Summer Poetry

A blogging group I belong to is focusing on summer this month and today is the first day of summer. I decided to share a poem about a summer night. (It is night here, now.) Hope you enjoy it.

Back Yard

  by Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer.  
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,  
All silver under your rain to-night.  
  
An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.  
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
     to-night they are throwing you kisses.
  
An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
     cherry tree in his back yard.  
  
The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
     white thoughts you rain down.  
  
     Shine on, O moon,  
Shake out more and more silver changes. 

What are your thoughts of summer?

In Flanders Field

In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. 

             ~Lt. Col. John McCrae, Canadian Army

We have work to do. Let us keep faith.

Trees

135 years ago, J Sterling Morton came up with the idea of setting aside a day to plant trees.

National Arbor Day is the last Friday in April -- today. For a while, having not heard of it since elementary school, I thought it had "morphed" into Earth Day but it's still around.


Trees are beautiful, useful, a wonderful part of the created order. Appreciate them! Hug one if you want. Plant one if you can.


Did you learn Joyce Kilmer's poem in school? It seems perfect for today:

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree. 

 

We are going to read this outside at a picnic lunch and then plant a bed of wildflowers. We'll rub our hands over the bark of our backyard trees and offer a prayer of thanks to God that trees are part of our landscape.

 

How will you commemorate Arbor Day?

Christ is Risen!

Yes!!

The tomb is empty.


The victory won.


Jesus is alive!!

There is no doubting that. But perhaps, in The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot was on to something. The first stanza is subtitled "The Burial of the Dead." Here are the opening lines:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

In the same way that April is the cruelest the month for those who feel no part of it, perhaps Easter is the most difficult holiday for Believers who grieve.

We hear a lot about Christmas being difficult for those who have suffered a loss. And with the constant family gatherings emphasizing the abscence of a loved, it is. But Easter, for the Christian, is meant to be a time of unalloyed Joy. We are celebrating the final victory over death.... but for some it doesn't yet feel like a victory. The grief is too new, too raw.

Still, whatever it feels like for anyone just now, that victory is real. Jesus was dead. He is alive. Those who believe in him live forever in His kingdom, from the moment they believe through all eternity. That can bring us a measure of comfort. More than a measure.

So is it OK for the grieving to join in fully with the celebrations of Easter? I say, yes, because we are celebrating a true thing that nothing can change. But it's also fine not to feel up to it. God knows our hearts, understands pain and loss. After all, He's been there.


May your Easter be blessed and may you find true Joy.