beauty

that is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere,

so that we will never again

feel frightened.

My divine love, my love,

please let us touch

your face.

St. Francis of Assisi, Page 56

+ + + + + + + + + +

VULNERABLE

Vulnerable we are, like an infant.

We need each other's care

or we will

suffer.

St. Catherine of Siena, Page 185

+ + + + + + + + + +

CLARITY IS FREEDOM

I had tea yesterday with a great theologian,

and he asked me,

"What is your experience of God's will?"

I liked that question---

for the distillation of thought hones thought in others.

Clarity, I know, is freedom.

What is my experience of God's will?

Everyone is a traveler.  Most all need lodging, food,

and clothes.

I let enter my mouth what will enrich me.  I wear what

will make my eyes content,

I sleep where I will

wake with the

strength to

deeply

love

all my mind can

hold.

What is God's will for a wing?

Every bird knows

that.

St. Teresa of Avila, Page 279

+ + + + + + + + + +

THAT SKILL

A thorn has entered your foot.  That is why you

weep at times at

night.

There are some in this world

who can pull it

out.

The skill that takes they have

learned from

Him.

St. Catherine of Siena, page 190

+ + + + + + + + + +

HOW DID THE ROSE?

How

did the rose

ever open its heart

and give to this world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being,

otherwise we all remain

too frightened.

By Hafiz, Page 161

+ + + + + + + + + +

HIS LIPS UPON THE VEIL

He has never left you.

It is just

that your soul is so vast

that just like

the earth in its innocence,

it may think,

"I do not feel my lover's warmth

against my face right

now."

But look, dear,

is not the sun reaching down its arms

and always holding a continent

in its light?

God cannot leave us.

It is just that our soul is so vast,

we do not always feel His lips

upon the

veil.

St. Catherine of Siena, Page 200

+ + + + + + + + + +

Godlight radiating from my purple Morning Glorys.

+ + + + + + + + + +

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." ~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

+ + + + + + + + + +

"The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too." ~Teresa of Avila

+ + + + + + + + + +

There Are So Many Tictoc - e. e. cummings

"The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali

THERE ARE SO MANY TICTOC
By e. e. cummings

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

******************************

I believe this e. e. cummings poem and the Salvador Dali painting are just made for each other.  And how perfect for a Monday, right? 

Wishing you all sunshine and broken clocks.  :-)

Blessings,

~Marion~


"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life." ~William Faulkner

*************************

"The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked." ~Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle

************************

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day."  ~Author Unknown

***********************

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." ~Carl Sandburg

*********************

His Wife by Andrew Hudgins - Perfect Garden Poem!

Apple Mint, April 2010

Cherry Tomatoes, 2009

Rose Geranium's Flower, April 2010

His Wife
by Andrew Hudgins

My wife is not afraid of dirt.
She spends each morning gardening,
stooped over, watering, pulling weeds,
removing insects from her plants
and pinching them until they burst.
She won't grow marigolds or hollyhocks,
just onions, eggplants, peppers, peas –
things we can eat. And while she sweats
I'm working on my poetry and flute.
Then growing tired of all that art,
I've strolled out to the garden plot
and seen her pull a tomato from the vine
and bite into the unwashed fruit
like a soft, hot apple in her hand.
The juice streams down her dirty chin
and tiny seeds stick to her lips.
Her eye is clear, her body full of light,
and when, at night, I hold her close,
she smells of mint and lemon balm.

From:  American Rendering: New and Selected Poems

Edna St. Vincent Millay - Only For Hardcore Poetry Lovers....

I fell head over heels in love with Edna St. Vincent Millay as a young teen.  So hard was my fall that I memorized the two poems below the summer I discovered her poetry.  Books and poetry were my lifeline then, just as they still are now.  (I also memorized "The Raven" by Poe that same summer.  Would to God I still had half of those brain cells....)  Yes, bloggers, like I said, hardcore. 

The biography, "Savage Beauty" by Nancy Milford is an amazing, enlightening, disturbing, fabulous book.  It knocked Ms. Millay slap off that pedestal I'd had her on for over 30 years.  But, lordy, what an amazing, gossipy, meaty book about one of the greatest poets who ever lived!  I have two copies of the book:  one hardcover, pristeen copy and one paperback copy that is dog-eared, hilighted and worn.  It's that good.  Hell, you don't even have to LIKE poetry, to enjoy this biography. 

Anyway, I couldn't let National Poetry Month pass without sharing two of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets.  Of course, every month is poetry month around here.  (Tee-Hee...) I beg you to take the time to read the whole of 'Renescence'.  You will not be disappointed. She wrote it when she was 19 year old, which blew my mind then, and still does now. 

Happy reading!

~Marion

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

God's World
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Renascence
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see;
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.

But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.

And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And -- sure enough! -- I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest,
Bent back my arm upon my breast,
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence
But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire, --
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.

I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more, -- there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face:
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!

O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and -- crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky,
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.

The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealed sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see, --
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, --
I know not how such things can be! --
I breathed my soul back into me.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky;

Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky, --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

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