poem

The Sacred Hour

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

Dawn is the sacred hour.  We move from one world to the next accompanied by a dramatic lighting of this world.

Old Window in Finland by Helena Turpeinen, poster to View From My Window Facebook group

It wasn’t until my late 40s I was able to appreciate or regularly meet the dawn.  If my sleep schedule ever regulates, I will miss these holy hours.  I wake in the dark and cast off the stories my psyche told me while asleep and head for my beloved roll-top desk. 

Dependent on the time of year, it could be some time before the dawning or just minutes.

But as I write the stories and sip coffee in silence, I glance over my shoulder through the atrium doors to look for the first arc of light. 

It usually begins as a soft peachy pink rising with the fog over the hills and peeking through the trees.  Dependent on weather and time of year, the color will sometimes intensify, sometimes wane, but always is a hearkening.

Here we are again.  We made it to another day.

The silence is important. 

Soon, the birds will start and the world will begin its hustle, but for a few minutes it’s just light and the creation of a new day, the creation of a new story to be told.  Color on the silhouettes of the mountains bring me such contentment. 

In twelve days, I will be on the shore of Lake Okeechobee in Florida.  I’ve never been there before but I’ve seen sunset photos–another sacred part of the day.  I am eager to nestle with my lover before leaving our bed to sit on the dock with my mug of coffee and journal.  It won’t be silent – the lapping of the tide should, will, create its own sounds of peace.  I am eager to see the Spanish moss hanging from the trees light up as the sun begins it ritual. 

I’m sure I will photograph the scene in order to remember it, but I hope it imprints on my heart. 

This is the sacred hour.  Rejoice in the silence and witness the light.  Turn to a new page and tell the story.

Hush.

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment
Gabriele Corno Moonlight Shadow

Hush.

Shhhhhhhh.

Just stop. 

The earth and the moon are still.  Be quiet, be at ease but be attentive to the silence.

This is the night you will remember during the moment of your last breath, before your transformation but after your acquiescence. 

What will come is unorthodox, but beautiful.  Holy in its perfection.

Be ye not afraid.

Remember,

This too shall pass.

The Persimmon Tree

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

The leaves are strewn about the foot of the tree and, if the sun is just right, the persimmon looks as if it was hung with Chinese lanterns.

Persimmon Tree by Behnaz Khanban

The tree bears fruit that is not edible until after the first frost.  The orange globes hang from bare branches and color a gloomy autumn day with their ethereal orange.  What a gift.

This time of year always finds me depressed and hopeless that the verdant mountains and abundant flowers will return.  We are all gray and black and brown.  The trees are naked and stark.  One persimmon here — up on my hill — would be a blessing.

To be like the persimmon – to produce vivid color in a black and white world.  To provide fruit when all else is spent and the earth waits for the snow cover.  To be a beautiful beacon of Mother Earth’s miracles.

I want to be a persimmon.

I want to think again of nothing.

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments
Photo by Connie Kinsey

I want to think again of nothing.  There must have been a time my brain wasn’t churning, churning, churning.  The incessant monkey mind silenced.  But it’s probably a pipe dream.  I read recently, that even in the womb we dream. If we dream, we must think.  But about what?  Surely not the things I think about all the time.  Surely not.  Please. All that thinking just wears me out.

I want to think again of recess – that wonderful part of our day when we left it all in the classroom and went outside to the bright sun.  I usually played jacks.  When we came back in, the teacher would read aloud from a chapter book.  What glorious days were those.

I want to think again of the latest book I’ve read.  To ponder where the story is going and imagine the characters.  I want to be lost in that scenery, invested in those lives, living vicariously through both protagonists and villains.  If one is too busy to read, one is too busy.

I want to think again of the sounds of the forest and the garden.  I want to sit in my garden, close my eyes, and just listen to the wind rustling through tree leaves, the sound of animals scurrying here and there in the forest, and hear the heart-pulling yet peaceful call of the mourning dove.  Who is she mourning?  What is she mourning?  Does she too want to think of what was?

I want to think again of endless possibilities of what I might be when I grow up.  All the possible pearls one might pull out of the oyster.  The curiosity about where life might lead me.  I’ve been led and there aren’t a lot of years ahead of me.  I think of the inevitable things.

I want to think again of nothing. Blissful, peaceful nothing.  Still and quiet.  Feel the wind on my skin and sound of mourning doves and the scent of late-blooming roses.  I want to close my eyes so I see nothing—nothing that needs to be done or fixed or some other unpleasant chore.

Nothing.  I want to think again of nothing.

A riff on the poem Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

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